Chapter Text
The only difference being a doctor of astrophysics instead of an intern to a doctor of astrophysics is that Darcy had sadly, unfortunately, regretfully made quite a name for herself.
“Lewis!” She can just about make out someone screaming her name above the sound of heavy gunfire. “ Run. ”
There’s no time to think as Paulletz dives into her and knocks her to the ground. Sand and dirt spray into her eyes and she coughs, inhaling the dry air from the desert while her lungs scream for air.
She can barely make out Paulletz above her though it’s clear his gun is pulled from the way he stands. She’s quickly dragged to her feet as her brown-haired protector yanks her up by the bicep and starts dragging her along as he hauls ass.
“Keep your head down!” He orders sharply. “We’ve got backup coming in five!”
The trouble with working in the desert is there wasn’t anywhere to hide. Agent Deems had helpfully- logically -brought that exact point up during the initial briefing, but as this was meant to be an intel and observation mission his concern had been noted and then dismissed.
Should’ve backed him up, at least a little. Darcy thought, watching the SUV she’d been riding in mere hours ago explode into several fiery pieces.
She slams into Paulletz’s chest as he stops, raises, and then fires his gun behind her. There’s another masked agent making a run at him from behind and Darcy thanks the stars that SWORD had insisted on giving her at least some form of combat training before they’d hired her because, with a quick dodge and a kick, she has him on the ground.
“Hey!” Someone screams at them through the chaos. From behind another SUV, Agent Monti waves his hands frantically. “Take cover!”
It’s each man for themselves as she and Paulletz dash towards the other agent, and a damn shame that Darcy wore her nice jeans as she slides behind the back of the car, kicking up dirt as she lands.
Something small is lobbed into the space where she’d just been. She barely hears someone yell “ grenade! ” before there’s an ear-splitting boom and she’s launched even further back, away from the safety of the truck.
She gets to her feet a few moments later- or tries to, anyway, but it’s as if somebody has embedded an axe into the back of her skull. There’s a ringing in her ears, but as it dies down she can’t hear anything but the familiar whoosh of a quinjet overhead.
There’s a pressure on her back. “Stay down,” a low voice murmurs. It’s Nobara, the field medic. She’d been joking with her over coffee this morning. “You’re concussed. We’ve got reinforcements on the field now.”
Agent Nobara Toyohara had the kind of voice that would put anyone at ease, and she did exactly that to Darcy while the latter felt a sharp pinch on her left arm.
“It’s a fast-acting painkiller,” Nobara explained, pressing down on the syringe. “That HYDRA grenade did a number on both you and Paulletz. Nothing major, but I bet you have one killer headache.”
Darcy means to mumble “yeah”, but what actually comes out is a moan. She can’t feel her arm anymore as the serum spreads, but she guesses that’s a good thing.
“Hey, Torres!” Nobara is speaking over her now, waving her hands in the air. “Over here! Get me a cas evac!”
By the time they’re joined by a tall young man in military attire, Nobara has hoisted to her feet and pulls her tight against her shoulde. She can barely stand, but by god does she try; Torres is kinda cute and she's very aware that she's covered in dirt, sand, and probably blood.
“Ma’am,” Torres nods to her.
“S’ Doctor. ” She corrects blearily.
“Doctor Lewis?” He gives her a once over again, this time more closely. “Nice to finally meet you. The ship is this way.”
“My work-” She bites out, mouth full of cotton.
Nobara squeezes her shoulder. “Don't worry about that right now, Dr Lewis. Your safety is our priority. Agent Barnes and Agent Wilson are just cleaning up any stragglers.”
“ Barnes? ” Darcy moans. Good god, could this day get any worse? First, she’d been shipped out to the Texan desert with literally three hours notice, and now she was getting rescued by Bucky fucking Barnes?
Sam, she didn’t mind. She liked Sam; he was fun and easy to talk to. He helped her do the dishes whenever they were in the common room together and his music taste rocked.
But Barnes?
She was never going to live this down.
*
It hadn’t been on Bucky’s agenda for the day to fight Nazis in the Chihuahuan Desert. It was technically his day off and he would have enjoyed it too. The tower had been empty, heck, even Lewis had gone off base for some scientist research thing, so he had planned to kick back and finish watching that weird blue alien movie Sam had been yapping on about.
Except he’d let that idiot wheedle him into spending the day as backup stationed at the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute, ten klicks east of where Lewis was set up.
“Remind me why we’re needed again?” He’d asked once they’d arrived and been escorted to a private room by some worried-looking scientists. “Aren’t they just analysing rocks?”
But then they’d received the ‘help’ signal, and Bucky was very much reminded of why they were needed when a HYDRA goon tried to hit him in the face as soon as Torres had dropped them off.
It was fine for Sam, he had wings, after all, so Bucky was the one to do the grunt work. The SWORD agents had put up a hell of a fight, but he’d heard on the comms at one point that there were casualties, so he planned to finish up quickly and get the hell home to avoid any more trouble.
“Clear down here,” he’d barked into his earpiece once the last enemy dropped from a swift punch to the solar plexus. “Sam?”
“Nothin’ from up here.”
“We good?” This time he speaks to Torres, who’s monitoring them from the helicopter. “We done here?”
“Seems like it, Sir.” The younger man’s voice crackles through his ear. “Commander Brand is waiting to debrief with you on board.”
“ Excellent. ” He groaned. Beside him, the unconscious HYDRA agent mirrored his sentiment.
He gave them one last kick for good measure.
*
The minute Darcy opens her eyes again, she wishes she hadn’t.
Not because of her killer headache- although that did kill, but because Barnes is staring down at her. When he sees she’s awake, his lips spread into a saccharine, shit-eating smile.
“Hey gorgeous,” he croons, and she'd probably blush if he wasn't being such an idiot, “sleep well? Want me to tuck you in a little more?”
“Go away.” Her voice is croaky from disuse but he hears it loud and clear because his grin widens. “Why are you even here?”
“Good question.” Bucky leans back against the metal ribcage of the quinjet. From what she can see they're in the furthermost section designated as the makeshift medical wing. “I was mindin’ my business at home, when all of a sudden, I get called out cause some scientist and fifteen agents can't seem to handle a little field trip in the butt-end of nowhere. Imagine my surprise at that.”
She’s only known Barnes for a few months now, but she knows enough about him to realise this is his secretly pissed-off voice. She knows that because he uses it on her most of the time.
“Too old to work out the annual leave system, huh?” She rasps. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to pick on the injured?”
He rolls his eyes. “You bumped your head, Lewis. You’re not dying.”
“Maybe I am dead. Maybe I’m in hell and that’s why you’re in front of me. Actually, why are you in front of me? Can't you go annoy someone else?”
Bucky shifts, and a datapad suddenly enters her line of sight.
“I’m here for your incident statement and debrief.”
At the change in his voice, she grins, wider and wider until a croaky laugh bubbles out of her throat. “No, you’re not. You’re here 'cause you got into a fight with Commander Brand, aren’t you?”
“...No I’m not.”
“You totally are!” She laughs again, despite the gesture causing her head to knock painfully against the pillows. “Aw, what’s the matter Barnes, can’t play nice with the team?”
“ Okay, ” Barnes declares, swiping around on the datapad. “Patient cannot give a statement at the moment because she is unresponsive. The Patient seems to have lost consciousness as she has been drooling all over herself- not surprising, to be honest. Oh, look at that. Upon closer investigation, the Patient has shit herself-”
“Do not write that in my file, James Barnes, or I swear to god -”
They’re cut off by the sound of doors sliding open and in walks Sam and Nobara, side by side. The latter makes quick work of heading over to the machines Darcy’s hooked up to, while Sam comes to stand by her bed.
“You two bickering again?”
“No.” They both reply, simultaneously. When Bucky looks at her, she sticks out her tongue.
“ Sure .” Sam rolls his eyes at their antics. “How you feeling, Lewis?”
“Like someone parked an eighteen-wheeler on my brain.” She replies. “So just peachy, thanks. How did they know we were there?”
“They’ve been following the same astral phenomenon as you guys. Our best guess is they got lucky finding you out in the desert.”
“Did they take anything?”
“Not that we know of. All material, physical and digital, has been recovered.”
“And the other guys?”
“All fine. Just minor scrapes and bruises.”
Darcy lets her head fall back onto the pillows. Finally, finally , she can relax.
“Good.” She whispers, all of a sudden feeling like she really did have a giant truck parked on her skull.
Nobara seems to sense her discomfort. “Sorry,” she has the decency to look sheepish. “We’re weaning you off the painkillers ready for a full assessment back at base.”
“Oh wonderful.” She sighs, gazing upwards at the bright lights and the metal ceiling of the quinjet. “Just wonderful.”
*
Darcy wouldn’t say she hates James Barnes, or Bucky, as his friends call him.
(She doesn’t call him Bucky, and she’s pretty sure Sam and Torres are the only ones that do).
Darcy wouldn’t say she hates anyone, really. It’s a strong word. Sure, she despised her third-grade maths teacher for months after telling her she was not, in fact, any good at maths. And she had intensely disliked Ian Boothby for a solid six months after he’d broken up with her.
But hate? Darcy wasn’t sure she was even capable of hate. It wasn’t a word in her dictionary. Mama Lewis had raised her to be kind, and if not kind, then indifferent.
So it wasn’t that she hated Barnes, even if he was rude, annoying, a jerk, stupid, unfairly handsome, and overall just a bit of a jackass.
No, it was because, despite of it all, he made be very
not
indifferent towards him.