Chapter Four
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Late that night, Bruce wandered down to the lab to get his glasses. He'd left them on the counter earlier when he was talking to Tony, and he wanted to read his new scientific journal before he went to bed.
The lab was dark and quiet, except for the blinking of various monitors in sleep mode. His glasses were on the end of a table, just where he'd laid them down earlier. Picking them up, Bruce turned toward the door.
"Why do they want her?"
Bruce started violently and dropped his glasses to the floor with a clatter. Trying to calm his pounding heart, he peered across the dim room toward the cryo freezer. "Tony? What on earth are you doing down here?
Tony was sitting cross-legged on a stool, looking through the frosted window of the cryogenic freezer. He barely reacted to Bruce's question.
"Why do they want her?" he mused aloud again, and it was obvious that his mind was a million miles away. "Technically she's just a frozen body - there must be a dozen others they could get their hands on at a moment's notice. So why her specifically?"
Bruce had no answer.
"Unless - unless," Tony trailed off and pulled up a holographic screen.
"Tony, you'd better head up to bed soon." Bruce knew it wouldn't do any good, but he might as well try.
"Yeah, yeah, sure Pepper, just a minute," Tony mumbled, completely distracted.
Bruce shook his head, picked up his glasses and left. When Tony got like this, you could either drug him to sleep or let him work it off.
Alone in the lab, Tony flicked through the files from SHIELD, and then closed them with a wave of his hand. "J?"
JARVIS woke with a nearly soundless whirr of servers. "Yes sir?"
"Scan her again, deeper. There's something going on here."
For the next half hour, Tony paced restlessly, finally pulling up pieces of the Mark XLIII to reconfigure. He became so absorbed in refining the finger joints that he almost forgot the larger issue until JARVIS spoke again.
"Scan complete, sir. Foreign substance detected."
"Quantify," Tony ordered. There was a moment's pause, and then JARVIS replied, sounding slightly affronted. "It is not in my database."
"Great!" Tony hopped over a counter that was in his way, flipping quickly through the results. The mystery stuff looked like some kind of complex protein, but it was hard to tell. He broke it down into components, swirling them around on the screen. Then he froze, taking a closer look.
"JARVIS, is this what I think it is?"
"I do not have mind-reading capabilities installed, sir," JARVIS responded placidly, but Tony hardly heard him, combining and recombining the elements on the screen. Finally he leaned back, steepling his fingers and staring at the image before him, wryly impressed despite himself.
"Howard, you sly dog."
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The next morning at breakfast, the Avengers received notice of legal action being initiated against them.
Actually, to be more accurate, Steve, Pepper and Bruce received notice. They were the only ones who were at breakfast. Pepper hurried out of the room, yogurt in hand, cell phone already to her ear as she called up the Stark lawyers.
Steve looked awful, Bruce decided, noting the bags under his eyes. Probably he'd spent half the night in the gym again. Steve, as if noticing the direction of his friend's gaze, went diligently back to his breakfast.
"Think we have any chance?" he asked presently, and Bruce shook his head.
"Ordinarily I'd say yes. Tony Stark employs the best team of lawyers this side of the Sahara. They're the only reason I wasn't handed over to General Ross ages ago - that and the fact that SHIELD added their protection. But to have Stark and SHIELD at each others' throats - I'm not sure who will win."
Steve shook his head gloomily. "SHIELD doesn't play fair anymore. I'm not sure they ever did."
The dreary atmosphere was shattered by Tony, who came bouncing in as if he had rubber balls in his shoes.
"So," he began by way of conversation, "JARVIS scanned your old girlfriend again last night."
Steve choked on his cereal. "She was never my girlfriend, Tony."
"Yeah, whatever. Like I said, JARVIS scanned her and found a blip. I knew my AI was better than anything SHIELD could cook up!"
Steve looked blankly at Bruce, who mouthed "Artificial Intelligence," at him.
"Apparently," Stark went on, in the manner he used when unveiling the next big Stark invention, "she was injected with a cryoprotectant at some point, probably right before the plane went down."
"A what?" asked Steve, but Bruce was no longer paying attention to him. He set his teacup down very carefully, eyes fixed on Tony.
"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" he asked, voice dangerously level.
Tony spread his hands grandly, eyes bright from lack of sleep and far too much caffeine. "Why not? We've got one Capsicle, might as well make it a pair. Besides, if she's alive, they can't take her body, can they?"
Steve's spoon hit the table with a clatter. The blood drained from his face as he leaned back in his chair, overwhelmed by the implications of what Tony was saying, cereal completely forgotten.
Bruce shook his head, rising to his feet. "Tony, you're talking science fiction here. Nobody has been able to avoid the actual technical problems involved in thawing a cryogenically frozen individual. Ice crystals rupturing cell walls, brain damage, cells dying, toxicity of the cryoprotectant itself… the theory isn't even sound!" His voice rose with every word, every step, and he found himself suddenly furious at the false hope Tony was trying to give their friend.
"Cap here survived it." Tony was head to head with Bruce now, crowded against the table, but unwilling to back down.
"Cap had the super serum, Tony!" An undercurrent shook Bruce's voice, and a greenish tinge flushed the tight muscles in his neck. The shocked silence in the room was almost thick enough to cut as Tony quietly stepped away, giving the doctor space as he leaned against the table and tried to breathe it out. He hadn't come so close to Hulking out indoors in a long time.
"Cap had the super serum," Bruce finally repeated in a quieter voice, not looking up at anybody. "Peggy Carter didn't."
"Could we give it to her retroactively?"
Both men turned to face Steve, who hadn't spoken since the beginning of the conversation. He was still pale, but resolute in a way neither man had seen in quite a while.
"Steve," Bruce tried to break it to him gently. "Nobody's been able to replicate it. We've tried ever since Dr. Erskine, but it's no good. Even SHIELD has tried synthesizing it from your blood without any luck."
Steve took a deep breath and let it out all at once. "During the war," he began, absently playing with his spoon, "we all had these metal tags we had to wear. We usually tucked them under our collars - nobody liked to think about them."
"Yeah, dog tags." Tony was guilty of interrupting. "Not to put you off your reminiscing, gramps, but this doesn't really…"
"We had the same blood type." Steve wasn't staring at his spoon anymore - his eyes flicked back and forth between Bruce and Tony.
"Wait, what?" The caffeine must be faulty, because suddenly Steve's words weren't making sense. Tony risked a peek into his nearly empty cup.
Steve swallowed hard and his eyes grew distant, looking back at something none of them could see. "I got real hurt one time, and she checked my tag against hers, offered to donate some blood. This was before we'd really worked out how fast I healed, and it turned out she didn't have to, but that's how I know."
"How's he doing?" Steve barely heard Peggy's voice somewhere near the mouth of the tent. It blended with his dreams, and he struggled uselessly to open his eyes.
"Not too good." Bucky. That was Bucky. It was hard to concentrate over the tearing pain, but he couldn't drift off again - his friends were depending on him.
"Has there been any improvement?" Peggy's voice came closer, and he felt soft fingers over his forehead, smoothing back his hair. The relief of another sensation besides the pain was palpable, and he tried to lean into her hand.
"Well, the fact that he hasn't died of blood loss is encouraging, right? I honestly dunno how he's hanging on - he lost way too much, but the guy's always been a stubborn little punk."
The fingers left his face and fumbled at his collar. A distant jingling - what was she doing? Curiosity helped him force his eyes open. Peggy was bending over him, face filling his field of vision, intently comparing his dog tags to hers. It was the loveliest sight he'd ever seen, and the pain receded a little more.
"We have the same blood type, Sergeant Barnes. Could he use a transfusion?" His eyes flickered closed against his will before she could look up, the dark vagueness dragging him down again.
"Are you suggesting a blood transfusion?" Bruce asked cautiously. Steve met his gaze without a trace of hesitation.
"Maybe."
There was a breathtaking moment of silence as everyone processed Steve's idea. The tension was broken by Tony, as usual. "Ah, won't that make her big and muscly? Or green? No offence, Brucie, but I'm not sure Steve wants a green girlfriend."
Steve shook his head. "I'm pretty sure it was the vita-rays that caused growth in my case. The serum just enhanced cell regeneration and formed protective walls. I don't know exactly how it works, but it sounds like it could help with those side-effects of freezing that Bruce mentioned."
"You're actually the closest to an expert we have," Bruce admitted ruefully. "None of Dr. Erskine's material survived the explosion at the experiment site, and he didn't leave many notes. We're not even entirely sure what the vita-rays were." Smiling humorlessly, he got himself a fresh cup of tea. "I always thought they were gamma rays - staked my career on it in fact."
"My old man destroyed all his Project Rebirth notes not long after the war," Tony offered, going to the coffeemaker for a refill. "I'm sure I could figure it out if I wanted to, though. Hello, genius here."
They sat in silence, eating breakfast but not actually tasting any of it, every one of them thinking over the new possibility. Then Bruce set his cup down with a click. "Circulation," he pointed out dolefully. The other two stared at him in confusion, so he elaborated. "How can we give her a transfusion if she has no circulation to begin with?"
"Hopefully the cryoprotectant should at least help us thaw her enough to try," Tony pointed out, brandishing his mug. "Look, if we're going to do this, it's got to be soon. I can make or get all the respirators and medical equipment you want, but if we wait too long, we'll be in the middle of a legal battle that I'm not sure we can win."
Bruce nodded thoughtfully, and turned to Steve. "It's your call," he said quietly. "If you like, you can start donating blood tonight."
Just for a moment, an incredibly tender expression flickered across Steve's face before he looked up with purposeful steel in his eyes. "I'd like that. Thanks."
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To understand some of the issues Bruce mentions regarding cryogenic freezing, fill a bottle completely full of water, screw on the lid, and stick it in your freezer. It will crack or bulge or burst in some way as the water inexorably forces the walls outward, since frozen water takes up more space than liquid water. Cells, which are filled with water like billions of tiny water bottles, run the risk of bursting when they've been frozen.
Cryoprotectants are solutes - molecules dissolved into your body. Some can decrease the pressure on the cell wall, others help prevent the water in your body from forming sharp ice crystals, or try to counter the effects of freezing on the body in other ways. Scientists are still trying to figure out exactly what some of them do, and how they do it. Unfortunately, cryoprotectants in large enough doses to be effective are also toxic - which kills the very cells they've been trying to protect.
Okay, science lesson over. :) Thanks for reading!
