DISCLAIMER: I do not own the movie Captain America: The First Avenger or any of its characters, nor those of MARVEL'S The Avengers – I am just borrowing them for play.
Cementing Heritage
-~S~-
Chapter Three: Marching
The wind tore noisily through the snow-capped mountain range under the pale sky, a large sturdy window in one of the rock faces.
Steve furrowed his brow slightly in question at the change in scenery.
On the interior, Schmidt strode across the space as he asked, "Are you ready, Dr. Zola?"
He breathed deeply as glances flit onto his countenance, Tony and Bruce leaning forward slightly at the scientific paraphernalia littering the shown vicinity.
Tables of equipment were arranged covered in wiring, intricate devices, and monitors as a round display showed an upturned nose and eyes behind round glasses. "My machine requires the most delicate calibration," he replied, the view that of the lens the scientist was examining with donned grey lab coat and gloves. "Forgive me if I seem overcautious."
"And are you certain that those conductors of yours can withstand the energy surge long enough for transference?" he interrogated, briefly glancing over with a gesture of the photograph he had picked up from the work surface in front of him. Sculptures of the Tesseract were displayed in the images he laid over a large tome, presenting another picture of the Cube.
"With this artifact… I am certain of nothing," Zola answered, turning towards him. "I fear it may not work at all."
Schmidt stepped deliberately over to the surface between them, the box between his hands showing the carving of a serpent. He set it down to Zola's rapt and wary stare, then lifted the lid with his gloved hands to a bright azure light shining into the dim space. Zola scrambled to remove his glasses and replace them with tinted protective lenses as Schmidt lifted a metal handle from which four long rods shot downward, sliding it into the container's confines.
The appliance lifted the blindingly bright Tesseract as Schmidt raised his arm and moved to the readied device, lowering the Cube into the central hub and twisting the handle to lock it in place beneath. The blue glowed through the spaces of the mechanism as it hummed, Zola announcing the energy captured as it read on the console before him, "Twenty percent."
Loki gathered himself to cross a leg beneath the other and lean forward, elbow raised on bent knee and hand at his mouth in thought.
"Forty," he amended as he twisted the knob so to increase managing input. "Sixty…
"Stabilizing at seventy percent."
Schmidt covered the few steps between them to Zola moving from the controls, the man announcing, "I have not come all this way for safety, Doctor," as he turned the regulators to maximum.
"Here's to him blowing himself up," Tony voiced with exaggerated finger-crossing on both hands, the remark endorsing a more encouraging future of the war and accomplishing a huff of laughter from Steve.
The gaps in the machine pulsed with azure as sparks of the energy darted over the thick wires before coalescing through and over the cables running along the floor with a snap. The table of controls was overwhelmed with the power to echoing whines and cracks, the Cube's force skirting over the floors, up the walls, across the windows, along the ceiling, vibrating in the air before shorting out to sparking equipment.
After a second of silence, Zola asked quietly, "What was that?"
Schmidt turned him by the shoulders to say, "I must congratulate you, Arnim," as he pointed. The energy of the Tesseract hummed in a rectangular prism that the man approached gingerly. "Your designs do not disappoint – though they may require some slight reinforcement."
"The exchange is stable," Zola stated in awe. "Amazing. The energy we have just collected could power my designs- all my designs." The inspiring apparatus containing the Cube flashed as he removed his glasses to gaze in its direction. "This will change the war."
"Dr. Zola, this will change the world."
"HYDRA was the source for SHIELD's Tesseract-based weapons development," Bruce responded.
"Indeed," Loki commented. "The alignment with her power also altered the direction your technology would have developed otherwise."
"What was it heading to before?" Clint asked.
"I don't know, only that each Realm evolves a different area of study due to environments, interests, and peoples."
"We have been involved in Midgard's affairs for a long time though," Thor interrupted.
"Yes, our interference was likely to affect things anyway," Loki concluded in acquiesce.
On the grounds of the training camp, soldiers stood loosely in a line donning their green field uniforms with hard helmets strapped under their chins, an officer leading a group behind with a commanding, 'Ready, exercise!' As others looked at their surroundings and dithered, Steve gazed forward patiently as he waited. "Recruits, attention!" a sharp female voice called abruptly, the line of arrivals straightening their backs and lifting their chins.
"Gentlemen, I am Agent Carter," she announced as she strode in front of them in her olive service uniform, short brown hair pinned back from her face as a man carried a crate of clipboards and papers behind her. "I supervise all operations for this division."
Loki and Thor wondered at her station, the opposition against Steve before seemingly clearly establishing the position of appearance and gender roles in the time. Of course, an acquaintance with her may have been indirectly involved in the decision to provide him the oppourtunity, Loki considered.
"What's with the accent, Queen Victoria?" one interrupted. She slowed to a stop before him as he jeered, "I thought I was signing up for the US army."
Natasha thought his daring was only given voice due to her gender, considering the disregard of her rank.
"What's your name, soldier?"
"Gilmore Hodge, your Majesty," he quipped.
"Step forward, Hodge," she replied promptly. He obeyed to exaggerated looks at the others. "Put your right foot forward."
"Mm, we gonna wrestle?" he asked as he followed, sheets handed out along the line as Steve darted a disgruntled glance to him. "'Cause I got a few moves I know you'll like." He winked.
Peggy reeled back to punch him across the nose, the force of the hit spinning him to land on the ground on his front.
"Ha," Tony derided to the others' self-satisfied smiles.
Steve contained a laugh as he smirked, a vehicle pulling up and an older man in a tan field uniform with stiff leather jacket overtop calling, "Agent Carter."
She spun to address, "Colonel Phillips."
"I can see that you are breaking in the candidates – that's good," he said as he approached, Erskine behind in a brown suit.
Natasha nodded in approval of his support of her place.
He looked down at the man getting to his feet and reprimanded, "Get your ass up out of that dirt and stand in that line at attention until somebody comes tells you what to do."
"Yes, sir!" he answered gruffly, tilting his chin up and sniffing at the blood dripping from his nose.
"Hope that one has more coming to him," Clint muttered.
He paused for a moment before directing at the lineup as he walked, "General Patton has said that wars are fought with weapons but they are won by men. We are going to win this war because we have the best men." His gaze fell on Steve and he cast a disbelieving look at Erskine who merely returned his attention to the group, and then he continued long-sufferingly, "And because they are going to get better. Much better." Steve's eyes flit after Phillips as he turned away and he quirked an eyebrow.
Tony snorted a laugh.
"The Strategic Scientific Reserve is an Allied effort made up of the best minds in the free world." Steve sat on his bed in the dormitories with dog tags hanging from his neck, unpacking his suitcase and lifting books on strategy and warfare out into his hands as the other males in the room noisily conversed and jostled each other.
"Our goal is to create the best army in history-" A whistle blew to the recruits climbing up a rope netting that was vertically anchored, Steve gasping as his elbows and knees jerked in their struggle to support him. "-but, every army starts with one man." His legs became tangled and he fell back, clambering to regain his grip before losing his hold and hanging upside down to the officer ordering, 'Rogers, get off of there!' while the others laughed.
Loki clenched his jaw at the ostracizing, the exclusion on account of imprecise standardized testing never lessening in maliciousness.
"At the end of this week, we will choose that man." Steve crawled under beams wrapped in coils of barbed wire with his rifle held between his hands. 'Let's go!' "He will be the first, in a new breed of, super soldier." Hodge turned to look back before kicking at one of the supports, the structure partially falling to collapse on top of Steve.
"That is dishonourable," Thor declared.
"It's fine," Steve shrugged, "and nothing new."
Loki and Tony narrowed their eyes as Bruce and Clint shook their heads, incredulous.
Laughter mocked his position as he winced, instructor moving from his conversation with Peggy to aid amidst chiding, 'Rogers! Get that rifle out of the mud!'
"And they will personally escort Adoft Hitler to the gates of Hell," Phillips finished.
"Pick up the pace, ladies!" the officer compelled as the recruits jogged along a worn dirt path, the shade of the trees intermittently covering the road. A flag flapped overhead declaring, 'NULLI SECUNDUS, 1914-1942, CAMP LEHIGH,' around a laurel wreath encircling a star. "Let's go, let's go – double time!" Peggy placed the pencil in hand between her teeth as she flipped back the covering of a clipboard and browsed through the pages, twisting to observe the advance just as the man beside her, the two seated in a parked vehicle. "Come on! Faster! Faster! Move! Move! Squad, halt!" The troop skid to a stop beside the car, Steve a few meters behind the ranks bending over to brace his hands on his knees as he panted.
"Did you have an inhaler on you?" Bruce questioned in concern. "You had asthma."
"A what?" Steve asked, confused.
Tony was speechless for a second before inquiring, "Jarv, when was the inhaler created?"
"The first Metered-Dose Inhaler for asthma medication was developed in 1955," the AI responded promptly.
"The docs had me use a squeeze bulb thing for adrenaline chloride* in hospital, but it wasn't like I could carry it or the drug around," Steve explained.
Tony flinched at facing the reality of the outdated technology the Captain grew up with, reassuring, "I'll take care of you if your lungs seize up."
"They're not going to-"
"I'll take care of it!"
"Alright," Steve accepted with a small smile.
"That flag means we're only at the halfway point. First man to bring it to me gets a ride back with Agent Carter." Steve adjusted the brim of his helmet as he looked up to the flag. "Move, move!" The men rushed en-mass with encouraging shouts: 'Let's get it!' They scrambled to push one another up and yank him back down, the officer shouting, "Come on, get up there! If that's all you got, this army's in trouble!" Hodge latched onto the pole and began to tug himself skyward, "Get up there, Hodge! Come on, get up there!" before sliding back to the ground with his grip squealing. The group surged to replace him. 'Let me try!'
"Nobody's got that flag in seventeen years!" he proclaimed with arms crossed over his chest. "Now fall back into line! Come on, fall in! Let's go – get back into formation!" They abandoned the flag pole with groans and trot to arrange themselves as Steve walked to the base of the pole, looking at the base and then up in consideration. "Rogers! I said fall in!" the instructor bellowed.
Steve bent to lift the pin from the end of the strut securing the pole upright, then worked it out from the other side to it swinging to land heavily on the ground with a wail of metal.
"Booyah!" Tony cried as Clint hooted.
"Shows how rare common sense is in men," Natasha remarked.
He tossed the implements aside and marched to remove the flag from the top, Peggy licking her lips with a smirk as her companion turned on the engine. "Thank you, sir," Steve said breathlessly as he handed the material into his hands, then he climbed into the back of the vehicle to Peggy's smile and others' indignant huffing. He smiled at her amused turn towards him.
Chuckles were rampant at his haughtiness.
"Faster, ladies – come on," Peggy cajoled as the squad determinedly worked push-ups from the ground, stripped of their jackets and sweating through their white t-shirts underneath the sun. "My grandmother has more life in her, God rest her soul." Steve grit his teeth in exertion as he lifted his shoulders and chest slower, without the rest of the form of the movement. "Move it!"
"I'm not going to say anything about that," Tony announced.
"Because I can pick you up with one arm now?" Steve asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Or because he can't do any," Clint interjected.
"I can do push-ups better than that – but I'm not going to challenge any of you," Tony justified. "'Cept Brucie."
"I can do push-ups," he protested.
"But I'd be able to beat you – not these beefcakes or the two assassins here."
"What did you just refer to me as?" Thor asked, puzzled.
"It sounded like a cake made out of beef," Loki ruminated as Steve shared the gods' bewilderment.
Tony huffed a chuckle before grinning widely. "It means you've got the layers of a cow."
Steve and Thor furrowed their brows further as Loki narrowed his eyes and stated, "I don't think that's what it means."
"Slang's confusing," Clint said. "It means you're ripped."
"-muscled," Bruce clarified with a roll of his eyes.
"You're not really thinking about picking Rogers, are you?" Phillips interrogated as he approached with Erskine at his side.
"I am more than just thinking about it – he is a clear choice," he answered as he adjusted his glasses.
"When you brought a ninety-pound asthmatic onto my army base, I let it slide – I thought, 'What the hell?' Maybe he'd be useful to you, like a gerbil – I never thought you'd pick him."
Steve pursed his lips.
'Up,' Peggy ordered as they slowed. 'Jumping jacks.' Phillips detailed, "You stick a needle in that kid's arm, it's gonna go right through him." 'Come on, girls,' Peggy called. "Look at that," he uttered as he stared, Steve's arms limp as he threw them through the air while he panted. "He's making me cry."
Tony snickered before half-heartedly apologizing.
"I am looking for qualities beyond the physical," Erskine insisted.
"Do you know how long it took to set up this project?" 'Yeah, I know.' "All the groveling I had to do in front of Senator What's-his-name's committees?"
"Brandt – yes, I know. I am well aware of your efforts."
"Then throw me a bone," he implored. "Hodge passed every test we gave him. He's big, he's fast, he obeys orders – he's a soldier."
"He is a bully."
"You don't win wars with niceness, Doctor," he countered, glancing behind him before moving around. "You win wars-" he began, lifting a grenade from one of the boxes of supplies stacked in the back of the truck and removing the pin, "-with guts." He flicked the release from the top and lobbed it towards the men, screaming, "Grenade!"
Bruce jerked as Clint, Loki, Natasha, and Tony jolted forward at the situation.
The group whipped their heads to the object bouncing along the ground and ran from the scene with shouted, 'Move, move, move!' to find cover. Steve rushed headlong and threw himself on top of it as Peggy dashed forward as well, yelling, "Get away!" as he curled into the fetal position around it. "Get back!"
Hodge peered over the shelter he had found as Steve lay tense with his eyes squeezed shut, the minute passing before he uncurled in disbelief and looked around. "It was a dummy grenade," an officer informed. "All clear, back in formation."
"What was it supposed to do?" Thor asked.
"Blow up," Tony said to the blond's shock.
Phillips sighed as Peggy stared at him, Steve asking as he breathed heavily, "Is this a test?"
Phillips turned to Erskine, who shrugged self-assuredly, then abandoned his opposition with a feeble, "He's still skinny," before striding away. Erskine smiled.
"Well, there you have it," Tony professed, "proved yourself to another one."
Disregarding the coincidences that led to Erskine recognizing his drive, Steve's benevolence and perseverance are traits so powerful within him that they push back against anyone who disbelieves.
Steve sat on his assigned bed with shut case beyond the footboard, books laid on top and in his hands as he read. A knock sounded to him turning, the door to the room opened with Erskine stepping in.
"May I?"
"Yeah," he responded.
"Can't sleep?" Erskine asked.
"I got the jitters, I guess."
He laughed as he set a couple of glasses by the books, saying, "Me too."
As he folded the bedding from the adjacent bed and Steve put his book aside, the blond began, "Can I ask you a question?"
"Just one?" Erskine replied as he sat with bottle in hand.
"Why me?"
"…I suppose that is the only question that matters."
The occupants of the room gazed rapt in intrigue while Steve's smile lingered bittersweet.
They sat in silence for a minute before he leant the bottle back and displayed the label. "This is from Augsburg – my city. So many people forget that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own.
"You know, after the last war, my people struggled- They felt weak, they felt small – and then Hitler comes along with the marching and the big show and the flags, and the…" He gestured in continuation before adjusting his glasses. "And he- he hears of me, my work, and he finds me and he says, 'You.' He says, 'You will make us strong.' Well, I am not interested." He placed the bottle on the floor.
Pairs of eyebrows rose.
"So, he sends the head of HYDRA, his research division – a brilliant scientist by the name of Johann Schmidt." He corrects his lenses again. "Now, Schmidt is a member of the inner circle, and he is ambitious.
"He and Hitler share a passion for occult power and Teutonic myth." Schmidt walked with posture firm and lips pursed before the Nazi flag, visor shadowing his brow, before researching ancient legends on papyrus manuscripts.
"Hitler uses his fantasies to inspire his followers," Erskine described, "but for Schmidt, it is not fantasy. For him, it is real.
"He has become convinced that there is a great power hidden in the earth," carvings encircled with Norse runes were before his gaze, "left here 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 moved around Erskine, demanding, gesturing to himself, as the doctor shook his head. Continued refusing when Schmidt held a gun pointed from his hip. "Schmidt must become that superior man." He lay in a chair and injected a serum into his arm, clenching his fist and bending it towards himself as he breathed.
"Did it make him stronger?" Steve questioned.
"Yeah," he responded with an open-mouthed smirk, "but, there were other effects." Agonizing fire spread as Schmidt trembled and screamed, thrashing.
Bruce winced.
"The serum was not ready, but more important, the man.
"The serum amplifies everything that is inside, so good, becomes great – bad, becomes worse."
Bruce recoiled.
"Hey," Tony called with a nudge of the scientist, "that was totally different."
Natasha nodded and defended, "You were working with gamma radiation – you didn't have Erskine's serum as a base to work from."
He hummed in nonverbal agreement, but lifted his feet onto the edge of the couch cushion to draw his knees to his chest to Tony's frown.
He stared at him before pronouncing, "This is why you were chosen. Because a strong man, who has known power all his life, may lose respect for that power. But a weak man, knows the value of strength, and knows compassion."
"Thanks, I think," he said with furrowed brow before smirking.
Erskine gestured beckoningly to the glasses as he picked up the bottle, Steve separating the two and holding them between them. "Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing," he started as he poured the alcohol. "That you will stay who you are-" he took one glass to cradle in his hand, then pointed at Steve's heart, "-not a perfect soldier, but a good man."
Thor struck his shoulder in camaraderie with a smile, but at the thought of the Captain's model of a 'good' man the others reflected on their own persons falling short of that adjective.
Steve smiled before inhaling and toasting, "To the little guys."
He laughed before they raised their drinks to their lips, then suddenly Erskine faltered and said, "No no- Wait, wait – what I am doing?" He removed the glass from Steve's hand. "You have procedure tomorrow, no fluids."
"Oh, alright, we'll drink it after," he agreed as Erskine poured the alcohol into one glass.
"No, I don't have procedure tomorrow," he countered, gesticulating to himself. "Drink it after? I drink it now." Steve smiled.
"Nice," Clint expressed in amusement.
The needle sat as the record spun, the player emitting Richard Wagner's composition of Die Walküre** as Zola entered the space filled with his scientific instruments. He slowed with furrowed brow and eyes casting uncertainly around before a gloved hand switched off the lights. The darkened figure standing behind the desk spoke, Schmidt asking, "Is there something in particular you need?"
Zola lowered his gaze before looking at the scarlet and crimson palate to the right of a jacketed painter nearby, brush posed above the canvas. "I, uh, I understand you found him," he stated, newspaper telling of the 'Hydra-Abteilung'(*3).
"See for yourself," he responded, gesturing to the desk's surface. Zola stepped warily closer and shifted the black and white photographs laid over top each other, the subject within the white borders Erskine.
Steve's shoulders tensed at the advert of Schmidt's machinations.
He lifted one for closer inspection as Schmidt stated, "You disapprove."
"I just don't see why you need concern yourself – I can't imagine he'll succeed-" His entertained smile fell at the other's inhalation, and he added awkwardly, "…again."
Natasha rolled her eyes at the man's flustered following.
"His serum is the Allies' only defense against this power we now possess – if we take it away from them, then our victory is assured."
He remained quiet before deciding on agreement and suggesting, "Shall I give the order?"
"It has been given."
"Good," he answered, turning and moving to exit.
"Dr. Zola!" He stopped and looked back, Schmidt flicking on the bright spotlights. "What do you think?"
He stared at him before walking to examine the painting while composing himself, concluding, "A masterpiece."
"Exaggerated shadows teasing the villain's appearance, come on," Tony whined. "We'll see why he's named Red Skull eventually, right?"
"It sounds self-explanatory," Bruce contributed.
(*) Before the MDI for administering asthma medication in 1955, there was the electric nebulizer which used the power of an electrical compressor created in the '30s. Since this was an expensive development though, people continued to utilize the simple and cheaper hand-driven nebulizer (though the primitive device was fragile and unreliable). Adrenaline Chloride/Epinephrine was used at the time as a bronchial muscle relaxant so to reverse constriction.
(**) Die Walküre is a three act opera, second of the four from the German cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, 'The Ring of the Nibelung', by Richard Wagner. 'The Valkyrie' is based on Norse Mythology, drawing from the story of the Valkyries who are the female figures that decide which soldiers who have died are ferried to Valhalla.
(*3) 'Hydra-Abteilung' is German for 'HYDRA-Section', the division paralleling the 'Storm-Section' of advanced forces that Hilter enabled within the Nazis of WWII.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: The details of the second and third *notes* I found ridiculously fascinating ;P
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