"Nope, not happening, Stevie, not it this time," Bucky replied firmly as he picked up the other girl. "Your turn."

"Is not, I did it twice in a row time before last," Steve protested. "We can get Bruce to do it." He stepped out of the beam and onto the ship, moving the girl he was carrying to a temporary bed.

"You'd make Bruce face two of them at once?" Bucky asked. "That's cruel and unusual, Steve, 'specially when they've got the same face." He laid the other girl down on a spare cot as well, making sure she was still okay.

Steve shrugged. "Bruce is better than Tony. He is much, much better than Tony."

"I heard that!" Tony yelled indignantly from where he was piloting.

"Point," Bucky replied, ignoring Tony's indignant yelp. "But still. You'd subject Bruce to that?"

Steve sighed. "Two people can explain better than one?" he bargained, looking at Bucky. Because he really didn't want to be solely responsible.

Bucky sighed.

"Fine," he said. "I will if you will." He glanced at the girls. There was really no way to tell them apart, aside from their clothing. "Tke your pick, I guess."

"Why don't we just stick with the one we already carried?" Steve asked with a shrug. It made sense to him.

"Well, 'scuse me for offering you a choice," Bucky retorted, though he was grinning a bit.

Steve rolled his eyes and huffed a bit.

"Tony, we need you to get a sample from these two."

"Samples?" Tony asked, finally going from eavesdropping to actively participating. "Any particular reason? They look like regular Earthies to me."

"We both reacted to them," Steve said. "Something is off about these two, and I need to know what."

Tony shrugged, though his eyes were bright.

"Sure, no problem," he said. He glanced from the girls and back to Steve and Bucky. "I'd love a sample anyways, it's not often anyone sees twins anymore, I want to see if I can figure out what makes it work."

Steve rolled his eyes and moved up front. "I'll hold this for a few minutes, you get the samples," he ordered, shooing Tony out. "Buck, get comfortable."

Bucky rolled his eyes, but settled down into a seat. He watched as Tony buzzed around to get the samples; the engineer was practically singing the word 'science' as he went.

Steve snorted at Tony's antics and got them up far enough that they wouldn't have to keep the reflective panels on, giving Tony time to run his tests.

Tony muttered to himself as he ran what tests he could in the relatively small vessel.

"What I wouldn't give to take these to Brucie right this minute," he grumbled as he carefully sealed the samples for transport. "Definitely once I drop you all off, though."

Steve snorted. "Anything unusual coming up yet? Besides the fact that they're twins." He was drumming his fingers, anxious to know if his suspicions were correct.

"Something's not right with their DNA," Tony replied. "But I don't have the instruments here to tell me what. I need to examine it further."

"Alright." Steve knew he wouldn't get any more than that, right now, so he just waited. Once they were back up to the main ship, though, where Tony had an actual lab, Steve wanted more answers.

But he did give the scientists an hour or two first to run tests.

After a couple of hours of running every test he and Bruce could think of, Tony finally hit on the right answer.

"How did I not see it before?" Tony wondered, looking at the paper with the test results on it. "It was staring us in the face the whole time."

"What was?" Bruce asked, not looking up from some equipment yet. He was still running his tests, after all.

"The reason their DNA is so weird," Tony replied. He shook his head. "We've been comparing it to normal Earthie baselines the whole time, but only half the strand flags. They're only half Earthie."

"Really?" Bruce pushed his chair away from his desk and moved over to look over Tony's shoulder. "Huh. You're right." He paused when he saw a repeated familiar sequence. "Hang on..."

"How'd they manage to find halfers just at random?" Tony wondered as he went over the results again.