A Super-Soldier for the Modern World

Chapter 22

Captain Steve Rogers waited anxiously at the altar. He was focused on the closed doors at the end of a long church aisle. The crowd was a sea of faceless people.

To his left stood Bucky, Coulson, and Barton in matching suits. Stark was on his right, also in a suit. He was holding papers. He seemed to be officiating the ceremony. Was he qualified?

Natasha was beside Stark, dressed in a floor-length gown. Steve had never seen that before. She smiled at him and he returned it with his own.

The doors at the back of the church opened and a woman in a white dress stepped into view. Steve's eyes started at the hem of the dress and moved up until his eyes were on the woman's face. He was stunned because it wasn't who he thought it was. It wasn't Amanda.

Peggy Carter smiled brightly at him as she walked towards him. However, the smile faded and he knew why. It was a reflection of his own expression.

Tony nudged him with his elbow. "Smile, you're getting married, Cap," Tony said, wearing his own fake smile.

"Yes, Steve, come on, man," Bucky said.

Peggy was only two steps from the altar now.

"Where's Amanda?" he whispered to Tony.

"Who's Amanda?" he asked totally seriously.

"Yes, Stephen, who is Amanda?" Peggy asked angrily with tears forming in her eyes.

She was throwing her bouquet at him when Steve jerked awake. He had sensed movement in the room around him and he woke up hopeful that Amanda had finally woken up.

Opening his eyes, he realized he'd fallen asleep in the chair next to Amanda's hospital bed. He had been awake for 75 hours before the exhaustion had won out.

The movement that woke him was not Amanda, however. It was a nurse administering some kind of medications to Amanda via a syringe.

"Good morning," Steve said as he stood and stretched slightly.

This was a new nurse. He had never met her before and that fact made him slightly apprehensive.

"Good morning, Captain Rogers," she said brightly.

"You know me, but I don't know you. Who are you?"

"Oh, right! I'm Stephanie," she smiled. "Miss Carter's family sent me up here from Virginia. I'm one of Amanda's grandmother's nurses."

Steve was still unsure.

"What are you giving her?" Steve asked.

"A medication that will relax her throat muscles so we can take the tube out easily and not cause her any pain," Stephanie explained.

The woman seemed confident enough, but something still felt off about this woman. And she could tell he was doubting her.

"I've already spoken to Mr. Stark about this and I've said, I was hired by her family. See, I have one of the fancy name badges. I've passed all the steps," Stephanie explained.

"I would feel more comfortable if all future medications were administered by the staff that I know," Steve said.

"Captain Rogers, you don't have authority," Stephanie said.

Several of the machines that Amanda was hooked into started to beep and ring. Something was wrong.

"What did you do?!" Steve asked angrily. He had a strong grip on her arm and she winced in pain.

"Captain, you're hurting me!" she cried out as the doctors and nurses rushed into the room.

"Let her go, Rogers!" Tony yelled.

Steve realized what he was doing and his focus on the nurse moved to a focus on the doctors and nurses working on Amanda.

"What happened?" Tony yelled.

"She…the nurse…" Steve scanned the faces around them. "She's gone! She said she spoke to you. That she was hired by Amanda's family to come in and care for her…"

Tony shook his head. "I just came down here when JARVIS alerted me to the change in her vitals. I have been upstairs all morning. I haven't talked to anyone."

"What's wrong with her?" Steve asked the doctor who was closest to him.

"Her organs are failing at an alarming rate. If we don't figure out what's causing it, she's not going to make it through the night," he explained to Steve and Tony.

"That woman, she was giving Amanda some kind of medication when I woke up. She was injecting her with it," he told them. "Do something!"

"Captain, we're doing all that we can right now," a nurse told him. "You and Mr. Stark should waiting in the hall while we work."

"I am going to stay right here," Steve told them all.

"We need to work. You need to go calm down in the hallway. Mr. Stark, please take him out," a doctor turned around to say.

"Yes, let me just drag the super-soldier out of the room with my bare hands," Tony said sarcastically.

"Please go," the doctor said more forcefully.

Steve slammed his fist into the lightbox for the x-rays and left the hospital room with Tony Stark following closely behind.

"If I had just woken up a little faster, we wouldn't have this problem," Steve said.

"She said she was a nurse brought in by Amanda's family and you didn't think it was odd?" Tony asked. "Especially since you know her family?"

"My whole damn life is odd, Stark. I thought maybe they were trying to mend fences," Steve said. "I was being optimistic, I see."

"JARVIS," Tony said.

"Yes, sir?" JARVIS' voice said calmly through the speakers in the hall.

"Seal all the exits. Don't let that woman out of the building," Tony said.

"I believe she is already gone, sir," JARVIS reported.

"Damn it!" Steve yelled. "This is my fault."

"She somehow got into my building without anyone noticing. I think it's sort of my fault, too," Tony mumbled.

Tony moved to one of the computers and brought up the building's security camera system.

Steve watched over his shoulder while he went through the footage.

"Wait! That's her!"

Tony paused the image and told JARVIS to find out who she was.

"Sir, I also ran a diagnostic on the building. I'm also showing that Director Fury is sitting in your office."

"In my office?" Tony asked, confused. "How did he get there?"

"He just appeared."

"He just appeared?" Tony asked JARVIS.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"That's not even physically possible."

"Maybe he time-traveled like Amanda and I did?" Steve suggested. "We just showed up, too."

"I'm going to find Fury. Are you coming?"

"I should…"

"JARVIS, alert us immediately if something else happens with Amanda."

"Of course, sir," JARVIS replied.

"I…"

"You can't do anything in there, Cap."

"But if she…"

"She won't," Tony said firmly.

Steve wanted to believe that, but he knew this could very well be the end.

"I can't leave her," he told Tony.

Tony understood what he was feeling. And he wanted to stay with Amanda, too. However, one person pacing in the hallway was probably good enough. He was going to find out what the hell Fury thought he was doing.

Tony nodded at Steve and moved towards the stairs. Steve also moved, but he took a place at the window of the door into the hospital room.

…

Stephanie pressed a button on her belt and the hologram generator turned off. She turned from Stephanie back into herself…Sin.

"Daddy?" she said into the receiver on her cell phone. "It's done."

…

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Tony said as he walked back into his office.

Nick Fury seemed to be making himself comfortable at his once-desk.

"I thought I left Amanda Carter in charge and it seems that you've somehow made yourself director," Fury said.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you abandoned SHIELD weeks ago, so you have no say over who is or isn't in charge," Tony said. "Where the hell have you been?"

"I had to go off the grid for a while," Fury said.

"That's putting it lightly, don't you think?" Tony asked. "And while you've been gone, Cap was almost imprisoned and Amanda's been shot and is in a coma. And those are just a couple things. So I ask again, where the hell have you been?"

"What's wrong with Amanda?" Fury asked, ignoring the rest of what Stark had said.

"She's dying," Tony said simply. "JARVIS, how is she?"

"Organ failure is still imminent," JARVIS replied. "No change."

"I think I have something that can help her," Fury said. "Take this down to her," he said as he pulled a syringe from his coat pocket and handed it to Tony.

"She needs this immediately," Fury told him.

Tony accepted it, but looked at it curiously.

"What is it?"

"The infinity formula," he said. "Now go!" he told Tony.

Tony did what he was told and headed out of the office at a run.

…

To be continued…

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