Chapter 17: Explosion

A concussive blast suddenly blew out the glass from the viewing area. I raised my hands to deflect it, but everyone was showered in broken glass. I felt the sting as the shards cut into my upraised palms. They hunched over to protect themselves, except for one person.

"Dr. Erskine!"

"Stop him!" Erskine shouted, pointing at a man who was going for the last vial of serum in the container. The man looked up, a snarl on his face, and his hand down behind his back. He was going for a gun, and I had a pretty good idea of who his target was.

"No!" I shouted, and lunged.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three shots rang out and Dr. Erskine jolted twice. The third made contact with my shoulder as I finally – too late! – reached Erskine and knocked him out of the way. Dimly I heard gunshots, but of far more importance was Steve as he loomed over the pair of us, horror written on every line of his face.

"Erskine," I grunted, a hand pressed to my shoulder. I could already feel my skin knitting itself back together, pushing the bullet out. Healing, advanced regeneration, the ability that I had Erskine analyze and isolate, the ability that may have been the reason Steve had survived the procedure.

Erskine was wheezing as Steve turned his eyes to him and I knew that he wasn't going to last long. It felt like someone had just stabbed me in the heart. That poor man who had fought so hard, first to get away from HYDRA, then to take him down. He had done nothing wrong, but here he was bleeding out on the floor of a lab with his last great achievement leaning over him in concern.

Erskine managed to poke Steve weakly in the chest and then his hand dropped, falling to the ground with a thump of finality.

I saw Steve's head raise, saw his face harden with rage, and then he was tearing out of the lab after the shooter, shoving his way through a crowd of politicians and officers in his quest to catch the man who had just killed Erskine…

"Josie? Josie, oh, Jesus Christ-"

And then Howard was there, dragging my torso into his lap and looking down at me, his face pale.

"Josie, just hold still, we're gonna get you help!"

"Get me help?" I chuckled, biting my tongue to fight down the pain as the hot bit of lead was finally forced out of my body and dropped, concealed, into my hand. "Howard, I'm fine," I hissed at him, looking him in the eyes pointedly. "Now get me out of here before everyone realizes just how fine I am!"

Logic finally won over panic and Howard's eyes widened as he remembered what I can do. Instantly he understood the situation. If we waited long enough for the medics to circle then everyone in the room would realize just what I was capable of. Just like that, I would replace Steve as the day's lab rat.

"Make room, make room!" Howard snapped, dragging me to my feet. I made sure to stumble and moan weakly as he hauled me after him towards the exit. Not all of it was pretending – being able to heal didn't mean it didn't hurt to get shot. "I've got to get her to the infirmary!" he called after us as we burst through the door and into the relative safety of the hallway. We turned down a corridor to the infirmary, slamming through the double doors.

Thankfully it was empty, with every available medical professional having been on standby in the lab, waiting to deal with any potential fallout from the experiment.

"Quick, bandage me up so no one can see," I ordered, unbuttoning my shirt. Howard's eyes widened as he watched me sit down on the side of a bed.

"Holy-"

"Howard!" I snapped, a hint of a growl in my voice. He stared at me for a second longer startled, and then flew to a cabinet, yanking out gauze and tape and dragging them over to me. He started to bandage my shoulder, fingers shaking as he realized that there really was no hole, not even a scar showing where the bullet had gone in.

"Amazing," he whispered, and then started to wrap.

"Wait!" I stopped him. Howard froze, bandages dangling from his fingers.

"Josie, we don't have time- Josie!"

I seized a scalpel from the nearby table of surgical instruments and jammed it into my shoulder. When I pulled it out, a fresh gush of blood poured free and I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming.

"Now go!" I urged him, hearing the pounding feet start to come down the hallway. Howard did as I requested, his face two shades away from ghostly and his hands shaking.

"What the hell was that?" he hissed.

"They wouldn't buy it if there was no blood on the bandages," I murmured, gritting my teeth and nodding to the patch of red that had soaked through the first few layers of bandages.

"Josie!"

Peggy burst through the infirmary doors, her normally neat appearance ruffled and her expression marred with worry.

"Peggy!" I cried as she hurried to my side. It was a relief to have him there. I wasn't hurt, but Erskine

I swallowed and forced myself not to think about it.

"Are you okay?" she asked urgently, squeezing my hand tightly. I nodded at her and gave a weak smile, trying to play up the blood loss.

"It just grazed my shoulder," I assured her.

"Didn't even need stitches," Howard said. His shakiness wasn't faked. He was an engineer, not a doctor or a soldier. He'd just watched a coworker get killed and seen a friend get shot, then stab herself. I couldn't blame him for being alarmed, and I felt guilty for dragging him into the mess that was my life.

"Are you sure?" Peggy asked Howard sternly. "You're not a doctor, Stark."

"Really, Peggy," I assured her, pulling my hand out of hers and placing it on her shoulder, directing her attention back to me before Howard could crack under the pressure. "It doesn't even hurt that much," I insisted, and plastered on a brave smile.

Peggy smiled faintly. "You're a very strong woman, Josie."

Colonel Phillips made his appearance then. He looked at Howard, looked at Peggy, and then looked at me, with the blood-stained bandage on my shoulder. He sighed, pressing his hand to his forehead. "Your father's going to have my guts for garters. And dear god, Nevade…" He shuddered.

"They won't blame you," I assured him. "They know working for the Army is dangerous even if you're not on the front lines. How's Steve?" I asked, hurrying to switch the conversation as Howard tied off the bandage around my shoulder. I shrugged my shirt back on, buttoning it up. Howard was my medic and Peggy was a woman, so I wasn't too concerned, but I didn't want anyone else bursting into the infirmary on me.

Phillips' face hardened. "Rogers isn't back yet." He glared at an eye chart on the wall. "The only super soldier we got out of this damned project and he runs off the moment he pops out of Stark's glorified refrigerator and rushes after an armed HYDRA agent."

"Hey!" Howard exclaimed, offended. I didn't blame him.

"He's just doing what he was made for," I reminded Phillips. "Protecting people."


Howard, bless him, helped me hold my cover as an injured girl down by getting me a room in the Plaza, making a big, blustery deal about it and saying that I was to be waited on hand and foot by the staff while I recovered. While it was tempting to lie around on the feather mattress and wile away my week of 'convalescence' eating the amazing dessert room service offered, I forced myself to work, putting the spinning results of my brain down on paper and tweaking a few papers I had been working on before I got involved with Operation: Rebirth. My personal research had fallen by the wayside while I helped with the serum.

Throughout my time I had a steady stream of visitors. Howard popped by for lunch daily, keeping up the charade by loudly asking how I was feeling in the restaurant downstairs. Peggy dropped by once to check up on me, but she was buried in paperwork and meetings after the debacle in the lab. Steve showed up once, sheepishly holding a bouquet of daisies and wishing me well while I struggled to adapt to the fact that he was now taller than me.

My week of rest was nearly over when Howard showed up in a tizzy, grumbling under his breath about idiots who couldn't see past the end of their nose. I ordered tea and we sat in the small living room of my suite while I waited for him to finally make sense.

"Idiots have no idea… Genius… Can't believe the bastards…"

I sighed and raised my cup to my lips. "Howard, any time you want to make sense, let me know."

"The SSR is letting you go."

I spluttered into my tea cup. That wasn't what I'd expected.

"What?" I demanded. "Why?"

Howard shook his head and glared at his tea. "Operation: Rebirth has been handed over to another team to try and reproduce the serum from Steve's blood. The new team refused to take you. Three guesses why."

I shook my head in disgust. Even though I could put a title before my name now, I still didn't get the respect I deserved because I had a pair of breasts. Where was the justice in that? I knew Howard agreed with me. He was a scientist to the bone – so long as the idea was solid, he didn't care where it came from. A parrot could have handed him the secret to time travel and so long as the math worked out he wouldn't have judged.

"Guess it's time to start searching for lab positions," I grumbled, already dreading the prospect. It would take ages to find a lab willing to take me, and I didn't revel in the idea of my stepmother hounding me to just find a husband and settle down in the interim.

Howard looked like I'd just insulted one of his inventions. "Excuse me?" he demanded. "No way am I letting some other company get their hands on you, you're coming to work for me!"

I stared. "Howard," I began uncertainly. "That's very sweet of you, but you've already done so much for me – getting me this place, keeping my secret." I gestured to the room at large. "I don't want to inconvenience you any more than I already have."

Howard rolled his eyes. "Josie, I wipe my nose with hundreds. Besides, I know that even though you could afford it you'd likely have holed up in some cheap motel to save money for God knows why. And as for being an inconvenience… yeah, it'll be just awful having a geneticist and chemist around who knows what she's talking about and is pretty to look at to boot."

I gaped at Howard, a flush covering my cheeks. "Why are you so nice to me?" I huffed, leaning back in my chair. Howard grinned, knowing by my disgruntled expression that he'd won.

"I always wanted a baby sister to coddle and spoil," Howard said smugly. "Congratulations, you won the role."


So now you know some of Josie's secret! She's a mutant!