A Friendly Sparring Match
#friday night fights prompt here.
Fandom: Star Trek AOS Pairing: Leonard McCoy x OC Lucy Price
Summary: Captain Kirk and Nurse Chapel join forces to get Doctor McCoy out of the medbay - and a date.
Words: 1.6k Warnings: Fluff? Oh, and mention of injury and flu.
masterlist
“Bones!” Jim Kirk jogged down the brightly lit corridors, the Enterprise humming with activity around him. It was the middle of beta shift and crewmen smiled as they made way for their captain to pass.
Leonard McCoy did not smile. He didn’t even turn around – he merely stopped in his tracks, data pad dropping to his side and a heavy sigh leaving his lips.
“Bones,” Jim clapped the doctor on his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Having my day ruined with whatever you’re about to ask me to do.”
Jim scoffed. “Nice try, but I know you’re still pulling doubles. Your day was ruined to begin with.”
If looks could kill, Spock would suddenly find himself Captain.
“Relax, I’m here to make your day better,” Jim smiled, and Leonard knew whatever was coming would not- in fact- make his day better.
“No.” The doctor continued his walk back to the medbay. He had three reports to finish, a training brief to assemble for Starfleet Medical, and two patients still in isolation following the Enterprise’s recent run in with a nasty strain of Andorian flu. And with Doctor M’Benga being one of those patients- Leonard was running on little sleep, endless cups of coffee, and no patience for his best friend’s antics.
“Bones,” Jim caught him by the arm, wedging his hand between elbow and ribs just as Leonard had done to him since the early days of their friendship. It was a move the doctor and all his nurses used, designed to halt a patient and, if need be, support them. And it was one of the few effective ways at stopping a determined Jim Kirk. Jim had picked up on the move quickly, though he was far less graceful in its execution.
“You’re exhausted,” Jim said. “Take a break and come down to the gym with me. A little exercise to get your mind outta medbay, maybe a nap afterwards-”
“Jim, I can’t-”
“Chapel is more than capable of running medbay for a few hours-”
“I know that! But I have reports to write, and I can’t just-”
Leonard’s padd chimed. He glanced down to see a message from the very nurse mentioned: Chapel was practically ordering him to stay away from his own medbay. ‘If I have to hypo you into taking a break, Doctor, I will.’
With a furrowed brow, he glanced between Jim and the padd in his hands and a quiet snarl emanated as he shoved the padd into the other man’s hands. “Fine. But I don’t see how working out is a break, or how it’s gonna make my day better.”
Jim followed behind him, a mischievous smirk snug on his face. It unsettled the doctor, especially as it remained even when they entered the locker room. Leonard was halfway through changing, dressed in only his boxers when Jim’s comm chirped.
“Captain,” Nurse Chapel’s voice rang through and Leonard turned sharply- and noticed Jim was still in his uniform. “You’re needed in the medbay.”
But Jim didn’t respond. Instead, he quickly grabbed the blue uniform hanging from Leonard’s locker and made a hasty get away.
“Damn it, Jim, what are you up to?” Leonard chased after the man, momentarily forgetting his state of undress. But he paused in the doorway to the gym-
Jim stood, blue uniform and padd still in hand, talking to a crewman: a security officer by the name of Lieutenant Lucy Price. At the sight of the doctor, Jim grinned and nodded towards him. Lucy turned to see the doctor frozen in place, confusion on his face and brows knitted.
Lucy brought a hand to cover her mouth but Leonard could see the way her shoulders shook with laughter. Across the gym, someone whistled and he realized he hadn’t finished changing- he bolted back into the locker room. Only his workout clothes sat in his locker: an old academy shirt, gym shorts, and running shoes. He dressed in those, determined nonetheless to find and hypo the corn-fed-idiot captain responsible for this. But when he reemerged from the locker room, Jim was no where to be found.
Still, Leonard was determined. He was halfway to the exit when he noticed Lucy jogging towards him.
“Doctor,” she smiled. “Kirk said he had some unexpected ‘Captain-y’ things to take care of. Said you’d need a new work out partner?”
“Oh, is that what he said?” Leonard asked, the pieces suddenly falling into place.
The Enterprise’s last shore leave was brief, most of the crew staying in San Francisco for the duration. Jim had dragged him to a local bar filled with cheap alcohol, loud music, and a handful of the crew. After a few drinks, Jim had noticed the doctor’s repeated glances towards the security officer as she danced with Uhura. He’d noticed Lucy wink at the doctor, curling a finger as if to get him to join. And he’d notice the blush that’d crept up the doctor’s neck as he shook his head.
Leonard had successfully kept his feelings to himself until that night. But that was all it took for Jim to start noticing the smiles shared in passing; the cup of coffee sat on the security station, waiting for Lucy whenever she had bridge duty; the peach left on Leonard’s desk after the ship’s kitchen’s were restocked.
“Leonard?” Lucy’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.
“Hm?”
“Why don’t I leave you to stretch,” she said, her voice momentarily laced with concern. But with his attention back on her, she continued. “Come find me when you’re done.”
Leonard nodded, watching as she moved back towards the track. As she began another lap around the gym, Leonard took to the mats and stretched. His body protested at every move and he knew it was from working doubles another week, sleeping on his office couch most of those nights.
When he finished, he made his way towards the track and waited for Lucy to reach him. He forced himself to look elsewhere as she did; even in her own academy shirt and leggings, her hair bouncing behind her in a braid – Leonard felt his heart beginning to race and he silently cursed at Jim for setting him up like this.
“Ready?” Lucy said, her cheeks slightly red.
“As I’ll ever be,” Leonard shrugged. “What’d you have in mind?”
“What do you say to a friendly sparring match?”
“Sparring?”
Lucy nodded.
“After you’ve been running laps?”
Another nod.
“Seems a little unfair to you, darlin-’”
“Unfair to me?” Lucy’s brow raised and her arms crossed over her chest. “If I recall correctly, I was the one to drag you out from under a collapsed building on Upsilon IV.”
“My ankle was broken,” Leonard defended, recalling their second away mission together all too clearly.
The Enterprise had been rendering aid to a village devastated by unusually violent weather; they’d just finished evacuating a medical center when a quake struck and sent the building crumbling down. Lucy had thrown herself atop him, protecting him from debris as best she could. She’d been concussed in the process, and knocked unconscious – right as a support beam fell on Leonard’s ankle. When she’d finally come to and they’d found their comms broken beyond repair, Lucy resolved to carefully lifting the beam and dragging the doctor out. Her reward had been to vomit as soon as they’d tumbled out of the debris, and they’d spent the next two days under Doctor M’Benga’s watchful observation.
“And I was concussed,” Lucy said. “Anyways, Kirk told me you’ve been working double shifts since the flu outbreak. That puts you at twice the disadvantage.”
“Twice?”
“I am a security officer,” Lucy’s hands fell to her sides and she turned towards the sparring mats. “C’mon, Peaches, I promise I’ll go easy on you.”
Leonard couldn’t help but smile at the pet name, and he began to follow after her.
“Winner buys the loser dinner?” She tossed over her shoulder, and Leonard’s feet faltered.
For a moment, he thought he’d imagined it. But she glanced back at him with a smile playing on her lips and he knew- just like the man that’d adopted her as a child- she never spoke a word she did not mean. It was a rare trait he’d noticed the day he enlisted, when then-Captain Pike told him of the work he could do and the lives he could help if only he could get his feet off the ground.
And Lucy had a confidence about her, one that was beginning to embolden him with every encounter they shared.
“Darlin,’” Leonard quickly caught up with her. “I’ll counter your sparring match with a straightforward offer to take you on a dinner date?”
“Don’t think you can win?” Lucy continued to smile up at him.
“You said so yourself, I’m at a disadvantage.”
“I said you were at twice the disadvantage, Peaches. But don’t think this gets you out of sparring.”
They reached the mats and Lucy moved to the opposite end, pulling off her shoes and socks as she did so.
“Is that a yes?”
Lucy laughed when she turned and saw him standing there, waiting. “That’s a yes.”
As Leonard removed his own shoes and socks, a quiet voice in the back of his mind told him this was a bad idea – that he wasn’t ready to face another heartbreak. A slightly louder voice told him Jim would never let him hear the end of how his meddling successfully resulted in a date. But when Leonard took his place on the mat and they began to spar, Lucy quickly had his feet out from under him. Her laughter drowned out both voices in his head.
**
A/N || It’s been awhile since I participated in #friday night fights but something about this prompt just motivated me! Ended up writing this little one-shot instead of working on my current wip (whoops) but the OC is actually one I created a few months ago. I had decided not to write her story but now... I’m reconsidering. 🤔😅 I tagged my general taglist below, as well as a few others I thought might like this. Hope y’all enjoyed! 😊
TAGLIST || @dreaming-about-fanfictions @hlabounty96 @avaeverstone @ravioliraviolitellmetheformioli @chook007 @ladyideal @dreamers-wonderland @promptsforthestrugglingauthor
