I said it was going to get worse before it gets better. This chapter is definitely worse. I promise you the "better" will come, though. Just stick with me a little longer.
"What's the plan?" Barnes asked as soon as he and Tony were in the hallway outside the containment wing.
"I need to think," Tony replied. A lot had happened very quickly and he needed time to process it all… and to figure out the answer to Barnes' question. Obviously, the problem statement was getting the symbiote out of Steve, but exactly how they were going to do that, Tony had no idea. He, Bruce and Tsoukalos had been researching symbiotes throughout the day and how they operated, and were still only beginning to crack the surface of all the theories and internet folklore.
"Can I help?"
Tony almost snapped back that Barnes could definitely not help him think, but he stopped himself, knowing Barnes was asking if there was anything he could do to help free Steve. At least, that's what Tony thought he meant. He could have been misreading the entire situation.
"No," he said, and for some reason, that's when Tony really stopped to look at Barnes. His eyes were still puffy from displaced swelling from his broken nose, but the swelling as a whole seemed to be decreasing. Apparently his bastardized serum was speeding up his healing, just not as fast as it did for Steve. Barnes was still holding himself stiffly, as if every part of his body hurt, which was a sentiment Tony felt deep in his bones.
The next words out of Tony's mouth surprised the hell out of him. "When was the last time you slept?"
He clearly wasn't the only one who was surprised, because it took Bucky a second to answer. "The night before we left for D.C."
It was only then that Tony realized he had no idea what day or time it was. It had been dark when they had brought Steve back to the Tower, but some time had passed since then. He consulted his watch and determined that it was 11:37 PM on Thursday, almost thirty-two hours after the Avengers were supposed to report to D.C for the security briefing. In all that time, Tony hadn't slept that much either, but even he had unwillingly crashed for a few hours on the couch in his lab while he, Bruce and Tsoukalos worked.
"Go grab a few." It wasn't quite an order, but Tony was hoping there wasn't a lot of room for argument. There were already three of them working on the symbiote lore, which was probably two too many for the amount of information that was available, and Tony couldn't think of anything else to delegate. As Barnes opened his mouth to argue, Tony said, "we're going to need everyone at full strength when we figure this out."
Barnes must have seen the sense in those words since he nodded slowly. "You call me when you have something." In line with the rest of their conversation, it was phrased as a statement, not a question.
"I promise."
With that, Tony headed down the common lab, where Bruce and Tsoukalos were waiting.
"Did you see?" he asked as he dropped into his second-favorite chair. DUM-E quickly rolled over, carrying a smoothie and his throat spray on a metal tray. Now that he knew exactly how much time had passed since his injury, Tony felt a small wave of frustration rise at his throat not being better. His voice was still gravelly and low, and talking felt like he was swallowing razor blades. He knew he wasn't resting it like he was supposed to, but he'd brushed Dr. Han's advice away, promising himself that as soon as he figured this out, he'd rest it as much as the doctor wanted.
Bruce nodded. "I did."
"What do you think?"
"The symbiote thinks it's safe in Captain Rogers," Tsoukalos said from behind Tony, by the coffee nook. "As long as that's the status quo, it has no reason to leave."
"Steve's hurt pretty bad," Tony countered as he sprayed his throat then sipped at DUM-E's smoothie. Slowly but surely, the combination of the two again numbed the ache and made the rest of the conversation feasible. "Repulsor burns, the Hulk-strength tranq, and now a broken hand and dislocated shoulder. It's hardly making for a habitable environment." He paused for a second, then added, "It's actually doing most of the recent damage, which hardly seems like the kind of thing it'd want to do if it wants to stick around."
If Tsoukalos was offended by Tony's sharp words, he didn't show it. He wasn't as much of an expert on symbiotes as the team had been hoping, but given that he was open to the idea, it was easier to assign him an even share of the work than to convince someone else that this was a real possibility. "It's acting this way because you won't release Captain Rogers."
"If it keeps acting this way, there won't be much of Captain Rogers to release."
"Tony…" Bruce warned.
Tony made a face, but didn't outwardly apologize. He did though recalibrate; Tsoukalos was just here to help.
Tsoukalos just took a seat at the table and distributed two of the three mugs he'd been carrying to the Avengers. "I suspect, and Dr. Banner agrees, that the supersoldier serum is the reason the symbiote is so hesitant to leave. To achieve full control, as it's done, should be incredibly taxing to a normal body. The serum is repairing both that damage and the damage it's inflicting while you refuse to free it."
"It's not though," Tony said, which was entirely true. The minor damage Steve had accrued during the helipad fight—cuts, bruises, and the like—should have been well on their way to healed. Yet, in the Hulk's Playroom, they seemed to be as fresh and colorful as they had been Wednesday when Steve had been in surgery.
Tony and Bruce knew that the serum could only do so much, and that when it got overloaded with a massive number of injuries, it had to prioritize the most severe; in this case, it would seem to be focusing on whatever damage the symbiote was inflicting while continuing to control Steve, and leaving the minor damage to heal on its own. Unfortunately, the "minor" damage in this case also included the repulsor burns, which hadn't even started to close before Steve had reopened the one on his abdomen. If the symbiote didn't understand the inherent limit of Steve's superhealing, it was going to open the door to a host of other problems.
"The symbiote might not understand that," Bruce said, while Tony was coming to much of the same conclusion. "If all it has is memories of Steve's accelerated healing, it might think it can push indefinitely. Which makes Steve's body a far superior home than the rest of ours."
"Well we can't get rid of the serum," Tony said as he rubbed at the ache building behind his left eyebrow, "so how else do we make Steve's body uninhabitable?"
He was clearly hoping for an idea, especially since Tsoukalos and Bruce had been conferring while he and Barnes were talking with Steve, but all he heard was twin notes of silence. They weren't even the good kind of 'working' silence, where an idea would soon follow. They were the utterly confused, 'I have no idea' silence, which was getting more and more concerning as time drew on.
"Still no word from Drake?" he asked, and received two head shakes in return.
"I am still trying, sir," JARVIS reported.
Tony exhaled slowly, trying to tamp down on the frustration building inside him. "We need to figure out how to make Steve's body less exciting for the symbiote," he said, in case somehow repeating the task at hand would get more ideas flowing. "It likes the serum, but there has to be something else, something that would drive it away."
"What are we talking about here?" Tsoukalos asked. "Smells? Sights? Tastes?"
The briefest stirrings of an idea shot its way into Tony's brain. "I need to check on something," he said, as he abruptly stood up. "About that. I might have an idea."
It was only due to their many years working together that Bruce didn't question or ask to be brought along. "We'll keep at our research," was all Bruce said. "See if we can find any links. Let's check back in an hour?" It was purposefully open-ended, to not increase the already high pressure of the whole situation.
"Sure." Tony shot Bruce a grateful look, then walked out of the lab, caught the closest elevator and rode it up to his floor. He bypassed the living area and headed for the master bedroom. In his massive master closet, he pushed past the suits and shoes until the back paneling came into view. He dropped his palm against the exact middle of the wall, which immediately turned clear. With a soft whirring, a beam of light travelled up and down his hand, reading his biometrics.
After a moment, a door in the back of the closet clicked open, revealing a small space that housed a massive, yet neatly stacked shelfing unit. The boxes lining the shelves were mostly things from his parents and his childhood, hidden away here so as to not make the gossip magazines. The box Tony was looking for today was high on a shelf in the back, and he had to find a stepladder from the living space to pull it down.
The box was filled with papers from his dad: some bound into notebooks, others flying around on loose leaf, magazines, or whatever he had on hand when inspiration struck. Tony carefully dug through the box until he found a small leather-bound notebook closed with a thin strap.
He gently untied the fraying leather, then dropped to the floor, and started to read.
"I know how to fix him," Tony announced hours later, as he and Bruce walked into the conference room on the common floor where the remaining Avengers were gathered. Tony had texted them all an hour ago, after running his epiphany past Bruce and Dr. Tsoukalos. While they opposed the plan on the basis of what it meant for Steve, after having JARVIS run some simulations and reviewing the findings themselves, they had both agreed Tony's plan was the most reasonable path forward. Now, Bruce dropped into the closest available seat, while Dr. Tsoukalos remained in the common lab, having been asked to sit this meeting out. "But you're not going to like it."
This was also the first time Tony had seen the rest of the team in over thirty-six hours. He wasn't proud of it, but he hadn't exactly had a lot of free time in between all that had happened. To be fair though, he had been checking in over text messages and occasionally a video chat, but the words in the messages and the quality of the video call paled in comparison to the sight before him.
How? Clint asked. Since his jaw was wired together until the simple fracture healed, he was using his left hand to sign while his right pressed an ice pack to the side of his face. What little skin Tony could see around the instant ice pack was brightly colored, splotchy and assuredly very painful.
Clint's sentiment was quickly echoed by Barnes, who looked like he'd caught maybe an hour of sleep since Tony had last seen him. The swelling in his face was continuing to diminish but he was still holding himself with great care.
Unfortunately, he seemed to be the least injured of the rest of the Avengers.
Sam was looking at Tony but was having a hard time keeping his eyes focused. His head kept slipping forward slightly, like his neck forgot it was holding it up, before he managed to catch himself. There was a gnarly row of stitches just over his ear, more visible now that his hair had been totally shaved around it.
"Should he be here?" Tony asked, caught off-guard by Sam's condition. He'd known Sam had a concussion, but the severity had somehow not been previously mentioned.
"Probably not," Natasha replied from the other end of the table, where she was propping her leg up on the chair next to her. Her knee was wrapped in a metal brace and her face was dotted with an impressive array of colors. She was holding an ice pack to her ribs, but her breathing still sounded pained and hitched.
Agreed, Clint signed.
"You try getting him to go, though," she finished, tipping her head slightly at Sam and wincing.
"'m fine," Sam slurred before propping his elbow against the table and resting his head in his hand. His eyes closed slightly, which allowed Tony to see the lines of pain etched around them.
Jesus.
"How, Stark?" Barnes snapped, drawing Tony back to the task at hand.
"It likes to be warm." With that, Tony pointed to the wall behind him, onto which JARVIS projected a still of Steve walking around the Tower in a gaudy and over-the-top sweater adorned with his shield.
"Case 1: the ugly sweaters." Tony turned slightly so he could see both the screen and his teammates. "I bought him that as a joke. He's never actually worn it. I'm pretty sure he hates it."
"It could just be laundry day," Natasha said tiredly as she shifted the ice pack to the other side of her ribs.
"Sure. If it was just that day. Every day I saw him for the past two weeks, he was bundled up." Tony snapped his fingers and JARVIS quickly flipped through a slideshow of security footage stills of Steve in the common areas of the Tower. To Tony's point, he was always wearing long-sleeves and long pants, sometimes more than one layer's worth.
"'s winter," Sam slurred. "'s cold."
"If it was just that, sure. But let's look at Case 2: Adoption Day." The slideshow shifted to a still of Steve from last Saturday, moments before the team needed to leave for the event. He was hunched over slightly and staring wide-eyed at the snow outside the picture window in the common room. "We'll come back to his attire later, but all of us know how much he loves animals. The only reason he didn't go was because he was cold."
"Or because he almost died a week ago and needed a day off," Bruce said. Tony wrenched his head around and shot Bruce a withering look.
"They're going to say it anyway," Bruce retorted. "I'm just getting it out of the way."
"Look at his eyes," Tony said, making a circular motion with his hand. JARVIS responded by zooming in the footage to focus on Steve's slightly panicked expression. "He had the same look on his face while we were watching The Witcher earlier, but only after it started snowing. He was fine until then."
Tony pushed his index finger and thumb together and JARVIS returned the still to its normal magnification. "He's also wearing two extremely heavy jackets and isn't even breaking a sweat in the 74 degree Tower."
It was kinda weird, Clint signed, which Tony needed JARVIS to translate since Clint was now outside of his elementary signing abilities. He lives for those adoption events.
There were no more objections, so Tony motioned for JARVIS to flip to the third still, which showed Steve refusing the smoothie from Barnes early in his recovery.
"Food," Tony then stated. "Steve hasn't drunk a single cold smoothie, eaten ice cream, or so much as touched anything else directly out of the freezer since his injury."
"Maybe the ingredients didn't taste good to him," Bruce chimed in. This time his voice was a little higher to let Tony know he was following a script and not really objecting.
Tony snapped his fingers again and the screen flipped through various stills of Steve eating every ingredient Barnes had thrown into his uncharacteristically fruity smoothies over the past two weeks. "The only thing he doesn't eat is the ice."
It might have just been Tony's lack of sleep, but it felt like the team was warming up to his hypothesis.
"And my final point." He snapped one last time and a picture of the thermostat in Steve's room appeared on the wall.
"90 degrees?" Barnes read in disbelief.
"His room is at ninety degrees. I know he was frozen and all, but he's never had it this high before. Even after he moved in." Tony looked over at the screen and a line chart appeared, with dates on the x-axis and temperature on the y-axis. Steve's room remained around 80 degrees year-round, until the day he'd gotten home from the hospital last week, when it had slowly risen up to 90 degrees and stayed that way ever since.
It took a minute, but then Barnes must have figured out where Tony was headed, since his face paled, which only made his swollen eyes stand out more. "No."
"It's the only way."
"Wha's?" Sam slurred without opening his eyes, and Tony couldn't help but again think that he needed to be back in medical.
"We need to make his body uninhabitable for the symbiote," Tony explained. "We need to make him cold."
On the other side of the table, Natasha let out a sharp inhale, but didn't vocalize a response. In direct opposition, Clint's fingers were flying, translated by JARVIS to ask, How cold, exactly?
"As cold as it takes for the symbiote to leave," Tony replied.
"Jesus." Barnes scrubbed his flesh hand across his forehead while a myriad of emotions crossed his face.
Tony walked over to Barnes and sat across from him. "I need you to give me the okay," he said softly.
Barnes' gaze snapped up. "You can't ask me to do that."
"I have to. I need someone who knows Steve better than any of us, to tell me that's what he'd want." Sure, Bruce and Dr. Tsoukalos had agreed that Tony's plan seemed to be their only option, but he needed that extra confirmation from Barnes, who had known Steve the longest, before they went ahead with the plan.
Barnes looked about a breath away from full-blown panic, but he pulled in a shallow inhale and stared up at the wall, which JARVIS had lined with all of Tony's evidence. "What do you think, JARVIS?" he asked.
"I agree with Sir. I believe our best chance of freeing Captain Rogers is lowering his body temperature to make it incongruent with the symbiote's wants."
"Will he survive, in his current condition?"
"It will depend on how long it takes the symbiote to leave."
Barnes blanched. "That's not good enough," he said after a moment. "I need to know what his chances are."
Tony threw open his hand and calculations and data from him, Bruce and Tsoukalos, overlapping and messy, appeared onscreen. Also featured was a picture of the page from his dad's notebook detailing his original notes and observations of the supersoldier serum. "If his body temp stays above 80, we should be able to save him."
SHOULD!? Clint signed and somehow, the stress translated just fine through JARVIS' mechanical tone.
"It's all I have."
Barnes was quiet for a long moment before he nodded. "I don't think we have a choice." He looked over at Tony. "Do it."
Tony nodded back, then stood up. "We'll get started right away."
Inside the dark room, Steve woke up shivering. He coughed, causing the aching in his chest to increase, then winced as he sucked icy air into his lungs.
His eyes flew open and he saw icicles hanging from what he presumed was the ceiling of the dark room. The floor was equally cold, so he forced himself into a sitting position, pulled his knees to his chest, and wrapped his arms around them to keep his body heat contained. It should have hurt the burns on his side and abdomen, but that pain was lost in the chill… and the impending panic.
What the hell was happening?
Outside the dark room, his body was waking up, also shivering. It was in the same clear-walled container as before, but the temperature of the container had dropped significantly too. As his body took stalk of its new injuries, Steve realized his body been relieved of the pajama pants, and had been left only in boxers and the gauze holding bandages to his various wounds. His right arm was now in a sling—Steve didn't know why—his hand was in a cast—Steve didn't remember hurting that either—and there was an oxygen mask over his mouth that was puffing with each inhale, but had a slight aftertaste.
It took him a moment, but then Steve connected the dots. Whatever was controlling him clearly liked being warm—warmer than even Steve preferred normally—so his team was making his body cold, in hopes the thing would leave.
His body must have realized the same thing, for it threw off the oxygen mask and sling, lurched unsteadily to its feet and stumbled over to the clear wall. Tony was standing on the other side, trying to look stoic, but failing miserably. Behind him, Bucky was a totally blank slate. It was only the small shift of his eyes every so often that let Steve know Bucky was still in there, and that he hadn't reverted to his old Soldier ways.
"What is thissss?" his body hissed.
"One last time," Tony said, regaining some of his composure, "leave, or we'll make you."
"You'll killlll him."
It was Bucky who spoke, his expression never wavering. "So be it."
Whatever was controlling Steve must have realized that Bucky spoke the truth, for Steve's body began banging his fists, both injured and not, against the glass. Not only did the glass not shatter, but the temperature in the room dropped noticeably.
"There are punishments for not behaving," Tony explained.
Steve's body stopped banging on the clear containment wall, then stepped back and threw itself into it. The wall groaned with the impact but held steady. On the other side of the glass, Tony had taken a hurried step back but Bucky held his position, both impassive and resolute.
"It won't do any good," Bucky stated as the temperature in the containment unit dropped again.
Inside the dark room, Steve pulled himself into a tighter ball, his breath starting to hurt as it slid in and out of his lungs. His teeth were chattering and the icy wind was searing his eyes, but he didn't argue, didn't barter, didn't try to change his body's mind. He'd accepted his fate the moment he'd realized what Tony and Bucky's plan was.
I don't blame you, he thought, squeezing his eyes closed in concentration, hoping they'd somehow understand.
"You should," a voice came from the empty space above him. It startled Steve, since it was the first time whatever was controlling him had spoken to him directly.
"I don't," he gasped as his words were lost in the icy wind that was rapidly building in intensity. "You're the one who won't leave! You've brought this upon yourself!"
"No!" The exclamation was so strong, Steve swore he felt his brain vibrate inside his skull. "It's them!"
"Get out!" Steve commanded, dredging up every ounce of force left in his frozen body.
"Never."
Tony was painfully aware of every degree the room temperature dropped, and how that impacted Steve's body temperature. The container was down to about sixty degrees, with Steve's temperature hovering around ninety-seven.
Steve threw himself at the glass again, and the room's temperature dropped to fifty-five. Again, to fifty. Again, to forty-five.
Steve was now standing there, glaring at the two of them, his chest heaving with exertion. Then, he looked up at the ceiling and screamed. The sound was so unexpected yet so raw and agonized that Tony felt himself recoil. In all their history, in all Steve's injuries, he had never made a sound like that—even after the Triskelion, when he'd been all but dying. He grunted and panted and ground his teeth and swore like the soldier he was but didn't ever scream.
"Soundproof, J," Tony ground out, barely audible over Steve's screams. As the sound from the containment unit cut out, Tony shot a quick glance at Barnes, who continued staring blankly at his friend; if Tony wasn't mistaken, though, he was a shade paler than before.
Undeterred, Steve's body continued to launch itself at the glass while its mouth remained open in a silent cry. With every collision, the temperature in the room dropped five degrees, but Steve's body didn't let up in the slightest.
The monitoring on the far wall showed Steve's internal temperature had just crossed ninety degrees; that was past hypothermic for a normal human, but Tony had seen Steve accidentally subjected to these conditions on an earlier mission, before Tony had redesigned his pitiful excuse for a suit, and Steve had come out fine. Hopefully the same would be true here, once the symbiote had left his body.
Hopefully.
On the other side of the glass, Steve's lips were tinged blue and he was exhaling clouds of steam. He might have even been shivering a little.
"Leave," Tony repeated, to which Steve just crashed into the glass harder and faster. The temperature dropped accordingly and, a few agonizingly long moments later, Steve started to slow down.
"Vital functions critical," JARVIS reported, and Tony felt a lump sink from his throat into his stomach.
"Keep going."
Steve was swaying on his feet, blinking owlishly at Tony and Barnes. Then, at a body temperature of eighty-two degrees, his eyes fluttered closed and he collapsed.
"Get out," Barnes growled, his voice raw with disuse.
Without warning, Steve's back arched and he began to convulse.
"Captain Rogers is having a seizure," JARVIS stated, even though that was abundantly clear.
Tony glanced over at Barnes, who didn't look away from his dying friend.
"Keep going," Tony repeated as his stomach knotted. Given the symbiote's reluctance to leave yesterday, he'd known they'd end up somewhere around here, but that didn't make it any easier to watch, or to not tell JARVIS to raise the temperature in the Playroom.
Blood began dripping out of Steve's ears, then his nose, and mouth, and red started to dot the bandages around his abdomen, neck, hip and thigh. His eyes rolled back, but the lids were still slightly open, revealing just the hint of white as his body continued to shake.
After another moment, Steve's eyes snapped open, all white, pupils not in sight, and something small and grey slid out of his ear. Steve's body spasmed one more time then crashed to the ground, limp.
"That better not be part of his brain," Barnes growled, barely audible at only a few feet away.
Before Tony could respond, the greyish blob, less than a quarter of an inch in size by JARVIS' estimations, began crawling away.
Tony waited until it was on the other side of the containment unit before making a motion with his hand. A dividing wall snapped down the middle of the unit, separating Steve from the thing that had been controlling him.
"Full scan, J."
The greyish blob flipped so it was facing Tony and Barnes, then it began throwing itself at the exterior wall separating them. It splattered itself into about a half-inch circle but did little damage to the reinforced wall. It threw itself backward, formed a tiny thin rod and tried again, this time cracking the clear wall slightly.
"It is gone, sir," JARVIS reported.
"Then destroy at will."
The temperature on Steve's side of the wall quickly rose to a normal temperature, while it continued to plummet on the symbiote's side. The symbiote's half of the unit began to vibrate, with what Tony assumed would have been shrieks if the sound had still been enabled. It threw itself again at the wall in its pointed shape, cracking the wall a bit more, but as it drew itself back for another blow, a laser shot out of the upper corner of the symbiote's side of the unit. The symbiote shifted gears and began racing around the room, trying to avoid the laser. A quick game of chase ensued, but eventually the laser caught up to the symbiote and sliced it into pieces. The various parts tried to coagulate, but couldn't in the sub-zero temperatures. They wiggled individually a few times, then went still.
In that same instant, Barnes stumbled forward and began fumbling with the lock on the door to Steve's half of the Playroom. "We need a doctor," he mumbled, while continuing to try and fail to input his passcode.
Before Tony could order an override, JARVIS slid open the door, sending Barnes stumbling into the room. "They are thirty seconds out, Sergeant."
The supersoldier crashed to the ground next to his friend and, without bothering to check for a pulse, started chest compressions.
"He's not breathing!" he shouted between presses.
Tony, who hadn't been far behind Barnes, began putting pressure on Steve's abdomen and thigh, which were bleeding the most heavily. He heard a resounding crack as Barnes pushed against Steve's ribs, and winced. Steve however didn't shift at all and Barnes' expression just turned murderous.
Then the doctors Tony had had on stand-by were flooding in. Taking over. Declaring Steve not breathing. Preparing the AED.
"Clear."
Steve's body arced off the floor before crashing back into it with a painful thud.
"Again."
No change.
"Again."
"Again."
"Again."
Then Steve's mouth fell open and he pulled in a small and shaky breath.
That was the last Tony saw of Steve before he was strapped to a gurney and whisked away to SHIELD's ED.