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tarotgalTitle: The Only Thing I Catch Now Are Bad Guys
Author: tarotgal
Fandom: Marvel/Avengers
Pairings: Stony (current), Stucky (past)
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Cap thought he couldn't get sick after the whole supersoldier serum thing. Turns out that's not exactly the case.
“ahhh-HEPTSchhhhhhhh!” Tony shook the bed with his sneezes, spraying a fine mist into the space in front of him. He sniffed wetly, too exhausted to reach for yet another tissue. From behind, Steve gave him a tight squeeze then reached almost blindly forward, pulling a tissue from the box. After nudging Tony’s hand out of the way, Steve folded the tissue over Tony’s nose, wiping a little but mostly keeping it there until Tony, reluctantly, took a deep breath and blew his nose. “Dod’t dow why you’re still here,” he muttered as Steve wiped his nose clean and tossed the tissue over the side of their bed. “I’b disgustig.”
“Yeah, you are,” Steve murmured, wrapping his arm back around Tony. His strong body was pressed right up against Tony’s back; they couldn’t be closer without Steve actually being inside him, and Tony was far too weak for that right now. So spooning would have to do. “But I don’t really mind. You’ll feel better soon and then everything will be back to normal—normal for us, at least.”
Tony gave a snort-laugh combination. “Dorbal for us beads fightig alieds add stobbig evil villaids tryig to take over the world.”
“But it also means motorcycle rides up the coast and making out during movies and practicing our fighting skills against each other.” And it meant mind-blowing blow jobs in Tony’s lab, lazy morning tumbles in bed, and making love well into the night wherever they happened to be. He kissed the back of Tony’s head, and the low, lustful sound Tony made meant he understood what Steve hadn’t said out loud.
“I wish… I… hadg od…”
Steve rubbed his chest. “Are you going to sneeze again?”
“Doe I… ahhh… I’b… ah-hehhhhh!”
“Yes, you are.”
And quickly, too. Quicker than Steve’s hand could get to the tissue box and back, at least. So he did the only thing he could in the time he had, which was to cup his hand to Tony’s nose and mouth.
“hahhh hahh-TIJJSChhhhhhh!” He groaned. “Steeeve!”
“It’s all right.” Tony had more of a problem with germs than anyone Steve had ever met. Steve got a tissue and wiped his wet hand on it. Then he pressed another tissue to Tony’s nose for a blow. “I don’t really mind. Besides, I don’t get sick any more. Frankly, it’s the best part of the Super Soldier Serum. When I was a scrawny kid, my nose never stopped running, between allergies and colds and flus. I caught every bug there was to catch. And now the only thing I catch are bad guys. That part of it, at least, was a good trade.”
Tony’s body tensed up and then shook the bed again. “ahhh-HEHTSchhhhhhhh!”
Steve wiped his nose for him. “No more talking. It’s late. Time for sleep.” Steve wiped at Tony’s nose with a tissue and then rubbed small circles on Tony’s chest until the man finally drifted off to sleep.
Tony wasn’t a tea-drinking kind of guy, but there was still a supply of it in the kitchen pantry. Steve thought about brewing a pot and forcing it on the man anyway. It would do him some good.
“h’ptschxxxt!”
Steve turned in surprise. He hadn’t expected Tony to be out of bed, especially not this early and not with the amount of cold medicine Tony had downed the night before.
But it wasn’t Tony. Of course it wasn’t Tony. Tony was tucked into bed several floors above. And Clint was here, pinching his nose between thumb and forefinger. He made a series of small “snxrrt!” sounds as his nose ran.
“Clint? Are you all right?”
Clint was busy rooting around in the refrigerator and didn’t reply.
“Clint?” Steve raised his voice. Then he tried, “Hawkeye?”
Still nothing, apart from a few more restrained, sniffly snorts.
Steve walked over and put a hand on Clint’s back. The man nearly went through the roof he was so startled. He dropped a jar of jam on the floor, but it didn’t shatter, thankfully. It must not have been made of glass. “Sorry,” Steve said. “I was calling you…” He reached down and picked up the jar, handing it back to Clint.
Clint nodded his appreciation and touched two fingers to his ear. “Don’t have them in. The sinus pressure and headache make it hard to wear ‘em. Can’t hear a damn thing you’re saying.”
Steve didn’t know too much about Clint’s hearing aids, apart from the fact that the ones Tony had made him were beyond state-of-the-art. If they wouldn’t work, then he knew nothing would. He felt awkward, unsure of how to proceed. But Clint was staring at him expectantly now, so Steve tried again. “I asked if you were all right.”
Clint rubbed his fist in a circle on his chest as he narrowed his eyes. “Could you say that again? I’m not so good at lip reading.”
Steve repeated his question, enunciating this time. “Are you okay?”
“Okay? Oh. Snkrrrrt!” He nodded again. “Yeah. Just came down with that cold that’s going around the tower. I… I-ihh!” He tightened his grip of his nose and brought his other hand up to simultaneously cover his mouth and press a finger against his nostrils. None of this kept him from sneezing, however. His eyes squinted shut. “hih-Ihptshxxxxt! h'nkkttt! Uhhh… snxrrk! I’m surprised you haven’t caught this too, considering how close you and Tony are lately.”
Steve flushed a little. His relationship with Tony was no secret among the Avengers, but he wasn’t so used to these things being talked about. Back in his day, he and Bucky had needed to hide their feelings for each other. It was going to take time before he could talk about that kind of thing freely. Luckily, there was another topic he could steer the conversation toward. “Super Soldier Serum.”
“What?” Clint’s eyes were focused on Steve’s mouth.
“Super Soldier Serum,” Steve repeated, a little more slowly. He watched Clint’s brow furrow in confusion. “The serum that made me into Captain America,” Steve clarified, miming the act of injecting something into his forearm.
“Oh, right,” Clint said, finally understanding. “The Super Solider Serum. Ihh hih h’ihkxxxsh!”
“Right. I haven’t caught a cold since 1941.”
“1941?” he repeated, earning a nod from Steve. “Well that sounds great. Snrrtt! You wouldn’t happen to have any of that stuff lying about still?”
“Sorry, no. Closest I’ve got is…” What had Tony called that hideous, bright green stuff he’d taken? Night Owl? Nigh Trill? “Night will.”
Clint looked relieved. “I would just about kill for some Nyquil right now!”
Nyquil? That didn’t sound right either. But Clint was in a better position to know. “I’ll go get the bottle for you.”
“That’d be great.” Clint grabbed a knife, a plate, and a half a loaf of bread before sinking down into a chair at the table with the jar of jam he’d dropped earlier. “I’ve gotta text Coulson and tell him to find himself another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent this week. Snert! Snerrff! Nat’s already out of the country on a mission, but with this cold, I’m no good for undercover work.” He held up his hands, steepled over his nose and mouth. “huh-IHXXshhhh! H’Chxshhhhh!”
“Can I get you anything else?”
Clint didn’t respond. His eyes were closed; he hadn’t heard and hadn’t seen. Steve wasn’t sure what else Clint might need, but he figured the man might appreciate a box of tissues if nothing else.
Steve was in bed with Tony, both arms around him, when he heard the noise. He might have been dozing off; he couldn’t really say for sure. All he knew was one second there was blissful quiet and the next there was a crash so loud it could be heard all the way up in the penthouse. Yet the tower’s security alarm hadn’t gone off. It sounded as if something big had smashed its way through a room from the inside.
Something big… or someone big?
Tony seemed to reach the same conclusion at exactly that moment. “Bruce!”
“I’ll go check on him.” It was almost painful to pull out from under Tony’s warm, heavy, clingy body. But if they had a Hulk on their hands, there had to be a good reason, and it was better to know that than lie there in blissful ignorance, no matter how warm their bed was.
"ahhh… hah-EHPTSchhhhhh!” Tony sneezed, just as Steve reached the doorway. He looked back, watching Tony rub the side of his hand beneath his nose instead of a tissue. For a moment, he considered going back and helping Tony out, but with the frequency of sneezes coming from Tony, if Steve kept going back, he’d never leave. So he headed into the elevator and pressed the button for the twelfth floor, where Bruce had his lab and his room. There wasn’t much else on that floor, which meant not a lot could be ruined if the Hulk were on a rampage. But if Bruce had hulked out, he could be anywhere by now.
Knowing it was the best place to start, Steve emerged from the elevator on floor twelve, cautious and guarded. He didn’t hear anything that might sound like a rampage and didn’t see any damage either. “Hello?” he called down the deserted hallway, lit with overhead florescent bulbs. “Bruce?” There was no answer, which probably wasn’t a good sign, however you looked at it. The door to the lab was just up ahead on the right.
The glass walls on either side of the door were intact, and through one of the floor-to-ceiling panels, Steve could see a desk overturned, papers and pieces of broken glass beakers strewn across the floor. There was a keyboard smashed in half and a hole right through one computer monitor. From behind another desk, two legs stuck out. Captain America was not known to panic, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t worried about his friend and teammate. He headed into the lab and made straight for Bruce’s still body.
Bruce lay on his back amidst a pile of books and papers. And he was naked. Which meant this was either part of something kinky Steve didn’t understand or he had, indeed, turned into the Hulk and then back again. “Bruce?” Steve knelt down and touched two fingers to Bruce’s neck; the man’s pulse was strong and steady. Just like his own was. “Bruce, are you all right?”
Slowly, Bruce came to. It took almost a full minute of slipping in and out of consciousness before he looked around and focused his eyes on Steve. “What happened?” he asked, his voice weak and quiet.
“I was just about to ask you the same thing. We heard a noise from upstairs, and I found you here on the floor. Looks like maybe you…”
Bruce lifted a hand to his forehead and scrubbed it there. “Turned into him?” Bruce finished for him. “I must have.” He gave a light cough. “I must have lost control for a minute. I was… feeling so sneezy. I just couldn’t help it.”
“You’re sick?” Steve asked.
And Bruce nodded back. “Yeah… and the Big Guy doesn’t like being sick. I don’t much like it either, to tell you the truth.” He coughed again. “Help me up? I’m feeling kind of dizzy.”
Steve gripped Bruce’s upper arm with one hand and slid his other hand under Bruce’s back. After a minute of effort and balance, Bruce was technically on his feet, though leaning heavily on Steve for support. And then his breath hitched. “Oh no…” he murmured. He raised his arm and buried his nose in the crook of his elbow. “ihhhh-CHIHHHHH! IH-HAHHCHIHHHHH!” The sneezes were strong, and Steve saw some sort of green ripple shoot through Bruce. But Bruce remained Bruce. “Bless me,” he said, sniffling. “I think I’ll be okay now. The Big Guy’s probably going to let me deal with this cold myself. Oh goodie.” He laughed, but it was weak. The joke wasn’t really that funny anyway.
“Do you want to deal with it here?” Steve asked, casting a glance around for a chair or somewhere he could deposit Bruce. “Or can I help you to your room?”
Bruce sniffed hard and shivered. “I’d better go to my room, thanks. I need some clothes, if nothing else.” He shivered again.
With some difficulty, Steve managed to hold Bruce up while pulling his long-sleeved shirt off one arm then the other then over his head. He forced it onto Bruce, where it was just big enough to fit over his broad shoulders and just long enough to cover his more sensitive areas.
“Thanks,” Bruce said, still leaning on Steve. Then his breath caught. He fought against it for a few seconds and, upon failing, lifted his arm again to sneeze into the crook. At the last moment, he realized that would mean sneezing into Steve’s shirt. Quickly, he lowered his arm and sneezed freely. “ihhhhh-KIHHHChhhhhh! Oh!” He sniffed and wriggled his nose. “Oh, Steve. I’m so sorry. Did I sneeze on you?”
Steve chuckled and wrapped his arm around Steve. He guided the man out of the lab. “Just a little. But no harm done. It’s a good thing I can’t get sick.”
A few steps down the hallway, Bruce stopped in his tracks. “What do you mean?”
“The serum. It keeps me from getting sick. It must have some sort of immunity in it.” He didn’t really understand all that science stuff. But he didn’t need to know how it worked to know it worked. He tried to nudge Bruce further along, but Bruce stood firm.
“It doesn’t.”
“Doesn’t what?” Another nudge, and this time Bruce walked along, though he gestured animatedly as he talked.
“The Super Soldier Serum doesn’t have anything to do with the immune system. Sure it makes you stronger and fitter. It changes your structure and systems to make them absolutely perfect. But it doesn’t do anything extra to fight off viruses. It can’t.”
“No… you’ve got to be wrong…”
“I’m not. I studied the serum for years before I was subjected to that radiation. And I’ve studied it even more ever since. Sniff! Steve, I took that stuff, too. If it worked like you think it does, I wouldn’t be sick with a cold right now. That serum does a lot of things, but it can’t prevent colds.”
Steve’s brow furrowed with confusion. “But… I haven’t been sick a day since I took it. That was 1941.”
“And you spent most of that time trapped in ice. You hardly had a chance to catch cold. Can you get the… thanks.” Steve opened the bedroom door and held it open for Bruce to go through. “Seems to me, you’re just lucky if you haven’t gotten sick since taking the serum. But that luck’s going to run out pretty soon if you keep holding me up like this. Sniff! And if you keep spending so much time with Tony.”
“Or if I have breakfast with Clint again.”
“Is he sick too?” Bruce asked, sounding as though he might not want to hear the answer.
“He is.”
“Sorry to hear it. Hey, at least Thor is off world. The last thing we need is a god with a head cold, right?”
Steve helped Bruce to sit down on his bed. Bruce reached over and grabbed his t-shirt and boxers that were hanging on the nearby bedpost. Enough times changing from the Hulk back to Bruce again had driven away most of his modesty, but he still flushed slightly when he folded and handed Steve back the borrowed long-sleeved shirt. He slid beneath the covers of his bed and sat back against the pillows and headboard. When he was comfortable, he reached over to the nightstand where a box of tissues sat beside a hardcover book. Bruce grabbed both of them.
“I’d better go let Tony know everything’s okay. You will be all right now?”
Bruce didn’t answer right away. His expression was melting, face going long. He snatched up a tissue and held it to his nose and mouth. “iihhhh… ihhhhh-HEHHTCHIHHhhhhhh!” Bruce sniffed and wiped at his nose. “Bless me. Sniff! I’m all set, yeah. Thanks again.”
“Any… time…” Steve said slowly, wondering if he really meant it. If he was going to get sick, too, it would be tough to promise anything. But maybe Bruce didn’t know as much as he thought. Sure, he’d studied the serum for a long time, but Steve had lived with the serum. He remembered a time when Bucky had been sick and Steve had been fine; before the serum, he would have come down with anything going around, but he hadn’t that time. Normally, Steve trusted everything Bruce had to say. But this time… this time the man had it all wrong. Steve was almost positive of it.
“ah-HEPTchhhhh!” Tony snapped forward with a sneeze the moment Steve entered. “Everythidg okay?”
Steve breathed in and out through his nose. Not a hint of stuffiness. “Everything’s fine,” Steve answered with a smile before crawling back into bed with his warm Tony.
The rest of the day passed without Steve catching cold. No sneezes or sniffles or coughs—not a one. The next morning, Steve woke up, expecting his nose to be full and his head to be achy, but he felt fine that morning. And that whole day. And the one after that. And the one after that.
Everyone in the tower was starting to feel better. Bruce was back in his lab. Clint had his hearing aids back in. And Tony… well, Tony was only sniffly and could have gotten out of bed if he’d wanted to. But he preferred to snuggle under the covers with Steve all day. And Steve, with his arm draped over Tony and his face nuzzled into the back of Tony’s neck, had no reason to disturb the fine arrangement.
“Eh-Hihtchoo!”
Tony shuddered and groaned. “Ew, Cap. Warn a guy next time! What was… wait… you never sneeze. Why are you sneezing?”
“I, um…” He took a quick survey of himself. He didn’t have a stuffy nose like Tony. Or sinus pressure like Clint. Or dizziness like Bruce. But he also didn’t feel quite right. He felt the way he hadn’t felt in so long. There was a fuzziness in his head and a tingle in his nose. “I think I’m coming down with a cold.”
The long, pregnant pause made Steve worry about Tony’s reaction. It was no secret that Tony was a bit of a germophobe. “I thought you couldn’t catch cold. Super Soldier Serum and all. You told me…”
“I guess I was wrong. Ugh sniff! Have you got any tissues left?”
“About half a box.” Tony got out a tissue and passed it back to Steve. “Do you want me to get you more?”
Steve took the tissue and dabbed at his nose. “Not if it means you leaving. Half a box will last a while.” He coughed a little and sniffed into the damp tissue. At least, he hoped half a box would last a while.
There was another silence. Steve’s eyelids dropped. His body went heavy. He was a split second from falling asleep when Tony piped up again. “Should I turn around? Do you want me to hold you instead?”
Steve chuckled. He hugged Tony to his chest. “Stay right here. This is per… perfect. But I… I think I n-neh-need to sn-sneeze again ehhh ehh HIHSchooo! Hehhshooo!” The bed shook with his sneezes.
Steve had a feeling there was going to be a lot more of that before this was over. Steve might not have had a cold since before 1941, but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten what it was like. His head was going to throb. His throat was going to burn. His nose was going to run. This was going to be horrible and miserable and embarrassing. This was going to remind him of when he’d been a useless, sickly weakling.
But, as he settled back down, he had to admit he’d never felt so good before while feeling sick. The Super Soldier Serum might not keep him from catching cold, but it did make him strong enough to hold Tony close.
Author: tarotgal
Fandom: Marvel/Avengers
Pairings: Stony (current), Stucky (past)
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Cap thought he couldn't get sick after the whole supersoldier serum thing. Turns out that's not exactly the case.
“ahhh-HEPTSchhhhhhhh!” Tony shook the bed with his sneezes, spraying a fine mist into the space in front of him. He sniffed wetly, too exhausted to reach for yet another tissue. From behind, Steve gave him a tight squeeze then reached almost blindly forward, pulling a tissue from the box. After nudging Tony’s hand out of the way, Steve folded the tissue over Tony’s nose, wiping a little but mostly keeping it there until Tony, reluctantly, took a deep breath and blew his nose. “Dod’t dow why you’re still here,” he muttered as Steve wiped his nose clean and tossed the tissue over the side of their bed. “I’b disgustig.”
“Yeah, you are,” Steve murmured, wrapping his arm back around Tony. His strong body was pressed right up against Tony’s back; they couldn’t be closer without Steve actually being inside him, and Tony was far too weak for that right now. So spooning would have to do. “But I don’t really mind. You’ll feel better soon and then everything will be back to normal—normal for us, at least.”
Tony gave a snort-laugh combination. “Dorbal for us beads fightig alieds add stobbig evil villaids tryig to take over the world.”
“But it also means motorcycle rides up the coast and making out during movies and practicing our fighting skills against each other.” And it meant mind-blowing blow jobs in Tony’s lab, lazy morning tumbles in bed, and making love well into the night wherever they happened to be. He kissed the back of Tony’s head, and the low, lustful sound Tony made meant he understood what Steve hadn’t said out loud.
“I wish… I… hadg od…”
Steve rubbed his chest. “Are you going to sneeze again?”
“Doe I… ahhh… I’b… ah-hehhhhh!”
“Yes, you are.”
And quickly, too. Quicker than Steve’s hand could get to the tissue box and back, at least. So he did the only thing he could in the time he had, which was to cup his hand to Tony’s nose and mouth.
“hahhh hahh-TIJJSChhhhhhh!” He groaned. “Steeeve!”
“It’s all right.” Tony had more of a problem with germs than anyone Steve had ever met. Steve got a tissue and wiped his wet hand on it. Then he pressed another tissue to Tony’s nose for a blow. “I don’t really mind. Besides, I don’t get sick any more. Frankly, it’s the best part of the Super Soldier Serum. When I was a scrawny kid, my nose never stopped running, between allergies and colds and flus. I caught every bug there was to catch. And now the only thing I catch are bad guys. That part of it, at least, was a good trade.”
Tony’s body tensed up and then shook the bed again. “ahhh-HEHTSchhhhhhhh!”
Steve wiped his nose for him. “No more talking. It’s late. Time for sleep.” Steve wiped at Tony’s nose with a tissue and then rubbed small circles on Tony’s chest until the man finally drifted off to sleep.
*
Tony wasn’t a tea-drinking kind of guy, but there was still a supply of it in the kitchen pantry. Steve thought about brewing a pot and forcing it on the man anyway. It would do him some good.
“h’ptschxxxt!”
Steve turned in surprise. He hadn’t expected Tony to be out of bed, especially not this early and not with the amount of cold medicine Tony had downed the night before.
But it wasn’t Tony. Of course it wasn’t Tony. Tony was tucked into bed several floors above. And Clint was here, pinching his nose between thumb and forefinger. He made a series of small “snxrrt!” sounds as his nose ran.
“Clint? Are you all right?”
Clint was busy rooting around in the refrigerator and didn’t reply.
“Clint?” Steve raised his voice. Then he tried, “Hawkeye?”
Still nothing, apart from a few more restrained, sniffly snorts.
Steve walked over and put a hand on Clint’s back. The man nearly went through the roof he was so startled. He dropped a jar of jam on the floor, but it didn’t shatter, thankfully. It must not have been made of glass. “Sorry,” Steve said. “I was calling you…” He reached down and picked up the jar, handing it back to Clint.
Clint nodded his appreciation and touched two fingers to his ear. “Don’t have them in. The sinus pressure and headache make it hard to wear ‘em. Can’t hear a damn thing you’re saying.”
Steve didn’t know too much about Clint’s hearing aids, apart from the fact that the ones Tony had made him were beyond state-of-the-art. If they wouldn’t work, then he knew nothing would. He felt awkward, unsure of how to proceed. But Clint was staring at him expectantly now, so Steve tried again. “I asked if you were all right.”
Clint rubbed his fist in a circle on his chest as he narrowed his eyes. “Could you say that again? I’m not so good at lip reading.”
Steve repeated his question, enunciating this time. “Are you okay?”
“Okay? Oh. Snkrrrrt!” He nodded again. “Yeah. Just came down with that cold that’s going around the tower. I… I-ihh!” He tightened his grip of his nose and brought his other hand up to simultaneously cover his mouth and press a finger against his nostrils. None of this kept him from sneezing, however. His eyes squinted shut. “hih-Ihptshxxxxt! h'nkkttt! Uhhh… snxrrk! I’m surprised you haven’t caught this too, considering how close you and Tony are lately.”
Steve flushed a little. His relationship with Tony was no secret among the Avengers, but he wasn’t so used to these things being talked about. Back in his day, he and Bucky had needed to hide their feelings for each other. It was going to take time before he could talk about that kind of thing freely. Luckily, there was another topic he could steer the conversation toward. “Super Soldier Serum.”
“What?” Clint’s eyes were focused on Steve’s mouth.
“Super Soldier Serum,” Steve repeated, a little more slowly. He watched Clint’s brow furrow in confusion. “The serum that made me into Captain America,” Steve clarified, miming the act of injecting something into his forearm.
“Oh, right,” Clint said, finally understanding. “The Super Solider Serum. Ihh hih h’ihkxxxsh!”
“Right. I haven’t caught a cold since 1941.”
“1941?” he repeated, earning a nod from Steve. “Well that sounds great. Snrrtt! You wouldn’t happen to have any of that stuff lying about still?”
“Sorry, no. Closest I’ve got is…” What had Tony called that hideous, bright green stuff he’d taken? Night Owl? Nigh Trill? “Night will.”
Clint looked relieved. “I would just about kill for some Nyquil right now!”
Nyquil? That didn’t sound right either. But Clint was in a better position to know. “I’ll go get the bottle for you.”
“That’d be great.” Clint grabbed a knife, a plate, and a half a loaf of bread before sinking down into a chair at the table with the jar of jam he’d dropped earlier. “I’ve gotta text Coulson and tell him to find himself another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent this week. Snert! Snerrff! Nat’s already out of the country on a mission, but with this cold, I’m no good for undercover work.” He held up his hands, steepled over his nose and mouth. “huh-IHXXshhhh! H’Chxshhhhh!”
“Can I get you anything else?”
Clint didn’t respond. His eyes were closed; he hadn’t heard and hadn’t seen. Steve wasn’t sure what else Clint might need, but he figured the man might appreciate a box of tissues if nothing else.
*
Steve was in bed with Tony, both arms around him, when he heard the noise. He might have been dozing off; he couldn’t really say for sure. All he knew was one second there was blissful quiet and the next there was a crash so loud it could be heard all the way up in the penthouse. Yet the tower’s security alarm hadn’t gone off. It sounded as if something big had smashed its way through a room from the inside.
Something big… or someone big?
Tony seemed to reach the same conclusion at exactly that moment. “Bruce!”
“I’ll go check on him.” It was almost painful to pull out from under Tony’s warm, heavy, clingy body. But if they had a Hulk on their hands, there had to be a good reason, and it was better to know that than lie there in blissful ignorance, no matter how warm their bed was.
"ahhh… hah-EHPTSchhhhhh!” Tony sneezed, just as Steve reached the doorway. He looked back, watching Tony rub the side of his hand beneath his nose instead of a tissue. For a moment, he considered going back and helping Tony out, but with the frequency of sneezes coming from Tony, if Steve kept going back, he’d never leave. So he headed into the elevator and pressed the button for the twelfth floor, where Bruce had his lab and his room. There wasn’t much else on that floor, which meant not a lot could be ruined if the Hulk were on a rampage. But if Bruce had hulked out, he could be anywhere by now.
Knowing it was the best place to start, Steve emerged from the elevator on floor twelve, cautious and guarded. He didn’t hear anything that might sound like a rampage and didn’t see any damage either. “Hello?” he called down the deserted hallway, lit with overhead florescent bulbs. “Bruce?” There was no answer, which probably wasn’t a good sign, however you looked at it. The door to the lab was just up ahead on the right.
The glass walls on either side of the door were intact, and through one of the floor-to-ceiling panels, Steve could see a desk overturned, papers and pieces of broken glass beakers strewn across the floor. There was a keyboard smashed in half and a hole right through one computer monitor. From behind another desk, two legs stuck out. Captain America was not known to panic, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t worried about his friend and teammate. He headed into the lab and made straight for Bruce’s still body.
Bruce lay on his back amidst a pile of books and papers. And he was naked. Which meant this was either part of something kinky Steve didn’t understand or he had, indeed, turned into the Hulk and then back again. “Bruce?” Steve knelt down and touched two fingers to Bruce’s neck; the man’s pulse was strong and steady. Just like his own was. “Bruce, are you all right?”
Slowly, Bruce came to. It took almost a full minute of slipping in and out of consciousness before he looked around and focused his eyes on Steve. “What happened?” he asked, his voice weak and quiet.
“I was just about to ask you the same thing. We heard a noise from upstairs, and I found you here on the floor. Looks like maybe you…”
Bruce lifted a hand to his forehead and scrubbed it there. “Turned into him?” Bruce finished for him. “I must have.” He gave a light cough. “I must have lost control for a minute. I was… feeling so sneezy. I just couldn’t help it.”
“You’re sick?” Steve asked.
And Bruce nodded back. “Yeah… and the Big Guy doesn’t like being sick. I don’t much like it either, to tell you the truth.” He coughed again. “Help me up? I’m feeling kind of dizzy.”
Steve gripped Bruce’s upper arm with one hand and slid his other hand under Bruce’s back. After a minute of effort and balance, Bruce was technically on his feet, though leaning heavily on Steve for support. And then his breath hitched. “Oh no…” he murmured. He raised his arm and buried his nose in the crook of his elbow. “ihhhh-CHIHHHHH! IH-HAHHCHIHHHHH!” The sneezes were strong, and Steve saw some sort of green ripple shoot through Bruce. But Bruce remained Bruce. “Bless me,” he said, sniffling. “I think I’ll be okay now. The Big Guy’s probably going to let me deal with this cold myself. Oh goodie.” He laughed, but it was weak. The joke wasn’t really that funny anyway.
“Do you want to deal with it here?” Steve asked, casting a glance around for a chair or somewhere he could deposit Bruce. “Or can I help you to your room?”
Bruce sniffed hard and shivered. “I’d better go to my room, thanks. I need some clothes, if nothing else.” He shivered again.
With some difficulty, Steve managed to hold Bruce up while pulling his long-sleeved shirt off one arm then the other then over his head. He forced it onto Bruce, where it was just big enough to fit over his broad shoulders and just long enough to cover his more sensitive areas.
“Thanks,” Bruce said, still leaning on Steve. Then his breath caught. He fought against it for a few seconds and, upon failing, lifted his arm again to sneeze into the crook. At the last moment, he realized that would mean sneezing into Steve’s shirt. Quickly, he lowered his arm and sneezed freely. “ihhhhh-KIHHHChhhhhh! Oh!” He sniffed and wriggled his nose. “Oh, Steve. I’m so sorry. Did I sneeze on you?”
Steve chuckled and wrapped his arm around Steve. He guided the man out of the lab. “Just a little. But no harm done. It’s a good thing I can’t get sick.”
A few steps down the hallway, Bruce stopped in his tracks. “What do you mean?”
“The serum. It keeps me from getting sick. It must have some sort of immunity in it.” He didn’t really understand all that science stuff. But he didn’t need to know how it worked to know it worked. He tried to nudge Bruce further along, but Bruce stood firm.
“It doesn’t.”
“Doesn’t what?” Another nudge, and this time Bruce walked along, though he gestured animatedly as he talked.
“The Super Soldier Serum doesn’t have anything to do with the immune system. Sure it makes you stronger and fitter. It changes your structure and systems to make them absolutely perfect. But it doesn’t do anything extra to fight off viruses. It can’t.”
“No… you’ve got to be wrong…”
“I’m not. I studied the serum for years before I was subjected to that radiation. And I’ve studied it even more ever since. Sniff! Steve, I took that stuff, too. If it worked like you think it does, I wouldn’t be sick with a cold right now. That serum does a lot of things, but it can’t prevent colds.”
Steve’s brow furrowed with confusion. “But… I haven’t been sick a day since I took it. That was 1941.”
“And you spent most of that time trapped in ice. You hardly had a chance to catch cold. Can you get the… thanks.” Steve opened the bedroom door and held it open for Bruce to go through. “Seems to me, you’re just lucky if you haven’t gotten sick since taking the serum. But that luck’s going to run out pretty soon if you keep holding me up like this. Sniff! And if you keep spending so much time with Tony.”
“Or if I have breakfast with Clint again.”
“Is he sick too?” Bruce asked, sounding as though he might not want to hear the answer.
“He is.”
“Sorry to hear it. Hey, at least Thor is off world. The last thing we need is a god with a head cold, right?”
Steve helped Bruce to sit down on his bed. Bruce reached over and grabbed his t-shirt and boxers that were hanging on the nearby bedpost. Enough times changing from the Hulk back to Bruce again had driven away most of his modesty, but he still flushed slightly when he folded and handed Steve back the borrowed long-sleeved shirt. He slid beneath the covers of his bed and sat back against the pillows and headboard. When he was comfortable, he reached over to the nightstand where a box of tissues sat beside a hardcover book. Bruce grabbed both of them.
“I’d better go let Tony know everything’s okay. You will be all right now?”
Bruce didn’t answer right away. His expression was melting, face going long. He snatched up a tissue and held it to his nose and mouth. “iihhhh… ihhhhh-HEHHTCHIHHhhhhhh!” Bruce sniffed and wiped at his nose. “Bless me. Sniff! I’m all set, yeah. Thanks again.”
“Any… time…” Steve said slowly, wondering if he really meant it. If he was going to get sick, too, it would be tough to promise anything. But maybe Bruce didn’t know as much as he thought. Sure, he’d studied the serum for a long time, but Steve had lived with the serum. He remembered a time when Bucky had been sick and Steve had been fine; before the serum, he would have come down with anything going around, but he hadn’t that time. Normally, Steve trusted everything Bruce had to say. But this time… this time the man had it all wrong. Steve was almost positive of it.
“ah-HEPTchhhhh!” Tony snapped forward with a sneeze the moment Steve entered. “Everythidg okay?”
Steve breathed in and out through his nose. Not a hint of stuffiness. “Everything’s fine,” Steve answered with a smile before crawling back into bed with his warm Tony.
*
The rest of the day passed without Steve catching cold. No sneezes or sniffles or coughs—not a one. The next morning, Steve woke up, expecting his nose to be full and his head to be achy, but he felt fine that morning. And that whole day. And the one after that. And the one after that.
Everyone in the tower was starting to feel better. Bruce was back in his lab. Clint had his hearing aids back in. And Tony… well, Tony was only sniffly and could have gotten out of bed if he’d wanted to. But he preferred to snuggle under the covers with Steve all day. And Steve, with his arm draped over Tony and his face nuzzled into the back of Tony’s neck, had no reason to disturb the fine arrangement.
“Eh-Hihtchoo!”
Tony shuddered and groaned. “Ew, Cap. Warn a guy next time! What was… wait… you never sneeze. Why are you sneezing?”
“I, um…” He took a quick survey of himself. He didn’t have a stuffy nose like Tony. Or sinus pressure like Clint. Or dizziness like Bruce. But he also didn’t feel quite right. He felt the way he hadn’t felt in so long. There was a fuzziness in his head and a tingle in his nose. “I think I’m coming down with a cold.”
The long, pregnant pause made Steve worry about Tony’s reaction. It was no secret that Tony was a bit of a germophobe. “I thought you couldn’t catch cold. Super Soldier Serum and all. You told me…”
“I guess I was wrong. Ugh sniff! Have you got any tissues left?”
“About half a box.” Tony got out a tissue and passed it back to Steve. “Do you want me to get you more?”
Steve took the tissue and dabbed at his nose. “Not if it means you leaving. Half a box will last a while.” He coughed a little and sniffed into the damp tissue. At least, he hoped half a box would last a while.
There was another silence. Steve’s eyelids dropped. His body went heavy. He was a split second from falling asleep when Tony piped up again. “Should I turn around? Do you want me to hold you instead?”
Steve chuckled. He hugged Tony to his chest. “Stay right here. This is per… perfect. But I… I think I n-neh-need to sn-sneeze again ehhh ehh HIHSchooo! Hehhshooo!” The bed shook with his sneezes.
Steve had a feeling there was going to be a lot more of that before this was over. Steve might not have had a cold since before 1941, but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten what it was like. His head was going to throb. His throat was going to burn. His nose was going to run. This was going to be horrible and miserable and embarrassing. This was going to remind him of when he’d been a useless, sickly weakling.
But, as he settled back down, he had to admit he’d never felt so good before while feeling sick. The Super Soldier Serum might not keep him from catching cold, but it did make him strong enough to hold Tony close.
