Chapter Seven

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Steve returned to Stark Tower seven hours into what they had hoped would be a six-hour procedure.

The funeral had gone off without a hitch, and Tony had initially planned for them to stay in London a couple days more in order to distract the media and perhaps keep SHIELD from discovering the ruse for as long as possible. Upon returning to the hotel however, Pepper collared Tony and dragged him to the side.

"Tony, I need to talk to you."

Tony ignored the wrinkling of his expensive silk tie and beamed down into his girlfriend and CEO's face. "Anything. I'm feeling generous. Need another dress? Actually, I thought that one looked nice - did I give it to you?"

"Steve needs to go home."

Taken aback at her words, Tony took a good look at their mutual friend for the first time that day. Up until that point, the billionaire had been busily involved in carrying off the funeral, juggling the media that automatically resulted when two Avengers crossed the ocean, and triumphing in his successful distraction of SHIELD's attention from the tower.

Steve was standing by the window, staring grimly out at the skyline, hands clasped neatly behind his back in parade rest. His shoulders were tight, and what Tony could see of his face was set firmly. It was suddenly painfully obvious that every fiber of his being was straining toward New York, toward the girl whose survival was currently hanging in the balance.

Pepper knew he was going to agree even before he heaved a sigh. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. I can do this. You take Star Spangles back home, and I'll stay and distract everybody myself, no problem. I'm good at that."

"You're very good at it," Pepper murmured with a smile as she smoothed his tie and went to inform Steve of the new plans.

The flight had gone smoothly enough, but New York traffic was incredibly crowded, backed up bumper to bumper. Ten blocks out from the tower, she couldn't stand Steve's poorly-hidden fidgeting any more, and made an executive decision.

"I bet you could walk back faster than this," she told him, touching his shoulder to get his attention. He stared, at first confused and then incredibly grateful at her implied consent.

"You sure?" he asked, and Pepper nodded firmly. Relieved, he went for the door handle. "You're an angel, Pepper," and then he was gone, weaving expertly between cars and pedestrians at incredible speed.

Pepper stared after him, shaking her head. Then she looked ahead at the gridlocked traffic and sighed resignedly, sinking back into her seat. "I wish I could just take off like that."

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Once at Stark Tower, Steve took the stairs. Folks in this era always expected people to take the easy way, and there was a distinct probability that Clint and Natasha had booby-trapped the public elevators against the SHIELD agents who were certain to arrive sooner or later. He jogged up the stairs until he reached the private elevators on the fiftieth floor, and took one of them the rest of the way.

Natasha was waiting for him in the hallway, planted squarely in front of the elevator. "Why aren't you in England, and how did you get past our initial sensor net?" she demanded as soon as the doors slid open. If she had been anyone else, she would have sounded surprised. "It didn't pick you up until you were already in the building."

"Through the loading dock and up the stairs," Steve explained, attention completely focussed on the door to the medical wing just visible over her shoulder. "JARVIS has limited interface down there, and I have clearance to get through the doors. You should secure your perimeter better. How is she?"

The heartbeat of silence before Natasha answered was more telling than her next words, and Steve's heart froze and then plunged.

"As of an hour ago, they were struggling with severe cellular and tissue damage as they raised the temperature," she finally admitted. "They're hours behind, and can't even get the transfusion started."

Suddenly there didn't seem to be any air left in the room. Natasha's words had knocked the wind out of him more efficiently than running up fifty flights of stairs. "Is there..." Steve swallowed hard. "Is there any chance?"

"You're religious, aren't you?" Her face was impassive, but her eyes were very soft. "You'd better start praying."

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It took Pepper another hour and a half to reach Stark Tower, get past Clint's security measures, and arrive at the ninety-third floor. Clint had not only booby-trapped the public elevators, but he had also cut their speed to nearly nothing and was busily watching the live camera feeds on all of them, constantly monitoring the regular office employees who came and went from the lower floors. Natasha, after her talk with Steve, had completely locked down the loading dock and made the stairs her personal priority. Nobody else was going to get in unobserved.

Out of the elevator at last, Pepper shook back her hair with a sigh, relieved to be home. Setting her purse on the side table, she turned toward the hallway - and then stopped short. Ahead of her, Steve knelt by the door of the medical suite, head bowed over his folded hands.

For a heartbreaking moment Pepper feared the worst. Then, with a rush of emotion, she realized what he was doing. While she hadn't regularly attended church since she'd been a child, she had seen people pray before. In the awful weeks when Tony had been kidnapped and presumed dead, she had even done a little hesitant, cautious praying herself.

Now, in his hour of need, Steve was on his knees, quietly pouring out his soul to the God he so firmly believed in, begging for the life of his girl. The afternoon sun cascaded through the large windows, gleaming off his blond hair like a benediction and pooling around him as he knelt until he looked like a saint or knight from some old picture.

Pepper stood watching him for a few minutes. Then she folded her hands and whispered a brief prayer of her own before stepping back from the hallway and into the sitting room. She wasn't much of a praying person, but she could give him some privacy until he was done.

Perched on a stool at the bar, Pepper sorted out the mail and kept a sharp ear tuned for any sound from Steve. She threw the routine death threats and advertisements away, and stacked the magazines on the counter before starting on the business communications. She had just begun answering a few of the most urgent when she finally heard Steve move.

Stepping into the hallway with a glass of water in each hand, she saw he had dragged a chair out into the hall opposite the medical suite. He realized her intent to join him, and instantly rose to get her a chair as well. Thanking him, Pepper offered him one of the glasses, and he accepted it with a wordless nod. For a long time the two sat, watching the light from the early afternoon sun shine in through the windows. Steve sipped a little at his drink, and Pepper nursed her own, kicking off her heels. She noticed that he couldn't get much down, and after a while just held his glass between his knees with an apologetic air.

"Pepper," he suddenly asked, words awkwardly tumbling over each other. "Do you think she'll be... Do you actually think she could..." he floundered for words and then gave up, ducking his head and trying to take another sip of his drink. Pepper noticed his eyes flutter closed for a second, and wondered if he was praying again.

Scooting closer, she smoothed his hair, patting it back into place from where he'd been running his hands through it. He was like a big brother to her, a safe ear where she could pour her frustrations when work and Tony had become too much to handle. Now that he was the one needing support, she wasn't sure how to help.

"Steve, I live in a world where men fly and hammers shoot lightning and aliens show up in the streets." Pepper laid her hand on one massive shoulder, trying to administer some form of comfort. The words came slowly, but she meant every one of them. "At this point I don't even know what is possible anymore, but what I do know is that you have good friends who are doing everything they can. If she can be helped, they'll do it."

Another silence fell, but this one was more comfortable, and she noticed he was able to get a little more water down. All at once, he smiled reminiscently - a quick, fleeting little thing that vanished as soon as it came. Pepper raised her eyebrows in inquiry, and Steve finally relented.

"You ever slugged anyone, ma'am?"

Pepper blinked, then laughed. "Well, I've certainly wanted to more than once. Did she?"

Steve nodded, staring at the door as if he could see right through it. "The first time I ever saw her, she slugged a guy who was trying to get fresh. Knocked him clean over."

"Was that when you fell in love with her?" She knew it wasn't a terribly tactful question, but she had to ask.

It was obviously the last thing Steve had expected her to say, and he nearly dropped his glass. "I - ah," to Pepper's amusement, he blushed faintly. "We never really got the chance to talk about it. I don't even know if she would've had me if I'd had the chance to ask. There's a - there was a war on, you know."

He paused, staring even harder at the door in front of them, and took a large gulp of his drink, as if trying to cool the burning in his ears. Pepper thought he was done talking until he added quietly, "That's when I decided she was the right kind of dame though. She was a real lady, and she knew how to hit."

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Pepper sat with him until dusk, when he finally encouraged her to go get something to eat. She brought him back a plate, but then was called away by the lawyers on the phone and hadn't returned. Since then, he sat in the hallway, staring at the door and praying desperately in his heart. The food had grown cold on the plate - he couldn't find it in himself to eat it.

Eight hours after Steve's arrival at the tower, the door opened and Bruce came out, stripping off his gloves and pulling off his face mask. Steve was on his feet in an instant, and the glass that had been balanced on his knee shattered against the tile. Neither man noticed.

"How is she?" Steve forced the words out of his closing throat. Bruce wiped his face wearily.

"The medical staff are putting her to bed. Where's everyone else? I don't want to repeat this more than once."

They gathered in the living room, though Steve was loath to leave his place in the hallway. Thor took up one of the couches, and Clint occupied the countertop, while Natasha curled next to Bruce with a bottle of water. In the better light of the common room, the doctor took one look at his friend and sighed. "Okay Steve, when was the last time you ate?"

Steve couldn't remember, and wasn't hungry, but Bruce adamantly refused to say a word until he had eaten something. Clint tossed him some kind of wrapped sandwich from the kitchenette fridge, and the captain chewed dutifully away under Bruce's watchful eye. It felt like wool in his mouth, but he choked it down anyway.

Pepper used the time to call Tony up on the screen. Even though it had to have been very early in the morning in England, Tony still looked wide awake, if slightly manic. Steve guessed he hadn't slept at all.

Finally Bruce seemed to think Steve had eaten enough, because he pulled out his glasses and started wiping them: a sure sign he was about to talk.

"I'm not sure where to start," he began, looking uncomfortable at being the center of attention.

Thor propped his elbows on his knees and cast a worried look at the captain. He had never seen Steve so tightly strung. "Tell us the good news first," he decided, hoping it would give his friend some ease.

Bruce put his feet up on the table and for once, Pepper let him. "The good news is that procedurally, the whole thing went pretty close to the plan. There was a really rocky start, but thanks to the cryoprotectant, we were finally able to thaw her body enough to complete the transfusion, and the serum in Steve's blood seems to have repaired her circulatory system enough to establish a stable blood flow. The equipment worked well, and we were able to get her on life support."

He paused to finish off the bottle of water that Natasha handed him. Clint gave himself a high-five, since he wasn't close enough to anybody else, and Thor beamed all over his face, looking hopefully towards their captain. Steve didn't move, bracing himself for the inevitable blow. He had caught the grave look in the doctor's eye, and knew that something was very wrong.

Tony was the one who finally asked, unable to wait any longer. "So what's the bad news?" The computer made his voice sound oddly tinny, like it did when it came through the Iron Man mask.

Bruce shot a look around the room, finally settling his gaze on Steve's face and talking straight to him. "Her body's not taking initiative. She's not responsive at all, her heart's not beating and she's not breathing on her own - the machines are doing the whole job."

Every eye in the room flickered toward their captain. He had lost most of his color, but his back was straight and his face blank, holding himself well in check, unwilling to lose control in front of his friends. The only tell-tale sign was the half-eaten sandwich, clenched into forgotten crumbs between his fingers. Thor made a mental note to meet him later in the gym - Steve would probably appreciate a companion, whether it be as a substitute punching bag or a listening ear.

"So… what exactly does this mean?" Tony's voice broke the silence. "Did we fail? We couldn't have failed; I crunched the numbers..."

"The human body isn't a robot, Tony," Bruce reminded him quietly. "Numbers don't always work."

Pepper put her hand on Steve's shoulder, but his barely perceptible flinch made her withdraw quickly, aware that he was only just remaining in control. "We're not giving up," she spoke to him as much as to the rest of the room. "After all, she's only had the serum for a few hours. There's still room for improvement."

Bruce saw her worry for their captain and nodded cautiously. "We have no way of knowing the extent to which the serum will be able to affect her, but yes, there is a possibility it may continue fixing the damage the freezing caused."

Thor spoke to the doctor, but his attention was fixed on Steve. "Is there anything we can do to speed the process? I would be happy to serve her in any way." The alien prince had a very large, very soft heart, and he couldn't stand the bleak pain in his friend's eyes.

Bruce shook his head. "Not now. All we can do is wait and cross our fingers. Tony, get off the computer. You need your sleep. I can do basic math; I know what time it is over there."

Tony grumbled, but shut off his screen. The rest of the group slowly dispersed, most of them offering a touch or word or gesture to their captain as they left the room. Thor was the last, clapping him hard on the shoulder. "Courage, my friend. All will yet be well," he rumbled with his most encouraging smile before retreating, leaving Steve and Dr. Banner alone.

"Can I see her?" Steve asked suddenly. He knew it was late, but he couldn't bear the idea of staying away.

Bruce didn't answer in words, but the wave of his hand as he left the room spoke volumes, and Steve fell into line behind him as they walked back down the hallway.

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Peggy had been moved to a large room adjoining the medical suite. The windows were shaded now, and Steve recognized Pepper's influence in the tasteful drapes. Then he saw the bed and forgot everything else.

Dressed in a white nightgown, Peggy had been carefully tucked under the covers. She would have looked like she was sleeping, were it not for the life support machines and the ventilator tube that covered her mouth and went down her throat. At her side, various monitors blinked and chirped. The visible skin of her face and arms was mottled with dark bruises where the damaged tissue had allowed blood to leak and pool beneath her skin.

"Steve," Bruce's voice was hesitant. Steve wouldn't turn to look at him, but the doctor continued anyway. "When you were the one thawing, your heart started beating on its own as your body warmed up. Breathing registered shortly afterwards." He paused. "Cap, you need to be aware…"

"I know." Steve couldn't bear to hear him say it, so he cut his friend off short. "I know." Bruce didn't take offence, moving quietly to the other side of the room and puttering with odds and ends, giving the captain space.

"Does she need more blood?" Steve was distinctly aware that he would be willing to give every last drop in his body if it would help. Somehow it was harder seeing her like this than it had been when she was frozen.

Bruce swiped a hand over his hair and scrubbed at his eyes. He looked completely exhausted, drained from the intense strain of the day. "At this point, there's nothing more we can do. The rest of it depends on her; if she's in there somewhere, and if she'll fight."

Steve carefully reached out to touch a strand of the soft brown hair. It curled around his finger for a moment before falling limply to the pillow. With his artist's eyes, he studied the curve of her cheek and the spread of her eyelashes.

"She'll fight," he breathed so softly that Bruce almost didn't hear him. "If there's anything left of the girl I knew, she'll fight."

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One of the hardest parts about having somebody in the hospital is waiting to find out if they'll wake up or not. My heartfelt sympathy to any of you who may currently be going through that limbo.

You all are the best. Have a great day, people!