Chapter VII:
"This is all very well put Percy," Erik noted, holding a model Percy had created up to the light. "Remind me again. How does the viscosity of the fluid increase its production as a catalyst?"
Percy thumbed his lip. "The working theory is that the more internal friction there is in the mechanism, the higher energy output we may see."
"But you'll have to potentially sacrifice the efficiency of the mechanism in the process, no?" Erik set it back down on the desk, trading it for a stack of papers.
"Not potentially, we will have to." Jane decreed, giving Percy a comforting nudge. "But it's a start. More than anything we've been able to accomplish in the last half-year."
A deep laugh escaped from Erik. "I think the only thing we managed to get done in the last six months was rid of all our chalk! Remarkable, how much progress has been made in the last couple of weeks. You two have certainly caught more fire than I have."
"I'm excited to keep working on it." Percy said. "Another couple of weeks and who knows where we'll be."
"I'm more than certain we're on the verge of something here," Erik agreed. "I had my doubts about you, my boy, but I'm glad that we've brought you into our fold. This wormhole-bridge project has been nagging us for years! But I'm afraid I won't be able to join you for the time being. I've been called to America for a… business venture."
Her mentor's choice of words was all Jane needed to hear, the ire in his face only furthering her suspicion.
"Really…?" She crossed her arms. "With who? And for how long?"
"I'll be with some of our old colleagues for the better part of this month." Erik muttered, picking up Percy's model again. "A minor kerfuffle, I'd call it. Nothing major, just tying up some loose ends, that's all."
"And you leave when?" She asked, knowing it was S.H.I.E.L.D. he was talking about.
"Later tonight, unfortunately, I got the red-eye flight." Erik checked his watch.
Like every scientist with a pulse, Jane could not help but feel a modicum of jealously over not being invited. Even if it was an invitation from those crackheads.
"You sure you'll be alright?"
"Yes, yes, don't worry about me Jane. You got much more important matters going on here." Erik started moving around. "And actually, I must get going now. You know those blasted bastards at airport security take their sweet time."
Jane's eyes rolled at an old memory. "To be fair, Erik. I would have taken my sweet time as well if a man like yourself showed up with parts of a bomb in his suitcase."
Percy blinked. "A bomb?"
"I'll let Jane tell you all about that one." Erik eyed Percy, then Jane, then Percy again with a medium amount of scrutiny,
"Don't burn the place down when I'm gone."
-Ω-
"Good freaking grief, why did this have to be so heavy?" Jane groaned, trying to move a massive piece of their latest machination. "Percy, do you mind—"
He swept in to help before she could finish her whine, their combined effort safely securing the gigantic metal tube in its rightful place. The entire thing took up the better part of the lab, its chamber covering nearly all the windows, its connections and wires lacing the floors like jungle vines. It made all her previous creations look archaic in comparison, and for sure violated every known safety guideline in existence.
"You sure we shouldn't have tried for something, I don't know, a bit smaller first?" Percy wondered aloud, scratching his hair at the almost-coherent-looking design.
Jane shook her head. "It's going to work, so why not build it to size already?"
Percy laughed. "Your confidence in being able to construct the world's first working wormhole is remarkable."
"Hey, don't forget, a part of these blueprints came from you."
They glanced at each other over their creation and smiled, Percy's wider, before going back to their looming piles of bits and bobs. Like bandits, they had ransacked every supplier they knew, leaving the lab's budget frighteningly barren. So bad was it that to purchase the last few parts, they pawned some of the non-scientific appliances. Erik would just have to cope with not having his Pepsi's for a while, as his mini-fridge had been the first casualty.
"I kind of feel bad about this." Percy said, as he moved a bank of electronics into the empty fridge space.
"Don't." Jane insisted, speaking through the pliers in her teeth as she knotted wires together. "That fridge had it coming."
"Maybe we should tell him so he can buy another one on his way back?"
"Terrible idea." She snorted. "Just like your ability to move large, awkwardly shaped objects."
"What?" Percy looked at her confused.
"Percy, you got that thing upside down."
Later, it was discovered that his computer knowledge was equally as terrible. But only after he fried nearly every reader and sensor attached to her laptop. In silence, they both agreed that he was better off doing the soldering than touching the keyboard.
"Don't tell Erik about this either." Jane made very clear.
"Didn't plan on it." Percy grimaced, wiping the soot from his hands.
Without much of a ceremony, they disposed of the blackened electronics into their ever-growing disposal bin.
Showing him where to crimp the connections properly with the solder afterward, she left his capable hands to work. The determined furrow of his brow amused her as she set about coding the programs necessary for achieving the impossible. Easy was it to be motivated when sharing the same air as him. Jane could only imagine where the new edge in his concentration had sprouted from.
-Ω-
"Okey dokey, so if I'm understanding this correctly, if it works the way it should, we'll be able to ignite the reaction today, but be unable to sustain it until we obtain a sufficient amount of exotic matter."
"Correct." Jane said, calculations and whatnots running circles through her head. "Making this the little atom-smasher-space-bender that could."
"A proof of concept, that is."
"Also correct." Jane nodded. "With the anti-protons this creates, we will theoretically have enough of a vacuum created to make it all work."
"Right. So when they talk about rips in the space-time continuum, this is what they mean." Looking thrilled to the highest degree, Percy folded his arms. "For some reason, this seems both extraordinarily grand and anti-climactic at the same time."
"That's science for you."
Jane was beginning to doubt whether she had actually survived everything that happened in New Mexico last year. Perhaps she had slipped into a coma when Darcy crashed the van, and all of this was just some figment of her imagination. It would sure as hell make her life a lot easier to understand. This whole thing had gone off the rails, and she was not quite sure how or when.
"You don't sound at all pleased." Percy turned to her, his eyes both playful and dangerous, she thought.
"I'll be pleased when it works."
"Now who's the one doubting?" Percy smiled.
"I'm not doubting, I'm just tempering my expectations, that's all." Jane answered as she did her sixteenth check of their systems.
Behind her, he laughed, and it was a light, ticklish kind of laugh that fit the man she had gotten to know. Without much resistance, she allowed herself to smile, feeling as if they were heading off on some kind of adventure. Because what else could it be? They were bound to discover at least something. Even if the something was that their judgment had been dismally misplaced this entire time.
"So," she said, as she did her seventeenth check, the basic soundness appearing good enough. "Our power source is a bit questionable, but I don't think it'll blow up if we try turning it on."
"Should I jot those down as Dr. Jane Foster's famous last words?"
"Please, do. Darcy would appreciate it."
Percy seemed to be on the cusp of laughing again, and Jane brought him over the edge.
"I am so ready for this to work." She burst, rubbing her swollen eyes as her stomach clenched.
"You're telling me?" Percy was bent over himself, shaking his head.
"Yes, yes I am." Jane huffed out a breath. "Let's do this."
Together walking over, they huddled around the main computer, doing one final combover of their calculations. The moment maybe should have felt a lot bigger than it did, like when the Wright Brothers first took flight, or Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, but Jane preferred it this way. No public fanfare, only them.
"Alrighty then," Percy said, leaning away. "The honor is all yours."
Jane stared at their creation, the overly large metal ring that had captivated her mind for countless nights. Turning back to the computer, she slammed her hand on the touchpad.
Immediately, sparks flew, gears whirring as the ring shuddered once, before dying out.
Classic.
"Shit. Of course." She rushed over to the machine, eyes running over the egregious bundle of cables and cords. "Maybe we're still short on power. We've probably used up the block's entire power grid, and still don't have enough!"
Percy, who was standing a little stiffer than usual now, fiddled with his pen. "Here… I think I got an idea."
"Huh? What?"
"Here, just trust me."
"Okay."
Percy paused his step. "Okay?"
"I've failed a bajillion times before. This is nothing new." She wriggled her fingers at him. "Not saying you will, I'm just saying no pressure. Do whatever. I'm ready. If it all blows up in our faces, we'll just go back to stellar dynamics next week. We can build a miniature radio telescope. It'll be fun."
"You get very talkative when you're frustrated." He noted.
"You don't say."
Ignoring her—or figuring it out—he met her by the machine, his fingers gracing the bronze and silver material. To her, it appeared that he was doing nothing more than giving it a massage, until he landed on the exotic matter cylinder.
"Hit the button again." Percy said, his tone more serious than ever.
Curious, confused, and crazed all at once, Jane moved back over to the computer. "All systems go?"
"All systems go."
The noise of the gears was the only sound that came after she initiated it again. But then, she began to hear (or was it feel?) a hum inside her head. Her vision blurred, as if the whole room were buzzing, the lights placed around the ring dimming. For a fraction of a second she thought she saw a blue haze from Percy's hand. He was staring down where his flesh met the metal, shoulders rising and falling to the tempo of his quick breaths.
Without warning, the spaces between the machine came to life with a light that shone like the stars. And for the second time in two years, she felt her mind expand.
Time appeared to stop as her heartbeat began echoing in her ears, Percy's stillness like a touchstone around which the word now turned. The moment seemed to last forever, Jane staring into what seemed like infinity, a gateway to endless possibilities. Then it was over. The air thinned to a normal density as the lights of the lab returned to their normal brightness.
With a heavy breath, Percy glanced at her over his shoulder. "Did it just work?"
Looking at her instruments, Jane felt a numbness creep over her body, her arms becoming as heavy as her knees were weak. "I—I think it did."
According to her data, it had. None of it should have been possible, everything she had ever known about physics and the limitations of technology disbanded and shredded.
She returned her attention to Percy, "How did you…?"
"I'm not sure." He was quick to say. "But, I guess we were successful?"
"We were."
He smiled, and it was the brightest thing she had ever seen. "That is wonderful news."
-Ω-
The sun had long since set when they finally made it to Jane's apartment, their celebration in the lab lasting longer than expected. Add in a trip to the bar on top of that, and it made sense why they were stumbling about at this time of the night.
"I still can't believe it." Jane spilled, as they clumsily stepped forward. "I mean, wow. Wow."
Percy, whose arm was wrapped around her, laughed. "Who would've thought? Not bad for a fluid dynamicist, huh?"
"Not bad at all indeed."
Almost blindly, she gripped her door handle, fumbling so long for her keys that at one point she was convinced they did not exist.
"I'll see you tomorrow morning?" Percy asked.
Jane looked back at him through the held open door. In the dark, the greens of his eyes shone like the stars above, his complexion and stance both comforting and sturdy.
"Why don't you stay, this time around?"
A crest appeared on Percy's brow. "For research purposes, right?"
In her head, she imagined the way his hair would feel between her fingers: silky-soft and strange.
"Sure. For research purposes."
Author's Note:
Trying to make a push to get a lot of updates out before I go on vacation :)