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Jay stood in front of his closet, running his fingers over a charcoal gray suit. The fabric felt expensiveâEgyptian cotton blend with just enough sheen to look good against his skin without screaming money.
He pulled on the jacket, adjusting it until it sat right. His brain, still getting used to all the upgrades, automatically cataloged every little detailâhow the shoulders fit, the collar angle, whether his burgundy tie was knotted tight enough.
'Funny,' he thought, checking himself in the mirror. 'Three months ago I was wearing stolen scrubs and calling it fashion. Now I'm about to meet Captain fucking America, and I'm worried about whether my tie looks good.'
Jay headed for the door. Four flights of stairs felt easier today, even though he was dead tiredâadrenaline was one hell of a drug.
The black sedan outside his building screamed government from half a block away. Jay walked over to the driver's side, expecting some stone-faced agent in cheap sunglasses.
Instead, he found himself staring at Melinda May.
Agent 33. The Cavalry herself, sitting behind the wheel. Her dark hair was pulled back, no-nonsense style, and her eyes had that steady look that came from years of dealing with very dangerous people.
Jay slid into the passenger seat, actually surprised.
"Morning," he said, settling into leather seats that belonged in a luxury car, not government transport. "Wasn't expecting Coulson to send his star player."
May glanced at him in the rearview mirror, eyebrow raised. "Surprised to see a woman?"
Jay grinned. "Surprised to see The Cavalry playing taxi driver. Figured you'd be off somewhere teaching rookies how to kill people with office supplies."
Something shifted in May's faceâsurprise, maybe, or the realization that he knew exactly who she was.
"Director Fury specifically asked me to handle your transport," she said, pulling smoothly into traffic. "Apparently you're important."
Jay leaned back, watching the city blur past tinted windows. "That's Fury for you. Can't just send a regular guy to pick someone up. Has to make it a whole thing."
May navigated through Manhattan traffic, but Jay's enhanced senses caught the tension in her shoulders, how her hands gripped the wheel just a little too tight.
She was nervous. Not scaredâJay doubted Melinda May got scared anymore, not after Bahrain. Which meant Coulson hadn't told her everything about where they were going.
"So," Jay said, "how much did Phil actually tell you about today?"
"Enough," May said, turning toward Times Square.
They drove through the heart of Manhattan, past tourists and street performers and all the organized chaos that made New York feel alive.
They pulled into an alley between two buildings that looked abandoned until you noticed the security cameras and the way the shadows seemed wrong, like they were hiding things.
May led him to what looked like a maintenance doorâpeeling paint, rust stains, the kind of thing a team probably spent days making look authentic. She pressed her palm against something hidden under the graffiti, and the door clicked open.
"After you," she said, pointing toward stairs that went down into darkness.
The hidden facility was like stepping back in time. Everything screamed 1940s medicalâsurgical tables that belonged in a museum, IV stands made of actual steel instead of modern stuff, even the lights looked period-correct.
But underneath all the vintage window dressing, it was a fully functional medical facility pretending to be a historical exhibit.
"Nice touch," Jay said, running his hand along a cabinet that was hiding enough high-tech monitoring gear to stock a modern hospital. "Fury really went all out with the presentation."
"The Director likes his theatrics," May said, leading him deeper into the place.
They found Coulson standing next to a table with something covered by a white sheet. His usual professional cool had crackedâfingers tapping against his leg, shoulders too straight, like he was trying not to bounce on his toes.
"Jay," Coulson said, turning toward them with a smile like Christmas morning. "Thanks for coming. I know this is last minute, but when we finally found him..." He gestured at the covered shape.
"Him?" Jay asked, though he already knew who was under that sheet.
Coulson's hands actually shook a little as he pulled back the covering, like he was unwrapping the holy grail.
Steve Rogers lay on the metal table like some fairy tale prince. Even unconscious and covered in ice crystals, he looked exactly like Chris Evansâall-American jaw, the works.
"Captain America," Coulson said, voice soft like he was talking about a religious artifact. "We found him right where you said he'd beâburied in ice, perfectly preserved, just waiting for someone who could bring him back."
Jay walked over to the table slowly, taking his time to look at all the monitoring equipment. The Captain's vitals were barely there. Core temperature just above freezing. Brain activity at the absolute minimum to keep cells alive.
It was actually brilliant. The super-soldier serum had completely rewired his biology to survive stuff that would kill anyone else.
"So," Jay said, pulling on surgical gloves, "what exactly do you need me to do?"
"Same thing you did for Tommy Henderson," Coulson said. "Fix the damage, help his body remember how to work normally. If we can't thaw him out safely..." He paused, looking worried for the first time since Jay had met him. "At least we tried, right?"
Jay was about to start negotiating when footsteps echoed from outsideâheavy, deliberate, and somehow making the air feel more dangerous.
Nick Fury walked into the room like he owned it, which he probably did. The Director of SHIELD moved like a predator, leather coat doing that dramatic billowing thing as he positioned himself between Jay and the exit.
Then he pulled out a gun and pressed it against Jay's head.
"How the fuck," Fury said, voice quiet and deadly, "did my most classified secrets become gossip for every new enhanced asshole?"
Jay felt the cold metal against his temple, noticed how Fury's finger stayed on the trigger guard instead of the trigger. Professional intimidation, not actual murder. His danger sense and brain agreedâthreat level was actually pretty low, despite the gun.
"Director," Jay said calmly, not moving, "if you're gonna point guns at people, you should probably mean it."
Fury's jaw tightened, but something about his posture stayed controlled. "Oh, I fucking mean it," he said, but Jay could read the tells.
"How is 'Jay the Doctor' connected to 'The Power Broker'?" Fury demanded. "How does some street-level healer know about every classified op I've run in the past ten years?"
Jay smiled, completely calm despite having a gun to his head. "I'm a doctor, Nick. Doctors fix people. Sometimes the people I fix pay me back with interesting stories. Amazing what patients tell you when you're putting their guts back where they belong."
"That's not a fucking answer."
"It's the only answer you get while you're waving guns around like some B-movie villain," Jay said. "So either shoot me or let's get on with saving your boy scout."
Fury stared at him for a long moment, like he was doing math in his head. Finally, reluctantly, he lowered the gun. He clicked his comm. "Hill, get in here."
Agent Maria Hill walked in thirty seconds later with a hard drive, looking like she'd rather be literally anywhere else. Her hair was pulled back tight, and her suit looked expensive enough to stop bullets. When she saw the tension in the room, her hand drifted toward her weapon.
Jay grinned and switched to an exaggerated Canadian accent. "How's it going, Robi? Ted doing okay these days?"
Hill's eyes went narrow, but she didn't say anything. She handed him the drive like she was handling explosives.
"Howard Stark's research," Fury said. "Abraham Erskine's notes. Everything you asked for."
Jay took the drive, hefting its weight. Weeks of planning and manipulation, all for this momentâaccess to the science behind the super-soldier program.
"Unfortunately," he said, sliding the drive into his jacket, "your little gun show just made this more expensive."
Fury's eye flashed with what looked like equal parts rage and respect. "Excuse me?"
"Emotional distress, Nick. Pain and suffering. The trauma of having a gun pressed to my head while I'm trying to help save your golden boy." Jay's smile could've cut steel. "I need compensation."
"What the hell do you want?"
"A vial of the Captain's blood."
The response was instant and overwhelming. Coulson had his gun out so fast it was like magic. Hill drew her sidearm in one smooth motion. May moved with lethal grace, finding the perfect angle. Even Coulson looked heartbroken, like Jay had just said he was gonna kick his dog.
"MOTHERFâ" Fury started, his gun snapping back up.
Jay's danger sense ran the numbers instantly. Four weapons pointed at him, but the threat level stayed surprisingly low. These were warnings. Fury needed him alive to wake the Captain, so the guns were for show.
"Guys. Lady," Jay said, nodding at each armed agent. "This seems like overkill."
"You want to experiment on Captain America's blood," Coulson said, voice tight with anger. "Clone the serum."
"I want to help him," Jay said calmly. "The super-soldier serum isn't just an upgradeâit completely rewired his biology. If something goes wrong while we're thawing him out, if his body freaks out during the transition, I need to understand how his enhanced system actually works."
The logic was solid, even if it wasn't the whole truth. Jay did want to help Steve Rogers, but he also wanted that super-soldier enhancement for himself. Combined with Erskine's notes, it would give him a serious edge in his own enhancement plans.
Fury studied him for what felt like forever, running calculations behind that single eye. Finally, grudgingly, he nodded.
"One vial," he said. "And if you do anything besides help the Captain, I'll put a bullet in your brain myself."
"Deal," Jay said. "Now can we please get started? The longer he stays frozen, the more damage builds up."
The thawing took six hours.
Jay had them bring in industrial heating unitsâthe kind they used to de-ice aircraft carriers. The heat had to be applied slowly, evenly, letting Rogers' enhanced metabolism adjust to rising temperatures without going into shock.
Every twenty minutes, Jay put his hands on the Captain's chest and pushed Tommy's healing factor into the super-soldier's body. The enhancement fixed ice crystal damage to cells, got blood flowing in frozen tissues, and kept organs working as the body slowly remembered how to be alive.
It was brutal work. Each healing session completely drained Jay. He had to rest between sessions while the heating units kept doing their thing. But bit by bit, Steve Rogers started looking less like a frozen corpse and more like he was just sleeping.
His skin slowly got its color back. His chest started rising and falling with shallow breaths. Brain activity jumped on the monitors as his enhanced nervous system came back online.
By hour five, Rogers' vitals were in normal human ranges.
By hour six, he was naturally sleeping instead of suspended animation.
"He'll wake up on his own," Jay told the assembled SHIELD agents. "His enhanced metabolism will take care of the rest."
"When?" Coulson asked, hovering over the Captain like a worried parent.
"Could be hours, could be days. Depends on how much his mind needs to process." Jay stretched, feeling exhaustion sink into his bones. "You could get a telepath to speed things up, but I'd be careful. Charles Xavier, for example, would probably go digging through his memories while he's unconscious."
Fury's face darkened. "That's not happening."
"Smart," Jay said. "Steve Rogers has enough trauma without adding unwanted mind-reading to the mix."
As they got ready to leave, Jay caught May's attention. "Agent May, could you drop me at the Baxter Building? But I need to hit a pawn shop first."
May raised an eyebrow but nodded.
In the car, Jay pulled out his phone and texted Bobby: Meet me at the Queens warehouse in three hours. Bring Maria. We need to talk.
Jay stared out the window at the city going by, thinking about the vial of super-soldier blood in his jacket, the research files that would boost his chances of successful enhancement, and the sleeping legend they'd just brought back to life.
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