We chatted nervously while going through the decontamination process. I was given a proper introduction to Steve Rogers, and since we were both friendly with Anna and Tony, we all fell into easy conversation. I was impressed with his calm certainty in the face of the current situation and his courteousness, especially towards Anna. He couldn't resist throwing a few sarcastic barbs at Tony. But then, who could? Despite the niggling worry I constantly had in the back of my mind, fully aware from years of experience of all the things that could be going wrong, I found myself almost enjoying myself.
We didn't discover the scope of the problem, until the nurse drawing Steve Rogers' blood broke out in angry red blisters where she had touched him. We'd been thorough with the decon showers, careful to avoid cross-contamination. We'd maintained isolation until we were sure all external traces of material were gone, and had proceeded to medical checkups. I got treatment for my bruised ribs and sprained ankle, and we all started treatment for particulate inhalation. There'd been no trace of any radioactive material on site, so we hadn't prioritised a full elecro-magnetic scan. But at the sight of those blisters, the minds of all the scientists immediately turned to radiation sickness, and back into isolation we went.
Tony's hyper-preparedness occasionally came in handy. Since nuclear armageddon was one of the things that kept him up at night, he had outfitted the main Avengers lab with full electromagnetic shielding, and we were able to seclude ourselves there, with access to all his equipment, and a chance to be productive towards the solution ourselves, instead of cooped up in a spare medical isolation unit.
Since we'd already spent hours together, going through the decontamination process, and hadn't shown any signs of radiation sickness, we decided that we'd retreat to the lab together, rather than into solitary confinement.
Once there, Tony pulled up his full array of displays and instruments. His years of working with Banner had given him an impressive knowledge of the physics of radiation, so we were somewhat prepared.
Nothing showed up in the typical radiation frequencies. What we found was just a small band near the gamma spectrum. Emanating only from Steve.
"It must be an interaction between the supersoldier serum and the contaminant. That's why it isn't affecting the rest of us" Anna surmised.
"Isn't it though? We haven't shown any symptoms of radiation sickness. And it manifested so quickly for that poor nurse" I spoke up.
"I hope she's alright" said Steve, clearly guilt stricken.
"She's getting the best treatment available" Tony reassured him. "So are we just immune? I feel fine."
"We did all get dosed with the same chemicals. Maybe it's having a counter-balancing effect" I said, looking to Anna for confirmation.
"It is possible. We'd best start a full blood screen, and start testing chemical and genetic interactions. See here:" she said, gesturing to bring up a holo-display of the room, marked out with ribbons of light representing radioactive rays. While Steve's form showed up as a bright spot, like a human sun, the rest of our forms appeared as darkness, casting shadows behind us. "We seem to be absorbing the same radiation that's emanating from Steven."
She looked from the simulation to the man himself, and did a slight double take, frowning slightly. "How are you feeling right now?"
"I must admit, not quite myself since the exposure. It seems to be getting worse."
"I know you're used to pain, but you must let me know these things. I don't like your colour."
She made him recline in the lab chair, and began setting up medical devices to monitor his vitals.
"No, I don't like the look of these at all. Alright. We've got a new priority. We can't allow Steven's condition to deteriorate any further."
Stark and I were taken aback. Things had seemed bad, but not like anything we couldn't handle until this point. But seeing the virile Captain America take such a turn shook our confidence deeply.
Steve started to speak, to say that he was fine and not to worry, but a spasm of pain must have passed through him, because he choked slightly on his words, then lay back, silent.
We all jumped into action. Tony fairly flew around the room, an anxious flurry of activity. I found a work console and started digging into researching potentially successful approaches, linking into my own research network, and setting it up so there was a continuously updating data feed from all the current monitoring as well. In the centre of the room, Dr. Kabalevsky continued to tend to her patient.
We found the most promising approach almost by accident.
Anna had been enfolding Steve's hand in her own, using reassuring touch as a doctor of her experience would, to calm her patient. I picked up the blip in the data right away.
"Do that again." I called out, bringing everyone in the room to attention. I pulled up the same radiation display as before, and as Anna enclosed Steve's hand in her own, the radiation glow disappeared. When she removed them again, his hand still showed up dark, but brightened again as the radiation crept down from his arm to fill it. "It looks like touch can cancel out his bio-electrical field."
"Is it enough?" Tony asked "How far does it extend?"
"Not at all, unfortunately. We'll have to find some way of amplifying the effect".
Anna looked down pensively at Steve's hand. After a moment she said absently to herself "Like sucking venom from snake bite." And popped Steve's finger in her mouth, sucking in her cheeks.
"The field's dropped half way up your arm." I exclaimed.
Anna set Steve's hand back down and patted it. "See Bubbala, it will be okay. It's holding."
"No wait, I can see it's slowly returning. We should try all of us, to see if it's an effect of the counter-field. Tony, you got the strongest dose, you should go next."
He took quite a bit of convincing, and Steve looked uncomfortable at the thought. I rolled my eyes; men could be so uptight about these things sometimes. But he had about the same effect as Anna had. I watched the glowing field recede in the display about up to his elbow, and then return to full strength after about a minute.
"That's all well and good", Tony said, "But it's no long term solution. And Steve is getting weaker. We barely understand what these fields are composed of, let along being able to reproduce them. And clearly something else is going on here other than positive and negative cancelling out, like we thought."
Anna tsk-tsked him quiet. "Don't scare the patient, we're finally on to something. This is good news. You try Rachael, maybe it's affected your body chemistry differently."
I walked up to Steve and took his hand in mine, as we had done before. I tentatively lifted his finger to my lips and sucked.
From the console, Anna said "Well, that's something".
"That's, erm, very distracting" Steve said, quietly.
I quickly dropped his hand from my mouth and sat back into my chair, looking away.
Anna spoke, "There's something else at play, here. That had a much larger effect."
Tony and I strode over to the console. We could see that the glowing field around Steve's body had cleared completely from his arm, and mostly from his torso as well. As we watched, the glow of radiation started to emanate again, filling back in. Tony and Anna started to throw out theories. Tony favoured the idea that it was an effect of the original exposure, that the dissipated dose I had gotten must have been missing some other chemicals that were centered near the end of the lab where he and Anna had ended up after the explosion. Anna wanted to look into body chemistry and antibodies, and start us all with genotyping. While they were arguing over which path to investigate first, I had my own idea. I left them behind and walked over to Steve, sitting opposite him. I picked up his hand and leaned in, looking into his face.
"How are you feeling?" I asked.
"Stronger," he said.
His colour looked better, too. And some of the strain had eased from around his eyes. I leaned in and kissed him. His lips stiffened as mine met his, in surprise but then they softened as he started to kiss me back. I melted into his kiss. His lips parted and our tongues touched. As I began to suck gently on his lower lip, he came back to himself, stiffened slightly and drew back. I let him go, watching.
"What did you do?" Tony exclaimed from the monitoring station. "He's completely clear."
Anna looked surprised, then slightly smug. "It is like a fairy tale. True love's kiss".
I blushed, glancing in consternation at Steve. "I didn't mean it like that, I just thought that there seemed to be something in the human interaction, not just the fields connecting". Steve still looked faintly stunned.
"Well it's done the trick, there's no sign of the radiation field surrounding Steve."
He looked up at that. "So it's over?"
"We'll see. The other progress we made wasn't permament."
We watched and waited. After almost a minute, a faint prick of rad showed up on the monitor. After five, it had come back full force. Anna volunteered to kiss him, too. It had the same effect as her sucking on his finger. The glow cleared from around his head, but returned immediately. Tony had given up on his dosage idea.
"The boy's just horny. There's no way I'm kissing him to figure out that that's it. You two just need to screw and get it all out."
"No." Steve said flatly. "I'm not you," he said looking Tony straight in the eye, "And neither is Doctor Breton."
"He may have a point." I said, trying to avoid looking at either of them. "It's all very well, starting from a naturalistic science point of view, but you're personal friends with a Norse god, and you've been cursed with visions on more than one occasion. There are clearly other options at work in our universe. I'd love to consult Dr. Stange, or Madame Webb, although it's not exactly either of their usual fields. Until we know more about whose serum it was we had in the lab, we have to consider that it may be physical attraction that's making the difference. Not that I'm saying… er…" and I petered out there.
"We get it," Tony said, "You two have the hots for each other. I said you gotta screw it out."
"Don't be crass," Anna said, whapping him on the back of his head. "But he may have a point. We're still weeks from a solution, and you can't spend that time in quarantine. Even if it was practical to kiss him every five minutes around the clock for days, I don't think his condition would allow it. His core vitals are still deteriorating. It would buy us some time, but it's not a solution."
"Oh shit. I forgot what goody two shoes you both were. You may take a bit of hand holding, but what are the alternatives? Slowly waiting around to die? Be reasonable, it's not that big a thing."
"He's right," I said, turning again to Steve. "Sex may be the connection that lets my field break through yours completely. We have to try it."
"No." Steve said again, softer this time. "I don't want to use you like that. It may mean less to you, but to me love is something sacred. I wouldn't feel right just taking what I need. I couldn't go through with it. I won't."
"It doesn't mean less to me. But I recognise that there are exceptions and grey areas to everything. You're not expendable. The Avengers need you. The world needs you. Maybe under regular circumstances I would still be waiting for marriage, but these aren't regular circumstances, and we don't have the luxury of time. We'll just do this, and figure the rest out later."
Steve took a long beat, searching my face. I couldn't deny that the thought of being with him thrilled me, but still the thought of offering myself up as treatment felt a little dehumanizing. This was not how I saw my life going.
He must have seen it in my face, because he squared his shoulders and spoke, "I appreciate everyone's concern, but this is my life. These are my principles by which I am choosing to live. This isn't something I'm going to take lightly and be able to move on from. I don't want a life going forward from a decision like this."
"Don't be stupid!" Tony exploded. "She's offered, what's the problem?"
Anna looked thoughtful. "I've gotten to know you both. Rachael from many years in the lab together, and Steven as a patient since I came on with the Avengers. I think you two would actually make a great match. You're more alike than you know. It's the rush to push you two together, and the circumstances, that's making you hesitate. I know it's not the order you would want to do things ordinarily, but I think it'll work out great in the end. I suggest marriage as the solution to both your moral hesitations."
"Marriage!" from Tony, throwing up his arms. "You've all gone mad," he said as he paced to the other side of the room, puttering with his equipment.
"I couldn't" Steve said, "You'd still be doing it out of guilt and obligation. It would just white wash over that."
"Guilt?" I cried, "It should be me who's worried about guilting you into marriage. Marry me or die? What kind of a choice is that?"
"You two would hardly be the first making a marriage of convenience. We do it all the time in old country," she said, really laying her accent on thick in her last sentence.
We both paused. Thinking. Tony muttered away at his instrument panel at the other side of the room.
Eventually I spoke. "I do want this," I said. "I don't think you realise how much of a catch you are. I'm offering freely. Either one night, or forever. I know how special you are, not just as a hero, but as a soul. It would be lovely to share a life with you, but I want you to have your life, regardless of where we go from here. You've got your principles, but I have mine, and this is something I want to do."
"If I'm going to do this, I'm going all in. I'm not a one night kind of guy. I'm a man outside of his time, I've wanted someone for so long, but things seem so different now. Maybe the old traditions are best. The really old traditions. Are you sure you want me?"
"Yes," I said, laughing. "You're such a silly man. Of course I do."
Captain America looked bemusedly pleased. Then hesitant again, as a wave of pain passed across his face, but then returned my smile. "So we'll get married."
"There." Anna said smugly. "It's sorted. But where are we going to find a priest."
"It's fine," I said. "If Steve says this is what he wants, I trust him."
Tony couldn't help himself anymore, and burst in on our little tête-à-tête. "Ha! You've got it sorted out finally. I think you're all crazy. But hey, you finally got your blushing virgin bride."
I did blush. But then anger crept in on my embarrassment. "Watch it!" I snapped at Tony. "You will speak to me with respect. I'm an adult, and a peer. And I have saved your ass on more than one occasion."
"You're right." Tony looked slightly chastened, but kept a twinkle in his eye. "So let's get going. Where are we gonna do this?"
"We are not going to do anything. I will help Steve to his quarantine bedroom. This is my field of science. I am perfectly capable of running any diagnostics I feel necessary. You may carry on with your research with Anna."
Steve went to rise to join me, but as he rose out of his chair, his knees collapsed, and he sunk back down again.
"Oh," I cried in dismay, all my ire draining quickly in concern. Tony and Anna rushed in to help, looking grave, but I waved them off. I bent down to put my face close to Steve's. "I do care about you." I was afraid of saying too much, of making him feel trapped but I wanted him to know that he could have me freely. I leaned closer and kissed him deeply. He kissed me back.