Steven Grant Rogers was born in July 4th 1918, in Brooklyn, New York. As the fireworks iluminated the sky outside, he cried as loud as his asthmatic lungs would let him. After a few hours of labour, the two women in the bedroom were relieved to see him alive. Even if he was struggling to breath and had S shapped spine and flat feet, he was alive.

From that moment on, his mother called him Steve.

Only a few weeks passed before Sarah Rogers took her baby to a hospital for the first time. There seemed to be nothing wrong with him, but she was a nurse and she knew a few bad things could be avoided if one discovers the source of it soon enough. Well, that and, of course, the fact that she herself struggled with a poor heart and diabetes. Wise Sarah Rogers… that day she prevented her son from having a heart attack before he was ten.

Steve had arrhythmia.

Before Steve was a month old, he had his first cold. He wasn't the kind of child that cries unless there's something really bothering him (such as hunger or a dirty diaper), but that changed when he got sick.

It took three months before anyone noticed there was something wrong with Steve's ears. Sudden loud sounds would startle him and make him, but quiet lullabies could never soothe him. Whenever he was asleep, people talking couldn't wake him up. When Sarah entered the room, he'd only aknowlege her if he saw her of it she was loud. It would take a little longer for anyone to be sure, but deep down his mother already knew:

Steve was partialy deaf.

He did not grow up strong or fast. In fact, he was smaller than the other kids his age since coming out of the womb. He couldn't run without gasping for air and he had trouble breathing even for unknown reasons, and for that everyone blamed his asthma. He had poor balance and was always tripping on thin air, and for that everyone blamed his flat feet. His chest hurted now and then, and for that everyone blamed his poor heart. His reflexes were almost useless, but how could such a frail child be any faster? It wasn't until Sarah notices how pale her son was, that she decided something else was wrong. Wise Sarah Rogers… that day she prevented her son from another premature death.

Steve had pernicious anaemia, and he'd have to drink juice from raw liver for a very long time.

Getting a cold was one of the common things in Steve's life. After his first birthday, his mom had already lost count of how manny times her son had a runny nose and spent nights caughing and sneezing. At age three, a sniffling sound echoing through the apartment was no surprise… though Sarah never stopped worrying. On a particular december evening, Steve started complaining about a pain on his face. He could barelly speak through his blocked nose and sore throat, and his nurse mother needed no more information to know what was happening.

Steve had sinusitis.

Unlikely what would have been common, the sinusitis wasn't just a one time trouble. It kept coming back whenever Steve got another cold, but he could never get used to it. At age four, he thought that was what was happening when his eyes hurted so much he had to keep them closed. Turns out it was just a headache, and the only thing that made him feel better was laying in the dark on his mother's lap. It happened again the next day, and the next, and the next… It kept happening at school, when he tried to read those short child books or paint the sky on a paper sheet. Actually, it happened whenever he had to focus his eyes on something.

Steve had astigmatism.

But it wasn't the only problem about his shinny blue eyes. Days before he found out why the world looked so blurry to him, Steve started learning about colors. Or he should have. Everything looked the same, especially in colorful patterns, and what other kids seemed to understand so well wasn't that obvious to him. How could they always tell which apple was green and which one was red if both colors looked do much alike?

Steve was colorblind.

At age five, Steve Rogers came close to death for the first time. It started with another throat infection, and it escalated quickly to a very high fever that made him wake up in the middle of the night and call for his mother. She put him in a bathtub full of cold water, which made him cry but lowered his temperature. It was a rough night, full of tears and lullabies. Sarah held him close all the time, with a wet coth over his forehead and promissed he'd get better soon. She took care of ill prople for a living, but it didn't mean she'd ever get used to it. So she cried a little when the fever wouldn't go away, and prayed to God to let her baby live to see the sun rise once more.

Very little changed the next day, except for the fact that Steve felt as soft as a jellyfish. Sarah was worried, and she didn't go to work that day. A little before luchtime, she first noticed small red rashed on her son's pale skin. His lips were whiter than the papers he loved to scrabble on, and all his body was still burning with that fever that wouldn't leave him in peace.

Steve had scarlet fever.

Being as lucky as shooting star, Steve's frail body was still strong enough to make that evil sickness go away. It was rare, and Sarah herself had seen very little people survive a scarlet fever. There were no medicines against it, and usually the high temperatures would be enough to condemn someone to fix feet down. When it didn't, the bacteria did the job. Not with Steve, not with another few lucky children God decided was worth living. Sarah had prayed so hard, it had to be a miracle…

A child so fragile as Steve Rogers could never be seen as something other than a burden. Back then, most people believed that those who wasn't strong enough or healthy enough would just disturb the balance in society. Every single day, since her only child was born, Sarah would hear outsiders telling her that her son wasn't worth living. They would tell her he would eventually die from a simple cold, or that she couldn't afford to waste so much money with all those medicies. They tried to make her give him away to a orphanage, or just let him die from negligence.

Sarah always said no.

For five years, no one understood why. Adults would just ignore the existance of such a child, and the kids at school were just too mean. Steve had no friends, no one to play with a kid who couldn't run or to borrow crayons to someone who couldn't even see right. They would whisper in front of him just because it was fun to make him ask what they were saying, and hit him when he wouldn't give away his lunch money. Why did someone like him need to eat, anyway? He'd never make it 'til he was eight years old! But it only lasted five years, because in the worst day he could ever imagine, the better thing in the world happened to him.

Enter Bucky Barnes.