The Price We Pay for Family - 26

Cont...

 If the world collapsed around him, Sam doubted he'd notice. Shuri's words were rising in his ears. It's not some reproduction. This was drawn three months ago. Not posthumously. Three months ago, someone drew blood from Bucky Barnes. Which was a problem because six months ago, Bucky Barnes died.

 "That's not possible," John said, looking like he might just fall over in shock. 

"Well, it's not supposed to be, but the science doesn't lie." Shuri shook her head, "As of three months ago, he was alive." 

"What if it's not him?" Sam asked without quite feeling himself ask. 

"What do you mean?" Okoye asked suspiciously. 

"What if it's one of those shape-shifting things Carol was talking about?" Sam grasped for the right word, "Skulls? Something like that?" 

"Skrulls?" Nakia corrected.

 "Yes, those. Carol said they could mimic DNA." Sam pointed out. 

"Yes. But at the end of the day, they're still not carbon-based. They can fake DNA, but not what they're made of." Shuri shook her head, "It's not from a Skrull."

 "What about cloning?" Torres asked, "It's not that far-fetched with what we've had to deal with."

 "It's possible, but they would need to clone the serum separately and then correctly mix it with the blood the exact way Barnes has it. Which would be a stupid thing to do, seeing as Barnes got the bootleg version. If you were going to clone him and wanted to put the serum in him nowadays, you'd do it right. That blood sample is definitely his shoddy serum." Shuri shot that down, "My best guess is that while this could be a clone, I think it's really him." 

Sam's mind stopped at that. It's really him. Oh, FRIGGA, please, no. A pained sound came out of his mouth as his legs gave out. He collapsed into his chair, too many thoughts filling his head at one time. What did he do? 

"Sam, look at me," John demanded from somewhere beyond Sam's brain fog. 

Sam jerkily looked towards the voice.

 "You couldn't have known Sam. No one knew." John stated matter of factly, "Don't blame yourself for what you can control."

 Don't make a promise you can't keep. Bucky's voice, bitter and sad, floated through Sam's head. Then to Sam's surprise, Torres' reply, nonchalant and factual, came to mind, Maybe I will. Sam looked at John shaking off his vain fog, "He's alive." 

"Yeah." John agreed, as shocked as Sam was. 

"Bast," Sam whispered.

 "That's one way to put it." Nakia broke through Sam's trance. 

Sam winced, using the Wakandans deity to swear with while they were standing right there wasn't his best idea, "Sorry." 

"Do not be. Bast is to be praised for a miracle like this." Okoye waved him off.

 "But how?" Torres asked, "How is he still alive? You can't just fake drown someone." 

"Sure you can. You just need to slightly alter their DNA for a short period of time. It's the same concept I'm using for deep-sea exploration with cross DNA experiments-" Shuri cut herself off as they all stared at her in varying levels of surprise.

 "Something you want to share,  Shuri?" Nakia asked.

 Shuri now looked sheepish, "So, I might have started experimenting with cross DNA."

 "Did that like create half of Banner's problems?" Sam asked, scandalized. 

Okoye must have been even more displeased because one torrid of rapid-fire Wakandan later and Shuri was promising to bump up her security measures in the lab even working on that project. "But you can fake drown someone. You would just have to inject something into them to alter their DNA temporarily, hypothetically." Shuri said, getting back to the conversation.

 "Hypothetically? I thought you were using it already." John asked. 

"On animals, I'm in the animal testing stage, and normally it works. But sometimes it doesn't. It's not 100% reliable, and I doubt anyone outside of Wakanda can get it to work at the reasonably predictable levels I can." Shuri corrected.

 "Or you could just use perfluorohexane, a shot of adrenaline, and a sedative." A new voice offered. Both Okoye and Ayo had their spears armed and read before the rest of them had finished turning. Sharon Carter put her hands up quickly, "Woh. I came here cause Rhodey said you found something you thought was Hydra? I didn't know you called the Wakandans." 

"I didn't know you were in the area." Sam offered, motioning to the Dora to be at ease.

 "I'm here for business. Mandipoor is a prime place for US enemies to run, and I happen to know it well." Sharon put her hands down.

 "And what was this alternative option you were proposing?" Nakia asked.

 "Perfluorohexane. It's a fluorocarbon. Odorless, colorless, and has enough oxygen in it to allow someone to breathe in." Sharon explained, "Hit someone up with a shot of adrenaline to kick up and panic and then hit them with a sedative, they'll panic, think they're drowning. They'll pass out in the liquid, and it'll look like a drowning. We're hard-wired not to breathe liquid and to panic when we do. It's pretty flawless." 

"But expensive." Shuri pointed out, "And we didn't find any traces in the warehouse." 

"Really? Cause I could have sworn, I saw a major coolant leak on the CSI evidence list." Sharon countered, "Perfluorohexane is used mainly as a coolant."

 "How do you know that?" John asked. 

"Fake drowning is a valuable tool." Sharon said awkwardly, "I picked up a few on the run." 

Sam raised an eyebrow, "I'm not gonna ask." 

"So they drown him in coolant? How are you sure it would not harm him?" Okoye demanded.

 "No, it wouldn't. It's used medically for smoke inhalation. It's perfectly safe. They knew what they were doing." Shuri explained, "They wanted him alive."

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