Chapter 6
Celia felt like she couldn’t breathe. The roller coaster of emotions, from her relief to the team believing she was innocent, to the possibility that Steve’s blood has somehow changed her, made her lightheaded and shaky. There was super soldier serum in her blood. She hadn’t even thought about that after things died down, mostly focusing on the fact she was alive at all. Would it flush itself out, or would it be with her forever? If it did go away after a while, would the healing it did be reversed?
“Damn, I forgot the most important thing!” Tony exclaimed, slapping himself on the forehead. Celia braced herself for what else Tony had to say, not knowing if she could take much more. “Cap, if you wanted an Iron Man shirt, you didn’t have to sneak one, you could’ve just asked.” He clasped his hands in front of his body, oozing fake sincerity. Celia burst out a startled laugh, appreciating the bit of levity in this crazy stressful situation. The rest of the team joined in on the laughter, even Steve not able to hold back a few chuckles.
“I never knew I needed one before now, Stark,” Steve grumbled out with a rueful smile. Celia caught her breath, forcing herself to calm down. There wasn’t anything she could do about her situation right now, so letting herself fall into a panic spiral wouldn’t help anything.
“Celia, would you mind coming down to the lab with me so I can run a few tests? Nothing crazy, but I’d like to take a few blood samples, check your vitals, stuff like that?” Bruce asked calmly, probably trying to avoid invoking her fear of dissection she mentioned earlier.
“Um, yeah, I can do that,” she said nervously. She wanted answers, but she was afraid of what they would be. “Do you mind if I make a few phone calls first? I no-showed a few of my patients and I need to see if I still have a job.”
“Oh my gosh,” Steve breathed out with a grimace. “I completely forgot you were on your way to work when this happened.”
“It’s okay,” she said, giving his leg a quick squeeze. “There was a lot going on. I just don’t know what to tell my boss.” She looked toward the rest of them for answers. It wasn’t like she could say she got shot with Captain America and came back to life.
“I’m sure word has gotten out about a shooting in the building, even if Shield was able to cover up the details about who was involved. Why don’t you give me your info, your full name, employer, and I’ll have Jarvis call to tell them you were a witness to the incident and had to give statements. He’ll make it sound all official like so they won’t ask too many questions,” Tony offered nonchalantly, picking at his nails.
“Okay, that sounds fine, but can I ask a question?” Celia asked timidly, grabbing a business card and pen from her bag.
“I’m all ears,” Tony answered, tilting his head in her direction.
“Who’s Jarvis?”
“That would be me, ma’am,” a voice said from seemingly everywhere and nowhere, making her jump and look around. Steve’s hand on her knee made her relax a little, but the mysterious voice was still a bit disturbing.
“Jarvis is my computer, to put it simply,” Tony explained, waving vaguely around him.
“And your computer makes phone calls?” she asked, writing on the back of her business card.
“Among other things,” Tony said, walking over to take the card from her.
“I put my supervisor’s name and direct number on the back. Did you need anything else?” Celia asked, nervous about a computer calling her boss, no matter how advanced it was. Her boss liked to ask questions and get details and she wasn’t sure how good a computer would be at making conversation.
“That ought to do it,” Tony answered, twirling the card in his fingers. “You guys should get going down to the lab. Sooner you get started, sooner we all have answers, right?” Tony patted Bruce on the back, nudging him toward the elevators. Celia stood slowly, glancing back at Steve. This would be the first time she was alone with one of the other Avengers, without Steve. Bruce seemed nice, but she was scared that the drive to find out answers would push him to go further than she was comfortable with. Steve gave her a small nod, urging her on. She smiled back at him, squaring her shoulders and walking to meet Bruce by the elevators.
“Wanna take the stairs?” Bruce suggested, giving her a knowing smile.
“God yes!” Celia burst out with a relieved sigh. She would definitely be taking the stairs from now on, whenever it was feasible. Bruce chuckled, motioning for her to follow him to a different door, leading her to the lab where she might finally get a few answers about what her life was gonna look like from now on.
*
Steve sank back into the couch cushions, relieved now that the team seemed to be a little less wary of Celia. If he was being honest, the thought that she might not have been as innocent as she claimed hadn’t crossed his mind at all until Tony had suggested it. Had he been distracted by the fact she was a woman? A beautiful one at that, that just so happened to have brown hair almost the exact shade as Peggy’s? He knew women were just as deadly as men, so he didn’t discount her based on that. Was he slipping up at being a good leader? There was so much more nuance these days with his role. During the war, the bad guys were clear and it was about going in, getting the job done, and getting out. Now the bad guys looked like everyone else, able to sneak insidiously in the open. Stuff like this could make him discount his gut, which had never led him astray before.
He watched Celia leave with Bruce, nervous about what the pair would find out in the lab. Steve wasn’t sure what the best outcome would be. Would it be better for this to be a one time thing, the serum wearing off and leaving her a normal person? Or would it be better for the serum to turn her into a super soldier, healing fast and developing all the other advantages he got? Or maybe something in between? He knew he never wanted to live without what the serum gave him, but he had signed up for it, consented to his life being changed forever. Celia hadn’t, only being in this situation due to pure dumb luck.
“Jarvis, make the call to Dr. Angela Dawkins,” Tony said, reading the name on the back of the card. “Give her the spiel about Celia being a witness, yadda yadda, keep it vague and keep Cap out of it. Tell her Celia might need a few days, to keep herself available for follow ups.”
“Right away sir,” Jarvis answered.
“So Cap,” Tony said, flopping onto the cushion next to him, “you guys were in the bathroom, alone, for quite a long time. What happened?” Tony waggled his eyebrows, flashing a conspiratorial smile.
“We got cleaned up and came back out, there wasn’t time for anything else. Besides, you weren’t even up here when we came out, how do you know how long we were gone?” Steve asked, scoffing.
“Jarvis told me,” Tony answered, grinning. Steve looked up, giving the computer his most offended glare. He still wasn’t used to the computer that was watching his every move, sometimes feeling very violated by it. He knew he couldn’t blame Jarvis, it was only doing what it was programmed to do by Tony, but it was so lifelike it was easy to forget that Jarvis wasn’t its own sentient entity.
“How much time do you think you need Cap?” Clint asked, balancing on two stool legs.
“Real men take their time,” Natasha purred, snaking a hand out to grab the stool out from under him. Clint’s fast reflexes were the only thing keeping him from falling on his butt.
“You guys are terrible! Celia and I didn’t do anything in that bathroom,” Steve choked out, offended by their implication.
“I just wanted to know if you found out any information from her,” Tony said innocently, with comically wide eyes. “What did you think I was talking about?” Clint snickered from his spot by Natasha, leaning casually against the bar counter like it was by choice.
“You may think I’m out of touch, but I know what those eyebrows mean,” Steve said, pointing at Tony’s face.
“Sure gramps, but seriously though, you get any info from her? Anything useful to supplement the background check?” Tony asked, rolling his eyes.
“Background check?” Steve asked, with a glare. “You’re running a background check on her? I thought you didn’t think she was a suspect anymore!”
“I said I was almost all the way convinced,” Tony pointed out. “We have no idea how all of this is gonna shake out and we need to know who we are dealing with. Even if she isn’t involved in this plot to kidnap you, she could still be a psychopath. We need to cover all our bases here.” Steve sighed, conceding to Tony’s point. He hated feeling sneaky, infringing on Celia’s privacy without her consent, but they really didn’t need any surprises to pop up and cause problems. Hopefully she was the normal woman she seemed like to Steve.
“Okay,” Steve agreed, although he knew Tony would still do what he wanted, even if he kicked up a fuss. “Just don’t get too personal if you can help it. You wouldn’t want someone poking around in your past.”
“Sure, sure,” Tony said, brushing him off, standing and walking over to a desk in the corner. He grabbed a StarkPad from a drawer, pulling up the info Jarvis had found so far. “Give me a rundown Jarvis, what am I looking at?”
“I seem to have hit a bit of a hiccup sir. According to my search so far, Ms. Celia Burke didn’t exist three years ago,” Jarvis answered in his usual cool tone.
“And the plot thickens.”