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Steve Rogers hadn’t been sick since 1941. He’d been ill most of his life before then but with one short (admittedly painful) procedure, he hadn’t so much as had a sniffle for the last seventy years. Which is why a sneeze, a tiny, insignificant, little sneeze, at the end of a mission startled him so much. He sniffed a bit and tried to look down at his nose, succeeding only in crossing his eyes.
“Man, you keep doing that your eyes are going to stay that way,” Sam said tiredly, leaning his head against the hard metal of the fuselage as the jet screamed toward home.
“I can’t remember the last time I sneezed,” Steve said, sounding suspicious.
Sam laughed and lolled his head to look at Steve. “Cap, the rest of us are half-alive or dead tired. Forgive me if I don’t get too worked up about some dust in your nose.”
Steve flushed slightly, embarrassed he’d been caught complaining. The knowledge that his colleagues were indeed in bad shape deepened his shame. None of them had slept in days; Natasha was sporting two black eyes and a broken nose, Sam had, in Steve’s estimation, no fewer than five broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder, and Barton had taken some shrapnel to his left leg. He and Nat were propping one another up, now sound asleep, and Sam looked like he was ready to pass out.
“You’re right,” Steve said succinctly. “I’m sorry.”
Sam closed his eyes and chuckled again. “Nothing to be sorry for. Fighting aliens is hard work: if it gives you a sniffle that’s fine with me. Reminds me you’re human.”
Steve sat forward and leaned his elbows on his knees, hands dangling between them. “Mostly,” he joked, with a slightly sad shrug.
“All. You’re just different,” Sam said firmly
“Sometimes,” Steve said with a nod toward his sleeping and bloodied friends, “I feel a little too different. Not human at all.”
Sam nodded slowly. “I get that. But just because you’re different, doesn’t mean it’s bad, right? Do you think of Bruce as not human?”
“Of course not,” Steve responded, incensed that it might even be in question.
“If we’re keeping real score on that kind of thing, he’s way less human than you: he turns into a green rage monster. You’re also the most upright guy I’ve ever known; I don’t think your humanity is really in question.” He opened one eye. “Your taste in music on the other hand. . .”
Steve gave a half-laugh and shook his head. “I’m never going to live down Taylor Swift, am I?”
“Nope,” Sam said good naturedly. “Never. Now go to sleep. Or don’t and leave the rest of us alone.”
Steve nodded in acknowledgement and stood, bracing himself against the sway of the plane. He knew he wouldn’t sleep, so he thought he’d go see if the pilots were up for some company; he didn’t want to disturb his friends. He stepped lightly past Sam, who cracked open one eye again. “Don’t sweat that sneeze. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Two days later, that sneeze was definitely not nothing. It had become a sniffling, then a tickling in his throat, then a small cough, then a very loud, hacking cough. His first coughing fit in seven decades was in a full team debriefing, trying to listen to Stark. He felt the tickling and poured himself some water, hoping it would ease. When a sip or two didn’t help, he tried to clear his throat discreetly. That served only to make it worse and before he knew it, he was coughing so hard it felt like he was choking.
He pushed back his chair and leaned forward over his knees, trying to recall how to breathe through these things: it had happened all the time before the serum, but that had been so, so long ago. He tried to waive the Tony on: he didn’t want to interrupt the proceedings any more than he already had, but the presentation had come to a screeching halt and everyone in the room was looking at him with wide eyes. He felt the tightness in his chest begin to ease and waved a hand to signal that he was fine, though he felt far from it.
“I may have been wrong about that sniffle,” Sam said slowly, looking confused.
“I’m fine,” Steve said, trying again to wave away their concern. It might have helped, if it hadn’t come out sounding something like: “I’bm finb.”
Tony looked mildly annoyed. “Rogers, I thought you didn’t get sick. Super-immunity and all that.”
“I don’t. I haven’t,” Steve snuffled, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“The Captain’s serum should have provided him an immune response that would destroy any disease known to man, almost immediately,” Banner said quietly.
The room went still as they all looked at the schematics and drawings of the alien ships on the various surfaces in the room. Tony was the first to speak up. “What about diseases not known to man?” he asked with his signature blend of gravitas and flippancy.
Bruce stared intently at Steve as he spoke. “I suggest Captain Rogers be quarantined, as a precaution, while we find out.”
“I’m fine,” Steve protested again, sounding weak even to his own ears.
Tony reached down to the table to type in a few things on the screen. “Well, Capsicle, you were the only one that actually went inside that alien ship thing and I don’t think we should take any chances. Personally, I don’t want an alien virus to ravage the world when we’ve just finished saving it again.”
Steve understood this, even agreed with it as he processed the information, but was still put out when a medical team dressed in hazmat suits arrived seconds later. He shot a belligerent look at Tony but followed them willingly, suddenly wanting nothing more than to go to bed.
He got his wish soon, though certainly not in the way he’d envisioned. He’d been poked and prodded and disinfected and now lay in a sterile room with glass walls. He didn’t feel like watching television (there was nothing on he understood anyway), he didn’t want to fiddle with any of the technology Stark had left for him, and he certainly didn’t want to talk to any of the people he could see loitering outside. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, as he was actually feeling pretty terrible. He didn’t think he felt terrible enough to warrant quarantine, but he also didn’t want to pass along whatever this was to anybody else, he really didn’t, but he couldn’t believe they’d put him in here. Natasha glanced in, looking as concerned as she ever got, and Steve gave her a hard look. She hadn’t protested on his behalf.
As soon as the thought cleared his brain Steve, with some wonder, realized he was grumpy. He frowned at himself: he could remember being angry or sad over the last few years, but grumpy and petulant wasn’t normally on his list. He fretted about this for a while before his eyelids started to get heavy. His last thought before sleep claimed him was the he hoped alien viruses didn’t make one a permanent grump.
He woke, he didn’t know how many hours later, to someone calling his name. “Steve?” Bruce called again and Steve grunted in acknowledgement. He did not feel better: if anything he felt worse.
“I’ve got good news,” Bruce said, looking rumpled and tired.
“Oh?” Steve rasped as he gingerly reached for a cup of water near his head, the small movement making his arm ache with the effot.
“We don’t know what it is: its structure isn’t like any bacteria or virus we’ve ever seen.”
Steve took a drink, his hand shaking on the way to his mouth. “That doesn’t sound like great news from where I am.”
Bruce smiled a little. “Understandable. We may not know exactly what it is, but we do know that it’s not transferred by air, only by direct contact with. . .fluids.”
“How did I get it then?”
“Alien blood? ” Banner suggested. “If you came into contact with it and you had any open wounds, it probably entered there.”
“Lovely,” Steve murmured, thinking of the small cuts he’d had on his hands after punching one of them in the face. They’d healed almost immediately, but not quickly enough obviously.
“As best we can tell, it’s sort of like a virus, but it selects for very strong hosts. It won’t infect any of us because we’re too weak to survive it and it knows it. Your immune system is working triple time to fight this off and you should be right as rain in the next forty-eight hours or so.”
“Oh good. Can I go home then?” he asked hopefully, longing for his own bed and some privacy.
“Sure, since you’re not a danger to the entire human race,” Bruce deadpanned.
“Har, mister funny man. Just let me out so people can stop looking at me like I’m about to die,” he said with a small gesture to the window, where people immediately scattered.
“I can promise you and them that you’re not going to die. This thing is like the super solider version of a cold,” Bruce said as he turned for the door.
“Funny,” Steve said as he sat up slowly and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “I don’t remember ever feeling this bad with a regular cold.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, if any of the others had somehow managed to contract this, they’d be dead for sure.”
“Well that’s comforting,” Steve muttered, as the door slid shut behind Doctor Banner.
He dressed slowly and carefully in comfortable sweats, bone tired after so simple a task, and sat on the edge of the hospital bed, gathering his strength. He was so used to feeling so strong; invulnerable, really, and he was having a hard time feeling this weak. When Sam came to walk him back to his apartment, he tried to protest that he didn’t need an escort: he didn’t want to inconvenience anyone and he didn’t like the implication that he couldn’t manage on his own, but he was interrupted by his own hacking cough.
Sam, one arm strapped to his side, clapped Steve lightly on the shoulder. “Even a super soldier needs a little back-up from time to time,” he said gently. Steve swallowed the rest of the cough and nodded, grateful for the friendship, if not the implication that he wasn’t well enough to make it to his own damn bed by himself.
In the end, he did make it to the bed, where he stayed for a solid two days. That first day all he did was sleep; he didn’t even manage to get more than his sweatshirt off before sinking into his cool pillows, the ever present fan whirring softly beside his head and cooling his fevered skin. He sighed in relief: nothing ever felt as good as his own clean sheets. He hugged a pillow to his chest, curled around it, and sank into sleep.
He woke up about twenty-two hours later feeling less congested and more like he’d been hit by a very large truck. When Banner called to check on him he said that was probably normal: something about the immune system using the muscle fibers like a garbage disposal. He rolled over and went to sleep again, waking with a jolt when he realized there were people standing at the end of his bed.
“You weren’t answering your phone,” Tony said as he blandly threw a few cocktail peanuts in his mouth.
“It must be dead,” Steve said, clutching the sheets to his chest as he sat up. “But I talked to Bruce a little while ago; I’m fine.”
“That was approximately ten hours ago,” Natasha said, crossing her arms.
“We wanted to make sure you were alright,” Sam chimed in.
“So you broke into my apartment?” Steve
“Well, I don’t know that I’d call it breaking in,” Tony reasoned. “It is my building, and I simply asked JARVIS to open the door. Not a break in sight.”
Steve sighed and ran both hands through his hair. “I appreciate the concern, I really do. I’m feeling a little better, but I’d really like to be left alone. I hate feeling ill and I just want to ride it out.”
Surprisingly, Barton was the first one to nod and Steve could see he really understood: he didn’t want anyone to see him this weak as it reminded him of his sickly childhood. He didn’t want pity or company. He wanted to sleep and read and maybe put on Fantasia and bide his time until he felt normal again.
Barton lightly touched Natasha’s elbow. “We’ve seen he’s fine,” he said quietly, but loudly enough so that everyone could hear. “Let’s leave the man to his privacy.” Nat nodded succinctly and was halfway out the door before anyone else had turned to leave.
“Let us know if you need anything,” Sam said as he tugged a protesting Tony toward the door.
“I will,” Steve called out. “And thank you.” Sam pushed Tony out the door and half-saluted with a smile.
Steve smiled too, vaguely annoyed but mostly touched that his friends had been concerned enough to break in. He leaned over to the nightstand, plugged in the phone to make sure that didn’t happen again, and fell asleep.
When he woke next, he thought his head was pounding. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, blinking, and realized that his head didn’t actually hurt, but someone was knocking on his front door rather forcibly. He dragged himself out of bed, still feeling sluggish, and staggered toward the door. He didn’t bother using the peephole, just flung the door open kneaded his bare shoulder.
He’d expected Nat, or maybe Sam. Barton on the off chance. He did not expect a blonde straight out of a war-time pin up. She was about average height but that’s where average stopped: she wore a black and white checked halter dress that showed a fair amount of rather abundant decolletage and highlighted her small waist. Her bright blonde hair was pulled away from her face in a ponytail. And what a face: high cheek bones, clean lines, soft and feminine with a wide, soft mouth and bright blue eyes. Classically beautiful is what Buck would have called her, his voice tinged with admiration. Steve suddenly had alternating desires to sketch her and to kiss her. He shut his eyes in both embarrassment and the hope that when he opened them she would be some kind of a fever dream. When he cracked them open and looked down, she still stood there, wearing the pretty dress and holding a dark bouquet of flowers.
“Oh,” she said a little breathlessly as her eyes widened at his bare chest. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I just. . .I have these for Captain Rogers?” she said lamely as she held the flowers out toward him. He saw her eyes dart back to his chest and he couldn’t help but be pleased at her admiration, though he flushed a little and had to make an effort not to stammer.
“I’ll take them,” he said, his voice sounding deeper than normal to his own ears. The girl smiled widely and he felt butterflies in the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t met a woman in years that made him this uncomfortable, this quickly.
“Who sent these?” he asked, a little more roughly than he’d meant.
The woman’s smile didn’t falter, but her gaze fluttered away from his and she gestured toward the arrangement he held. “Mr. Stark. I believe there’s a card attached.”
Steve looked down into the burgundy mass in his hands and plucked out the little ivory card tucked amongst the petals.
These and the lovely lady that delivers them should help you feel better. Her name is Evie. Try not to look to long at her. . .assests; I know it’s been a long time since you’ve seen any that nice, but it’s not polite to stare.
t.s.
Steve could feel the blush creeping up his neck, though he was unsure if it was from embarrassment or anger. It wasn’t this lovely woman’s fault that Tony Stark was an inveterate womanizer or all-around prick, so he tamped them both down and gave her small smile. “Thank you, ma’am for going to the trouble of bringing these all the way up here.” She laughed, which Steve liked, and waved his comment away with a small gesture.
“It’s no trouble at all, I promise. I’m always happy to have business from Stark.”
“Well, they’re very pretty, thank you.” He said gravely, hoping to god Tony hadn’t actually sent a prostitute. She didn’t look like one and she certainly didn’t act like any of the working girls he’d known, but one could never be sure with Tony.
“Thank you,” she said shyly, smiling wider and flushing slightly. Steve followed the rapid coloring up her neck with rapt interest and swallowed hard. They stood awkwardly for a few moments, then the woman reached out her hand.
“I’m Evelyn,” she said as she bounced slightly forward on the balls of her feet. “Captain Rogers, I hope you get to feeling better soon.” Before Steve could think of a decent reply, she had turned and was striding toward the elevator at the end of the hall.
“Thank you!” he called after her and was rewarded with a bright, beaming smile that did curious things to his insides. He waved slightly as she stepped into the elevator and then turned into the apartment. He leaned against the doorjamb, running his thumb over his bottom lip and pondering the pretty woman. He turned over the card he still held and saw that all of the contact information was discreetly printed at the bottom. He smiled tiredly to himself for there, printed in black and white, was proof that while Tony was an meddling ass, he was at least, well meaning and had NOT tried to send Steve a prostitute.
Chance’s Choice, a florist
Evelyn Chance, Proprietor
He set the bouquet on the kitchen counter and trudged back to bed. She may have been pretty, but he still felt too rotten to do anything about.
Another full day later, he finally woke feeling refreshed, healthy, and starving. He bounded out of bed, luxuriated in his shower, and ate an entire box of fruit loops along with some bacon and eggs, staring at the arrangment from Tony the entire time. He met Sam in the gym, who was taking it slow and easy on the treadmill, nursing his ribs and shoulder.
“Well you sure look better!” Sam remarked, not breaking stride.
“Feel it too.” Steve said as he rolled his shoulders back and sucked in a deep breath.
“Scared us a little,” Sam said, clearly out of breath. “Never seen you look that bad.”
“Scared me a little too,” Steve responded as he wrapped his knuckles, more out of habit than necessity. “Haven’t been ill in seventy years.”
“Yeah, well, to be fair, a lot of that was because you were frozen.”
Steve chuckled. “True. But I guess I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Oh? And what’s that?”
“Don’t punch an alien in the face if it’s got a snotty nose,” he said with a solid punch to a bag and Sam laughed. “I also learned that my teammates have got my back, in or out of battle, and that’s nice to know. So thank you,” he finished sincerely.
“Any time, Cap,” Sam said with a laugh.
“I also learned that Tony Stark is an ass. A well-meaning, lovable, ass, but an ass just the same.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Took you this long to figure that out?”
Steve canted his head and shrugged a shoulder. “I guess I’d always assumed it was an act? But he really is an ass.” He threw a hard punch at the bag.
“What’d he do this time?” Sam puffed out as his treadmill picked up speed.
“Sent me flowers.”
Sam glanced over quickly, face incredulous and legs pumping away on the black strip beneath him. “Most people think of that as the mark of a good friend.”
“Yeah, but see, he didn’t just send me flowers. He sent me a girl and some flowers.”
Sam stumbled but regained his balance before he tumbled off. “Tony sent you a call girl?!”
“No! Though I did think for a second. . .nevermind.” Steve stammered, embarrassed. He rubbed the back of his neck and he could feel himself reddening. “He ordered flowers from a florist he knows that’s. . .she’s. . .well, she’d kind of a looker. And in his card he told me he thought the combination of the flowers and her would make me feel better.”
Sam slammed the treadmill to stop and bent over his knees, laughing through his gasps. He finally glanced up, elbows braced on his thighs. “Did it?”
“Did it what?” Steve responded, throwing a handful of quick jabs at the bag.
“Make you feel better.”
Steve pondered that for a second before pulling back and delivering a fatal blow to the poor punching bag. “I guess it did.”
Sam laughed, long and hard, and Steve cracked a lopsided smile.
“Was she that hot?” Sam asked as he bent to stretch.
A grin spread over Steve’s face. “Yeah. Yeah, she was.”
Sam nodded sagely. “You should call her.”
“Yeah. Yeah, maybe I should.”