She's bored. Painfully. Utterly. Despondently bored.
It's no surprise, really. To go from working fifteen hours a day – managing multiple labs in the city, at home, across the country; facilitating workflow with people all over the damn world; dealing with an always unhappy, always impatient board of directors; fielding phone calls and emails and texts and internal IMs and in-person interruptions all day, every day – to go from that to this? How could Tessa not be bored.
But she's also – not that she's willing to admit it – painfully, utterly, despondently unwell.
For the last few weeks her body has been perpetually on the fritz. She gets both hot flashes and extreme chills, taking her from a sweaty mess to a trembling, curled-up ball of bones in need of a warm cocoon, all inside of an hour. She gets rushes of adrenaline at the most inopportune times, panic surging through her body as she steps into the shower first thing in the morning or sits down to eat at night. And speaking of eating, well, no… it's probably best not to speak of that at all. That deliciously perfect cupcake she had on Valentine's Day – nearly three weeks ago – is the last thing she remembers being able to keep down without a problem. Between the inordinate number of medications meant to either supplement or even out her ever-increasing hormone imbalances, and the new lack digestive enzymes – because, yeah, hormones affect freaking everything – food has become a nearly constant struggle.
Of course, without proper nutrition – and thanks to the insulin injections meant to help her potassium levels – her blood sugar has been all over the place. She's passed out twice in the last few weeks – never in front of Bucky, thank God – and now she's being held prisoner for an hour every afternoon to get hooked up to a glucose drip.
Seeing her like this – seeing her struggle with the throbbing pain of nearly constant headaches; the deep unabating ache of a stomach torn apart, too tightly clenched to let anything in; seeing her fight through the emotional toll, too often wearing a hollow smile meant to ease his worry – absolutely kills Bucky. And she knows this, of course she knows. Thick, mournful, frightened energy has been spilling off of him in suffocating waves ever since the adrenal crisis first landed her back in medical. But there is one saving grace to this whole damn mess. Much like the rest of the hormones in her body, her MGH is steadily waning – and with it, her powers. So while she can still see the pained and helpless look on his face anytime she curls around the toilet and turns herself inside out or winds up debilitated on the couch, shivering endlessly even as he wraps her in an electric blanket, it's been at least a few days since she's really felt it.
What she does feel, though – now and every other moment of every single day – is weak, weary, and utterly powerless. And sickness be damned, it's this incapacity – she's certain – that's going to kill her.
"It feels a little like you don't trust me," she mutters blandly, pushing the toast idly around her plate as Bucky ducks out of the room to slip on his shoes.
"You barely slept all night," he shouts from the bedroom before hurriedly hopping back down the hall as he awkwardly tries to tie his shoes mid stride. He comes up behind her as she slumps and pouts at the breakfast bar, and he places a quick kiss to her temple. "Just take the morning to rest."
"I don't want to rest," she says with an irritated huff. "I feel fine." He gives her an admonishing stare as he downs the rest of his coffee and slaps the empty mug on the counter, the tilt of his head and arch of his brows telling her with one simple look that she's not fooling anyone, least of all him. She lets out a deflating sigh and glowers. "I need to work. I need to do something!"
"Fine," he says, impatient frustration peppering his tone. "You're gonna do what you want anyway," he mutters under his breath as he buzzes past her once again to grab his coat from the front closet. "But, we agreed on two hours," he reminds her, spinning to pin her with a particularly stern look. "Two hours in the lab. No more."
She lets out a pathetic moan, collapsing dramatically forward and letting her body hang pitifully over the breakfast bar, her arm nearly knocking the still-full glass of juice from the countertop. "Two hours is nothing."
He pulls on the jacket, zips it up to his neck, and lets loose a quick shudder as his eyes tick out the window to take in the barren wasteland beyond. The idea of leading the team on a two-hour trek through the surrounding woods during a swift and sudden early-March cold snap – the kind that drops an inch of snow before the temperature falls so low that the air can't even squeeze out another flake – making him already feel like ice has taken up in residence inside of his bones. He looks over at her – ridiculously splayed out atop the counter like an absurdist rendering of a swooning Victorian woman. "You don't need to work," he tells her pointedly. "You have Bruce."
"Bruce is no help," she mutters into the flesh of her outstretched arm.
"Stark reassigned four lab techs to do everything for you," he tries, brow raised. "You and I both know, you don't need to be in the lab."
"But I want to," she whines, even adding an indignant huff at the end of the statement for good measure.
He pulls on a stocking cap, just the slightest bit of unkempt hair curling out from beneath, and shoves his fingers – both flesh and metal – into thickly lined gloves. "Finish at least half of that toast and you can go down to check in. But I'll be back in two hours. And if you're still in the lab when I get back, I'm pulling you out."
"Caveman," she laments with a frown as she rises into a sitting position. "What, you'll throw me over your shoulder and carry me home like the chattel that I am?"
He rolls his eyes. "Yeah. Sure." And heads for the door, the swift and oft-repeated command, "Be good," issuing out blithely from his lips before the apartment door swings shut behind him.
Tessa pulls in a deep, rather exhausted breath and lays her head back down on the cool countertop, letting her eyes slowly drift shut. The truth is, as much as she wants to work – and feels like she should, what with them being so close to having the serum-enhanced hypothalamic cells ready for trials – she's also so damn tired right now that the thought of even rising from her spot at the breakfast bar causes her limbs to somehow weight further, holding her pathetically in place.
But there's something else too. A little inkling burning at the back of her currently aching skull, a little spark of a doubt reverberating through her mind, a voice bleating in time with every painfully whomping pound. What if I'm wrong about the serum? What if this won't work? What if nothing does? What if I can't figure this out, can't help myself? What if I can't help anyone else?
"Dr. Sullivan?" sounds suddenly from above, Friday interrupting the whirring thoughts spinning through her unsettled – unconscious – mind.
She startles awake – not having a clue how long of an impromptu nap she'd just taken, though assuming it couldn't have been too long as there's no crick in her neck – and she pulls herself upright. "Yeah?" comes out of her almost as a whimper as she shoves her fists into her eyes.
"Agent Romanov is on her way up," the AI announces. "She has asked that I make sure your ass is up and dressed."
Tessa frowns deeply and looks down at her attire. Black leggings and one of Bucky's smaller T-shirts, the kind that grips to every ripple of muscle on his body and yet flows freely around her still-skeletal frame. "Yeah," she mutters, a note of absolute defeat to her tone. "I'm dressed." And she leans forward again, dropping her head to the countertop with a soft thud.
Natasha doesn't knock, doesn't even announce her presence when she enters. She simply prances in like she owns the place and plops down onto a stool next to the pathetic-looking brunette. "Rough day?" she asks, snagging a piece of sliced banana off the peanut butter toast Bucky had made for breakfast. Tessa shrugs, never lifting her head from the bar. "It's ten AM," she mutters, disapproving brow raised high.
She turns her face slightly, just enough so that the words that slip from her mouth don't get fully engulfed by the cold marbled surface beneath her. "Take me back to bed."
Natasha's eyes narrow suspiciously as they rove over her friend's form. "Are you sick right now?" she asks, concern palpable beneath the clipped words. "Should I get Bruce?"
She shakes her head, forehead swiping casually along the surface of the counter. "No," she breathes out. "Just… dying."
"Well," she says amid a small relieved breath. "What else is new?"
Her head pivots further to the side so that she can look over at the redhead to her right. "I'm useless," she admits blandly. "I'm not used to being useless." A dramatic – yet utterly sincere – pout overtakes her face. "I don't like it."
Natasha gives her a disappointed look. "Who says you're useless? Tell me and I'll kick their ass."
A small grin blooms at that, though no smile reaches Tessa's eyes. "I just… can't. I can't do anything."
"Bruce said you've been working in the lab," she states with a shrug. "Even though he thinks it's a waste of time… growing super-soldier cells." She rolls her eyes with the kind of deep-seated annoyance that can only come from having to hear the same damn diatribe arguments over and over and over again.
Tessa pulls herself upright – slowly and pitifully – and turns in her seat to stare at her friend. "I've been given permission to check in at the lab. But I can't even do anything in the allotted two hours." She lets out a long huff, her eyes flitting off towards nothing as the deep frown returns to her face. "And James is right anyway. They know what they're doing down there. They don't need me."
"Is he the one who told you you're useless? Because I feel like it's been forever since I got to kick the Winter Soldier's ass, and I am aching for a good fight right now."
"No," she mutters weakly before glancing back up at her friend, suspicion lacing her gaze. "Why are you aching for a fight?"
Nat's eyes shift away for an almost indiscernible moment, a barely there tell. She shrugs. "No reason." And grabs another chunk of banana.
"Bullshit," she counters, narrowing her eyes. She continues to stare at Natasha for a long moment, her expression shifting – once commanding, then incredulous, almost pleading, ending with annoyed – as she waits. "People can talk to me, you know. I'm not so fragile that just hearing what's going on will break me."
"I know that," she says, voice deep, words clipped.
"So…"
Natasha pulls in a swift breath – the very sound of it giving off as much irritation as her perturbed eyeroll – and she leans back on her stool. "Tony thinks that Secretary Ross is in on… well, everything," she announces softly, gauging Tessa's reaction from the corner of her eye. When the woman barely even blinks at the news, she goes on. "We've had him bugged for months." She shrugs. "He's been good, though. Careful. But…" She shakes her head dismissively, words halting in her throat.
"But what?"
Her gaze rises to meet Tessa's bright green eyes. "All of that intel we discovered, that we found from the warehouse you got off of Atkinson…" She notices Tessa's shoulders hitch, a brief tremble running through her body at mention of the woman's name. "We've all been taking turns digging through it, but there's just so damn much. Stark is down there right now. He's been walled off in the store room for the last 24 hours or so. Ever since he found mention of Ross' Bio-Tech Force Enhancement project – you know, the one that – "
She nods, cutting her off with, "Brought out the Hulk. Yeah, I know."
Natasha nods. "Well, there were some files on it. And one of the names in there was Eric Campbell." Tessa gives her a curious look, shaking her head slightly as if to say, I don't know who that is. "He was with you in Nunavut," she breathes out slowly, cautiously. "Just in the beginning. He's former US military intelligence."
Again, her head lobs side to side. "I don't… I don't remember him. Or that name."
"What about Dr. Elizabeth Spangler?" she asks with an anticipatory glean. "Does that name ring a bell?"
Tessa's forehead furrows as the eerily familiar name bounces round her head. "Maybe. Sort of." She looks back at her eager friend. "I don't know."
"Well, we've been looking for her ever since your friend, MacTaggert gave us her name."
"Dr. MacTaggert knew her?"
She nods. "Said she was someone who might know something. But that was pretty much all she gave us. And we never found a trace of her. Then Stark found her name right alongside Campbell's… both tucked away in a report on a failed experiment done by the Enhancement project about ten years ago. While Ross was working there."
"Pretty big coincidence," she mutters, an angry smolder taking over her face.
Natasha nods absently, contemplative look rolling across her features. "Yeah. Pretty big." She lets out a long sigh and cocks her head towards Tessa. "But we don't really have anything beyond that. Which is why Stark is doing his best college-student-high-on-Adderall impersonation downstairs right now. This is all very… delicate. If we rock the boat too far we'll capsize and this whole thing'll go to shit. Ross still has the ability to shut the Avengers down if he wants to. So we have to handle this… carefully."
"But… if we don't find anything… or if he doesn't give anything up…"
"Then we'll switch gears," she says with a casual shrug. "Believe it or not, I've been the voice of reason on this one. Tony was ready to go knock down his office door. And Steve… well, let's just say he's been having very un-Captain-America-like thoughts lately." The corner of her mouth pulls into an amused smirk. "We'll do whatever we have to do. And we'll do it however we have to do it."
"Then I guess it's a good thing you're aching for a fight."
She nods slowly – "Yeah, I guess so." – and looks away for a fraction of a moment. "Maybe you should go down there, to the store room," she suggests then, the idea just hitting her. "So much of the stuff down there is lab reports and scientific… crap. And you know so much about this. About mutant history and the people who've worked on the X-gene. You'd probably be able to piece things together a hell of a lot faster than the rest of us."
She shrugs, frown pulling once again at the corners of her mouth. "I think I'm still under house arrest."
Natasha scoffs. "You just said you've been granted permission to spend two hours at the lab. If they really don't need you there, maybe this is a way to be more… useful." Tessa gives her a harsh glare, bringing a small smile to her face and causing a hint of chuckle to rise up in her chest. "I'm starting to worry about Tony down there all alone," she says then, blowing out a wistful breath.
She nods, "Yeah. Okay. I can do that," spilling easily from her lips as she begins picking at her breakfast for the first time since it was set down in front of her. "But when my husband and your… Bruce team up to scold me for working in a dark, dusty basement instead of spending my time resting and waiting to die, I expect you to take the blame for planting this seed in my head."
"Noted," she confirms, swiveling in her seat to glance over at the front door as it suddenly swings open.
Bucky lumbers in, grocery bags in hand and bitter glower on his face when he spots Natasha sitting casually in his home.
Tessa does a double take as he makes his way into the kitchen. "Am I losing time? Did I pass out again?" she asks with a joking lilt. He glares at her – utterly unamused – before dropping the bags onto the counter. "I thought it was going to be a two-hour expedition," she says with a small grin.
He shrugs. "Robson and Reynolds both slipped on some ice and took about half the team down with them."
Natasha snorts out a laugh as Tessa frowns and asks, "Is everyone alright? Did they go up to medical?"
"Yeah," he mutters as he digs around in the paper sacks, pulling out handfuls of fruits and vegetables. "I had to carry Reynolds up like a damn baby." He pivots on one foot, swings the refrigerator door open using just his pinky, and drops the food inside before turning back to the women at the counter with a raised brow. "I think he liked it. A little too much."
"How come all of these newbies only have eyes for you?" Natasha asks, a petulant note to her otherwise perfectly even tone.
"I'm sure Robson wouldn't mind getting in your pants," he tells her, diving into the second bag. "Even after Brazil." He pulls out a box of Cheeze-Its and glares at it before turning to Tessa, a look of really? oozing from his deep blue eyes.
She shrugs in response. "You told me to get what I wanted when you put me in charge of ordering the groceries."
"You won't eat peanut butter toast," he mutters, shooting his chin out towards her barely touched breakfast, "but this crap does it for you."
"Those are the snack crackers of the gods."
"Mm-hmm." He drops the box on the counter and reaches back into the bag. "By the way, I saw Banner in medical and he said he was gonna come down to talk to us."
"Uh oh," Natasha intones playfully. "Think he intercepted the grocery delivery before Barnes got there? What else did you get?"
Bucky turns slowly with two large, paper-wrapped parcels in his hand and a baffled brow raised high. "Tuna steaks?"
Tessa nearly springs from her seat, childlike enthusiasm washing over her face as she pulls herself up onto her knees and leans over the breakfast bar. "Oh, yeah! I found a recipe for a tuna tartare cake."
"A what?" he asks, forehead furrowing even further. "You hate seafood."
"It's not for us," she counters, a look of duh painted across her features. "It's for Eddie and Phoebe."
"Who the hell is Phoebe?" he asks, utterly taken aback, confusion mounting to the point of frustration.
"Phoebe's my cat," Natasha replies with an annoyed glare.
His mouth hangs agape for a long moment, bottom lip pulling just a bit as though he's about to speak, about to ask the right question, the question that will earn him a response that somehow gets all of this noise to make sense. But the only question he's able to utter – the obvious one, of course, but the one he's honestly most afraid to hear the answer to – is, "You bough tuna steaks… for cats?"
Tessa offers a small shrug. "I missed their birthday. So we're throwing them a party." She looks to Natasha, who simply nods in return.
Again, he's left stunned and silent, giant pieces of fish still firmly clenched in his raised hand. "You're throwing a party," he drawls out, long and slow as if even he's not quite sure of the words being strung together, "for cats… for their birthday?"
"Yeah," she says simply, expression unfazed. "It's their first birthday."
"Yeah, Barnes," Natasha mutters with a crooked, playful smile. "It's kind of a big deal."
He stares blankly at the two for another still and silent moment, contemplating what – if anything – he should say. A birthday party for a cat? For two cats? Two cats who – by the way – hate each other… poor Eddie catching a claw to the face the last time Natasha brought her hellion over. And this tuna… how much did this cost? How much was the rest of this going to cost? Was this something that they were planning on doing here, in his apartment? Were they were going to invite people over? Would there be birthday gifts? His eyes blow wide as one more awful thought hits… Did they plan on putting birthday hats on these defenseless animals?
Natasha watches intently – a delighted twinkle building in her eye – as Bucky sputters before them. "I think you might've finally broken him," she mutters softly to Tessa, her highly amused gaze trained on the tuna juices now steadily dripping down his outstretched arm.
Tessa bites down on her bottom lip to keep from laughing… or to keep from laughing too loud anyway. But the small cackle that spills from her lips is enough to catch Bruce's attention as he wanders casually in through the front door – left conveniently open by Bucky. "What's so funny?" he asks, sidling up next to Natasha.
"Barnes just found out about the party on Caturday," she intones, voice filled with mirth. She leans over and pops a quick kiss on his cheek, ignoring his irritated groan at mention of what he already dubbed the most ridiculous waste of time ever. "I gotta go help Vision out in the computer dungeon," she says to everyone before turning on a heel and heading out the door, not so much as pausing for a goodbye.
Bucky finally breaks free of his stupor – the slam of the front door jolting him back to reality – and he tosses the fish into the fridge, wiping his hands on his thick track pants before crumpling up the now-empty grocery bags in an inadvertent show of frustration. He grabs the box of Cheeze-Its and spins around, plunking it onto the breakfast bar in front of Tessa with an annoyed – and oddly self-satisfied – huff.
"Oh," Bruce says suddenly, reaching over and grabbing the crackers away from Tessa just as she begins to pry open the box. "Um… no."
"What?!" she barks out, reaching pathetically for the snack as he deposits the crackers onto the counter furthest from her. "Hey!"
"Yeah," he mutters, clearing his throat almost nervously. "We have to talk."
The irritation melts from Bucky's face and is quickly replaced with concern, the uneasy quality to Bruce's voice setting off a small panic in his chest. "What's wrong?"
He pulls out the dreaded tablet – the one that never seems to reflect good news nor positive test results, the one that Bucky has thought about smashing into smithereens more than a time or two – and he hands it over to Tessa. "Your labs from this morning," he tells her, watching intently as she peruses the results of her most-recent bloodwork and urinalysis.
Her eyes narrow as she scrolls through, lips pinching tightly together. "Great," she mutters under her breath as she reaches the end of the report. "Fucking great."
"What?" Bucky asks bitingly.
Bruce answers for her. "Acute renal failure." He takes in Bucky's horrified stare for little more than a moment before ducking his gaze away, clearing his throat once more, and turning back to Tessa. "I want to start you on dialysis as soon as possible. I should be able to get a machine delivered by the end of the day tomorrow. We can do outpatient, but I'd really prefer – "
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," she interrupts, dropping the tablet to the countertop with a clatter and rising swiftly from her stool. She holds up a single, stilling hand. "I think it's a little soon for that."
"Tessa," he breathes out harshly, seemingly ready for an argument. "You only have one kidney and it is shutting down."
"That is not what these results show," she argues, her tone taking on a calm, confident edge.
His shoulders stiffen, nostrils flaring as the fight inside him grows. "Your GFR is 32!" he nearly shouts, incredulity dripping from the words. He'd been telling her for weeks that this was going to happen. He'd been trying – every damn day – to get her to see that they had to do something to fix this… something real and not based on some crazy, convoluted experiment with Steve's blood.
As his temper flares, calm demeanor rapidly evaporating, Tessa's composure only strengthens. "Yes, but," she points out in an almost patronizing voice, "my albumin levels are holding steady."
"That doesn't…" he sputters, frustration lacing his tone and causing an angry blush to creep over his cheeks. He pulls in a deep, steadying breath. "You've been hyperkalemic for weeks."
"Yeah," she intones blithely. "And we've been working through it. With diuretics and insulin and glucose – the administration and impacts of which suck by the way. But," she reaches out and grabs the tablet again, thrusting it against his chest. "My potassium levels have stayed mostly level."
"Yeah, at seven or above!" he nearly shouts, angrily snatching the tablet from her hand.
Bucky huffs out a frustrated breath and winds his arms tightly over his chest. "Someone wanna explain this to me?" he asks with an impatient tenor. "Cause I don't have a clue what the hell you're talking about."
Bruce turns to face him, wide eyes flashing from behind the translucent lenses of his glasses. "The lack of aldosterone caused by her adrenal insufficiency has led to hyperkalemic RTA, causing a chronic acidity that's created a steady decrease in renal function over the last few weeks."
"Thanks," he deadpans with an annoyed glare. "That really clears things up."
Tessa lets out a short snicker, drawing both men's eyes to her, each burning with a fiery, critical glare. This isn't funny. But the nearly identical, reproachful stares cause the corner of her mouth to tick up – unbidden – into a shit-eating grin. She pulls back on the smile, chokes down a laugh, and turns to her husband. "There's too much potassium in my system and it's causing problems with my kidney," she explains easily.
Bruce quickly adds on, "And likely doing permanent damage."
She rolls her eyes before looking back at him. "You don't know that. This has been going on for a few weeks, not months."
"It isn't going to get any better, Tess," he barks back at her, posture stiffening. "We know what's causing this. As long as your hypothalamus – "
"I know what needs to be done, Bruce," she bites out, turning on him with a set jaw and an angry glare. Her tone remains even, but an obvious annoyance still wraps around the edges. "I'm trying to fix what's causing this."
He folds his arms across his chest and gives her a disappointed look. "You can play around in the lab all you want, but all you're really doing is playing. You think your little experiment with super soldier serum is really going to do anything?"
"Of course I do," she nearly shouts, exasperation spilling out of her. "Why the hell do you think I'm doing it?!"
"I don't know!" he yells in return, getting equally as heated. "Because you'd rather go hide in a lab trying to find the next best thing instead of actually dealing with what's right in front of you?"
"What's right in front of me? You think I don't know what's right in front of me? I'm the one who's gonna die if this fails!"
"And I'm the one who's working right now to save you – using real medicine – so that doesn't happen when this… this… bullshit experiment does fail."
"You're gonna eat your words, you big green… jerk," she growls out, raising a pointed finger and jamming it into his shoulder. "And I hope you choke on them."
"Will you two stop?!" Bucky shouts as he watches the fuming scientists face off in the doorway of his kitchen. It would almost be funny – these two geniuses lobbing insults and accusations and threats amid nonsensical medical jargon – if the stakes weren't so high… "Jesus, you're like fucking children," he issues out in an exasperated tone. His head falls back as a quick sigh spills out of him. "Just… what do we do now?"
Bruce spins to face him. "Dialysis."
Tessa does the same, fists on her hips as she states, "Maintenance of current protocols."
Bucky rolls his eyes before squeezing them firmly shut and roughly pinching the bridge of his nose. "This isn't gonna work," he mumbles, mostly to himself as flashes of these two stubborn idiots facing off repeatedly over the past several weeks play out on the backs of his lids.
"No, it won't," Bruce says pointedly before looking back at Tessa. "It won't be enough."
She shakes her head and lets out an annoyed huff. "That's not what he meant." Her eyes tick away from his steely glare for a quick moment, shifting over to her clearly irritated husband before bouncing back to Bruce. "I want to bring in Mattingly," she declares with a stoic nod. "It's time."
"What?" he asks, absolute bewilderment tumbling over the word.
"The whole reason I hired Mattingly in the first place was for her skills as a surgeon and a clinician. She's better than both of us at actually treating people."
"You don't trust me," he mutters, a statement, not a question. A look of hurt flashes across his face.
"I do trust you, Bruce," she explains, taking a cautious step towards him. "But I trust myself too, my own instincts. And right now, we're at odds. So… I want another opinion. Someone good. Someone smart and skilled. Someone I trust."
Bucky lets out a plaintive sigh. "You'll have to tell her you're a mutant, right?"
She turns slowly to face him. "Yeah. But I'm okay with that. I trust her."
Bruce shakes his head lamentingly, but he says nothing, makes no argument one way or the other, not even when Bucky looks to him for one.
"And you know what," Tessa starts up again, her voice rising a bit in volume. "I think we should tell the support team too. We're keeping them at arms' length to hide my secret… but there's so much work to do. Why can't they go sift through the data pulled from that warehouse? Or… or… someone could've gone with Bobby. What, are we so scared that our own people can't be trusted?"
Bucky spins on her. "Are you being serious right now?" he asks, completely stony-faced. "It was someone from the support team who sold you out to begin with."
"Yeah, because she had a hard-on for you," she spits out, eyes suddenly wide and bit wild. "But… that doesn't mean the rest of them are like that. And… fuck!" She lets out an irritated scoff, rocking back on her heels for a long moment as she works to calm the sudden influx of emotion – of adrenaline – coursing through her. "We need help," she says after a long, deep breath, voice settling a bit. "Tony's downstairs right now, going through boxes of crap on his own while this whole team of people are… are… ice skating around the compound."
"Baby," Bucky starts, a clear beginning with no end in mind.
She holds up a single, stilling hand – "I'm not wrong about this." – and backs slowly away, grabbing an old, felled sweatshirt from the arm of the couch. She pulls the giant hoodie on and blows out an irritated breath to rid the suddenly staticky hair from her face. Then she looks at Bruce. "Bring Mattingly in. Give her my file… give her everything. I want to meet later this afternoon to hear her thoughts."
Bucky narrows his eyes as he watches her sidestep a still silently brooding Bruce and toe on her sneakers. "Where are you going?" he asks, both suspicion and frustration dripping from his lips.
She tosses him a small, resolute smile – one that he knows well, one that always means the same thing… her mind is made up – and she states, "I'm gonna go help Tony out for a while. Just for a while," she adds upon seeing his mouth open to protest. "If you want to send any support staff down to relieve us, well, I guess that's your call." And with that, she spins on a heel and walks stridently out the door.
000
"I like this," he says, heaving another box up off the pile to their left and plopping it down in front of her. He gives her that typical Stark smirk and swipes at his brow, leaving a muddy trail across his forehead as the dust from the stored boxes mixes with his sweat. "Just like the olden days."
Tessa rolls her eyes. "Jesus, Tony," she gripes, ducking her head to hide the admittedly amused and wistful smile on her face. "Olden days," she repeats with a mocking huff.
He merely shrugs and directs Friday to pump up the music, a little AC/DC thrumming through the room and reverberating up into their chests. He's right, she thinks. It is like the olden days… those days back in the beginning, when Tony first brought her on. At first she assumed he wanted to work closely with her just to gauge whether or not she was really worth his time. Actually, even after years of adamant denial on his part, she's still fairly certain that's what he was doing. But in no time at all, the two found a sort of rhythm together. She may not have understood all of his ideas off the bat, but she had a way of being able to calm his constantly spinning mind by getting him to explain his whirring, colliding thoughts to her. And she was not only smart enough to be able to fathom what he was saying – once it was all laid out before her – but she was all too often tripping over herself to share her own thoughts as well, eagerly hoping to build off of his, always wanting to make something far better than either of them had proposed at the outset.
Of course… "I don't remember there being so much dust back in those olden days," she mutters through a cough as she breaks into the next box.
He turns on her with a worried scowl. "Don't breath any of that crap in. I'll never hear the end of it if you get researcher's lung down here."
She shakes her head and barks out a soft laugh, pulling out a stack of files. "The book plague," she muses with a grin.
He turns back to his own stack of papers. "The brown death… spread not by fleas on rats, but by dust mites carried on cardboard."
"Well," she breathes out thickly, flipping down her glasses to prepare to peruse more paperwork. "I'm probably going to die anyway. Might as well be of something… interesting."
"We're all gonna die, buttercup. But I'll be damned if you go before me."
She shoots him a sly look, single brow cocked high. "You already died. Remember?"
He lets out a low groan, never spinning to face her. "Don't remind me."
The two fall into a long and comfortable silence, each intermittently humming along and mouthing certain verses from the pulsating music as they scan their separate files. All of the thumb drives, hard drives, even old floppy discs had been sent up for Vision to pore over, his ability to plow through computer data – obviously – far superior to any of the non-android Avengers. But so much of the crap collected from that giant warehouse was just this – file boxes and Tupperware containers and cardboard caskets where data – perhaps no longer useful, perhaps just abandoned – had been interred and forgotten. Forgotten until someone campaigned – clearly all across the globe – to gather it together. For what precise purpose, they still don't quite know.
"How's that going, anyway?" Tony asks, not long into the second song on his new playlist. "You know, turning your brain into super-soldier soup."
She flips another file shut and drops it into a pile by her feet. "Not my brain, just my hypothalamus."
"Well, that's in your brain, right?" He turns just in time to see her give a small nod. "Then I'm calling it the super-brain serum."
She bites out a quick chuckle. "Call it what you want, I guess."
He stares at her for a long moment, watching closely as she squints – even through the glasses – down at the papers in her lap. Her small shoulders are hunched, frame trembling just the slightest bit. And all at once he feels a deep foreboding trepidation roll through him.
When they'd first found her, brought her home, started to help her heal, he figured she'd recover in no time at all. Even the motorcycle accident last year, the one that scared him half to death, not just because she could've died, but because it made her – not that anyone would've ever said it to her face – weak… even that, she actually bounced back from fairly quickly. Not withstanding her little heal thyself stunt, of course. But the truth is, Tessa is just too damn stubborn to keep down. He's known that for years, for as long as he's known her. It's what he held so tightly to after the mission where she drowned, after that damn stupid bike wreck, all throughout her rebuilding with Xavier, and all the while she was kidnapped and kept from them.
He had no doubt that she would return to herself, rebuild herself, reclaim herself.
But now… now, he's, well, he's scared.
"Bruce doesn't think it'll work," he says, the words rolling off his tongue before he even realizes that they were bouncing around inside his head. Though, really, they've been bouncing around in there for quite some time now.
She nods, never looking up from her work. "Yeah, but he usually thinks things won't work. He didn't believe we could effectively integrate those biosensors into the exoskeleton of Steve's uniform."
Tony smirks, remembering the lame arguments the man had made all those years ago when he and Tessa began work on Cap's upgraded suit. And his bitter scoff – sans any words of either apology or congratulations – when they did achieve the feat. "He didn't think we could… build Vision either," he shares as well.
"Yeah, well, in fairness, you had a little help there."
He shrugs. "Still worked."
She glances up at him – finally – and gives him a small, oddly encouraging smile. "And this will work too," she states plainly before ducking her head again. "Just a matter of whether or not it'll work in time."
He frowns. "But everything is… holding steady. Right? Your… hormones or whatever?"
She snorts out a laugh and drops another file to the floor before reaching back into the box for the last small stack. "Yes, Tony. My hormones or whatever are holding steady." Once the files are settled in her lap, she releases a small sigh, settles back into her seat, and raises her gaze to meet his once more. "Sort of."
"Sort of?"
She stares at him for a long moment, clearly gauging what precisely she should or should not share with him. Then she laughs again, this one a bit harsher, a bit more bitter. "I shouldn't hide things from you, right?" she asks with a raised brow. "Hasn't really worked out well for us in the past."
He nods and reaches behind him to grab onto a chair. "True," he states simply, pulling the chair around and plopping down into it before her.
Another sigh, long and deflating. "My kidney's failing."
His face holds steady, though the deep brown of his eyes seems to darken. "Bruce didn't…" he begins, clearing his throat when he hears the pitch in his voice change. "He didn't mention that."
She shrugs. "Labs came back this morning," she mutters plainly. "We're going to try bringing Mattingly in." She gives him another small smile and admits – much to her own chagrin – "Might need to do dialysis."
He pulls in a long breath, feels it hitch a bit in his chest before it blows steadily out his nose. "Okay," he says with a decisive nod. "Okay. What do you need?"
"What do I need?" she asks, both surprise and incredulity peppering the words. "A dialysis machine, I guess. Maybe a new kidney?" she intones, waggling her eyebrows.
"Take mine," he utters without hesitation.
She laughs. "Too kind. But you're a different blood type, Tony. We're simply not a match," she says in a teasing tone.
"I can build you one," he offers next.
A contemplative look crosses her face. "Maybe. But probably not in time. And besides, it's this timebomb," she intones, tapping a finger at her skull, "that's really gonna take me out."
"You need more people in the lab? I'll give you as much staff as you need. Equipment?"
She shakes her head, another short chuckle spilling out. "We've got it, Tony. Really. I honestly think we're onto something here. I'm just… worried. About time."
He reaches out and wraps his hand around hers, her fingers still clutching the files in her lap. "I'll give you time then," he says, not even sure of what he means by the utterance. "Whatever you need, kid."
She nods, her expression falling as she lets her gaze drop away from his – away from those eager, desperate eyes. She looks down in her lap – down to the open file folder sitting there – just to get away. Her eyes narrow suddenly, head cocking to the side as she takes in a fervidly scrawled, barely legible signature sitting atop an all-too-familiar printed name. Thaddeus Ross.
"Tony," she breathes out, rolling her fingers in his grasp and tugging them away to tap wildly down on the page. "Ross," she mutters as her eyes trace over the signature again.
He grabs the file from her lap and quickly flips through it to investigate, his own eyes wide as they peruse the signed document, and additional ones hidden behind it. The next page holds the signature of another recognizable name – "Matthew Avignon" – one that triggers little more than a passing hint of a memory for Tessa until Tony mutters, "He was the head of Department H… guy in charge when they shut it down."
"What does he do now?" she asks hurriedly, ripping the page from Tony's grasp as though the document might hold the answers she seeks. She flips it over, looking for more than just the legalese, contractual jargon peppering the page prior to his signature. "When is this from?"
Tony pulls the file from her lap, flipping to the first page of the document. "November 20, 2015," he reads in a curious voice before looking up at her with a thoughtful frown. "That's just before we got involved with Lobe."
She scoots to the edge of her seat, peers intently over the top of the open file folder as he attempts to flip back to where he was. "Is there anything about Lobe?" she asks, reaching out and not-so-subtly muscling her way back into the small stack of papers.
He tugs them away with a short huff – "I don't know. Someone won't let me look." – and shuffles to the very end of the contract at the bottom of the stack. There's one more signed page, the legally binding language looking just the same – just as generically targeted to what appears to be a business merger – as the previous two signed documents. "Huh," Tony mutters, staring down at the name with a baffled expression. "2015." He looks up at Tessa. "I thought you said he was dead?"
She doesn't return his gaze, her stunned eyes fixed on the tight, careful signature below, easily discernible even as she reads it upside down. Her breath stills in her chest for a long moment, mouth hanging agape as she stares down at the name of a man who had died decades ago. A man who had been a well-established, well-regarded, older scientist when he consulted on Project Rebirth back in 1942. A man who, if alive today, would be well over 100 years old. A man who's name was almost synonymous with the Bogeyman for anyone who grew up learning history from Charles Xavier – and anyone who heard stories from the Wolverine.
Her lips pull together just enough to utter, in a voice somehow both shaky and resolute, "John Sublime," before she snaps the file shut, tears it from his lap, and leaps up to flee the room.
