The doctor glanced at the sheet of Steve's many, many health issues.
"You're ineligible on your asthma alone."
Steve stood in a heavy silence. The doctor didn't move to do anything else. He stared at Steve curiously. Steve silently fumed. This was the fifth rejection he'd had, but he wasn't going to give up now.
The doctor stood up.
"But you know what kid? If you're really so desperate to go to war, the US Army needs every able-bodied man it can get."
"Really, sir?" Steve's heart was beating. He felt excitement rising in his stomach, ballooning up and lifting his spirits till they met with the moon.
He didn't realize he was grinning until the doctor said, "I don't know why you're smiling, kid. War isn't meant for heroes or happiness; it only brings destruction. If you're lucky, I'm probably going to be examining your grievously injured body after a battle in six months and you'll be sent home."
The doctor left on that grim note and Steve was escorted out, but he didn't care. He was serving his country in the best way he could. He was going to war.
(Day 2 of boot camp)
It was 11 o'clock and boot camp had paused for a break. Steve took this opportunity to finish his wheezing, hands on his knees. He hacked a cough a couple of times and wiped a never-ending supply of sweat from his brow. Then, he downed approximately a bottle of water.
A couple of the guys laughed at Steve's discomfort. One even mimicked his asthmatic breathing. They had barely broken a sweat.
Steve was too tired and lacked the inclination to glare, so kept his cool outwardly.
One of the less douchey guys offered him a sweat rag and Steve took it, thankful.
"Thanks, umm-" for the life of him Steve could not remember his name.
"Jeremy Reynolds," Reynolds held out his hand to shake. Steve grasped it as firmly as he could given his current state of exhaustion. To Reynolds' credit, he didn't wipe his hand on his pants.
"Thanks Jeremy. I'm Steve Rogers," His asthma retreated and he tried to make conversation with the guy that had been nice to him despite the ridicule of others.
"So . . . where are you from?" Steve asked.
"I'm from California but I moved to Jersey a couple of years ago," Jeremy grinned.
Steve laughed, "I guess that explains your lack of an accent."
It was definitely the start of something, maybe not a beautiful friendship, but a solid one.
There were a couple of incidents.
Thomas Cox, the main antagonist and one of the guys who laughed at Steve the second day, "accidentally" sent him sprawling in the dirt during a break. Jeremy kept solidarity with Steve in a semi-tense standoff which was ended by an officer yelling at them, asking what the hell they were doing and that these were their friends, they should save the posturing for the Nazis.
The next day, when Steve spent an extra hour completing the obstacle course than Thomas, Thomas snickered and called him a couple of names his mother probably didn't teach him.
Jeremy, blood roaring, was ready to fight Thomas, but Steve gently laid a hand on his arm and told him to let Steve deal with it.
After dinner, Steve pulled a reluctant Thomas aside.
"What do you want, Rogers?" he grumbled, "planning to slow boot camp down again with your asthmatic ass?"
"Listen," Steve said diplomatically, "We're all American here."
"That doesn't change the fact that you're weak, lazy, and look like the bottom of Hitler's boot." Nazi jokes were common among the soldiers.
Steve knew perfectly well that he was not in the least lazy, but he also knew Thomas was trying to save face. He probably hadn't even enlisted on his own, but was called by the draft.
"I would appreciate it," Steve said struggling to stay calm, "If you would stop your vitriol. We are all American."
Although he tried to keep his voice even, an edge crept into it at the end. Unable to think of anything else to say, he spun on his heel and marched away.
A couple of days later, they were split into groups for an evening run. At the end of the run, Thomas stood by Steve a little awkwardly.
"Hey," Steve said guardedly.
Thomas put his hands in a couple different positions. He still said nothing.
"Sweat rag?" Steve offered. It was kind of gross, but still had some dry spots.
Thomas took the olive branch.
"Sorry about being an asshole," he said.
The three douchebags, Thomas Cox, Chris Johnson, and Evan Brown, stopped snickering at Steve after the first week. They were jerks, but they were human too, and more to the point, American soldiers.
(End of week 3 of boot camp)
Steve ran the entire evening run and cut his time in half.
Evan clapped him on the back and told him, "Not bad little guy," in a teasing way.
Thomas mysteriously found a case of beer and they celebrated. It was halfway through boot camp.
Of course, Steve woke up with a massive headache the next day, but he smiled through the training.
(far, far past boot camp)
Steve Rogers looked grimly out onto the battlefield, the corpse of Jeremy Reynolds lying next to him. His good looks were marred by a bullet in the eye. Blood gushed, staining the ground around him.
The very air was evil and filled with smoke and dirt. It was as if the real world was obscured by a shadow that hungrily took as many lives as it could, darkening the rest in the process.
Tears fell from Steve's eyes as grenades fell around him and the sound of bullets snapped through the air, miraculously missing the soldier.
"Come on Rogers!" a voice distantly broke through the veil of tears and white noise and shrapnel flying through the air.
Steve was roughly yanked out of his reverie by a shouting, dirty, sweaty Thomas Cox.
"We have to keep moving Steve!" he bellowed, and pulled Steve out of the blast zone of a grenade that surely would've taken his head.
Steve struggled to his feet, muscles trembling. He forced himself to take one final look at Jeremy, preserving him in Steve's memory.
"Steve, he's dead!" Thomas' voice was raw with desperation and loss. Chris Johnson, a close friend of his, was torn apart, now left to be food for the maggots.
"You're right," Steve said hoarsely, "So I'm going to take out as many damn Nazis as I possibly can."
Steve took Jeremy's gun and tried to run out to the open field where Axis soldiers were hiding in the trenches.
"You can't! It's suicide!" Thomas yelled. Fortunately, Thomas was still stronger than him and was able to pull Steve behind cover before artillery blasted the air again.
Steve's cheeks were dirty and tearstained, but he listened to Thomas and didn't self-destruct. He fired when ordered to, and if Steve's gun ran out of ammunition faster than anyone else's, no one said a word. Steve just picked up Jeremy's gun and continued firing.
Thomas and Steve kept a close eye on each other; they couldn't lose anyone else.
At last the battle was over. The Allies won, despite taking heavy casualties. The Nazis simply ran out of supplies and were forced to surrender. They used up all of their ammunition and also took a horrible number of casualties.
Steve watched numbly as people cleaned up the battlefield. Dead bodies were carried out and identified by their dog tags.
Thomas and Evan came up to stand by Steve. A sideways glance showed that Thomas also had tear stains on his face. Evan wasn't faring any better.
Thomas opened a bottle of beer he had carried across the Atlantic. Steve knew he was saving it for a special occasion: a battle won or a war ended.
"To Jeremy, Chris, and everyone else who was killed by those bastards," Thomas drank and offered it to Steve.
"To Jeremy, Chris, and everyone else," he echoed. Steve took a swig. He passed it to Evan.
"To Jeremy, Chris, and may those goddamn Nazis rot in hell," Evan's voice cracked. Evan drank and gave the bottle back to Thomas.
"It's already open, might as well finish it," Thomas said. He drank deeply and thrust it in Steve's face.
"Drink away short stuff," Thomas gave a weak grin at his lame joke.
Steve appreciated the gesture and also drank again, soundlessly passing it to Evan who finished the bottle.
Evan tossed the bottle aside. He took a deep breath.
"Guys, I'm really glad you're still alive," Evan, on the verge of weeping the entire time, began to shed tears. He was instantly supported by Steve on one side and Thomas on the other. They gently brought him down and escorted him to a temporarily constructed barrack.
They told stories about Jeremy and Chris throughout the night, alternately crying and laughing as they remembered them. Some of their other bunkmates joined them in their circle to recount stories about others who had fallen. After dinner, they sang songs in a circle around a fire.
In the past Steve had only Bucky, family in all but blood, who was assigned to a different unit and who had been in a different boot camp than him. Now, Steve had more brothers than he'd ever thought he'd have, and he'd lost more brothers than he'd ever thought he'd lose.
(November 11, 1981: Remembrance Day)
Steve's skin was weathered and wrinkled, his eye crinkles deep from smiling. His arm had a scar from shrapnel and his hair was blond, but greying.
His eyes were still bright blue and shining.
He stood proudly next to his friends, medals shining, in formal army wear. Thomas and Evan stood by him, along with Bucky. Bucky had been recovered from a Hydra facility after being thought dead for a very long time. Despite being held captive for some insidious experiment, Bucky had only suffered the loss of the bottom half of his left leg, which was replaced with a fabulously engineered prosthetic. His arms, other leg, and face were still handsomely intact.
Steve glanced at the crowd, spotting three of his children and all eight of his grandchildren. His wife, Peggy Carter, whom he had met while being debriefed for a very important and highly dangerous stealth mission, was standing on the stage with him. Little Tony Stark was running, playing with one of Steve's grandchildren.
The announcer started talking and Steve tried to pay attention, but all he could think about was the life he was living and the friends and family he had made.
He shared a secret smile with Peggy and a playful one with Bucky.
He couldn't imagine a different world.