Time Measured By Goals Achieved
Written for the prompt : Out of time for my Captain America/Steve Rogers avengers_table.
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Steve had grown up with the knowledge that great things were not expected of him. Ill health and poverty had plagued him since birth. Moving to an orphanage didn't improve his chances on any front. All of this had taught him a few important things in his life though. Steve lived and fought for what he believed in and he believed in truth, justice and freedom. He believed in the 'good guy' and the rights of the underdog. He believed that there was a purpose to his life, that he could achieve something.
But with every successive asthma attack, every failed attempt to join the army, Steve lived with the fear of time running out, of not being able to do anything for what he believed in, not getting his job done in time. Even though, he still didn't really know what 'his job', his real purpose in life was.
He found Erskine, trained and took the serum too late to go to war with Bucky. Everything happened so quickly with the Hydra agent and they were all too late to save Erskine, time running out and everything destroyed before there was an army of super soldiers; instead he was the only one.
He spent so much time touring the US, selling war bonds instead of where he was supposed to be, fighting for freedom and justice. His only consolation came when at last he was in the right place at the right time to hear about Bucky's unit and to know Howard and Peggy well enough that they were willing to help him with his foolhardy plan to rescue Bucky.
Time was running out before he even knew, but it didn't stop him heading in anyway, determined to find his one true friend, the one person he had known for almost his whole life, the one person who accepted the best in him even when he was just Steve the scrawniest and sickliest kid on the block. He refused to be too late for Bucky, refused to entertain the possibility that he could be out of time.
Howard dropped him behind enemy lines and he embarked on a mission beyond anything he ever trained for. He prayed for only two things, that Howard and Peggy made it out safe and that he would make it in time to find answers. He did not dare to pray for what he really hoped because, by then, it seemed like more than he had any right to wish for : to get to Bucky in time to save him.
He fought through the Hydra guards, into the complex and found more men than he could have believed he'd stand any chance of finding alive and when he had set them free and they turned back to help him, to overcome their captors, he was reassured that everything was worth it.
He couldn't be out of time now, he believed this was his destiny to get to Bucky in time, to get Bucky out alive. For every time Bucky came to his rescue, this was the least he could offer.
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Returning to the camp with all those freed soldiers and most importantly, Bucky, now he felt like Captain America. For the first time he felt like Captain America really existed, that he wasn't just some dressed up circus act. Steve felt like he was real and he had got the time and the power to achieve Erskine's potential. He still didn't know when he would run out of time, but until he did, he would fight for what he believed in.