Hi guys!
Sorry I haven't updated in AGES, school has been bananas but hopefully I'll be able to update more regularly!
Thanks to all that have followed and favourited and left reviews, you guys are the best!
Here's an extra long chapter to make up for me not updating (sorry again!)
Hope y'all enjoy!
Bobbi, Hunter, Skye and Lincoln watched anxiously from outside the lab doors as Fitz, Simmons and Cecelia hurried around the defrosting remains of Sergeant James Barnes, who had already within a minute or two of reaching thawing point. Unlike Captain America, who was found lying down, Barnes was curled up in a ball, which was making it difficult for Simmons to insert the heart-lung machine correctly, especially since he was immersed in the antifreeze solution.
"Why did Simmons have to choose THEN to decide I was looking too cold?" Hunter grumbled under his breath for the umpteenth time. "Why couldn't she have let me go back out?"
Bobbi rolled her eyes at him. "You wouldn't have stuck it out for much longer, Hunter, your nose was turning blue."
"Reckon I'm in better shape than him though," Hunter retorted, as they watched from the other side of the glass.
"Are they even sure he's alive?" Lincoln cut in. "What if all of this was for nothing?"
"Fitz found a pulse." All of them but Bobbi jumped as the Director's icy tone sounded from behind them, "And even if it was just his body in a coffin we brought back, at least we'd be giving someone peace of mind."
An uneasy silence followed, eventually punctured by Fitz, who opened the lab doors from them. "He's stable, for now anyway," Fitz informed them as they entered the lab. Cecelia was monitoring several screens at once, relaying the information to Simmons at a speed only they could understand. Simmons had her hand on the button that would start up the heart-lung machine that needed to be activated the millisecond that Bucky reached thawing point.
"Thirty seconds, Jemma," Cecy warned at a speed understandable to the regular human ear, not taking her eyes off the screens.
Nobody made a noise as they watched the seconds tick down on the biggest screen. You could have cut the air with a blunt knife.
"And three... two... one... NOW!" Cecy shouted as Jemma slammed down the button.
Nobody moved for a second, all eyes were on Bucky. Then Jemma breathed a sigh of relief as she saw his chest rise and fall, only slightly, but it happened all the same. Cecy slumped against the table behind her with her head in her hands, and laughed with relief.
"Now the fun really starts," she said, as she turned her exhausted eyes on the rest of the team.
"What now, Cecy?" Jemma asked.
"After another minute or two we will have to replace the antifreeze with gradually warming saline water to get him up to normal body temperature." Cecy recited with her head in her hands again, "and although he won't be fully thawed before we reach the base, we had better start pumping the drugs into him once the saline water has been added." She rubbed her eyes tiredly.
"How are we going to do that?" Skye asked.
"Luckily enough the antifreeze and the saline water are immiscible," Fitz spoke up, his arms folded and his eyes on Bucky. "So we drain the antifreeze out at the bottom while adding the saline water at the top."
"Exactly," Cecy agreed. "And once the antifreeze is drained out, we can start pumping the drugs into him so he can be put in the coma as early as possible."
"And by that time," Simmons pipped up, "we should be back at base and we can dry him off properly once he reaches normal body temperature, and start construction of the 1940s style hospital room."
Cecy glanced up at the clock and clapped her hands together. "You four," she pointed to Bobbi, Hunter, Skye and Lincoln, "grab some buckets and start filling them with this stuff." She indicated the gigantic tub next to her, "Fitz-"
Fitz knelt down next to the tank and started to secure the pipe that would drain out the antifreeze into a different container.
"Excellent. Jemma -"
She put her hands on the wheel that would drain the antifreeze out once she gave the signal.
"Perfect." Cecelia grabbed a dropper filled with a green liquid from the table and squirted it into the tank.
"What's that for?" Skye asked.
"The antifreeze and the saline water are the same colour, so this will dye the antifreeze so we know when to stop draining it out. Everyone ready?"
All six nodded in unison. "And... now!"
It was like clockwork. Cecy could see why the team was as well known all around the base as it was. She was used to Fitzsimmons being in sync, a lot of the time she was on their wavelength anyway, but to see for her own eyes how they worked as a family, as a team, was something she still couldn't believe she was seeing with her own eyes.
"Like pieces solving a puzzle," she muttered to herself, but she pushed the thoughts of her sister and that rat bastard out of her head as she saw the director approach her, so she kept her eyes on the level of the green water, which was reaching the halfway point.
"You're doing very well for your first mission, Agent Lewis," Coulson said while also keeping his eyes on the tank.
"I'm only doing what I was trained to do, sir," she replied, a bit more sharply than she intended. "Sorry," she added hastily as she rubbed her eyes again.
"The hours of a field agent are quite different to the hours of a scientist, Agent Lewis," Coulon replied kindly, "Like I said, you are holding up extremely well."
"Thank you, sir."
"Cecy," Fitz called, not taking his eyes off the pipe.
"Excuse me sir," Cecy quickly moved away from the director and knelt down next to Fitz. The green antifreeze only lined the bottom of the tank. Skye tipped in the contents of her bucket and Fitz turned off the pipe as the last of the green got sucked up the tube.
"Well done everybody," Cecy congratulated, as she moved to get the syringes. Though she was tired, her brain was alert and her nimble fingers quickly filled three syringes full of three different coloured liquids. She moved over to the tank where Barnes was half suspended in the water. Though it was a little eerie, seeing a one armed man half floating in a tank of cold water, there was a strange beauty to it also. As Cecy pulled on her temperature resistant gloves, she studied his face, and how strangely peaceful it was, despite the fact that he must have been in terrible pain before he passed out. His hair, though short, floated around him, still swishing around after the current that remained from the antifreeze being drained out, so his face swished in and out of sight.
The snap of her gloves pulled her out of her thoughts, so she gave her head a small shake as she readied the syringe. With her other hand she reached into the water, wrapped her fingers around his stiff, unyielding remaining arm and luckily enough, his veins were prominent enough for her to feel underneath the thin gloves.
Keeping one hand around his arm, she caught the first syringe and pushed the plunger down as the first sedative entered his bloodstream. She inserted the contents of the other two syringes into two different points in his arm above the first.
"That should keep him going for an hour or so," she told Simmons, who recorded the information in one of the electronic notepads, "We can hook him up to the drip once we land." Simmons nodded in agreement, before narrowing her eyes at Cecy, who had just tried to unsuccessfully stifle a yawn.
"Bed, Cecy," she said in a hard tone.
"I'm fine, Jem," Cecy resisted the urge to rub her eyes again. "I was just going to get some coffee, do you want some?"
Jemma glared at her so intensely that Cecy found herself back pedalling at full speed. "Fine! I'm going, I'm going. Just give him three more sedatives in another hour Je-"
"OUT."Jemma pointed to the door, and Cecy reluctantly trudged towards it. As she got to the threshold, she turned around to say something but one hard glare from Jemma sent her spinning out of the room again, where she feel, grudgingly gratefully, into her soft, warm bunk.
Hope you enjoyed!
PS. In the next chapter Bucky will be awakE!
PPS. Reviews speed up the updates by the way! :-P