Finding The Cure
"I think this is going to work." Shuri had been helping Tony create a new super soldier serum using Bucky's blood over the past two months. She wasn't an official Avenger yet, still in the "friend of member" category, but Tony definitely was considering making her an honorary Avenger after all of this blew over. Peter would still be in that stage until he turned twenty one, so the same rules applied to Shuri and any other new Avengers that might come along. After all, that was the age that Steve first became Captain America. Right now though, Shuri was helping Tony test out different serum prototypes on Steve's blood until one of them eradicated the poison in his veins or at least got rid of enough to heal from. "This proto-serum looks as if it's separating the poison from most of the Captain's blood easy enough, but it looks as if it's not doing a lot for his healing capabilities."
Tony tapped his foot, looking at the screen and then glancing over at Bucky who was sitting in a corner, watching to see if he could help. "What do you think Buck? Do you think it might work well enough?"
Bucky came over to stand by Tony thoughtfully, their bubblegum pink heels clicking against the ground. "What if you added more of the serum? What would that do?"
Shuri shrugged and put one more drop of the serum onto the slide under a high powered microscope, the clear liquid mixing with the red of Steve's blood. Looking back to the screen connected to the microscope, the three of them watched what the cells would do. It looked as if everything was working correctly, the poison separating completely from Steve's blood and one of Tony's hands flew over his mouth while the other one grabbed Bucky's neon orange sweater sleeve. "Do you think this is it? Is it going to work?"
Bucky shrugged, but Tony had gotten to know them well enough in the past two months to know that they were panicking. "I don't know Eds. I really don't know."
Suddenly, all activity on the screen stopped and it looked as if everything was back to Steve's normal blood without any of the poison. Shuri let out a loud yell of delight and Tony jumped into Bucky's arms. "We did it Buck! We did it! Oh, you beautiful human being!" Wrapping his arms and legs around Bucky's midsection, the long haired brunette had to be careful not to break their heels from the weight of two grown human beings.
"Eds, you're killing me. If you break my favorite pink heels, I don't care if Steve wakes up, I will stab you." Tony quickly let go of the super soldier with a grin and just as his feet touched the ground again, the slide under the microscope shattered with a bang.
The shock of the noise so much like a gunshot caused both Tony and Bucky to fall into battle ready stances before Tony noticed the slide had been demolished. "Shuri. What the fucking hell just happened?"
Shuri quickly tapped a few buttons on the computer in front of her and brought up the cellular video footage from the last twenty seconds or so. The three of them watched as the poison split away from Steve's blood and for a few seconds everything was alright. Then, the blood cells started vibrating faster and faster until they exploded. Shuri just stared at the shattered slide that had splattered blood all over the microscope and table, surprised at the force of the explosion. "Well, I would prefer to keep Captain Rogers in one piece, so this proto-serum is going to have to be a no."
Tony examined the shattered slide, thinking a bit. "No, I think this one's right. Bucky was onto something though with the altering of the amounts of the proto-serum, so we should play around with that first. We just need the proper ratio of blood to serum and this should work, and remember we don't need all of the poison out of him, just about eighty five percent of it so the rest can pass naturally as Steve heals."
Shuri nodded respectfully and quickly. "I'll start the experiments right away." She paused, looking at Tony. "We need more of his blood. I don't have enough to accurately conduct the experiments."
Tony nodded sadly. "This better be the last time, you know he can't recover this much of his blood without a few weeks to do it." Shuri just nodded and shooed the two people out of the room so she could start setting up.
Bucky just fiddled with the green bracelets on their left wrist, playing with the beads and rubbing the plastic between their fingers. It was a system that Tony came up with so he would stop misgendering people in Wakanda. Red bracelets for he/him pronouns, yellow for she/her, and green for they/them. No stereotypical pink and blue bullshit. Most people wore the bracelets, but some didn't because they either forgot or just didn't want to. Today, Bucky was wearing the green bracelets despite usually wearing the red ones or even the yellow ones, but they wore their favorite pink heels whenever they wanted, no matter the pronouns. The heels were the first thing Tony gotten for Bucky after getting to Wakanda when the super soldier realized that they had no feminine looking clothing with them. Tony had taken Bucky shopping out in the city, pulling them in and out of shops with different types of clothing, dragging Shuri along since she was nonbianary but liked she/her pronouns more than they/them. She had helped Tony choose hideous clothes that Bucky had absolutely loved with all of their heart because of the sheer amount of color they had, pulling together items that really didn't fit together, like the black skinny jeans, neon orange sweater, and bubblegum pink heels they were wearing at this very moment. As Tony and Bucky walked towards Steve's hospital room, Bucky switched their green bracelet for a red one and shoved his hands in his pockets.
Tony walked into the hospital room with Bucky trailing silently behind and walked over to a cabinet in the corner to grab some things used for taking blood as Bucky sat down next to Steve's bed. Walking to the opposite side of the bed as Bucky, Tony took Steve's hand and squeezed it. "Hey Angel. You're looking better than usual today." It was a true observation. Steve's wounds weren't all the way healed, but they didn't look all scabby and gross anymore like when Tony first said that it was alright to uncover the skin and take off the bandages permanently. Gently, Tony felt the inside of Steve's arm, looking for a familiar vein before tying a piece of elastic to Steve's bicep and cleaning the area with an alcohol wipe. "Don't worry Angel. You won't feel anything." When Tony lightly pressed the needle into Steve's skin, Bucky flinched from his own bad experience with needles and turned away, squeezing the unconscious soldier's hand softly. Tony mumbled soothing words as he took blood from Steve's arm and stayed quiet after he was finished.
"Hey." Bucky was holding out his hand for the bag of blood Tony held and he smiled lightly. "I'll bring that to Shuri and then take a shower. You just stay here and talk to him. I have a feeling he would want the company."
Tony smiled, looking over his shoulder at Steve's face. "Thanks Buck. This means a lot to me." Bucky just nodded and grabbed the bag, walking out of the room to leave Tony to walk back to Steve's bedside. "Good news Angel, we have a proto-serum that might just work to help you wake up, but the bad news is that we still don't know how the poison has affected your brain. I'm not sure what's going to happen when you wake up, but you need to wake up really soon so that we can save our team. T'challa has temporarily left the Avengers to hide us, Natasha has dropped off the grid, and Pete hung up his suit to stay out of trouble, but I think Clint has gotten stuck when he was going to retire and Thor is almost permanently off world now so he can't help. The council still has control over Wanda which means that the rest of the Avengers are still under her control. Knowing them, they are threatening to kill Clint if Wanda refuses to do what they tell her to. That means that we are the only two left. I need you Steven Rogers. Please come back to me." Tony leaned forward to gently brush a kiss onto Steve's forehead and frowned as he felt the rough skin touch his lips. Over half of Steve's face was covered in dry cracked skin where his wounds were healing, but a lot of the spots had already started showing signs of scarring waiting to be revealed when he healed the rest on the way. There was a lot of closed wounds on Steve's arms, hands, upper chest, and neck, but there wasn't as much on his stomach as Tony had feared. From Steve's bellybutton to thighs, there wasn't as much broken skin due to the fact that Steve usually kept more fabric there like a sweater tied around his waist, but just below that, Steve's legs were a complete mess of horrible marks and cracking skin. His feet were relatively unharmed, but it did seem as if the bottom of his feet got most of the broken skin which was weird, but understandable. "Angel. I hope you can hear me." Tony brushed his fingers lightly over Steve's completely ruined hand, kissing the knuckles lightly. "When you wake up, I just want you to know that I will never think of you any different for having these scars. You didn't judge me for mine, so I will never judge you for yours. You are the most beautiful man on the planet and nothing could ever change that, but if anyone even tries to prove me wrong, I'll hit them with a fucking bat." Tony sighed, digging around in his pocket before placing a dollar bill in a jar on the table next to Steve's bed. Anyone that swore in Steve's room had to put a dollar in the jar. "Sorry about that, but it's completely true. Come back to me soon. Okay?" Tony wasn't expecting a response, but he didn't get one despite silently begging for one. "I've got to go now Angel, but don't worry, I'll be back." Tony stood up, gently squeezing Steve's hand before letting go slowly and pulling the blanket up to where Steve liked it. Tony let himself look at the tube taped to the soldier's cheek that trailed into his mouth, keeping him breathing, softly brushing it before turning away and walking out of the room.
Tony walked back to the lab with Shuri in it, preparing to help her with the experiments, but she wouldn't let him in. "Go to sleep idiot. You are no use to me this tired."
Eventually, Tony agreed and walked back to the apartment that he and Bucky shared. They had become good friends and Bucky still needed to see a familiar face first thing every day in this weird, futuristic city whenever he woke up from a nightmare. It put him at ease to have someone that he trusted in the same room as him, but it also helped him get used to socializing. Tony had been the one to suggest the set up because having a trained assassin trailing behind him half of the day helped him to relax about the brainwashed Avengers after him. It was also nice to have someone who understood what Tony had gone through because they had gone through similar things. Bucky also helped him feel more secure about his scars around people because they often talked about how they got them and compared shitty life experiences. That said, it was no surprise to Tony when he walked into the apartment to see Bucky sitting on the table fully clothed and soaking wet, eating a whole fucking bagel covered in peanut butter. "Having a bad day Buck? What was it? The war, Steve, Hydra?"
He looked up, surprised when he heard a voice and frowned. "Hydra. How'd you know?"
Tony looked at the soaking wet clothes, messy hair bun, place on the table, uncut bagel with a few bites in it, and peanut butter covering Bucky's fingers, then shrugged. "You hate peanuts."
Bucky looked down at himself and sighed. "I guess I forgot to take my clothes off before my shower." Throwing the bagel messily onto the counter, Bucky got off of the table and went to wash his hands in the kitchen sink. "Sorry about that."
Tony shook his head. "We are even now. You got to see me sitting upside down on the couch half naked while singing Baby Shark and trying to eat ice cream. I think this just about covers the embarrassing depressive episode wars."
Bucky smiled, still not laughing. "Did I win?"
Tony scoffed. "Again, Bucky. Baby Shark and ice cream. You won by a landslide."
Bucky smiled, peeling off his sweater and shirt and throwing them onto the table with the puddle already there. The two of them had long since been open with the scars on their chests, but they had a whole night of bonding over the whip marks on their backs from their abusers. Tony with Afghanistan and Bucky with Hydra. It had gained a lot of laughs as they got drunk off their asses, one thing that Bucky could do that Steve couldn't. That night had ended in such a heated game of truth or dare that they had gotten a visit from T'challa telling them to shut the fuck up and go to sleep before Bucky dared Tony to try and steal any more things from T'challa's room. It had started out as a heavy night, but quickly turned into a night filled with laughter and games with a friend. Except Bucky never laughed, only smiled or allowed himself a small huff of breath in amusement.
Tony bit his lip softly, rounding the table and placing a hand on Bucky's flesh shoulder. The one thing he couldn't stand, was anyone touching the metal arm without him initiating first contact because if how scared it made him. Not even Tony or Steve when he woke up. "So, Buck. Do you want to talk about it?"
Bucky shook his head softly. "Not really. I think I just need company. Do you mind?"
Tony smiled. "Of course I don't mind. You just go take that shower."
Bucky nodded, moving back towards the bathroom to take an actual shower as Tony retreated to the room they shared. It honestly reminded Tony of his time at MIT with Rhodey where there were two beds on opposite sides of the room, either side decorated to fit their respective owner. There was all types of tech everywhere and Tony had a bunch of metal scraps thrown about, half done projects littering his bed with AC-DC, Led Zeppelin, and MCR posters plastered in random angles all over the walls. Clothes were thrown everywhere, even on the high tech hologram casting design table, and there was still things thrown into his closet that probably shouldn't have been there. Like a car battery or some twisted hunk of metal that looked as if it was about to blow up. On the other hand, Bucky had his bed neatly made into a military tuck and there was nothing on the floor. There was a pretty normal wooden desk in one of his corners while his bed was shoved into the other corner, picture frames resting on the headboard. There was just a few, an old picture of him and a skinny Steve, a new picture of Bucky laying with Steve in the hospital bed, both soldiers covered in bandages because Bucky had ran face first into a glass door on accident after only a few days in Wakanda, and then one picture with Tony, the genius messing around with a holographic DNA strand while Bucky made bracelets, both of them facing the camera with an arm slung around the other's shoulders and dumb looks on their faces. There were one or two equality posters above Bucky's bed and one poster above the desk having to do with plums, but the rest of the wall was blank. Bucky's closet was sorted by color, his clothing all neatly separated into female, androgynous, and male sections with their respective shoe options were underneath. Most of the shoes were either high heels or Converse, but there were some Vans and random sneakers scattered between in bright colors. Bucky had colored all of his white shoes with little rainbows and there was almost no black except for the occasional sweater or pair of jeans. The only strange thing was the little room that broke off in the back of the closet that had two full walls dedicated to mirrors and a large vanity filled with dozens of makeup choices.
Bucky had an interesting set up where Tony's was all chaos, but he just shrugged and started stripping, throwing his clothes onto the floor before rummaging around for a bit to come up with a shirt and a pair of pants that could serve as something to sleep in. As Tony heard the shower stop, he quickly shoved himself user Bucky's blankets, feeling like a burrito as the fabric trapped him to the bed, facing the wall. Tony heard rustling around as Bucky got dressed, then felt a pull as he untucked the blankets and climbed into the warmth, causing the genius to turn around and face Bucky. "Hey you fucking weirdo." Tony smiled with a chuckle, looking into the blue eyes of his friend.
Bucky frowned a little at the unneeded swear word, but then smiled back at Tony. "Hey yourself stranger. I haven't seen you in forever."
Tony gasped in mock horror, unable to hide the smile on his lips. "A whole entire five minutes. Whatever should I do?"
Bucky grinned. "You should probably shut up and go to sleep so we can figure out what Shuri finds in the morning."
Tony's eyes went wide, remembering why they were in Wakanda in the first place, then he nodded and closed his eyes. "Alright. Goodnight Buck."
Bucky smiled. "Goodnight Eds."
Tony was happy do drift off with his best friend in this whole mess right next to him, having crawled into Bucky's bed a few times himself after nightmares. All of it was a completely normal occurrence since they slept together more than they did apart, seeking comfort with the person they felt safest with during this whole ordeal. As Tony started to drift off to the sound of Bucky's breathing, he smiled because it was the safest he had felt in seven whole months.