Saving Bucky (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

Chapter 63 - An Unexpected Offer

"Do you understand?"

Frozen on the couch, the woman's voice still comes through the phone - distant and quiet despite holding the cell right up next to your ear. 

My parents? My brother? 

"Hello?" the woman's voice comes through. "Can you hear me? Do you...do you understand what this means?"

My family could still be alive?

"HELLO?!"

"Oh, um," you say, clearing your throat. "Yes. Sorry I...I'm just surprised."

"That makes two of us," the doctor says. "But you understand what this means, don't you?"

"N-no," you stammer. "I...I don't-"

"It means I could replicate the medication."

Your hands tremble as tears well up in your eyes. If this doctor can find a way to make more - you're no longer on a clock. 

"How long?" you ask, doing everything in your power to keep your voice steady. "How long until you can make more?"

"I didn't say I can," she says. "I said I could. There's still the matter of actually obtaining the proteinic markers we need."

"What do you need?" you ask.

"Well, nothing's really changed," she answers. "We still need the RNA. But what I'm saying is that this isn't a needle in a haystack search anymore. All we have to do is run the host DNA through the system and look for a 50% match. The odds of finding the donor now are...well, they're astronomically improved."

You exhale sharply, head swirling with all this new information, and you're struggling to process it all. 

"Wait," you say, mind turning at a thousand miles an hour. "You said 50%,right?"

"I did."

"Then...why can't you use the host's own RNA? Can't you just...I don't know splice it or something?"

The woman on the other end scoffs. "That's not how that works," she says. "The proteinic markers have to be 50% the host, and 50% something else."

"Why?" you ask.

"Because it's like a vaccine, remember?"

"A vaccine, right," you say. But the woman sighs, hearing your confusion.

"Okay, think about it this way," she says. "A vaccine introduces foreign bodies to the system. For example, a weak version of the chickenpox. The system recognizes it as foreign, then creates antibodies for a stronger immune system so that you never actually get chickenpox."

"Right," you say, tracking. You know that's how vaccines work. Inject someone with a weakened version of a disease so the body can fight it easily and make antibodies in the process. "So why does any of the medication have to match the host at all? Shouldn't it all be foreign? I mean, it's not like we're 50% chickenpox."

The woman pauses for a moment - thinking. Finally she speaks, slowly and clearly as she explains. "Theoretically that's right. But in this case there's...an extra step."

"An extra step?" you ask. 

"Before the medication is identified by the body, it has to be activated," she answers. "Otherwise it stays dormant in the bloodstream, attracting no attention."

"So what activates it?"

"The matching 50%. Once the host identifies it's own proteinic markers, it produces a chemical reaction that activates the other 50% - the foreign matter. That's why the medication will only work in the targeted host - because it has to match. Like a key to a lock."