Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel comics or characters or movies, and am making no money off of this fic.
AN: Written for the October 28th Whumptober prompt: severe illness.
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Urgent (Do Something) by luvsanime02
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Steve Rogers is no stranger to being sick.
While growing up, Steve had to deal with practically every illness that could affect a child's body at that time. Even when he was born, Steve wasn't healthy, jaundiced and colicky. He never stopped crying in those days, never stopped crying at all until he started fighting instead.
Fighting everything, but especially one illness after another, one weakness of his body after the next. As soon as Steve thought that he was getting a handle on managing one thing, something else would manifest. Steve's spent so much of his life simply struggling for survival.
This, though, is something that Steve has never experienced. He's looking around this hospital at the people who are pouring inside, most of them barely able to stand, and he can't do anything to help them. No one's even sure what exactly is wrong, what this severe illness is that has taken hold of so much of Steve's city.
Steve walks over to the front desk, even though there's no one behind it. No doubt everyone's too busy to worry about things like signing people into the system right now. No one's worried about insurance or payment, either. Everyone's much too concerned with somehow possibly stopping this contagion before it spreads any further and kills them all.
Steve walks behind the counter, brings up the hospital's system on the computer, and finds the file of the doctor who spoke to him on the phone earlier. If he can just see what her face looks like, then he has a higher chance of finding her.
They're desperate. So desperate for help that Steve was called up and begged to come down here and give them a sample of his blood. They're hoping that they might be able to create a retrovirus from his antibodies, from what he can figure.
Steve's not a doctor, though. He doesn't know how likely he is to be of help with that. All that Steve knows is that he's a boy from Brooklyn and his city is dying all around him. He leaves a note behind the desk and emails the doctor, hoping that somehow he can reach her faster. There's no phone number listed.
Then Steve walks around and tries to help. He rolls up his sleeves and dons a mask, and somehow, he's getting people blankets and unfolding cots and setting up saline IVs, and he doesn't really know what he's doing, but these people are dying and Steve can't just stand by and do nothing.
He's holding a little boy's hand and telling him that everything's going to be okay when a woman appears at his elbow. She's the doctor that he's supposed to meet. "Steve Rogers?" she demands, and barely waits for his nod of confirmation before she's pulling him away.
She hauls him into a room and pushes him down into a chair. Steve goes willingly, of course, or she never could have moved him at all. "Hold out your arm," she orders, and then quickly finds a vein and starts sucking out his blood. Steve watches patiently as she gathers several tubes before finally turning away from him.
"Will this really work?" he asks her.
"I don't know," she says, already preparing slides and equipment, "but it's the only chance that we've got."
Steve leaves after another minute where she completely ignores him. He thinks about leaving the hospital, too, but then he looks around and a nurse is shouting for some help, and Steve dives right back into lending a hand as much as he can. He's not the only volunteer there from off of the streets, either.
He can't do anything more. This is all that he can accomplish right now. It's still not enough. Steve wishes that feeling weren't so familiar, and busies himself with hooking up another IV stand.