au where Margo and Sergei accidentally gifted each other slide rules, and now every time they need to do some calculations, they think of each other🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
A prompt for you: Sam finds out just how huge of a nerd Bucky really is. Cue some good ole mutual pining. :)
“I’m just saying, if hyper lightspeed technology exists out there, we need to be prepared.”
“We hear you, Barnes. But we have other matters to discuss, so we need to table this for another time.”
Bucky looked at Director Hill like he could have flipped the table, and both Sam and Steve got tense in their seats. When he shrugged and nodded, the meeting moved on.
Sam caught up with Bucky when they filed out of the SHIELD conference hall and touched him on the arm. “What’s with you, man?”
“Nothing.”
“The hell it’s nothing.”
Bucky yanked his arm out of Sam’s grip and stared at him. “They’re not thinking ahead. But there are worlds out there with technology we’ve never dreamed of. And some of those places aren’t so nice toward earth. Hill’s too short sighted to–she just doesn’t like that I’m not Fury.”
Sam scrunched up his face as Bucky stalked down the hallway. Bucky? Thinking ahead? That’s news to me.
—
“Iunno,” said Steve, continuing to pound the ever living snot out of the punching bag. “He’s in the archive, I think.”
So Sam found Bucky in front of a set of consoles surrounded by three empty coffee mugs, a bag of potato chips, and what looked to be a wrapper from a sausage egg mcmuffin.
“Hey, Barnes. You got that report from Echo Mission, or…” Sam’s eyes trailed up to the screens. The main screen had a star map from a galaxy that wasn’t the Milky Way, and another screen was calculating a flight trajectory, and yet another screen had a planetary readout for a place Sam had never heard of.
“You’re taking this ‘Man on the Wall’ thing way too seriously,” Sam told him.
Bucky flipped a middle finger at him. “I emailed you the mission report two hours ago. Or did you forget how to check your email?”
“Y’know what–screw you.” And Sam left because he, apparently, hadn’t checked his email in two hours.
—
“When’s the last time you slept? Better yet, when’s the last time you showered?”
Bucky scowled over the laptop screen in his lap and went back to typing. “I’m putting together a report for Hill about this hit I got on the extraterrestrial security network. It’s time sensitive.”
“Need any help?”
“You can help by shutting up and leaving me alone.”
Sam let out a sigh and sat across from Bucky at the table, having to remind himself that killing Bucky would probably make Steve sad. Or maybe it wouldn’t. He really liked causing both of them headaches.
“I know more about outerspace than you think,” Sam told him.
“Oh, yeah? Ever heard of the Mylians from Protar V?”
“What? No. That’s–you made that up.” Sam reached out and pushed down the laptop screen so he could see Bucky better. “You said there’s a hyper lightspeed device out there? Did you look into Dr. Rita Plumb’s research?”
“No…”
“I read some of her work in college.”
“Astrophysics? I thought you were gonna be a math teacher.”
“Not important. I read those articles for, uhm, fun. Anyway… See what you can find.” Sam got up and felt Bucky’s eyes on him as he left the workroom.
—
“Look, Sam! This is called a book. B-o-o-k. Boooook.” Bucky held up a book to Sam as if it was a relic from ancient times.
“Bite me, Barnes. I know what a book is.” Sam had the upper hand here, anyway, because he knew the Dewey Decimal system like the back of his hand from working as a book shelver when he was in junior high. Bucky openly admitted he had been “too cool” to pay attention to books when he was younger, so Sam was the one leading them to the scientific literature publications. “Should be… around here…”
They both pulled open huge filing cabinets and thumbed through the scientific journals until Bucky pulled one out with a big grin on his face. “Sam, you’re a genius.”
“I think you mean ‘Rita Plumb’ is a genius for her lightspeed theories, but sure.”
Bucky opened up the journal and started reading with Sam standing over his shoulder. Bucky bit down on his lip and turned his head just-so, catching a whiff of whatever Sam used to smell good (after shave? cologne? combination of both? maybe he was born with it?). Bucky ignored the ridiculous notion that Sam was intoxicating and went back to reading the article.
“This is it! Right here! It’s like this really shitty puzzle just came together–”
Sam jumped when Bucky shouted so suddenly, and before he knew it Bucky had turned and thrown his arms around Sam’s neck. “Your nerdy hobby really saved my ass.”
“You’re welcome?”
Bucky planted a kiss on Sam’s cheek and let go of him, grabbing the stack of articles and heading for the check out.
“Barnes,” Sam said, touching his own cheek lightly. “Wait up! You don’t have a goddamn library card!”
