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“Agent Romanoff,” a frazzled looking SHEILD agent called out, carefully making their way across the landing pad where the quinjet had just set down. “Your presence has been requested in medical ma’am. It’s Agent Rogers. His procedure this morning was…”
To the Avengers surprise Natasha, known to be unflappable, made a wounded noise, cutting the agent off. “His procedure was today?” she asked voice shaking.
“Yes ma’am.”
“He didn’t tell you?” Clint asked eyes wide and surprised.
“No,” she replied, hurt lacing her tone, “Did he tell you?”
“Nah, but I’m not as close to him as you are.”
“Everything ok?” Sam asked, the other Avengers were gathering closer all looking equally curious. Scott and Thor shared a glance both shrugging. T'Challa and Tony each retracted their suits.
“Who’s Rogers?” Tony asked, receiving no reply.
Natasha looked towards the Agent, a question in her gaze.
“He’s fine,” the Agent was quick to reassure, “But the procedure had some, unexpected side effects.”
Without waiting for any further details, Natasha nodded and took off towards the SHEILD medical facility, the rest of the team following behind.
“He had better be ok,” she hissed. “Because I’m going to kill him.”
…
It wasn’t hard to find the right room when they reached medical. They just followed the sound of outrage.
“You said it would cure my illnesses,” an angry voice cried out, “Being short is not an illness.”
“Sit down and quit shouting at the Doctor Stevie,” an exasperated voice said, “He couldn’t have predicted this.”
“Well why not?!”
“I’m really sorry,” the calm familiar voice of Doctor Banner drifted out to them. “I never meant to…”
“Don’t apologise to him. It ain’t that bad.”
“Not that bad?” the first voice shrieked.
The Avengers entered the room to see a blonde Adonis in a medical gown pacing angrily back and forth, whilst Doctor Banner and another SHEILD agent with long brown hair watched on.
Natasha stopped short inside the door, eyes widening.
“Wow,” she gasped, drawing the man’s attention, “You look…”
“Ridiculous,” he finished for her, voice bitter. “I look ridiculous.”
“You look fine, punk,” the other agent in the room scoffed rolling his eyes.
“Shaddup, Buck. I look stupid and you know it. How am I supposed to work like this? I’m an undercover agent. I’m meant to blend in. I’m meant to be inconspicuous. Does this look inconspicuous to you? I look like someone who has a gym schedule and talks about gains. I look like…like…I look like someone who eats kale. Willingly!”
Several Avengers let out barks of laughter at that. Tony in particular looked both amused and offended. His kale smoothies were infamous amongst the team.
The blonde stopped pacing, seeming to finally notice his audience. “Uh…” He drew back, self-conscious for a moment before being quickly distracted by the angry ball of Russian rage storming towards him.
“Steven Grant Rogers you son of a bitch,” Natasha snarled, shoving him none too gently in the chest. “How could you not tell me the procedure was today?!”
The blonde, apparently named Steven, blinked in surprise as the rough motion barely phased him then hissed when she followed it up with a jab to his ribs. “Ow, Nat I…”
“If it’s any consolation,” the other agent piped up, “He didn’t tell me either. I found out from Darcy this morning.”
“I didn’t want to worry you,” Steven defended. “You both had missions to focus on and…” Natasha jabbed him in the ribs again.
“If my second-best friend is undergoing a serious medical procedure, I want to know about it and I want to damn well be there Steve!”
“Hear! Hear!” the agent Steve had called Buck, cried out. “I told him that already. Stubborn punk thinks he needs to do everything alone.”
“I was just trying to… ow…stop hitting me.”
“Make me.”
Natasha gasped when the man moved, too quickly for most of them to track, and picked her up, pinning her to his chest, arms and legs immobile.
“Woah,” Clint gasped.
Buck looked equally shocked. “Well, you sure couldn’t do that yesterday.”
Steve looked equally surprised by his actions.
“See,” Buck continued, “The procedure was a total win.”
Steve scowled again, shooting another glare at Doctor Banner. “I still don’t see why it changed my appearance,” he complained. “It was meant to fix the things wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with being short and thin.”
“You’re also still a stubborn jackass so it clearly didn’t fix that,” Buck taunted.
“Well,” the doctor muttered, pushing his glasses further up his nose with one finger, “You did have scoliosis, so some added height was to be expected.”
“My spine wasn’t bent that much,” Steve snapped irately, glaring over Natasha's head.
“You know as soon as you put her down, she’s going to kick your ass?” Clint pointed out.
“It occurred to me a second after I picked her up,” Steve admitted, “Now I’m just holding on until I can figure out an escape plan.”
“You can run but you can’t hide Rogers,” Natasha promised darkly, not even attempting to struggle against the hold.
“Wait,” Buck gasped, grin sliding across his face. “Can he run now? Like really run? Without dying or anything?”
Banner nodded, consulting his notes, “We need to complete testing to confirm his exact parameters, but based on initial scans Agent Rogers’s body is now operating at peak efficiency, all illnesses including asthma have been eradicated. He should be able to run for a considerable time before tiring.”
Scott eyed Natasha who was still calmly hanging in the air, looking utterly content, a small deadly smile curling her lips. “He’ll need to.”
“Can someone please explain why the Avengers are here?” Steve asked, looking a little lost.
“We followed The Widow,” Thor explained bluntly.
Tony nodded, “Not sure what we were expecting, but this has certainly been interesting. Going by context clues I take it you didn’t always look like this?” he asked, waving at Steve’s large frame. “Mind sharing with the class?”
Natasha let out a light chuckle.
“Avengers, allow me to introduce Agent Steven Rogers, SHEILD’s first volunteer for the renewed Project Rebirth. One of my oldest friends at SHEILD.”
“Ahem,” Buck coughed.
“And Agent James Barnes, also my friend. And Ex.”
“Call me Bucky,” he smiled, waving at them all and ignoring their shocked faces at the ‘ex’ thing.
“A pleasure to meet you Steven and Bucky!” Thor greeted. A few others gave more subdued greetings.
“So…Project Rebirth?” T'Challa asked. “Care to explain?”
“It was a failed experiment to created super soldiers,” Tony explained before anyone else could. “My dad was involved in it back during World War two.”
Across the room Doctor Banner frowned, glancing at his notes, “That wasn’t in the files.”
Tony shrugged and continued, “A doctor named Erskine tested an experimental serum on a volunteer. It was intended to cure all ailments, improve strength, stamina, intelligence etc. Supposedly it worked but, a gunman infiltrated the facility and killed both the doctor and the soldier within minutes of the serum being administered. Dad’s journals said that in the chaos immediately after, the facility caught fire and all the research was lost. They couldn’t figure out how to replicate the serum so the programme was shut down.”
“Then how?” T'Challa asked, waving towards Steve.
Doctor Banner cleared his throat loudly, “I can answer that. It’s true that the research was lost, but after the fire the volunteer’s body was retrieved and samples taken. I have the dubious honour of being one of a long line of scientists attempting to recreate to serum based on those samples.”
“And the first to succeed,” Clint pointed out with a grin. “Nice job doc.”
The doctor ducked his head, bashful but pleased.
“Succeeded if you ignore the glaring side effects,” Steve muttered.
“Oh my God Stevie, so you’re big now, so what? It’s not the end of the world.”
“Says you!”
“Exactly how much smaller were you before?” Scott asked.
Sam ducked past Bucky to snag a file off the table behind him and let out a low whistle as he flicked to a photograph of Steve taken before the procedure. He turned the file to show the others.
The photograph showed Steve, his face considerably gaunter, at least two feet shorter, his scrawny frame holding barely any muscle. A far cry from the man before them now.
Scott gaped, “You went from that to this in one day?”
“He went from that to this in approximately six minutes,” Doctor Banner corrected.
“And he’s been complaining ever since,” Bucky added.
Thor let out a cry of laughter. “What is the problem friend? You have been remade into a warrior.”
“I didn’t want to be a warrior,” Steve grumbled. “I wanted to be myself, just without the chronic illness. How am I meant to do my job like this?”
“You could always join STRIKE team,” Bucky laughed, earning himself a death glare.
“Id rather wait tables than work with those jackasses.”
“You could always join the Avengers,” Tony suggested, surprising himself as much as everyone else. At their shocked faces he doubled down, projecting confidence, “Well, we could always use more good people and you’re already friends with Natasha and Clint which means you’re trustworthy. Assuming the serum worked correctly, I’m sure we can find room for a super soldier.”
“You hear that, Stevie? Forget undercover, you can be an Avenger!”
Steve looked a little stunned. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t be stupid. You’re always saying you want to make a change in the world. Fight the good fight. Stand up for the little guys. This is your chance.”
“I guess, maybe. We still have to test the serum and…”
“And then it’s my turn,” Bucky insisted, glancing to Doctor Banner to confirm. “Right?”
“You are next on the list,” Banner agreed. “Once we’ve confirmed there are no adverse side effects.”
“No real side effects,” Bucky cut Steve off before he could open his mouth. “Your aesthetic complaints don’t count.”
“I hope your dose shrinks you,” Steve grumbled before quickly tossing Natasha towards Bucky and dashing out the door without waiting to see him catch her.
For a brief moment it seemed like he might get away, but just as Nat was rolling out of Bucky’s arm’s they all heard the sound of Steve's rapidly retreating footsteps becoming erratic as he lost control of his new body and crashed into a wall, shouting curses all the while.
Natasha grinned, walking calmly out the door. “Ready or not, here I come.”