Mystique (ravendarkholme) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-08-23 19:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | darcy lewis, door: marvel comics, jane foster |
WHO Jane & Darcy
WHAT Researching the Tesseract
WHEN Uh. Before she got kidnapped.
WHERE SHIELD HQ
WARNINGS Darcy being Darcy?
Jane was in absolute heaven. It was a few days since she and Darcy had been approached by Agent Coulson and a gaggle of SHIELD agents as a result of their research of the Tesseract. He’d said, in his firm understated way, that she could have access to the object she was looking for under very strict SHIELD supervision. She still didn’t like Coulson, not since he took her research from her when Thor arrived, but SHIELD had given her the satellite resources she needed to try and continue her research. It just wasn’t enough to get the job done. Ordinarily, she would’ve told Coulson to shove it and leave her to her frustrating work, but if he had the Tesseract... Well she hadn’t needed to think about it. She agreed with the stipulation that Darcy could come along too as her research assistant, though the real reason was to be a bit annoying to the SHIELD agents that would no doubt baby them. Of course, now that it had been a few days, Jane was beginning to second guess herself. “Darcy!” she called sharply, for what felt like the zillionth time already. The younger woman was chattering away incessantly and Jane was trying to work. Normally it wasn’t so bad because she’d never really felt pressure to get results before when she was the one dictating the pace and direction of her work. Now though, SHIELD wanted to know everything there was to know about the Tesseract. While she studied the cube itself, she had Darcy researching every last mention of a glowing blue cube from anywhere. Sure, that meant some quick and dirty translating, but now that they had SHIELD resources, it would be somewhat easier. Hopefully. She was making some progress on the cube itself, just getting readings on energy output and generally getting a feel for the research that had been done before she got there. It was clear that the Tesseract was a power source in some way and the research indicated that SHIELD wanted to use it as a source of sustainable energy but Jane saw potential. How, she wasn’t sure, but perhaps another trip to Asgard would provide her with more answers. Thor would be tricky though. She’d promised not to use anything extraterrestrial but here she was. She supposed she could blame SHIELD if she wanted, or Coulson, but even she could see the importance of not being on Thor’s bad side if she were a government agency. That particular conversation was just going to have to wait until he was already mad at her for something else. Either that or really happy with her so he’d be less likely to be really pissed. “Darcy!” Jane finally turned away from the monitor she was working on with an exasperating look clear on her face. “Stop flirting with Agent Franklin. He’s trying to work.” The underlying message being which you should be doing too. It had actually been kind of weird, getting invited to the shiny SHIELD facility o’doom by Coulson and Jane by proxy. Jane wasn’t exactly a friend per say, if you wanted to get technical. They ‘worked’ together (or rather, Jane worked and Darcy drew dirty pictures on official documents or took pictures of her soy milk mustache with her iPhone -- all things equally lucrative in Darcy’s eyes) and practically lived in each others pockets at times, but they were kind of somewhere in the ether between ‘Hey I know that chick!’ and ‘Come over on Saturday to paint my left hand fingernails, oh and bring your Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory notes, I love it when you talk nerdy to me’ -- or something like that. Still, Darcy tended to be just that side of annoying when it came to... well, just about everyone, so it was weird to actually be inside the building housing a very, extremely, ohgoddon’ttouchit dangerous (or so she’d been told, many many times) Asgardian weapon of power. It would have probably been in everyone’s best interest to keep Darcy about a world’s length away from said glowy blue square, but maybe the government (and Jane) weren’t very smart for supposed geniuses. Normally research was boring. Research about a creepy, maybe killer cube of weirdness was also boring, but in a way that was different from the usual, Darcy supposed. It wasn’t that the subject was necessarily unremarkable, because it was Asgardian, hello, but it was just so obscure! How was Darcy supposed to find it if she had to search every little nook and cranny of the internet, which, by the way, wasn’t all in English, thank you very much? There was no reason she couldn’t make some conversation while her search came along, soul-searingly slow as it was. Naturally she’d tried to converse with her ‘Almost Kinda Friend’ first, gotta have people priorities, don’t want anyone feeling left out. Jane, however, didn’t find the nuances of ’Star Trek’ as interesting as Darcy did and she was yelled at. Darcy sighed and tried to turn her attentions back to the job at hand, really she tried very hard, but it was just so... bleh. So she turned to the Agent nearest her and struck up the same conversation as she’d tried to have with Jane, because she’d just watched DeForest Kelley’s old noir film and damn. Just as they were getting really into their conversation (and as Darcy decided, yes she would most likely have sex with this man just to stave off the boredom), Jane yelled at her. Again and for the umpteenth hundred time and Darcy heaved another greatly put upon sigh in return. “Jaaaaane. How can you expect me to just sit here while this slow as all hell computer tries to match all my searched criteria?” Darcy turned her pout up to ten, giving an exaggerated wibble just for show before biting her lip in faux consternation, turning her big shiny eyes to Agent Franklin. In all honesty, Jane wasn’t just frustrated with Darcy. She was frustrated with the cube and with SHIELD, mostly because they insisted on every goddamn test under the sun with every last detail recorded and verified with other researchers. She wanted to do it her way, but so far the cube was doing what it was supposed to be doing so she didn’t have much room to argue. If the cube hadn’t reacted the way they had expected, she was sure she could have argued to let her try her own way. She really just wanted to poke and prod at it, to try and open the bridge from Earth, but was it important that the landing pad was broken in Asgard? And how was she going to ask Thor about that without giving it away? All of that meant that she was a little impatient in general and Darcy was getting on her last nerve. It was like the younger girl had a button with Jane’s name on it and she was tap, tap, tapping it to her own beat, slowly but surely driving her insane. Darcy had the unique ability though, and it had proven useful on a few occasions. She just didn’t understand their work. At all. It allowed Darcy to ask questions and make observations that had the potential to be exactly what Jane needed to bridge the gap. She had a tendency to be too technical and thinking out of the box sometimes required a Darcy-level out of the box thinking, which Jane just couldn’t compete with. “What the hell do you mean it’s slow? How complex did you make the search? We’re looking for the obscure references too, don’t forget. I really need this done so I can get to my work,” she reminded Darcy, turning her back to the computer so that she could face her friend. Her arms were crossed in front of her and she was glaring just slightly, but she was honestly just tired. “I know you’re bored. I get it. It sucks and I’m sorry, but I really need to just work. Please, Darcy just...” Jane was at a loss for words. She turned back to her computer but it was more half-hearted than anything else. After a few minutes, she sighed and turned back to Darcy. “Just make a little progress and then we’ll go alright? Promise.” It’s was clear to see that Jane wasn’t having the best of days. Oh of course she was impeccably groomed, her pretty brown hair always flowing just right and her brown eyes bright with annoyance and hope for a breakthrough. Jane was a master at not-trying but still looking absolutely stunning. Darcy was all the jelly, all the time. But she was also all the bored and Jane was denying her constitutional right to a good conversation while researching boring ass blocks of doom. Really, Darcy liked Jane, she was hella smart and adorable in a nerdy, geeky kind of way and Darcy respected that. Really. But Jane was also a stick in the mud or even worse sometimes, like a moldy dinosaur in tar! Yeah, she could get that bad. So, Darcy saw herself as kind of the ‘un-sticker’ of their relationship, when Jane became too much of a fuddy-dud, Darcy would just step in and liven things up a bit. More often than not it ended up with broken things and Darcy being banned from the room for at least six hours, but 33.33% of the time, Darcy actually got Jane to crack a laugh and de-stress a bit. It always helped with the tension in the room and they actually got some shit done. Darcy was pretty awesome, if she did say so herself. With a put upon sigh, Darcy folded both of her hands under her chin and propped her head up, both brows raised. “Well, Jane, since you said ’Research everything, everywhere!’, it’s quite an expansive search. I’ve got ‘glowy blue cube’, ‘neon glow cube’, ‘cube of bluey glowtasticness’, ‘azure cube which shines bright’, ‘blue killer cube of doom’, etcetera etcetera and then all of the above with ‘square’ substituted because some unlearned folk out there like to think that two-dimensional objects and three-dimensional objects are the same thing.” Darcy was ready to argue her case farther when Jane turned round, but Darcy stopped in her tracks as she saw the dark circles under Jane’s eyes and the exhausted way she held herself aloof. Frowning Darcy realized that Jane wasn’t necessarily aggravated at her, but more like annoyed with the world in general which was completely acceptable seeing as how they’ve been cooped up in the room for hours with nothing to show for it. It didn’t take but a split second after that for Darcy to decide that they really needed a break. Darcy gave a bright smile, waving off Agent’s answering grin, before addressing Jane fully. “Okay, here’s the deal. I make some ~progress and we’ll go, yeah?” Darcy tried very hard to keep her poker face completely intact, but she wasn’t sure she was doing a good job seeing as she couldn’t get the shit-eating grin off her face. She knew she’d asked for a tall order but Darcy was surprisingly really thorough with her research without needing constant or strict supervision. That gave Jane plenty of time to do her research, pour over data, and compose all the questions she needed to answer, but now she wished she could nag or micromanage or something, so long as it wasn’t this. Anything on the Bifrost Bridge itself probably would’ve been helpful too, but SHIELD was on her and all she wanted was to get the damn bridge built so that Thor wouldn’t have to deal with the door to get between Asgard and Earth. Well, that was part of the reason. She wanted to travel it as well, to discover the different worlds connected by the bridge and learn everything she could about how it all worked. She wanted to be the one to bring the science to the magic. Plus, there was that tiny little wrinkle of Thor and how she was going behind his back. She’d promised, she knew, but how could she say no? Besides, SHIELD would have continued with their research with someone else and wasn’t it better that she was the one doing it? Jane knew that would end up in an argument but it wasn’t like she’d spoke to him recently. In fact, she hadn’t spoken to him since she’d conversed - briefly - with Loki over the journal. Loki seemed more concerned with making Manhattan his personal playground, not going after her. She’d never even met him. How was she supposed to be afraid of him? With a shake of her head, Jane turned her attention back to Darcy and that grin she knew she should be afraid of. She was skeptical, that was written all over her face, but she nodded all the same. “Progress, and then we’ll go,” Jane agreed, turning back to her station. She’d get a few more pages done, make a little progress of her own, and then they’d go. There was a lot riding on this for Jane. Darcy could be a little self consumed at times, but Jane was her almost-friend so she could always spare some thought for a fellow gal. As it was, Jane had a boyfriend -- or he would be better described as a ~manfriend -- who also happened to be a Norse God of awesomeness. Some shit went down and his homotastic bridge (seriously, a Rainbow Bridge, how flamazing, Darcy could totally respect that) went boom so that proved to be a big problem all around the board. With the bridge down, Thor couldn’t get back down to Earth, though thanks to their little Door situation, it was a bit easier for Thor and Jane to communicate back and forth, it was still a big problem. That left it up to Jane and the Tesseract to connect Asgard and Midgard. So yeah, no pressure or anything. It was hard on Jane and Darcy was sympathetic to the plight, so she was going to help. How, you ask? Well, Darcy was going to get a reaction out of that damned cube if it sucked her into a different dimension! Which would be kind of cool, especially if it meant she could get a hot ass like Thor to be her new beau. Decision made Darcy nodded at Jane’s words and grinned even wider as she watched the older woman turn completely back to her station. The agents had to be out of the room for Darcy to put her plan into action. Smile turning honey sweet, Darcy gave her best puppy face and wheeled her rolly chair close to Agent Franklin. It didn’t take long at all for her to convince him and his little friend that she and Jane needed a nice caffeine refresher, just a few bats of her big baby blues and he was putty in her hands. Darcy was so awesome and congratulated herself on that fact as she watched the MIB clear the area. Rubbing her hands together in a slightly maniacal motion, Darcy began looking around the room. At first she was looking for thing to throw at that godforsaken boredom inducing cube of death, but she’d seen some previous tests and knew that, no matter how much better it would make her feel, it wouldn’t produce any result. Rolling her chair back into its previous position, Darcy began thinking over her research -- there had been something, but it was already known to SHIELD. The information had come from a reliable source, Howard Stark, in one of the first testings of the artifact in the 1940’s. Electricity could get some major reaction. Darcy snapped her fingers. Her handy-dandy taser! But would that be too dangerous? Darcy cocked her head to the side, consideringly as she stared into the neon depths of the cube, less than a room's length away. Maybe she should just touch it. Risking a sideways glance at Jane, Darcy faked a standing stretch, mentioning something about a bathroom break before she eyed the cube once again and took a few steps toward the object. Jane was so focused on just getting through a little bit more work that she just shut everything else out and therefore completely missed Darcy’s shenanigans. It was a bad habit she knew, but it helped her get her work done while Darcy was doing her thing. She vaguely heard Darcy snap her fingers and then say she was going to go to the bathroom. “Be nice to the chaperone,” she reminded the other woman, referring to the woman who kept an eye on them while they used the facilities. It had something to do with ensuring no outside contact but considering they were still allowed to have their journals it was a stupid rule. Not a minute later, as Darcy was walking toward the cube, Jane asked, “Do you know where Howard Stark’s notes went? I could have sworn they were right here?” She looked up, searching for the brunette and as soon as she caught sight of her, Jane froze. Darcy was nearly within reach of the cube and reaching into her back pocket where Jane knew the younger girl kept her taser. “Darcy, no!” They already had some idea of what electricity could to do the Tesseract courtesy of the notes she was looking for. Not to mention, they weren’t supposed to actually poke at it or do anything that wasn’t ‘approved’ by SHIELD. It was counterproductive and she really did want to do something, but that didn’t mean they actually should. Jane scrambled to put herself in front of the cube and effectively block Darcy’s path, her hands on her hips. “Don’t even think about it. I’m not kidding. I cannot lose this job okay? And you tasing it is not going to end well. You know that and I know you know that because we both read Stark’s notes.” Which made her think - not for the first time - that maybe the younger Stark should be here, doing the research. “Come on. We might as well just go now.” She was annoyed but at the same time, she really just wanted to get out of SHIELD headquarters. Maybe she’d head back to New Mexico before Tiffani had to get back to work. Jane lifted one hand to point to the door. “Out. Come on.” |