This has been a bit of a long term project that began when I connected Steve's thinking in Civil War to something or other one Jedi Master in Legends said to a padawan; the difference between soldiers and Jedi is that Jedi are trained to disobey orders when they believe that it is the right thing to do. Then it went down in my notes with the unfortunate prompt of 'Steve Rogers is a reincarnated Jedi' which basically is what I blurted onto the page here. Laugh. Whatever. I'm continuing whether you like it or not.
The last time Spiorad Tyst closed his eyes, it was the second of Febris in 24 BBY. It was a simple matter that took his life, really; the craft he was aboard had malfunctioned, causing the hyperspace coordinates to send them into a planet at the speed of light. That was alright.
There is no death, there is the Force.
The first time Steve Rogers opened his eyes, it was the Fourth of July in 1923. That? Now that was not a simple matter. Death was supposed to be the gateway into a life of peace and nonexistence, not a room with dirty, white walls and people (humans, if he was correct) talking incessantly.
And thus Spiorad's (Steve's) life was divided into two sections; the Before, as Spiorad, and the After, as Steve.
The After was very different than the Before. In the Before, his world was soft and quiet. One fluid piece of an immense puzzle, surrounded by hundreds of people similar to him. It was a world where he never worried about financials, only the people around him. The After was… chaos. A world without rules that were followed, where everyone around him was so annoying and immature like the youngest of the children Spiorad had helped with.
Chaos, yet harmony.
Steve was three years old when he first came in contact with anyone but his new parents. His new mother took him to their Church, and gave him a hug and tweaked his nose and left him.
As Spiorad, he had dealt with many new children being taken to the Temple. From this, he gave Steve knowledge that he should burst into tears.
Steve did. He wailed, stomped his feet and lifted his arms out towards her as he was lifted into the arms of one of their- what were they called? Nuns. Yes, nuns.
They plopped him in a room with several other children his age, told him to be good, and left him under the supervision of another nun.
Alright. That wasn't all that different to what Steve was used to. Normally there had been more caretakers around (Jedi younglings really were the most energetic children in the galaxy), but there we are. It was something they called the nineteen-twenty's.
Which basically meant that no one had enough money to do anything, and everybody was prepared to do whatever it meant to keep those around them safe.
And it meant that they were coming out of a war.
And it meant that tensions were high with Germany.
(Steve was a smart boy, and had been a smart Jedi, he knew that all of this meant that there would soon be another war, seeing as Germany was also broke and pissed at a religious group called the Jewish.
This new world was one Steve came to realize was not so different from his own. When he imagined each country as a planet or possible system, it became further easier to visualize. Whilst everyone was of the same species, they fought like wookies and trandoshans.
Another little boy plopped down next to Steve. Dark brown hair, cut like a Jedi youngling's minus the Padawan braid, and dark eyes. Maybe a few months older than Steve, and with a big grin crossing the boy's face. He introduced himself, and within minutes they sat together with a pile of something called tinker toys.
It was 1926. Steve was three, he had never met his father, and his mother worked all day everyday so that they had somewhere to sleep.
The year's celebration came and went. 1927 rolled in and passed, and Steve started school, at the Church. He began to relearn simple mathematics, and art, and history. For the first time, started learning French, something he found to be easy. Easy enough it was boring.
1928 came in, and Sarah Rogers (who worked in a TB ward, because there wasn't much work for Irish woman) caught the illness she had been treating for years. The affects were immediate. Steve was seized from her care (it had happened to him before, and was inconsequential in the long run) and placed in an orphanage run by stern nuns and a priest they called Father Henry. The nuns were all severe women who dressed in black and white, and only one (Sister Edna) was truly kind to Steve. The Father was also stern, but not as much so, and acted as something of a father to the parentless children in his care.
Then it was 1929, then 1930 and so forth. The school that Steve learned in was not necessarily a good school, but it was fine nonetheless.
1930 was also the year that Steve was first beaten up at the school, because Steve was smaller than the other children.
He didn't see where the little pellet came from, only that the first boy spluttered and scrambled back, then disappeared into the thick of children in the schoolyard. Another pellet spluttered through the air, and Steve tracked it, as though time slowed around him and then it went crashing into the second boy. Two more pellets, and Steve's back remained pressed against the brick wall but the other children were gone.
A glance up revealed the perpetrator and a face was revealed- firm, square features framed by dark brown hair. A cocky smile grinned at him and Steve found himself grinning back despite himself.
"Those punks didn't hurt you too bad now did they?"
"I had 'em in the ropes."
The boy grinned at Steve and Steve's grin widened. He straightened himself, and thrust a single hand forwards. "Steve Rogers." His voice was firm and calm, pitched high with youth.
"Bucky Barnes," the other boy, Bucky, replied and then he grinned ruefully. "Actually it's James Buchanan Barnes, but only my Pa calls me James."
"It's a pleasure," Steve said as Bucky shook his hand lightly.
The following weeks came with greater ease than the previous ones; Bucky introduced Steve to his family, a kind father named Edward, a kind mother named Ethel, and three youngers sisters named (Re)Becca, Betty and (Isa)Belle. He liked to say that the names were a bit of a curse, each of them having nicknames beginning with the letter B.
Steve laughed when he said this, and assured Bucky that, no, that was not something odd to him. After all, he had grown up around children named Depa and Hobbie, in the Before.
Time passed and then it was 1931 and Steve was eight years old and the shortest of anyone he knew and the one who spent the most days curled up in bed, hacking his lungs up as the pneumonia settled, once again, in his lungs.
1932. 1933. Steve told Bucky about the Force, pulled a blanket from across the room and Bucky grinned wildly. 1934. 1935. The years were fast and short, nothing more than a blink over the course of time. 1936. 1937.
The war grew closer, Steve knew.
The Force told him as such, an insistent whisper in his ear. Or perhaps, more accurately, a feeling that surrounded him every minute of every day. The world would cry out in agony, when the slaughter that Steve knew was coming arrived. It would be a massive death toll, millions of pointless deaths.
1939. 1939.
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August (so close, so close, so close), September and then a headline in the New York Times:
GERMAN ARMY ATTACKS POLAND; CITIES BOMBED, PORT BLOCKADED; DANZIG IS ACCEPTED INTO REICH
It was September first, of 1939, and the war Steve had long been dreading began.
Germany was the country that the world had warred with some thirty years previously. Poland was their larger, next door neighbour.
The initial death toll, Steve knew, was undoubtedly immense, echoing in the Force like a thousand cries of pain as their lives were stolen from them in an endless inferno of flame and agony. Steve grimaced as the aftershocks rang out across the galaxy, an unending cry like a blast of radiation in intensity.
September fourth, or 1939, and it became four countries in the war, Britain and France declaring war when Germany refused to pull out of Poland.
Steve was sixteen, and time continued onwards; the people worried, but life went on. Adults (and Steve too, now) went to work; the children played in the streets and soon it was 1940- Steve was seventeen by the end of the year, and then the headlines read:
French Sign Reich Truce, Rome Pact Next; British Bomb Krupp Works and Bremen; House Quickly Passes 2-Ocean Navy Bill
And the word of the beginning of the Battle of Berlin. And the Blitz in London began.
The world cried out day after day, hundreds of times over and the pain of the world was like a stifling blanket.
He and Bucky moved in together, Steve working at the grocers most of the time, and trying to sell his comic strips when he wasn't. They lived near the docks, where Bucky worked ten hours a day. They shared laughs, over silly little things because silly little things was better than the news, filled with nothing but the shouts from across the sea.
The peacetime draft order was signed on September, 1940.
The draft itself began precisely a month later, October 16 of the same year.
Of the twenty million men between the ages of 21 and 36, half were rejected for health reasons or illiteracy.
He and Bucky were eligible, then. But not for long- Bucky, eighteen at the time, would have three years until he was eligible for the draft. Steve had four, but was mostly one who would be declared ineligible for health reasons.
1941. January, February, March, April, May. June, July. (The fourth). August. September, October, December.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
JAPAN WARS ON U.S. AND BRITAIN; MAKES SUDDEN ATTACK ON HAWAII; HEAVY FIGHTING AT SEA REPORTED
Then, on the eighth of December, the headline that had been anticipated since the day that Japan began sinking American ships:
U.S. DECLARES WAR, PACIFIC BATTLE WIDENS; MANILA AREA BOMBED; 1,500 DEAD IN HAWAII; HOSTILE PLANES SIGHTED AT SAN FRANCISCO
On the eleventh of December, another long since anticipated headline, one that everyone had known was coming for two years because 'The Land of the Free' could not have possibly stood by and watched the slaughter of innocents when there was something they could do.
U.S. NOW AT WAR WITH GERMANY AND ITALY; JAPANESE CHECKED IN ALL LAND FIGHTING; 3 OF THEIR SHIPS SUNK, 2D BATTLESHIPS HIT
A whole wave of able-bodied men from across the United States enlisted on the twelfth, and with the previously drafted men the United States army was strong, if not necessarily prepared for the bloodshed to come.
Christmas came and went; Steve and Bucky exchanged trinkets they had made of wires in their spare time.
It was 1942, February, when they changed the draft order, and when they took Bucky.
"I've enlisted," Bucky told Steve and, in the Force, Steve could feel his pain and his fear and, perhaps most of all, his horror, because he hadn't enlisted.
In March, Bucky shipped out and on the last night, Steve made his fifth attempt at enlisting when he was met by a man named Abraham Erskine, who was German defected to the United States.
"So, you want to go overseas, kill Nazis." Dr. Erskine queried Steve from that little room and there was a note in his voice that whirred gears in Steve's brain.
"Pardon?" Steve questioned back.
The man nodded. "Dr. Abraham Erskine," he introduced himself. "I am with the Strategic Scientific Reserve."
"Steve Rogers," Steve offered in reply. "Out of curiosity, if I may ask, where are you from?"
The man spoke like Mrs. Weber, who was from Southern Austria and insisted that it was a thing of upmost importance.
"Queens." The answer was prompt and calm, well-practiced and oiled like gears in a clock. "Before that, Germany. This bothers you?"
Steve tilted his head back and smiled. "Not in the slightest."
"Where are you from, Mr. Rogers?" Dr. Erskine filtered through the files before him with curiosity. "Hmm. New Haven? Paramus? Five different attempts in five different cities."
Steve let out a long grimace. "I think you have the wrong file, Dr."
"It's not the exams," Dr. Erskine insisted. "It's the five tries. But you didn't answer my question. Do you want to kill Nazis?"
"Is this a test?" He inquired back.
"Yes."
"I don't want to kill anyone," Steve replied. "Whilst I believe that death is not the end, I do believe that death takes from us what we hold most precious. I have no family, have lost people dear to me. I don't wish that upon anyone. But the Nazis are torturing millions, and that is not something that I can stand for. I don't like bullies; it matters not where they came from."
Dr. Erskine nodded slowly, and then a long smile slide over his face. "Well there are so many big men fighting this war. Maybe what we need is the little guy, huh?
There was a long pause.
"I can offer you a chance," the doctor said, very slowly, "and only a chance."
Steve set his jaw. "I'll take it."
The aging man smiled, displaying yellowed teeth on his warm face. He pulled a stamp from the side of the desk in the room, and proceeded to stamp over Steve's enlistment forms.
With that, the other man disappeared from the room leaving Steve alone.
Two days later and Steve had arrived at Camp Lehigh in New Jersey, where he was greeted by a cluster of much taller men, of whom Steve was the shortest by several inches. All were broad muscle, sleek and undoubtedly having enlisted of their own free will.
The Camp itself was beautiful, twenty acres of land in a rural area of New Jersey. The forests of green trees rose up around the central camp with thick paths leading out into the forests. The trees were leafy and immense, with the occasional oak rising into the sky with its twisty, gnarly branches.
They murmured under their breath, exchanging glances and words of curiosity.
Had he concentrated, Steve was certain that he would have been able to overhear most every conversation in the room, but really? That was quite a rude thing to do.
A half hour later, scarce enough time for bags to be dropped at assigned beds and uniforms to be changed into, the group of ten or so young men stood in a single line. Steve stood in the front, near a foot shorter than any of the others but filled with more courage than the rest of them combined.
Dressed formally, a woman with carefully styled, chocolate brown hair addressed them. "Gentlemen, I am Agent Carter. I supervise all operations of this division."
One of the other men let out a harsh bark of laughter. "What's with the accent, Queen Victoria? I thought we were signing up for the U.S. army!"
Agent Carter let out a long pulse of irritation in the Force, but did not allow it to flicker across her features. "What's your name, soldier?"
"Gilmore Hodge, your Majesty."
"Step forwards, Hodge, right foot forwards."
"We dancin'?" Hodge's cocky grin betrayed his emotions, and there was smug satisfaction radiating from him like the repulsive scent of roadkill.
A swift fist to the face and Hodge was stumbling back, clutching at his jaw.
Another officer, this a severe, aging man, stepped forwards. Moments previously he had stepped from one of the army vehicles. He gave Hodge a distasteful look. "Get your ass out of the mud and stand in that line."
"Yes'sir."
"General Patton said that wars are fought with weapons," he announced in a clear and strong voice, "but they are won with men. We are going to win this war because we have the best men." Then he looked at Steve and grimaced. "And because they're gonna get better. Much better. The Strategic Scientific Reserve is an allied effort made up of the best minds in the free world. Our goal is to create the best army in history. But every army starts with one man. At the end of this week we are going to choose that man. He will be the first in a new breed of super-soldiers. And they, will personally escort Adolf Hitler to the gates of Hell."
It was all as expected, to Steve, varying exercises testing physical capabilities and mental characteristics. At the end of each day, Steve lay in his bed and relaxed, breathing the fresh air in like the Force and letting it wash over him, purging his body of his pains and healing what had been harmed.
Steve brought a flag to his CO and earned himself a ride back to camp in a vehicle.
He covered a grenade with his own body, would have died had it been real. He earned himself a smile of approval from Dr. Erskine, and a huff of irritation from the Colonel.
In the wind, he caught a murmured, "He's still skinny."
On the final night at Camp Lehigh, Steve sat on his bed with Dr. Erskine across from him, both quiet. The silence was a seldom comfort to Steve, the darkness outside nothing more than a distant glimmer of fear.
"Why me?"
It was Steve who broke the silence, his voice soft yet ringing in the small room.
Dr. Erskine smiled. "I suppose that is the only question that matters," he said slowly. "So many people forget that the first country that the Nazi's invaded was their own. You know, after the last war the...my people struggled.
"They felt weak," Steve offered. "Small."
Dr. Erskine nodded. "And then Hitler comes along with the marching and the big show and the flags and the...and the..." he waved a hand expansively, a vague yet meaningful gesture.
"And he...he hears of me, my work and he finds me. And he says, you...he says you will us strong. Well, I am not interested. So he sends the head of Hydra, his research division. A brilliant scientist by the name of Johann Schmidt." Dr. Erskine let out a long sigh. For the first time, he seemed as old as he was.
"Now, Schmidt is a member of the inner circle and he's ambitious. He and Hitler share a passion for a cult power and Teutonic myth. Hitler uses his fantasies to inspire his followers. But for Schmidt it is not fantasy. For him, it is real. He has become convinced that there is a great power in the earth, left there by the Gods, waiting to be seized by a superior man. So when he hears about my formula and what it can do, he cannot resist. Schmidt must become that superior man."
Steve lay back against the wall, one knee drawn up while his other leg rested against the bed beneath him. "It made him stronger." Not a question, a statement. The answer was something Steve had known for a very long time.
"Yes, it did." Dr. Erskine considered for a long minute. "But… there were other side effects as well. The serum… it does not simply amplify the body but everything within as well. Good becomes great. Bad becomes worse. This is why I chose you. A strong man, who has known power all his life, will lose respect for that power. Whereas a weak man knows the value of strength and knows compassion."
Steve smiled and let out a soft laugh. "Thanks, I think."
Dr. Erskine smiled gently at Steve, the action reaching his eyes and in the Force he thrummed with a gentle sense of love and care. He reached out, a gentle hand patting Steve's shoulder. "Get some rest," he said lightly. "Tomorrow will be a long day."
Long strides carried the doctor from the room, and Steve flicked off the lights.
The procedural is successful. Steve spends the day in mourning, despite the success. All good things come with a price, he knows. Like this.
He may be stronger, taller, but he has lost the only person who treated him as a son.
Three days are spent on tests, performed by a half dozen scientists who had worked with Dr. Erskine. Then they give him to a senator, tell him to be a dancing monkey.
Steve draws his thoughts out carefully, gentle fingers sketching over a pale, thin page. He drew a monkey, dressed in the horrid uniform they had Steve wear, and sitting atop a unicycle. There was one of the women he worked with, a profile displaying her smiling at a book that rested in her hands. Agent Carter looking severe and rather quite intimidating the first day they had met. Dr. Erskine, wearing a kind smile with the brim of his hat pushed down so that it shadowed his face. His fingers sketched out Bucky's face (kind and smiling and warm, cockiness and self-assurance overshadowing his good soul), shading in the dips of his cheekbones.
The number of bonds sold whenever Steve passed through town rose exponentially, but it was a long time before they sent him over seas. The November of 1942, when the days had grown shorter and had a bitter chill in them.
They shoved him on stage in front of four hundred soldiers in Italy, expected them to clap and cheer like everyone stateside had. Of course they didn't.
The air hung heavy with the feelings of loss and pain, an opportunity for Steve to pull some of the emotions from the air, to soothe the feelings the soldiers felt.
Nonetheless, he was booed off the stage, and he disappeared into the folds of the camp, slipping between tents until he came upon a quiet log at the edge of the camp, where he sat down and fiddled pencils over the pages of a blank book, once again detailing the dancing monkey.
It was Agent Carter who found him there, her dark hair as polished as ever. They spoke for a few short minutes, Agent Carter saying, "Schmidt sent out a force to Rosano. Two hundred men went up against him and less than fifty returned. Your audience contained what was left of the one-oh-seventh. The rest were killed or captured."
"The one-oh-seventh?"
It was the only thing that seemed to matter.
She tipped her head to the side to reply but Steve was already off in the direction of Colonel Philipp's tent. "What?" Was her call after him before she hurried after Steve.
"Colonel Philipps," he asked politely, skidding to a halt by the colonel's desk.
"Well if it isn't the star spangled man with a plan," the colonel said with an amused note in his voice. "And what is your plan today?"
"If I may, sir," Steve said, "would it be alright if I viewed the casualty records from Rosano?" He shifted his weight nervously. "My friend, Bucky Barnes, is in the one-oh-seventh. I just need to know if he's alright."
Colonel Philipps let out a long, heavy sigh. "I have signed more of these condolence letters today than I would care to count. But the name does sound familiar. I'm sorry."
"Is there a rescue mission planned?"
The colonel let out a dry laugh. "Yeah! It's called winning the war." His humour was dry, anything but humorous and Steve forced himself to take a long, calming breath before speaking again.
"If we know where they are, shouldn't it be easy to go in?"
"Son, they're thirty miles behind the lines. Through the most heavily fortified territory in Europe. We'd lose more men than we'd save. But I don't expect you to understand that, because you're a chorus girl."
"I understand more than people like to think," Steve replied icily. "Sir."
He left the tent, a bubble of anger and distress hovering over him the rain clouds in comic books. His strides were long and purposeful.
"What do you plan to do?" Agent Carter called after him. "Walk to Austria?" Her British accent was thick on the words.
Steve strode onwards, long steps carrying him onwards. "If I have to," he replied calmly.
"Steve," Agent Carter snapped at him, "your friend is most likely dead!"
For a long minute Steve pondered this, reaching out in his senses and feeling the world around him pulsing with life and emotions. The trees were still in the wind, tiny candles compared to the other beings. Farther on, some forty or fifty miles, was a cluster of human lives many curled as close together as possible and each crying out in pain and fear. One was familiar, the rest were not.
"No he's not," Steve replied. "And if there is a single thing that I know it is as such; Bucky Barnes still breathes."
This caused Agent Carter a long pause as she caught up to him. "Even so, Colonel Philipps is devising a strategy to get them out of there."
"By the time he's done that, it could be too late! You told me that you believe I am meant for more than being a dancing monkey. I know that you meant that so let me do this. Allow me to go and save my friend and so many others."
Agent Carter gave a pause of consideration. "Then at least let me help."
Something hung in the Force, a heavy sense of dread with a silver lining of hope that left Steve pleading with the Force that he might find his friend alive. Back to him, the Force sung its song.
It didn't matter how brilliant the man was, Howard Stark was the biggest jerk to grace the face of the galaxy.
Steve wasn't entirely sure what made Howard Stark such a big jerk (aside from the over inflated ego, the vast amounts of money with no donations to those in need, the inability to think of anyone else or any other thing that Howard was (womanizer, racist, etc.)). But it was Stark's jerkli-hood that did not allow them to be friends, no matter what the cause of the forth mentioned jerkeli-hood might be.
Agent Carter (Peggy, she told Steve to call her and if that wasn't flirting then Steve didn't know what was.) handed Steve a communications device, and Stark said, "That's been tested more than you have, pal."
He jumped out of a plane.
Unfortunately, that was the easiest thing that Steve was to do over the course of the day.
For hours he hiked through the cold, unending forest. All the pines were the same in the Italian countryside, dark trees in the dead of the night. With every step, he brought himself closer to the suffering of the people captured by the Nazi science division that was known as Hydra.
The middle of the night was as good a time as any to attack a Hydra compound. The time at which humans slept the deepest was around two A.M., but that was okay- the middle of the night was a dead time for just about any species that wasn't nocturnal.
Sneaking in? Cake.
Any Jedi had training in stealth along with things like piloting, healing and mechanics. The muffling of sound with the Force was an easy trick to learn, and it was not long until he reached an area filled with what were- cages? Cages indeed, each filled to the stuffing point with men.
Steve dropped in front of the first cage, his knees bending to absorb the impact.
Only one man inside was awake, a black man with heavy features and a beard growing over his chin. He looked up at Steve and Steve grinned at him, wild eyes filled with delight. "As soon as I get you free," Steve hissed in a low voice, "Wreak some havoc on Hydra, please."
"You can't give me orders!"
Steve unlocked the door, and stuck a hand at the man. "Hell I can't! I'm a captain!"
"And… who are you supposed to be?"
"Ehh- Captain America? Just get out fast and give 'em hell. There's a clearing past the treeline, I'm meet you lot there!"
"You know what you're doing?"
Steve hummed thoughtfully as men rushed past him. "I've punched Adolf Hitler in the jaw over two hundred times."
The men darted off, Steve dashing down halls and opening doors. There was an office, with a large map on the far wall and it was not until he was almost out of time that he entered a cell-like room with Bucky Barnes strapped to a chair.
Unconscious, Bucky murmured gently under his breath, thrashing against the straps that held him to the table. "Three-" another thrash, "two-five-five-seven-" his head jerked back and forth against the cold metal table, "oh-three-eight. Three-two-five-five-seven-oh-three-eight."
It's his serial number, one Steve remembers with the distinct sound of Bucky's voice telling him the number to remember.
"Hey," Steve hushed as he pressed gently on Bucky's chest while he undid the straps, "hey Bucky, it's okay. It's Steve. I'm right here."
Bucky snapped upwards, gasping for breath. "Steve?" His eyes blinked open. "Steve?!"
"We gotta go Bucky. C'mon."
"Steve?"
"I thought you were dead." Bucky's weight rests against Steve's now tall and firm form, being carried away from the table on which he had lain.
"Thought you were smaller. What happened?"
Steve grinned at his closest friend. "I joined the army."
"Did it hurt?"
"Only a little."
"Is it permanent?"
"Thus far, yes."
Bucky made to rush down one hall but Steve held him back. "Not that one- Schmidt's down there." Long knowledge of Steve's abilities made trust hum. He nodded and they turned in the other direction.
The exit from the building was what the films would call dramatic.
Yes, with the fire and the explosions that wreaked havoc on popular holofilms of the Before and that had pleased audiences across the galaxy.
In the clearing Steve had referenced to the black man were some three hundred exhausted, half-starved soldiers of a half dozen different nationalities, all of whom were in high spirits for a group that had broken out of a Nazi factory where they had been held as prisoners of war.
They were a motley sort, two dozen French rebels fighting for the freedom of their country before being captured, perhaps fifty British soldiers and some one hundred American men.
Combined, the nearly two hundred outnumbered the Hydra soldiers ten to one.
Through the forests, they remained silent. Steve walked forwards with grim determination. The whole time, with Bucky leaning against his shoulder as they stumbled, together, through the unending forests of pine.
Morale was low, by the sunrise, unsurprising but a blow nonetheless.
Exhaustion had long since set in, the wounded being driven in and on the stolen Hydra tanks.
The inside of pine trees was edible; throughout the day they had quick, easy meals of the inner bark. Come evening, they butchered a small pile of forest creatures. They cooked them over an open fire while making a mild tea from pine bristles over another fire. The water had come from a nearby stream. Come nightfall they stamped out the fires, set guards up in trees, and settled down for a cold and uncomfortable night.
Steve took an early watch, carefully carving a long, firm piece of wood into a spear for fishing. At his side, Bucky was curled up, shivers wracked his form and every now and again. Steve rubbed his shoulder, and focused on warming the other man with the Force.
Two hours into the night and he woke one Timothy Dugan (who was cheery and Irish like Steve, with a funny little mustache and insisted on being called Dum Dum).
After that he slipped to sleep.
They returned to camp the next day, as many as possible pressed together on the tanks. Only the healthiest (who weren't sick, or injured as badly as anyone else) walking alongside the tanks.
Colonel Philipp's expression was precious.
Steve wished he had a camera on him; it would have lasted much longer.
A long meeting, too long for Steve's tastes but nothing in comparison to the meetings he had been a part of in the Before. Then, the war meetings had been immensely long, sometimes lasting for days as the Masters looked for guidance in the Force. The Peace Keepers of the Galaxy, leading meetings to see where would next be invaded and how they could stop it with an army.
They couldn't, of course; fighting armies with bigger armies was the same as dousing a brilliant orange flame with piles of wood.
Steve's people had understood this, had known that negotiations were always the best way to go about things without information that suggested otherwise. But the Council? It was filled with corrupt beings who cared not for their people.
There were exceptions, but they were few and far between.
Padme Amidala and Bail Organa were both strong examples of those who did care for their people. The former had been born in a small village, and had been elected by her people at a young age and had done her job to the best of her ability. The latter was from a line of leaders, raised in the high society but elected by his people nonetheless.
That evening Steve had free rein to choose his own strike team.
Gabe Jones was among the number. Bucky, of course.
(Who was feeling stronger and wasn't that curious?)
Dum Dum Dugan, whose real name was Timothy. Jacques Dernier, who didn't speak English and it was a saving grace that both Gabe and Steve did. Jim Morita, who technically was not allowed on their team but nobody gave a crap because he was a very talented medic. James Falsworth, who went by an abbreviation of his middle name. Like Bucky.
They celebrated Christmas together, missing their families and each one writing letters home. Everyone got drunk on the Christmas of 1942, and it was someone's idea to write a bunch of letters home in the case of their death, and then carrying them around with them wherever they went.
Steve wrote his in Aurebesh, the bizarre characters flowing easily from his hand as he penned a letter to the world he had once lived in, to the people that he had lost, and to the life he sorely missed.
It wasn't in the case of his death, because Spiorad Tyst was already dead.
But it was nice, nonetheless, to be able to get his thoughts out.
Nobody would ever read the letter, not if Steve had a say in it.
As they bundled the letters together with twine, Bucky smiled at Steve warm and gentle and Steve smiled back.
Two days later they were infiltrating a Hydra base, and four days after that they celebrated the New Year, and the day after that it was 1943.
'43 started off long and dull, the days passing by in an eternal blur.
They went on a mission.
They returned from a mission.
Once or twice, in the dead of the night, Steve awoke to a tingle in the back of his mind warning of danger. Each time the danger passed unseen, leaving behind only an uneasy sleep.
They went on a mission.
They returned from a mission.
The time continued to blur forwards; Colonel Philipps approached Steve about being involved in propaganda films, to keep the morale high back in the United States. And for all that selling lies to the public was not something that Steve encouraged, it was something he understood. High morale meant people continuing to enlist, people continuing to put money towards the war effort. Towards keeping the innocent lives of the Jewish people alive.
Several times, the Howling Commandos were involved in missions that freed people from internment camps, possible saved their lives before they could be shoved into rooms pumped full of gas.
Once (and only once, thank the Force) they destroyed a camp before the bodies could be cleared from the immense rooms.
It was something Steve hoped never to see again.
June 14 and D-Day rolled around, a name that meant nothing until the success on French territory was certain.
The same summer, they raided a Hydra base and captured a scientist. He cracked a cyanide pill between his teeth before they could stop him.
Winter came again, the days growing short and cold, the heavy snowfall making their job dangerous.
There's a heavy note in the Force, one that Steve had only felt once previously. Soft and almost comforting at times, but persistent and like a vice over his heart at others. In the days leading up to Christmas 1944, Steve grew increasingly tense. Once (or perhaps three dozen times), Bucky sat down next to Steve and simply sat there, a soothing presence despite the squeezing pressure around his heart.
The Commandos sat around the fire telling stories- Steve told whimsical tales he had heard growing up from the older crechlings.
The Creches worked as such: fifteen children of five different ages, three of each age. As one age group cycled out (typically over the course of three years, from the ages of 11-13) another age group cycled in. It resulted in an ever changing environment of excitable, energetic children. They tended to be trouble. Each Creche had one Jedi Master (older, at the age most beings retired at) watching over them. The Master raised them from an early age and told stories and made sure they didn't destroy anything. At least not badly. It was one of the few senses of family that a Jedi would ever experience.
Steve told his friends about the far off planet where the people lived in swamps of red smoke. Where they tattooed their skin black in geometric patterns and where they practiced magic. He gave them a name- the Dathomirians.
His friends laughed and grinned, said, "You're always looking to the stars, Cap."
That made the vice a little better, too.
The New Year came once more, and Steve knew the time was coming. They'd received a new mission; capturing Armin Zola.
They caught up to the scientist on a train in the Swiss Alps, a ten second window to make it on the train.
Each of them does and Steve thinks, "I've dodged a bullet."
And then it's him and Bucky in a car with a half dozen Hydra soldiers and all Steve can think is, "Oh crap," because the Force is not to be used to prevent death, it is to be used to keep peace, and what can he do but watch?
Bucky falls and Steve is left staring after him, forcing his body not to follow because that's his friend Bucky who's been there since they were children who would do anything for me and how can I not follow?
He falls and falls and falls all that way into the cold snow below.
Leaving Steve behind on the train, the Commandos finding him and guiding him away.
Three days later they raid another base, and Steve's in a plane all alone over Greenland as he shoves at the controls and he knows, he knows that this is the moment he's thought about, that he's felt in the Force, for months.
It's January. Cold so high and so northwards.
Over the radio, he talks with Peggy for a half minute, telling her, "Make sure the guys are okay," and she promises that she will, and then the plane hits the ice sheet.
The plane was filled with explosives.
He had thought they'd blow on impact- then they didn't.
He thought the impact would kill him- then it didn't.
Then he thought that he'd drown in the water melted by the hot outside of the plane- the he didn't.
The water rushed around him and the temperature dropped ever lower.
He knew what was happening, he understood it all too well. Like carbon freezing, he reasoned.
There was a long gash across the length of Steve's back, from flying debris, which sluggishly leaked crimson blood that coagulated over his shoulders in the cold air. A concussion is a certainty, Steve knew, particularly with the pounding headache behind his eyes and the firm pressure atop his head, as though he held a pile of books upon his head.
Soon, he will pass out. Soon.
He does.