Chapter Text
Doctor’s notes—
Subject █████ ██████
██ ███ 1945
K█████’s package arrived this morning, though whether we will be able to get anything useful from it is as yet unknown. We have been unable to get in contact with Dr. Z███ due to his position in ███████ as part of the ████████ program to recruit █████ scientists.
The physician working with K█████’s team however has speculated that ███████ ██████’s immersion in freezing water after the fall may have preserved the body, as it prevented the wounds (consisting of several severe lacerations on the left side of the torso and the loss of the left arm at the elbow) from bleeding out entirely. ███████ ██████ appeared to have █████ ██ ███ ███ █████ after the initial fall, covering a distance of an estimated 2.5 meters, at which point ██████ collapsed due to blood loss and traumatic shock, whereupon K█████’s team discovered and reported █████████ ██ ███ █████ ██████ ███████.
Details surrounding what happened to ███████ ██████ are being kept frustratingly confidential. I have been able to piece together that ██████ most likely fell a great distance and impacted a solid surface due to the patterns of bruising on the body. It is probable that ██████ landed in the water, based on the temperature of the body and the condition of the garments, which were frozen stiff.
The official report which I read states that ███████ ██████ was on a small plane which exploded at the occasion of losing the arm, but I doubt this. ██████ would have had to have jumped before the blast — suggesting ██████ could have been in close proximity to a small explosion, but perhaps twenty feet away, most possibly already falling to the water below.
Remarkably, ███████ ██████ is not dead, or at least not yet. I have not personally witnessed it but have read cases where a body that is flash-frozen can be completely revived. There is the case of the mother and her young child in Stalingrad frozen in a snowbank along the road for two hours for example.
K█████ has expressed great interest in this possibility, although I am more interested in ensuring that ███████ ██████ is kept stable until capable of being transported safely and without serious incident. It is our hope that ██████’s blood will still be viable for testing — at the moment, attempting to puncture a vein would be impossible. While ██████ was not frozen completely, the heart rate had decreased so much due to exposure and the time spent in the cold (and quite possibly frigid water) that I nearly pronounced the subject already dead upon first seeing the damage.
Tomorrow I am prepared to begin the process of allowing ███████ ██████’s body to regain its heat for further examination. K█████ and his superiors are more interested in the analysis of the vital fluids than in the revivification, but I imagine that a living subject will be of more use to us in the long run.
It is of course impossible to determine to what degree ███████ ██████ has suffered brain damage from prolonged exposure, but such facts will determine how I proceed with the experimentation upon the revival.
80.484167 N 94.996389 E
[03.19.05.2000124] PACKAGE LOCATED
[03.35.73.0000021] PACKAGE ISOLATED
[04.51.29.0032893] PACKAGE RETRIEVED
From: K8T
success!
From: Helen
:)
“Do you think your boy blew up that shack in Vologda?” asked Sam.
Steve didn't open his eyes. He was supposed to be sleeping while Sam was on watch, but he knew Sam knew he hadn’t been able to sleep since he found out. He said, “I don’t know,” because the alternative—the thought that Bucky had been there, had been so close, and slipped away again—was too painful.
Sam said, “Man, I miss Romanoff.”
“Yeah,” Steve said.
However he might have felt about Natasha’s inimitable secrets and falsehoods, her expertise had been a guiding hand. Without her, the whole situation was brittle, paper-thin. Steve hadn't heard from her in a little over a week, two countries and three safe houses ago. She hadn’t responded to any of his text messages, either.
Trying to sleep was futile. Steve opened his eyes and sat up, reaching for the papers stashed on the nightstand: Bucky’s file, the Centipede Project folder from Schoonebeek, the list of dead handlers.
The last safe house they’d cased, in Besançon, had been empty enough to suggest a total lack of occupancy stretching back at least a decade, but Steve knew the signs now, the patterns. The way Bucky worked.
The paper had been tucked under the pillow in the guest bedroom: Avdotya Snegiryovna Sokolova FEMALE age 68 COD personal ETOD 02:01. Steve hadn’t been able to think about what that personal might mean without feeling like he was going to be sick.
“The comics,” Steve said. Sam startled, obviously not expecting him to say anything more. “He—he could’ve left the comics. In the house in Vologda.”
“Any idea why he’d do that?”
Steve shrugged, a little helplessly. “Right after the building exploded, I thought—there was something. I thought I saw something. But I couldn’t be sure, so I didn’t say anything to you or to Natasha, in case I was just imagining things. I knew you’d think I was just wishing too hard, that there would be something there. I don’t even know if it was him. But it looked like something metal.”
“Oh, and you think it was his—arm,” Sam said. “Pretty damn distinctive piece of machinery, if you ask me.”
“It’s hot,” Steve said.
“It most certainly is not,” Sam said.
Steve said, “I thought you told me back in the VA, to meet people and try new things.”
“I meant,” Sam said, long-suffering, “that you should get laid.”
“You offering?” Steve said.
Sam said, “Man, now what kinda dope would turn down Captain America?”
“Yeah, Sam,” Steve said. “What kinda dope would.”
“Hey now,” Sam said. “I never wanted to fuck Captain America—”
Steve said, “You’re a damn liar.”
“If you would let me finish talking,” Sam bulldozed. “I never wanted to fuck Captain America once I met you.”
“That’s real sweet, Sam,” Steve said. He meant it. “Especially since you know sex was only invented in the 1960s.”
“Yeah, you’re not fooling me with that one again,” Sam said. “Having to teach you about seat belts was scarring enough, thanks.”
“I only told you, we didn’t have seat belts in Nazi Germany. It was you who made it about sex,” Steve said. He looked back down at the pile of papers in his lap.
Steve hadn't read as much from the Centipede folder as he had from the Bucky folder, not really. He kept meaning to read through it, but every time he tried, he comes across something he thought he'd known as something different, and he'd have to stop.
Yesterday it had been Agent Coulson’s signing off on what could only be described as sample gathering—they’d taken every fluid from his body except semen, it seemed like, and only because the electrostimulation hadn't worked while he was still half-frozen; arterial and venous blood and saliva and sweat and urine and lymphatic and cerebrospinal and peritoneal fluid. The scribbled notes in the file had all said things like successful lumbar puncture performed on subj. SGR for sampling of cerebrospinal fluid or paracentesis performed on subj. SGR—positive results! and trying to read through them had made something hot and angry coil up tight in his stomach. It had been different, when it was reading about the atrocities and invasions against Bucky; then it had been easy to think about vengeance. It was different, now that it was people he had been supposed to trust.
The day before yesterday, it had been the fact that Captain America’s status as government property had apparently not been annulled upon his putative death.
Howard Stark had spearheaded Operation Mascot from 1945 until 1974, when SHIELD formally declared the case closed on the disappearance of Captain America. Howard Stark had spearheaded the Centipede Project’s original iteration—replication of the S3 formula colloquially known as the super soldier serum—from 1943 until his death in 1991.
The mission reports never give incriminating details, of course. No names, no connections. HYDRA hadn’t been amateurs.
Steve had read the mission reports, of course. Read and reread them until he could practically recite them verbatim.
The reports were like the world’s sickest chess game: Winter Soldier to Santiago, Chile. September 11 1973. And then a note: Pinochet. Assault rifle.
Winter Soldier to Peshawar, Pakistan, November 24 1989. And then a note: car bomb—jihadi.
The same clinical, dispassionate tone from the medical records. Here we performed thoracocentesis to remove pleural buildup. Here we provided a service to the world. Here we sent a weapon to the Gaza Strip.
No, Steve hadn’t read most of the Centipede Project folder. Some part of him still felt as though he shouldn’t be so upset at being treated like a scientific experiment.
Everything special about you came out of a bottle, Tony had told him, once. You’re just like one of my machines, all juiced-up and government-owned, Howard had told him, once.
“I think it’s easier because you’re my friend. Not the seat belts part, I mean,” Sam said. Steve blinked. Right, he reminded himself. They were having a conversation.
“Yeah?” he said. “I’m not exactly good at having friends.”
“Well,” Sam said. “Lucky for you, I’m awesome at having friends. I have so many friends I can’t even count ’em all. Anyway, you’re not a bad friend, if that’s what you were trying to say without actually saying it outright. If you were a shitty friend, I wouldn’t be following your dumb besotted ass around the world chasing cold leads and dead ends.” Sam paused. “Although, if you’re legit worried about our friendship, man, I’d suggest learning what the word light jog means.”
“That’s two words,” Steve said.
Sam said, “You’re an asshole.”
Biography “The Life and Times of Industrialist Howard Stark” to be published later this year
2015 | New York Times
The World’s Fair had closed late in October of 1940, but the fairgrounds in Flushing Meadows were still off-limits to the public in anticipation of the next big event. Standing next to the RCA Building, a young man in a smart suit was gesticulating excitedly, eager to demonstrate his planned blueprints for New York’s latest scientific exposé: The World Exposition of Tomorrow, a technological extravaganza projected to run from 1943 through 1965.
Today, Howard Stark is most commonly remembered as the co-founder of the government agency SHIELD, but in 1940, the 23-year-old prodigy was more occupied with his burgeoning industrial company, Stark Industries. Unbeknownst to the young Stark, what started as a flashy exhibition of futuristic technologies would grow to become the largest tech conglomerate in the world, overtaking companies such as Apple, Samsung, Amazon, and Foxconn in terms of global revenue (Business Insider, 2014). After the death of Howard Stark and his wife, Maria, in 1991, Stark Ind. was transferred into the hands of their only son, Anthony Stark (who would later adopt the sobriquet of "Iron Man").
Born in Richford, New York, and raised in the Lower East Side, the story of Howard Stark is one of the epochal American Dream. "My mother sewed shirtwaists," Stark told the Times in 2004, commenting on his family's rise to the top. "[A]nd my father sold fruit on the streets of the city," while scraping to make ends meet at home while also providing for the best available education for their only son.
In May of 1934, when Howard Stark was only 17, he attended an international technological conference in Geneva, Switzerland, where the young technological prodigy met a Jewish geneticist in his mid-sixties by the name of Dr. Abraham Erskine, the man who would one day assist him in the creation of Howard Stark’s most tenacious creation—Captain America.
[...]
[page torn; illegible]
look, normally I have the utmost respect for museum curators and the difficult jobs they lead (provided they’re on board with repatriation, cough cough), but in some situations I have to facepalm because... no. Just no.
so! with that said. let’s talk about the new cap exhibit.
[snip]
JANEY ILU AND YOUR BRAIN. I hope you don't mind me adding my two cents, bc (as you know) I wrote my entire freaking dissertation on bucky barnes. AHEM ANYWAY. first of all, someone at the smithsonian /clearly/ didn't do their research. by which I mean, some of the facts they got wrong are easily found on wikipedia ffs! like, "barnes grew up the oldest child of four" I'm sorry, I didn't realize that he had two extra siblings... unless they intended to include cap in that list? who knows! the kitschy title ("a fallen comrade") is kinda cute though. anyway, I guess whoever created the entranceway exhibit must not have crossed paths with the howlies curator, since the main plaque straight up claims barnes enlisted, which... the museum *has his draft card,* so like, oh no honey what /is/ you doing. easily googled. right so anyway, barnes was drafted in 1942 (NOT in 1941, jeez!). kudos for getting it right that he went through basic training at camp mccoy instead of... lehigh or something, I dunno. also I know everyone likes to call the howlies, well, by that name, but cap's team wasn't known as the howling commandos until 1949, four entire years after barnes (and cap) went afk. TL;DR everything @hms-janeway said was pretty freaking spot-on, she truly does know all the things. *kisses*
Tagged: #irl wank #captain america #dissertation blogging #capexhibit2014 #seriously you'd… think… they would know better… lol
Rachel woke up slowly. She yawned and stretched without opening her eyes, reaching out—and the other side of the bed was empty.
She blinked.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Bernie said, smiling. She was already dressed.
“Oh, hello,” Rachel said. “Have I told you recently how much of a knockout you are in a three-piece?”
“Two-piece,” Bernie corrected mildly. “I have a meeting with a client today, I told you that last night.”
“I was a little busy last night, you might remember it, you were there. You have a meeting with a client at—” She fumbled for her phone, squinting at the glare. “Ten in the morning on a weekend?”
“Ten-thirty on a Saturday, actually. And it’s not really—well, it’s Isaiah Ross, on behalf of a friend. He’s not the client, I mean. His friend is. It’s proxy work.”
Rachel frowned. It wasn't as though she didn’t get along well with Isaiah, but when Bernie was actually suiting up to talk to him, that generally meant that trouble was brewing somewhere.
“Is it superhero stuff?”
“Something like that,” Bernie said neutrally. She was putting her earrings in, the ones with tiny monarch butterflies’ wings. “I’ll get you some autographs if you want.”
Rachel lunged forwards and swatted Bernie’s hip. “Watch it, missy, I can get autographs from superheroes whenever I want.”
“Oh, well I won’t bother, then,” Bernie said. She finished with the earrings and leaned in to kiss Rachel good morning. “Hello, by the way.”
“Hi,” Rachel whispered. “I love you.”
“Love you too, baby. It shouldn’t take long, Isaiah just wanted to hand over some documents for me to read. If this gets to a court, they’ll be subpoenaed anyway, of course, but I’m still going to look over them and get my bearings.”
“Don’t forget we’re going to lunch at Marcela’s later after I get my hair done,” Rachel said.
Bernie ran her nails through Rachel’s short hair. “I like the pink. I don’t know why you want to change it.”
“It’s been pink for almost four months!”
“My hair’s been the same color my entire life, and the world hasn’t ended,” Bernie pointed out.
“Your hair’s been the same color because your zaydeh would skin you alive if you changed the Jew-fro,” Rachel said. “My hair is going to be short and spiky and green because I'm—”
“Because you have a crush on Poison Ivy?”
Rachel swiped ineffectually at her arm. “No!”
“Aww, I think it’s cute. You could dress up as her for next Halloween, and I’ll be Harley Quinn. She’s supposed to be Jewish, anyway, it’ll be perfect.”
“Bitch,” Rachel said.
Bernie winked. “And you love me for it. For real though, I gotta run, you know what traffic in the city’s like when the tourists are swarming. Say hi to Seth for me when he does your hair, okay, baby?”
“I’m going back to sleep,” Rachel said. “Is it Wolverine? Are you gonna be defending Wolverine again? He was cool, and he fixed the bathroom door.”
“Nothing that glamorous, sorry,” Bernie said. “All I heard from Isaiah was that he had recommended several local attorneys, and my client—potential client, I mean—picked me because they liked my name, or something, I honestly don’t know. With everything that’s happened in the past eight months, it’s a pretty safe bet to say that it’s got something to do with Captain America, though, or at least SHIELD.”
Rachel already had her head back under the covers, out of the light, but she mumbled, “Get his autograph for me or something.”
Bernie laughed. Rachel could have listened to that sound forever. “Sure thing, baby,” Bernie promised, gathering her purse and sunglasses. The bedroom door clicked shut behind her, and Rachel rolled over and goes back to sleep.
Rachel was listening to a podcast about venomous snakes (there were about 700 different species of venomous snakes! and about 250 of them were capable of killing an adult human with one bite!) and clipping her nails when a face appeared out of nowhere at the third-floor window. Rachel made a very undignified yelping noise and dropped her phone.
She recognized the face, of course. It would be difficult not to, given that this particular face had been plastered across television screens, in newspapers, on online articles, throughout YouTube video essays, for the past eight months: Natasha Romanoff, alias Natalia Romanova, alias the Black Widow, colloquially known as one of the most dangerous and deadly spies in the world.
“Hi, you,” said one of the most dangerous and deadly spies in the world, and waved like a schoolgirl. “Can I use your WiFi?”
Rachel recovered herself enough to ask, “You couldn't just hack it?”
The Black Widow pouted. “Obviously I could. I’m trying to be nice,” she said. “It’s a new thing I’m doing. Asking people for things. Anyway, could you tell me the password?”
“You’re not going to do anything illegal on my WiFi, are you?” Rachel demanded, suddenly worried. “My ISP will literally kill me.”
“Nothing that could be traced back to you,” the Black Widow promised cheerily, which was... actually more reassuring than it probably should have been.
Rachel squinted at her for a moment before deciding why not. “Yeah, okay,” she acquiesced, tapping her fingertips against the screen. “You might want to come around to the front door of the apartment though. You know. Like a normal person.”
“Aw,” said the Black Widow, looking hurt. “When did I ever give you the impression I was a normal person?”
60 years after the disappearance of Captain America, catch all the best (and worst) portrayals of Steve Rogers on the silver screen
American Captain (1976). Director: Alan J. Pakula. Starring: Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, Katharine Ross.
For a gritty 70s political thriller about a WW2 pop culture icon turned military hero, Pakula somehow manages to pull it off. If you’re looking for something light-hearted and family friendly, this is one to miss: Redford’s Cap is genre savvy enough to be well aware that he’s starring in a sociopolitical drama, and plays his role accordingly. If you’re wanting to see a Captain America story minus the campy costume, vague HYDRA goons standing in for actual 1940s Nazis, or cheesy dialogue spliced between overdramatic fight scenes, this is by far the best option out there. Pakula doesn’t shy away from the atrocities of war, nor from the adult themes (the softcore sex scene between Rogers and Carter midway through the film was allegedly greenlit by Carter herself, although no official evidence exists). Redford’s portrayal of Cap is of a man who wanted to be a soldier, only to be shunted into a role as a dancing monkey, before finally earning his metaphorical (and literal) stripes by taking command against all odds behind enemy lines. As supporting characters, Reynolds and Ross are both excellent, and their combined chemistry with Redford is a major part of what earned Pakula an Academy Award for what remains his most beloved and critically acclaimed film to date. Extra points for remembering to make Peggy Carter brunette. Rating: A-
Captain America and Captain America II: Death Too Soon (1979). Director: Rod Holcomb. Starring: Reb Brown.
When it comes to factual similarity to Rogers’s life, this is one to miss. Holcomb’s duology shows us a Steve Rogers burdened by his father’s death (his mother is not mentioned) who, after an assassination attempt staged to look like an accident, treats his near-fatal injuries with a “super-steroid” known as F.L.A.G. that was created by his late father from his own DNA. Rogers, a former Marine turned unemployed artist, then adopts the title of Captain America, based on both his father’s legacy and, inexplicably, a childhood drawing of a superhero—which is, at the very least, a relatively reasonable explanation for the campy outfit. The frenzied scenery chewing, unfortunately, has no such explanation. Rating: B+
Captain America (1990). Director: Albert Pyun. Starring: Matt Salinger, Kim Gillingham, Scott Paulin.
Although almost universally panned by critics, with an average Rotten Tomatoes score of 2/10, this movie deserves credit for its effort to tell a (more or less) historically accurate story while still appealing to a contemporary audience. With some noticeable deviances from the truth (the most glaring being, of course, the way the serum was administered—in the wake of the War on Drugs and the AIDS epidemic, needles were a touchy subject in Hollywood, leading the eponymous hero to imbibe the glowing blue liquid without a second thought for lab safety), cringe-worthy dialogue, and gratuitous facetiousness, the poor ratings almost seem inevitable. However, if you can ignore the lack of a coherent plot, decent budget, direction, or A-list cast, it’s a silly but entertaining take on a much-mythologized hero. It might be a good idea to leave your kids at home, though—the movie opens in pre-war Italy with a graphic machine-gun slaughter scene, helpfully subtitled for the non-Italian speakers in the audience. Rating: C-
Captain America Versus the Red Skull (1962). Director: Martin Gilford. Starring: Jack Kichy, Jean Bradshaw, Michael Robertson, Benny Orlo.
An obvious hallmark of the post-Hollywood blacklist era of film making, Gilford’s fear of Communism was rivaled only by his fear of a realistic plot. Johann Schmidt (“The Red Skull”) has been recast as a Communist fanatic hellbent on destroying the American ideal, only to be thoroughly trounced by Captain “F*** YEAH AMERICA” through a combination of a staggering arsenal of anachronistic weaponry and sheer machismo, making every high school English teacher cry at the blatant and gratuitous color symbolism. If it weren’t enough to imbue the Red Scare into pop culture, Gilford also manages to transmogrify Peggy Carter into a blonde damsel in distress all too happy to fall swooningly into the strong arms of Captain America, erase both James Morita and Gabriel Jones from the comedic relief group of Howling Commandos, and ignore Rogers’s history as a first-generation Irish immigrant. The final shot is Rogers and Carter embracing passionately while the Soviet Union flag burns slowly in the background and a dazzling display of red-white-and-blue fireworks spells out the end titles, helpfully clarifying the message of the film. Rating: D
Captain America (1997). Director: Ken Burns. Starring: Steve Rogers (posthumous), Margaret Carter, Rebecca Proctor, James Morita, assorted.
Although not as fictionalized as the rest of this list, Ken Burns’s twelve-part miniseries documentary draws on Burns’s own Brooklyn heritage to tell a truly compelling story of the real Steve Rogers. Complete with archival footage of WWII, lengthy excerpts from the original Captain America films—all available on Archive.org—and in-depth interviews with Margaret “Peggy” Carter, Rebecca Proctor (née Barnes), James Morita, Theodore “Teddy” Dugan, and a handful of historians, the soporific style of Burns’s narrative is canceled out by the sheer quality of storytelling. Rating: A+
A Hero Grows in Brooklyn (1951). Director: Jacob Ferucci. Starring: Jimmy Wisnowsky, Alice Flint, Harry White, Jacob Horowitz.
As the first cinematographic foray into Captain America post-Hollywood Code—the film was released only four years after the HUAC first cracked down on suspected Communists—the expectations were ground level. A Hero Grows in Brooklyn, however, still managed to crawl under the bar. The film barely made six hundred grand in its domestic release (a paltry amount even in 1951), and never got an international release. Seasoned viewers might recall the laissez-faire approach to historical accuracy, featuring such highlights as a titular “hero” who wears a cape, brandishes a truly awe-inspiring arsenal of weaponry—that, were the film slightly more tongue-in-cheek, would lead us to infer he was compensating for something—and has somehow shed his personhood for the ability to fly (or at least levitate, given the limited technical effects of the time). Although this film carries the dubious honor of being the first silver screen representation of the Captain America story to feature the term “Commandos” to refer to Cap’s team, they’re hardly representative of the real-life men they’re meant to embody (a noticeable lack of color will likely be what most see first). No attempt was made to accurately portray pre-WW2 New York beyond perhaps watching a few dated gangster movies—although Westerns were in fashion, not everyone wore pinstripes. “Captain America” was apparently injected with an “extraterrestrial” toxin that gave him his super-abilities (including the flying part), a fact the film feels the need to remind us of every few scenes. It seems someone got Steve Rogers confused with Clark Kent—the main difference being, of course, that only the former was a real person. Rating: F
The Internet: so helpful. Steve learned about the atom bomb, about the Manhattan Project and Howard Stark’s influence on its nascence. He learned about internment camps for Japanese citizens, natives or immigrants, living on American soil; about the aftereffects of the war on the lives of Japanese-American civilians like Morita. He learned about Hiroshima, Nagasaki—about the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians snuffed out in an instant, the hibakusha, slaughtered systematically over long days and months of suffering, even after Japan had already formally surrendered. He learned that the American government still taught its children that the bombs were the right decision, the only decision, and he looked at the star on his uniform and felt sick to his stomach.
So helpful. He learned about the Civil Rights movement: Gabe and Peggy had been involved in that, of course, with their children—Gabriel James, Michael Thomas, Amanda Elizabeth. He learned about the lynchings, about the murders; about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; about the targeting of children like Ruby Bridges. About the unfair wages, about the discrimination, about the slow road towards integration, about the pushback against the dissolution of the Jim Crow laws.
All that information, publicly available. The War on Drugs. The War on Terror. The Vietnam War. The Korean War. The War in Afghanistan. The conflict in the Middle East. The British Partition of India. The smaller, more secret wars back home: racial discrimination, inequal pay, the blind eye turned to the AIDS situation while it ran the gamut of epidemic to crisis.
At first, SHIELD had wanted Captain America to make public appearances—
("You gotta establish a good rapport with the paparazzi," Fury had advised.
"Sure. Yeah," Steve said. He didn't know what paparazzi meant.)
—and Steve had capitulated on a few of them, but quickly learned that it was better not to answer any of the questions. When the answers he gave didn’t match the politics the reporters wanted to pin to his persona, which was most of the time, they skipped the political enquiries entirely and went straight for the personal.
“Captain Rogers! Have you spoken to Margaret Carter recently?”
“Are you currently romantically involved with anyone?”
“Do you have plans to rejoin active duty?”
“Cap! Cap, do you intend to reside in your old home of Brooklyn?”
“How are you handling the shock of seeing women wearing pants?”
Steve had tried to tell them, at first, that he’d seen women wearing pants plenty of times—while working, or in the factories, or during the hottest months in summer, or even sometimes on weekends at home or while cleaning or running the soup kitchens or scrap metal drives—but they thought they knew his world, and it didn’t matter much what he said.
They thought they knew his world, from the books and movies and newspaper articles. They talked about the Civilian Conservation Corps and Victory Gardens and playing marbles and how he must think bananas tasted so funny, these days. Did he know what basketball was? Had he been to a fast food joint yet? Was he acquainted with cell phones at all?
And the more invasive, sly questions, of course. Did he miss being able to use racial slurs? Did he think of women as sluts for showing their legs? Did he think being gay was unnatural and sinful?
When he actually thought about it, Steve found the questions hilarious. The 107th Tactical would have socked anyone who called Gabe Jones anything worse than a Negro, Steve among them. After a few months on the touring circuit, the USO girls had got so used to Steve's presence that they regularly stripped down in front of him, chattering and gossiping and smoking in their underthings without hardly a care. He'd known about women's nylons and sanitary pads and the techniques they used to make those fancy Victory Rolls stay in place.
And then of course, there had been Bucky—
Nobody wanted Captain America to be a person, of course. There were billions and billions of people. Captain America was the living legend and symbol of courage: that was all the world needed him to be. Captain America was larger than life, up on a pedestal, sculpted from marble. A man from a distant era of history. A man from a foreign century. A man out of time.
Bieniec, near Pątnów: Polska. Another one of Natasha’s ancient corrugated-metal sheds. Unlike most of the other safe houses, this one looked recently lived-in: Steve discovered a half-empty jar of peanut butter in the refrigerator, a few pieces of fruit on the counter, a butter knife and a small plate drying on a frayed towel. There was a gas stove and a small fireplace, a neat stack of logs arranged next to it.
“Well,” Sam said. He picked up a plum from the counter, examining it. “I’d say someone’s definitely been in here, all right.”
“Yeah,” Steve said, trying for noncommittal.
He was still rummaging through the drawers in the kitchen, looking for something to give him a clue of how Bucky could be feeling, what he'd been thinking, anything.
There had been a piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator—молоко сыр хлеб сливы—but it didn't look like Bucky’s penmanship.
(Steve still felt his face flush hot with furious embarrassment whenever he remembered the time Tony had first caught him writing something down in the first notebook, three years ago— “Holy shit, is that cursive?” Tony had squawked, trying to snatch the notebook, only relenting when Steve shoved it back inside his jacket pocket, away from Tony’s grabbing fingers. “I guess Captain America doesn’t have to worry about feeling emasculated by patriarchal standards, or whatever—order a mai tai with a little umbrella, sex on the beach, all that jazz—”
He’d been careful to write in the loose, sloppy way people thought was normal now, after that.)
Sam said, “I understand if you feel differently, but I’m thinking we should maybe sleep in the car, if we’re going to stay in—this area. For the night.”
“You scared, Wilson?”
“Uh, yeah,” Sam said. “Should I not be? You know, what with the Nazis, the lapsed assassins, the government turncoats, the international intelligence agents, and oh, did I already mention the Nazis? I didn’t get no fancy serum, man. All I got is my wings if I’m wearing ’em and whatever weapons are within reach.”
“We can sleep in the car,” Steve said.
“Good, cause I really don’t want to get murdered in some tiny village in fuck knows where, Poland.”
“Bieniec,” said Steve.
“Yeah. Thanks,” Sam said. “Captain Obvious.”
“You’re not going to get murdered,” Steve told him.
Sam’s eyebrows jumped. “Sure, that’s nice of you to say, I know you’re confident your man isn’t gonna get the drop on you in your sleep or something, but hell, he doesn’t remember me as anything more than the guy whose wings he shredded, or that other guy who was in the car when he grabbed Sitwell and laminated him across the grille of a Mack truck. So forgive me if I don’t feel exactly as safe as you do. You're cool, sure, but you ain't exactly James Bond.”
“Bucky wouldn’t try to kill you on purpose,” Steve said. He didn't know who James Bond is, but he wasn't about to tell Sam that.
“Right,” Sam said. “And you know that how, exactly?”
But that was the thing though, wasn't it? Because Steve didn't know.
Not really.
He knew it the same way he knew he was born in 1918, the same way he knew he could look up and the roof of the shack would still be there, the same way he knew that the sky was full of stars. Bucky had been going after HYDRA operatives, active or retired, and he'd definitely been killing them, but it wasn't the same. Steve didn't know how to explain. It was just a feeling, that was all.
Steve had read the file. He knew all about the horrible sorts of things the Winter Soldier was capable of doing.
Maybe it wasn't exactly the road trip of vengeance Natasha had dismissed earlier, or anything like that. But that didn't mean it had to be a continuation of the things HYDRA had made him do.
This wasn’t the work of HYDRA’s greatest weapon. Steve knew that much for certain. This was the work of Bucky.
“I just do,” he said.
“Man, you’re lucky you’ve got me watching your back, cause you are not the type to put your own life vest on first,” Sam said, and shook his head. “I already told you, I’m cool with staying in the area, as long as we sleep in the car, for whatever reason you want to stay in wherever the fuck we are.”
“Bieniec.”
Sam said, “Look, I just have one question, and tell me to shut up if you don’t want to answer, that’d be fine too. You told me one time that you and your fella from the forties both enlisted after Pearl Harbor. But the whole damn world knows the story of how Bucky Barnes got drafted. So was it like a—”
“I didn’t know,” Steve said, sharply. “He didn’t tell me. If that’s what you were asking. I didn’t find out for sure until—after. Once I got back. Because people forgot that for me, the war wasn’t seventy years ago, it was yesterday.”
“It fucks you up, man,” Sam agreed carefully.
“The official date of the— of my disappearance was a couple months after I crashed the Walküre. For me, it was only a little over two weeks since—since Bucky died. I mean, he didn’t die, but I didn’t know that. The Smithsonian has his draft card, behind glass next to all my enlistment forms. Thought about asking for it back, but it was never really mine to begin with, not really. He mentioned something about it in the letters he wrote, the ones he didn’t post, but I didn’t believe it. Half the shit he wrote made no sense anyway. It wasn’t until I got back that I found out it was true.”
“I guess that wasn’t exactly in your ‘welcome to the 21st century’ packet from SHIELD, huh,” Sam said.
Steve laughed, even though it wasn’t funny. “They told me about history, can you believe that? Welcome to the future, here’s a history lesson. Nothing about how to interact with people, or what everyone would have expected from me, or any of that kind of shit.”
The closest thing had been Tony, of all people, cornering him after one of the endless press conferences, and saying, “So, uh, I dunno if anyone told you yet, but uh, here’s a list of... words you can’t really say anymore. Just, I learned it the hard way, so! Thank me later or whatever, God bless America, hit me up if you’re ever looking for a nice girl to spangle your stars, if you get my drift, still wish you’d live in the Tower—”
Steve said, “Welcome to the future, you’re going to be upholding the law now. Except now there were crimes I’d never even heard of. Try explaining the Internet to someone who grew up playing potsy.”
What did you do for fun in the 1940s? people always loved to ask him. They thought they knew his world—dancing to swing or jazz bands in the park and shooting marbles in the dirt and playing stickball out in the streets and gathering scrap metal in a little red wagon like the clean-frocked kids from old daguerreotypes.
Rose-tinted lenses, that was the worst part about it. All that retrospective embellishment.
It had all felt so contrived, so stupid. Someone's clinicized view of the past. No one wanted to hear the truth.
No one wanted to hear about how Bucky had stolen a length of rope off a workman’s cart to make a skipping rope for Rebecca, or about the block fights during the summer when the fire hydrants were all busted up, or how, when he and Bucky were a bit older, they’d take the subway over to Greenwich and get drunk on stolen Piels.
They thought they knew his world—Prohibition and the Great Depression and the New Deal. No one wanted to hear about Captain America winding up with typhoid after going swimming in the river one summer in 1927—it had been Bucky’s idea, to find a way for Steve to cool off. They used to play games where they would get as close as possible to the ships moving through the water, only splashing out of the way at the last second.
They used to loiter around the local pool halls or movie theatres and pick pockets, or kick cans around the back lots of the tenement buildings, or collect bricks and engage in a vicious war between the Russian kids from one block and the Irish and Jewish kids from the next block.
But no one wanted to hear about Captain America punching some kid’s teeth in for calling him a Mick; they wanted to imagine him obediently doing his homework or reading his catechism.
“Yeah, that sort of shit is exactly why I decided I wasn’t gonna get back in,” Sam said. “Turns out that the more people are involved in something, the more links in the chain. That might work for some people, but not for me. I’m a PTSD counselor, man, I help people. I’m not law enforcement, thank fuck, and I’m not a government intelligence agent. Like I told Fury—more of a soldier than a spy. I’m not about hurting people just because I think it’s the best way to do what’s right.”
Steve said, “You know, the first part of that sounded a lot like something Tony would say. Links in a chain I mean. He’d take a statement like that and decide that the solution is for him to make the chain. You make the chain out of Stark Tech, well, then he’s the only one in control of it. Because he knows best how to save the world.”
Sometimes he looked at Tony and thinks: this man is supposed to be older than me. Sometimes he looked at Tony and thinks: I am supposed to like this man.
Howard would have wanted the two of them to get along, probably. But Howard is dead, in the ground, six feet under. Never coming back.
Automotive accident or assassination. Someone’s cold fingers curling around his bruised throat. The impact of his forehead against the glass windshield. Ice and snow and a broken headlight. It still made him feel vaguely nauseated, the knowledge that he doesn’t care if Bucky was the one who did it.
Sam said, “First of all, please never compare me to Tony Stark ever again. Second of all—that’s gotta be weird for you, right? You just got done with fighting Nazis, and now it’s the future and there’s still Nazis, even more Nazis, and now they got even bigger and badder.”
“They’ve got better weapons now, anyway,” Steve said. “I’m not going to try to fight the entire world head-on—”
“I love it when you lie to me,” Sam said.
“Oh, fuck off. I’m not going to fight the entire world head-on because that wouldn’t work. It’s not just HYDRA, and it’s not just SHIELD. If HYDRA didn’t die when Schmidt did, or when Zola did—in the seventies, or last year, whichever—it’s not going to be stopped by something like SHIELD being dissolved. SHIELD, HYDRA—it all goes. I'm not exactly feeling a lot of sympathy for Nazis right now. And besides,” he said. “I did do some research on the Patriot Act.”
Sam wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, talk about a precursor to Project INSIGHT, Jesus. And you’re sure you want to stay in—”
“Bieniec.”
“Yeah. That.”
“Well,” Steve said, “I know Natasha’s been keeping track of our locations, whether she’d admit it or not, and spending more time than usual in one place is going to ping her radar, so to speak.”
“Uh huh,” Sam said. “I miss her too, sure, but why do we need to—ping her radar, exactly?”
Steve said, “Because she’s the most likely person to have a direct link to Nick. And a direct link to Nick is something I’d really like to get my hands on sometime soon. I'm not too happy with the knowledge that SHIELD had been lying to the world for this long. Someone's got to accept responsibility for the way they treated—people.”
“You know, it’s kinda creepy when you do that whole tough guy schtick, cause you still look like an overenthusiastic waffle,” Sam said. “But like, a waffle with an SMG.”
Steve almost laughed. “You’ve got a real way with words, Sam.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna be the next Poet fucking Laureate,” Sam said. “God damn it, Rogers, you just can’t make things easy, can you?”
Steve smiled. It wasn't funny, and he didn't know why he kept feeling those hysterical bubbles of laughter trying to fight their way out of his chest. He'd been experimented on, just like Bucky: so what? He'd been isolated in that cabin made for Bruce Banner, just like Bucky: so what? He'd been turned into a figurehead, a symbol, an oriflamme, just like Bucky: so what?
“No,” he said. "I really can't."