Coffee, Courage and a Captain

Chapter Eighteen: Sent to the Front

Steve stared at the wall as the nurse drew the final of nine vials of his blood. One of the leading doctors in the chemistry division had the belief that he knew how to reverse engineer the serum flowing through Steve's bloodstream. Apparently this meant they needed a lot of blood.

"Think you got enough?" he asked grumpily, rolling down his sleeve. The nurse just shrugged and walked off, carrying a good portion of Steve's blood in her arms down to the lab at the end of the hallway.

"Any hope of reproducing the program is locked in your genetic code," Peggy said to him from where she leant against the sink. She held the file containing the non-disclosure agreement that she needed Charlotte and Howard to sign regarding Erskine's death and the operative who tried to kill them all. "But without Dr Erskine, it could take years."

Steve sighed, looking down at the workshop where Howard and Charlotte were looking over the submarine Steve had retrieved from the assassin before the man had gone on a spiel about serpents. "He deserved more than this."

They had buried Erskine last week. Only a few members of the SSR had attended- given that Erskine had fled his home country and had no relatives, it was a quiet affair. Charlotte, Howard, Steve, Peggy and Phillips had all attended, as well as some of the lab technicians who had worked on the project with him.

Steve had held Charlotte's hand for majority of the service and had stayed at their apartment with her while he made sure she slept and she made sure they both ate. It had been nice to be home, for however as brief a period it was going to be. They'd lapsed into a new routine as she continued to work at the lab with him- despite Howard's promise for her to have to the month off, the circumstances didn't allow it.

Steve planned to take Charlotte out dancing that weekend.

Peggy looked down at the paperwork. "If it could work only once, he'd be proud it was you."

Charlotte was laughing at Howard, who had opened a valve and sprayed himself with the remaining seawater. The inventor did not look amused as Charlotte began to imitate the surprise on his face, Howard stalking off to get changed. Charlotte returned to work with a look of determination, dodging a jet of seawater as she loosened another valve and doubling over in laughter as it hit an unsuspecting lab technician.

Steve chuckled, Peggy staring at him with mild bemusement.

"She's an absolute delight to work with," Peggy stated, a fond smile curling her lips up. "Sometimes, we forget that even though we are working to end a war, that we have weapons of mass destruction stored here and people have died, we are all human. That it's okay to smile."

Howard returned with a new shirt, Charlotte snickering at him as he hesitantly began unscrewing valves again, ducking back each time he opened them fully.

Peggy spotted the people entering the room downstairs and straightened. "Come on, let's head down."

*********

Charlotte heard the gravelly tones of Phillips before she saw him.

"Colonel Phillips, my committee is demanding answers," a recognisable voice said, and Charlotte looked up to see Senator Brandt and Colonel Phillips enter the lab, seemingly at odds.

"Great," Phillips responded sarcastically, earning a glare from the senator. "Why don't we start off with how a German spy got a ride to my secret installation in your car?"

Brandt seemed at a loss for words as Phillips paused in front of Charlotte and Howard's workspace.

"Stark, Red," he greeted. "What have we got here?"