Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty
Chapter Seven: The Perfect Soldier
Pro: I think that you will like what I have planned for the Vision, but you are right about a smack down being kind of uncool.
Authors note: for some reason the forced line breaks do not work anymore, so I am just using the word CAP centered to change a scene.
The fight against the Sinister Syndicate had been savage, and Bernie gasped when she saw Steve take off his trench coat. His uniform was torn and tattered, streaked with blood in places, and she could never remember him coming back from a fight looking quite so bad as long as they had been together. She had been so glad to see him that she had not given any mind to the bruises which were visible on his face, or one particularly large knot on the back of his head. He sat down as she had requested and she took his coat in unfeeling fingers, some part of her brain still performing what she had intended to do before she saw that there was a twelve inch slice across Steve's chest that exposed the microscopic chain mail beneath the blue fabric. If he had been wearing a normal shirt, whatever had done that would have disemboweled him.
"Steve…" She began.
"I look like hell, don't I?" Steve laughed, but winced as his bruised ribs punished him for it "It only hurts when I laugh."
"You look about as bad as I feel." Bernie said, her eyes still feeling scratchy from all the tears she had shed the previous night.
"The Syndicate again… I don't know why we are having so much trouble bringing them in. Since they first appeared we have beaten Ultron again and defeated another of Kang's schemes. They just seem to always be a step ahead of us." Cap was thinking out loud, which was a bad habit that had always shown his frustration.
The fight had been brutal. Iron Man and Thor were by his side, along with the Wasp, Vision, and the Scarlet Witch. He had mistakenly thought that this would be enough power to stop the Syndicate. Maybe if the others had been available it would have made the difference. It had started in the city jail's hospital wing when the Syndicate attempted to spring their captured brethren. The Avengers had been sending two man teams to watch for the Jailbreak, and as luck would have it Thor and Iron Man had been on the scene at the time. By the time the remaining Avengers arrived on their Quinjet, though, the fight had gotten out of control. It had just kind of spilled into a mini-mall when Hyperion decked Thor through the building across the street. Cap had nearly been gutted by the Black Eagle, who had turned in his mace for a wickedly sharp sword. Hyperion brought down the ceiling of the food court, and if it wasn't for his shield that would have been the end of Cap. As soon as he dug himself out of the wreckage Power Princess had clobbered him with a plaster replica of a Greek style pillar that had been next to Sbarros. The image of her swinging it would be forever burned in his mind as a thing of feral beauty. He had landed right in front of Dr. Spectrum, who pinned him to a wall with what looked like a big green hand while Speed Demon did his best to get a flurry of blows through his shield.
The Avengers had their victories. It was hilarious to see the look on Golden Archer's face when his bow string broke just because Wanda pointed at it. Power Princess had made the mistake of punching the Vision while he was at maximum density and probably had a broken hand to show for it. Iron man had used his repulsor beams to tumble Black Eagle like a cat in a dryer until the winged criminal vomited on himself. Tony had used the trick on Kang the first time they fought him but hadn't really pulled it out his hat since. Thor had physically dominated Hyperion. Even so, chaos was too great and every single one of them escaped in the confusion after Hyperion detonated a natural gas line with his atomic vision. How had he known that it was there? Was he capable of seeing through solid objects?
None of that mattered. He was here now, and he knew that he had something very important to say. He just didn't quite know how to say it.
"I came to see you about that… I knew that… I mean…"
"I know." Bernie said, and she did.
Sometimes Steve could give the most eloquent speeches in the world, and at other times he was at a total loss for words. Even at these times his eyes told the story, as expressive as his words. He was always at his best when expounding on ideals, ethics, process, and good old common decency. Emotions were much more difficult for him to quantify, and to express. Bernie sat down next to him on the couch and took one of his battered hands, being ever so careful to be gentle. She looked into his eyes and hoped that hers told the story as well as his had. She had missed him, and knew that he had missed her. It had only been her well intentioned mistake that had thrust them apart, and it was a mistake that didn't matter so much anymore.
"I'm sorry that I didn't return your calls." Steve almost whispered.
"I'm sorry for so many things."
"I know that you were only doing what you thought was right. You never used our relationship to ask me to do anything, no matter what pressure others were putting on you. I should have seen that. I'm sorry for that too."
"I wish that I could explain it all." Bernie said "I've been working so hard on this, and when they asked me to… you know… it wasn't any different than what happens all the time in Washington DC. It wasn't until that day in the Deli that I realized how wrong I was about that. I was planning to take advantage of you, but I couldn't go through with it. I was ashamed and tried to hide it, but it came out anyway."
Steve let go of her hand and stood up, slightly limping as he walked to her picture window. He had not fully recovered from the injuries that put him in the hospital, and the beating that he had taken tonight had not helped matters. He saw a glint of light from the windowsill and picked up what looked like an expensive diamond ring. It looked like she had tried to throw it out of the window, forgetting that she lived in a skyscraper and the windows didn't open. The last time that he had seen it, it was on her finger.
"I see that things didn't work out with your fiancé." Steve said evenly.
"You… knew that I was engaged?" Bernie had gone to great lengths to hide that fact too.
"Attention to detail." He explained as he held up the ring.
"I… well… it was a mistake… and…" Now she was the one that was stumbling.
"Was it because of me?" Steve asked with a hint of guilt.
"No… yes… I don't know." Bernie got up and literally threw one of her throw pillows.
"You don't owe me an explanation. You don't owe me anything." Steve insured her, gently putting the ring down on the windowsill.
"I feel like a heel because you were finally being so honest with me and I was lying to you." Bernie felt like crying, but it was as if her well of tears was empty.
"There is so much that I want to say, but I don't know where to begin." Steve said. "None of what happened before matters to me."
"Are… you sure?"
"Yes." Steve said, offering her his hand like a gentleman asking for a dance.
They stood hand in hand in front of the window, looking out into a New York early morning. Even this far off the street they could hear the noise of the hustle and bustle. Life went on in New York even through terrorist attacks, giant robot attacks, demonic infestations and disappointing elections.
"It is a nice view." Steve said "It reminds me of the rooftop."
"Which rooftop?" she asked
"I thought that I told you about that…"
"About what?"
"The rooftop… when you visited me in the hospital."
"Steve… I tried to visit you but they wouldn't let me in. There were just too many people claiming to know you so they had to sequester your ward."
Steve was paralyzed with confusion for a moment, searching back in his memories of telling Bernie his story in that dark room. Memory was, for him, a curse. He did not forget easily, or sometimes at all. He knew that he had suffered a concussion, but he could not factor in hallucination or dreaming for what he remembered. It was so real. She had to have been there. Then the moment passed and he shook it off. None of that mattered. He would tell the story again if he had to. In the next hour they talked of many things regarding mistakes and forgiveness, but as always he came back to his story. He wanted to be completely honest with her because it had taken him so long to realize that she was what he wanted all along.
CAP
February 1940
It was the moment that he realized that this was what he wanted all along.
Total chaos reigned. Shouting men, overturning tables, chattering machine gun fire, and the satisfying sound of the bullets zinging off of the triangular titanium shield that he had first held in his hands mere hours ago. Mere minutes ago he had been afraid, and embarrassed about being afraid, but just as soon as that first bullet sped by his head that was all out the window. He was in the thick of it, punching, kicking, ducking, running, and sailing through the air with impossible acrobatic leaps. He had seen the faces of his enemies cycle through laughter, anger, rage, frustration, and finally fear in a matter of moments. He could not express how satisfying it was to wipe the smiles off their faces. This group of fifth columnists were the first to see Captain America in action, and they would never forget it as long as they lived.
He had only been in a few fights in his life, and had frankly gotten the worst of them more often than not. It was only that night in 1940, surrounded by Nazi sympathizers in a fake Elk lodge that they used as a headquarters, that he realized his true purpose. His heart hammered and adrenaline surged, and were someone to look into those wide blue eyes they would see the intense glare that Michelangelo immortalized on his David. The glare of a man who has finally, at long last, seen the enemy he was created to battle. As many photographs had been taken of that statue, there were rarely any that shot directly into those eyes. For it was hard to stare into the eyes of men like Alexander, Hannibal or Charlemagne. Hard to stare into the eyes of a man who was born for battle, and for that alone.
You can take a man and train him all day and all night. You can put him in a uniform and tell him that he is a soldier. But until that first round careens past his head, until that first smell of death's fetid breath on the back of his neck, he will not understand it. That first bite of fear is like a vampire bite, but strangely it seems to flood blood into you rather than taking it from you. In moments you have forgotten that you were supposed to be afraid and are thinking only about what you were trained to do. That moment came when that first .38 slug glanced off of Steve's shield, and he charged forward into the hail of gunfire. In the moments since they had scattered like duckpins. Those that had been unarmed tried to subdue him by dog piling him under their weight (frustrating those with firearms) but after a moment their little molehill of bodies had erupted like a volcano with a star spangled explosion bursting through the top.
Then the chair had hit him in the back of the head.
"He's out cold." A cold voice haunted him as he slid toward unconsciousness like a fat kid on a greased sled "Now lets get down to business."
CAP
One month earlier
The bus from Fort Benning popped open its folding door and the newly minted officers poured out. They had been through 14 weeks of the Officer Candidate School, where they had learned how to lead soldiers. They had learned to read maps, march formations over huge distances, work hard without proper sleep, resist interrogators, and do all these things as a gentleman. As Steve looked to the gold bar on his collar, which would soon be replaced with two silver ones, he could not help but think of his father. When he had put on this uniform and rank there had been a war waiting. For Steve, he was the one waiting for a war. The blind fools in the capitol building still had their heads in the sand even though Nazi boots were on the cobblestone road to Paris. Even though the Japanese were in position to attack the Philippines. Even though Great Britain was screaming at the top of its lungs for help like Faye Wray in King Kong's grasp. This was why he had objected to the plan in the first place, and nothing had changed since he took his vacation in Fort Benning.
Camp Leleigh was cold. The parade ground was empty of formations as pragmatic NCOs found reasons to keep their soldier's inside the barracks and headquarters buildings. In his mind, he could picture them all in their hands and knees scrubbing every inch of the floors clean with toothbrushes. Georgia had not been nearly as cold, although at times it has seemed so. On Christmas day their instructors had marched them through the snow for hours and made them sing "I wish you a merry Christmas." the entire time. Singing wastes body heat, and more than one man dropped from hypothermia. OCS was a weeding out process, and yet to him it did not seem so difficult. It was, in fact, a cake walk. Ever since he had drank that bubbling elixir and let the vita rays soak through his body it seemed like he fit into the Army like a hand fit into a glove. It was as if he had been custom made to be a soldier. It many ways, he had.
As soon as they got out of the bus the other officers spread to the four winds. Some went to check in to their new billets while others headed to the officer's club to have their first drink as an officer. Still others ran to the nearby parking lot, where their families had been waiting in the cold for who knows how long for them. This left Steve standing alone in the snow as the bus pulled away. From above he must have looked like a tiny speck in a sea of white, and he felt that alone. It was like that first day at Fort Drumm, toeing that chalk line after everybody else had gone into the building to in-process and wondering if he was going to have to walk home. He didn't want to go to the officers club because he did not drink and the other candidates had despised him deeply. He knew that he was not going to get any Christmas cards from that crowd. They had been through hell with their back broke while he had whistled through the entire experience, and nothing reminds a man more of his shortcomings than the insinuation that what is difficult for you is a piece of cake for the guy next to you. He was less interested in going to the billets, which could tactfully be described as austere (as opposed to the enlisted quarters, which were as bad as you could imagine from watching any Army film). As for his family…
He was surprised to hear a honking car horn (in those days they sounded kinda like OW-OOOGAH) and a women waving at him. He began walking in that direction, and to his surprise he found that it was his mother beckoning to him. He had been writing her letters ever since Fort Drumm, but she had never written back. He was convinced that she would never want to talk to him again because of the way that they had ended things. She was driving a new Packard, it looked like, and he had to stifle his urge to run at her full tilt. He was convinced that if he did she would melt away like a mirage in front of a man in the desert. As he drew closer she seemed to say "to hell with it" and jogged toward him to take him in her arms. She seemed so much smaller, as if the shrinking trick that she had used to escape her husband's rages had not stopped with his death. Then he realized that it was only because he had gotten so much bigger.
"Oh! I almost didn't recognize you!" She cried "You've gotten so big! Your father never got so big! I would never forget your eyes, though, Stevie. You have your Father's eyes."
Steve bit his lip, trying to fight back the tears that she was letting flow.
"I'm so sorry for everything I said. I was just so afraid."
"Mama…"
"I understand if you don't want to see me but…"
"Mama…"
"I waited so long to see you…"
"Mama…"
"Stevie?"
"Its cold out here. Do you want to go indoors?"
She started laughing "Oh, yes, Stevie… I've been freezing my tush off."
CAP
"Who is this lovely young lady, Rogers?" General Phillips asked.
Steven had ordered a nice dinner for his Mother at the Officer's club's dining room when the General had walked in. He had been alerted by the guard 'o the portal calling the officers to Attention. He was unsurprised when the General walked straight up to his table. He had found that there was very little going on at Fort Leleigh that General Phillips did not know about. Steve stood at a modified position of attention to formally introduce his mother.
"General, this is my mother Margaret Rogers."
The General took her hand but didn't kiss it in the continental manner "It is wonderful to finally meet the mother of my finest soldier. You must have been tough on him as a child."
"Oh, that was his father's job." She said wistfully, as if it pained her to think about, then added as an afterthought "It is nice to meet you."
"Have a seat, Lieutenant Rogers. Would you object to my dining with you tonight?"
"No sir." Steve said right away, although he would have preferred to have dinner alone with his mother. They had been clearing the air about many things. Having dinner with the General was an honor, however, and he had come to appreciate honor in his short time in the Army.
"Is my Steven really your finest soldier, or are you just saying that?" She asked at the General sat down, his West Point ring gleaming in the lamplight.
"Do you think that I have dinner with every Buck Lieutenant fresh out of OCS? I'm the one who sent him there. He is a model soldier. A perfect soldier. The best soldier that I have seen in all my years." The General said these words with the utmost sincerity, embarrassing Steve with the praise.
"Really?"
"I have seen a lot of soldiers in my career. When I was a lieutenant I was with the Engineers while we were building the Panama Canal. They were the greatest group that I ever served with, and not one of them holds a candle to your son."
"Oh my! I thought that he would have trouble! You know that he was rejected once…"
"Yes, ma'am. I gave him a second chance because I knew how far a man's heart could carry him. You son didn't have big muscles, but he had a big heart. Now look at him."
"I can hardly believe it…"
Steve just let them chatter. Somehow he felt that the less he said the better. His mother had not asked one question about how he had acquired his new physique even though he had not been allowed to tell her, or anyone, about the experiment. She must have thought that it was simply the result of military training and a late growth spurt. He was still a teenager, after all, even though like many of his generation he was forced to grow up in a hurry. It was not outside the realm of extreme possibility. He just wondered what part the General had to play in this little drama. Ever since the death of Dr Erskrine and the departure of the War Department scientists and bureaucrats, General Phillips had been the only confidant whom he could share his secret. At first it had been a burden and he had wanted to tell everyone, but as the months had gone by it had gone the way of every secret. The pleasure of revelation was far from mind, and the fear of discovery far too near.
"I gather that you were not pleased by his decision to join the Armed Forces?"
"To be honest… I don't know… it just seems so dangerous. I suppose I was just afraid."
Margaret Rogers was ever a polite woman and did not want to embarrass her son and his commanding officer by telling him how she really felt. Did not want to let them know how hard she had worked to make sure that the gentle boy that God had given her could stay gentle. That, like her husband, she had come to hate the military as a destroyer of life and a crusher of families that preyed on the poor and the uninformed. A club of stupid, mindless brutes that were the antithesis of what she wanted her boy to become. A club that took the dreams of the patriots and left them crushed, bitter cynics that had seen and done too much to ever live a normal life. For a decade after the first war she had held her husband when he cried himself to sleep, and in the middle of the night heard him mutter the names of men he had loved like brothers. Men who he could never love again, because they were now fertilizing the soil of French vineyards. Vineyards belonging to Frenchmen that were about to come under the boot of German oppression regardless of their nearly forgotten sacrifice. It was all so pointless and so horrible that she couldn't bear it, but neither could she believe that this ribbon-covered war horse would understand.
It went to show how little she knew about General Wade Phillips. She would have been surprised to learn that Phillips was a South Dakota farm boy who had lied, cheated, stolen, and bluffed his way into West Point. That the local congressman had nominated him based solely on the fact that he had beaten the stuffing out of the biggest bully in the county. That he had endured the beatings and torments of the smooth handed Ivy Leaguers that had gone on to comfy staff positions while he had taken a hellish route to his star. Not only Panama but Mexico, France, the Philippines, and a long layover in a forgotten post in the Arizona desert that would one day be Fort Huachuca. Unlike Jack Rogers he had not left after the war not because he learned to love war, but because he was afraid to leave. Jack Rogers had his writing and his dreams, but Phillips only had his two scarred up hands and his men. Without them he had nothing. Not even a demotion from Major to 1st Lieutenant after the war could convince him to leave his men. He hung in there through fire of war and the malaise of peace. He had his own idea of what the Army was all about, and his men were the first thing on his mind.
"You don't have to worry about your son, Mrs. Rogers. This is an Adjutant General Post and he is one of my staff officers. He will face nothing more dangerous than a paper cut or two. Besides, you and I both know that the guys in the capital building aren't going to let us get involved in the fracas over in Europe."
Steve hung his head in shame at what the General had just told his mother.
"Oh, Steve." His mother chided him "Don't give us that hang dog look. You don't have anything to be embarrassed about. Your father and I didn't raise you think that you had to be some kind of… tough guy to be a man. I'm so very proud of you."
She didn't realize, even though she could read his body language so well, that he wasn't ashamed because of that. He was ashamed because it was such a monumental lie.
CAP
"You and your mother reconciled after all." Bernie said with a smile "I'm glad. I wish that things were as easy with my mother."
"Nothing about family is ever easy, but I think that General Phillips understood that. That is why he interrupted at dinner that night and why he did his best to but my mother's mind at ease."
"If you don't mind me asking, how did your mother afford the new car?"
"The economy was starting to get better by 1940. Things were getting cheaper, wages were getting higher, and she had two sons in the military sending her their checks. As an officer, I was getting paid even more than Frank. It really burned his butt too. I met up with him in 1940 while he was on Shore Leave in Newport News. It was a hell of a drive, but I was glad to make it. He kept giving me these big British style salutes and saying 'aye aye sir' every time I got sharp with him. He told me that he was being transferred to the Pacific fleet that day. We… we sure had a good time that day."
Steve's eyes were pressed very tightly shut, he had always been very emotional about his brother, who had meant so much to him.
"I know that it isn't easy to talk about, but did your mother ever get remarried?"
"She never did." Steve said "Sometimes that I wish that she had gotten remarried and started another family, because she was still young. I just wasn't as easy in those days. When you were a widow with grown children, dating wasn't looked on as at all appropriate. My mother worried terribly about what others thought of her. After what happened later… I just don't know. Maybe it would have made all the difference. Maybe I would still have some family."
Bernie scooted closer to Steve on the couch and put her arms around him, feeling rough beard stubble and the scraping chain mail of his shirt. All the things that had happened in all the years since he first revealed his true identity to her, and she still could not believe that he was Captain America. The illusion was that real. When he had that mask on and that shield raised he projected an invulnerability that made him seem truly immortal. The first time she had seen him in action her heart had raced, but the first time she had seen him face an enemy it had nearly stopped. But she realized that this was the man she had fallen in love with in the first place. This genuine and good hearted guy with his old fashioned ways and his sensitive outlook on life that was so much the polar opposite of the gladiator with the star spangled shield.
She wondered if these two men would ever be able to live with each other, or if there was not enough room in Dodge City for the two of them.
CAP
After his mother was safely off in her new Packard, Steve and the General were left alone. He turned to the older man, who was lighting a pipe. In those days it seemed like a written rule that all Generals needed to smoke pipes.
"It will get easier, son." The General assured him.
"Sir?"
"The half-truths and bald faced whoppers. You know what I mean. When I was at war I would write over and over how everything was fine and I was on my way home soon. Every day every night even though I didn't know if there would be food, water, or even air to breathe the next day. Some days the Huns dumped so much mustard gas on us that we couldn't take off our masks long enough to get so much as a sip, and I wondered if I would have to chose between dying of thirst or having my throat slough down into my lungs. Do you think that I ever told my family about those days? No. They do their best of imagining the worst on their own. You are going to have the advantage of a secret identity, so when you are out acting the part of the fool hero they won't need to worry. They can go ahead and think that guy is somebody else's son. That gives you a tremendous advantage over the rank and file soldier."
"Yes sir."
"Yes sir as in you agree with me or yes sir you can shut up now?"
Steve just smiled and said "Yes sir."
They walked for a bit in the biting cold, as the General had offered to escort him to register for officer billets and promised him one of the least objectionable ones.
"What is the mission of the Infantry?" He quizzed him, one of the factoids that had been drilled into all the officer candidates.
"To close with an kill the enemy in close combat, sir." Steve regurgitated.
"What is the mission of the Cavalry?"
"To take and hold enemy territory and create lasting conditions for stability, sir."
"What is the mission of the air corps?"
"To attain and maintain air superiority, sir."
"What is the mission of the Adjutant General?" he finally asked.
Steve's mind drew a blank.
"They didn't teach you that one, did they?" General Phillips smiled.
"No sir."
"The mission of the Adjutant General is to organize the army and bring order to the chaos of an overweight and over weaning bureaucracy." General Phillips said "My words… not the training manual's. It is our mission to take a hay stack of recruits and find the needle. The sharp little needle that will wound the enemy the most. You are that needle, son."
Steve looked at the General and saw that he was being totally serious.
"Memorize this: The mission of Captain America is to inspire the youth of America in an effort to increase military recruitment, pride in service, and commitment to the nation. You can't win this war alone. It is not your mission to win this war all by yourself. When I rode with the Cavalry they taught me that my first responsibility was to my horse. Well, in your case, and with the special trust and confidence you have been entrusted with, your first responsibility it to those soldiers. Don't ever forget that, son."
"I won't forget, Sir. I promise you."
"You don't even have to say the word, soldier. I can see it in your face, and that word is 'but' so what is it?"
"There is no war, sir. Congress is turning a blind eye to Europe, like you said."
"Son, the only thing worse than uncertainty is certainty. Unfortunately, I am certain that will change. Just as soon as the right accountant brings the right ledger sheet to those sons of bitches they will all jump on the war wagon faster than you can say boo. One of the fancy words that I learned at the Point is 'Jingoistic.' It is kind of a complicated word that basically means that whoever you are speaking about it ornery and doesn't like anybody. Don't mind killing Japs or Krauts, but don't like Limeys or Frogs either. Another fancy word I learned is 'Bellicose.' That means that you've tipped over the ornery wagon and are spoiling for a fight. Krauts and Japs, look out when the Jingoistic become the Bellicose. I seen this all before in 1914, when you were a sparkle in your daddy's eye. They say peace when they want money, and they say war when they want more money. It is to easy to say to hell with all those bastards, but we took an oath to protect them. Bastards and all."
"Where does that leave me, sir?"
"It leaves you with a big weight on your shoulders, son. It is your responsibility to inspire these troops, because they are the ones that are going to win or lose this war. What the guys in that white building will never understand is that there is good and there is evil. We cannot afford to let evil go unchecked. I think that our President has seen the light on that one, but the rest of the old fogies are a little slower on the uptake. What is happening in Europe and Asia is an evil that we are going to find on our front porch."
CAP
The next day Steve's training began.
While the rest of the officer candidates were being handed over to their units where they would become staff officers and platoon leaders Steve Rogers was escorted to a building at the corner of the post that was an abandoned airplane hanger from the Great War. It was here that he would spend the next month preparing for his first mission. He would do nothing but train 18 hours a day. He had four hour sit-down classes on such subjects as espionage techniques, foreign languages, criminology theory, survival, and communications. Another four hours of his day was spend conducting physical training at a level that no normal soldier could withstand. Each of these hours he got a fresh instructor because they could not keep up with him otherwise. The other ten hours of the day were combat drills.
It was that first kick to the head that hurt the most.
Jiang was a Chinese expatriate that spoke perfect English and had hands as hard as solid rock. He insisted that before the Japanese drove him to flee his home country that he was a monk, but that in this strange land he had put those disciplines aside to teach what he had learned. It was at those rock hard hands that Steve first learned about eastern martial arts, and why Hitler wanted the Japanese on his side. It was after that first kick to the head that Master Jiang stood over him and gave his first lecture.
"The disciplines of the Japanese isles are Judo, Karate, and most importantly Kendo. There are 11 year old Japanese boys who can kill you with a stick. Remember that. Like my discipline of Kung Fu, all of these styles have their weaknesses that can be exploited by the wary combatant. I will teach you these weaknesses. I have not the years needed to teach you true mastery of kung fu, but what I can teach you will make you a dangerous man. Remember this feeling in your head. Remember your own strength. Look at my slight form. Realize what you could do to a man if you do not use what I teach you with wisdom. Remember that I do not instruct wisdom. I demand it."
Steve just nodded. He felt like he had a concussion.
He did his best to continue to write to his mother and brother, but it was difficult. After that first week, with only six hours a day to recuperate and no weekend passes like the other officers got, Steve felt like chewed bubble gum. He wanted to go back to OCS. He had gone through six sparring partners in seven days in the boxing ring. The only one lasting two days was a kid named Marciano who was too stuck on stupid to quit. His body was nonetheless a road map of bruises and contusions. The worst part was the reality that he would, in all likelihood, be training like this for years and not learn everything that they expected him to know. Some days he exceeded all expectations. Other days he severely disappointed. Most of the time his instructors were in perfect agreement: He was the quickest study they had ever taught. It was almost as if he had photographic memory and reflexes to match. It was rare that anyone had to show him something twice. After three weeks, they were afraid of him.
"Where did you find this guy?" He heard his pugnacious kickboxing instructor ask General Phillips one day when the old man had come to observe the session "Can you send him back?"
"No can do." The General said. "I'm afraid that he's one of a kind."
CAP
It was the night before that fateful mission that he saw the uniform for the first time.
He had a hand in designing it, of course. The first one they brought him he refused to wear because it actually had an American flag for a cape. After he found out, the General agreed that it was desecration of the flag to have it flapping against your ass all day. Another he rejected because it only had a tiny domino mask. He insisted on a cowl to better hide his identity, and they capitulated. Another design had frills on the shoulders like a west point uniform complete with a cord hanging down from the left shoulder. Steve just thought that one looked stupid, but they called him a spoil sport. If he was going to be one of those guys that the papers called a "Mystery Man" fighting crime why worry that you might look flamboyant? It was an argument that Steve didn't listen to. The only council that he took on the matter was the General, who insisted that the uniform incorporate some kind of protection.
Finally it was settled. The end result was slightly different than the uniform that we have become accustomed to, but if shown it no one would fail to recognize it for what it was. It was a simple skintight cotton coverall like the suits gymnasts wore in those days, the exception of which being that it had sleeves. It reminded Steve of really tight long johns. Over this he wore a pair of tight blue pants with a pair of red trunks pulled over them to conceal the angle of the dangle. As a shirt he wore a blue chain-mail T-shirt that was so heavy that nobody but a super soldier could have done a back flip in it. It protected most of his vital organs, though, and that was what the General was most concerned about. Lastly there was a blue cowl that covered everything above his ear. For decoration, Steve was surprised by the symbols that they chose to display so prominently. Although they toyed with the idea of putting an eagle on the forehead of the cowl, they settled for a big A, which Steve thought could mean just about anything (some of them less than complementary). The wings on the cowl seemed to allude to a sort of mythological hero, like a Roman statue of Mercury. The five pointed star on his chest could mean a great many things to a great many people. It was a Masonic symbol, a pagan symbol, the path of the planet Venus, a symbol of witchcraft, military might, whatever you wanted to read into it frankly. What everyone seemed to agree on is that it drew the eye without anyone even realizing it, and if a guy was going to shoot you it would behoove you to take it in the chain mail chest rather than anywhere else.
The last addition was a surprise. General Phillips came into the room with a triangular package in a little cart. Everybody laughed when he opened it. The shield was a triangular Norman style shield with three flares on top like a fleur de leis. The painting of three stars and seven bars made it an almost perfect match for the official seal of the Adjutant General's branch of the United States Army.
"I would be honored to carry it, Sir." Steve said sincerely "But don't you think that people will guess who I'm working for?"
"With any luck, son, they will." The General said with a smile.
CAP
The first thing that Steve thought about upon regaining consciousness was what an overconfident fool he had been. After a brief reconnaissance of the lodge where Military Intelligence insisted that the fifth columnists were meeting he had just charged in even though he was outnumbered 30 or 40 to one. It had been exhilarating, exciting, cathartic, and very stupid. As soon as he looked through that window and saw that swastika that they were saluting on American soil, it was like something broke in him. All those emotions that he had been pushing down in all the frustrating years since that newsreel footage in 1935 exploded. Just like he exploded through the window, gaining the element of surprise and putting them back on their heels. He was surprised to be alive, first of all, because he knew how easy it would have been to just put a bullet in his head as he lay on the ground. He knew immediately that he was tied to a chair and that he had the feeling of pins and needles in his hands. They must have tied him tightly. The first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was a sight that he would remember for the rest of his life. The sight of an enemy that would plague him again and again through the years. A sight of the utmost hatred, straight out of hell.
The leering face of the Red Skull.
"I see that you have finally regained consciousness, my costumed clown!" The Skull laughed. Despite his red skull and SS storm trooper uniform he spoke with a perfect Midwestern accent. "I thought that my blow had scrambled your brains!"
Steve held back the urge to ask "Who are YOU calling a clown?" and remained silent, trying to take in the lay of the room without looking frantic. There were still about a half dozen of the fifth columnists standing about, elbowing each other and smiling, but it seemed that most of them had put an egg on their shoe and beat it. One of them was holding his shield and hitting it with a hammer, looking surprised that he wasn't making a dent. He was in the clutches of geniuses, obviously. He could tell that he was bound to the chair with the ropes that had operated the curtains he destroyed upon his entry. This would be too easy.
"I don't know who you are… or who you think you are… but before you die you will tell me who you work for! Make no mistake clown… you will die. No one has seen the face of the Red Skull and lived to tell the tale!"
"There's a first time for everything." Cap said evenly and spring to his feet with a snapping noise. The ropes that had been holding him held fast, although they frayed and unraveled when he snapped the chair in half.
The expressions on their faces were priceless.
"Impossible!" The Skull stammered, the eyes in his hollow sockets wide with surprise "No one is strong enough to…"
Cap hurled a piece of the chair at the Red Skull with all his might, and the man was too stunned to duck. He took it directly in the face and fragments of red skull spewed in all directions like confetti. Steve found himself hoping that that had not really been his face.
They came at him immediately, not imagining that the man who was unconscious only moments before could be a threat. They were mistaken, for they had never faced a super soldier. The first two he grabbed by the front of their shirts and slammed them together in mid air. He ducked another's punch and came up with a devastating uppercut. The one who had been behind the skull took a kick to the face that cost him his two front teeth. When he saw the shadow of the final coward behind him, gun raised, he did a spectacular back-flip that had him behind the man the moment that the gun went off. As the man whirled he clutched his wrist and throat, forcing him to point the gun where it would do no damage. The man, even scared out of his wits, was no match for his strength. It was like wrestling with an eight year old. He forced the man to drop the pistol and heard a crackling sound come from his wrist. The man's eyes bulged as he lifted him off of his feet by his throat. The last remaining man was unarmed, and was charging Cap with his own shield, but his own friend hit him first as Cap hurled the man at him.
After stepping on the last goon's neck and tearing the Shield from his clutches, Cap made sure that all of his adversaries were unconscious. It was only at that moment that he realized what he had done. It had all happened so fast that he had not had enough time to think about it. He had won. Just like that. He walked up to the defeated Red Skull and saw with surprise that he had been one of the men who had been at his Rebirth. A very wealthy and important defense contractor. In a way, it all made sense. None of his plants had been sabotaged by the fifth columnists. To this day, Captain America did not know if that first clumsy adversary was motivated by belief in Nazism or simple greed. At the end of the day, it didn't really matter.
CAP
General Phillips was furious.
"You let three quarters of the fifth column get away and almost got your fool hide nailed to the wall!" he howled at the red-faced young man under the blue mask. "You were supposed to wait for the police and the reporters and lead the raid, not jump in like a cowboy and get yourself killed! After all the time, money, and man hours spent on your training you still don't understand that you are not a one man army! Dingbat!"
"I'm sorry, Sir, but I did capture the leader of the…"
"Yes! Arthur Manxman! One of our leading industrial engineers and our closest ally in preparing for war! You should have warned us before the papers got a hold of it! Now we have a mess on our hands!"
Steve stood at the perfect position of attention taking his ass chewing, just as he had been trained to do. Nothing that he could say to the General could make anything different. They both knew that this was his first mission and that mistakes would be made. It was then that Captain America first realized that he and the General did not see eye to eye on his role. The General wanted him to be some kind of propaganda tool, making personal appearances rather than actually putting his neck on the line, and all he wanted was to fight.
Just as quickly as he started raging, though, he abruptly stopped "I'm… sorry to holler at you like that, son. It is just… all the brass at the War Department was very pleased when they heard that you caught the Red Skull, and you did get coverage in all the right papers. The Red Skull is the Nazis foremost agent. A cold blooded killer and a truly despicable individual that they turn to when all else has failed. The problem is that we know for a fact now that Manxman is not the Red Skull.
"Sir? How do you know?" Cap asked, perhaps impertinently, but as time went on his method of addressing the General would gradually become more informal.
"Because military intelligence knows for a fact that the Red Skull is German. Manxman is as American as apple pie. That means that Manxman was duped by the Skull. He was a pawn. We thought that we had reeled in a marlin but we ended up with a guppy."
In the next week the headlines stopped being "New Hero Captain America Smashes Spy Ring." and turned into "Fifth Column Menace On Our Own Shores." The Jingoistic mood of the country continued, but Bellicosity was nowhere to be found. It was only 1940, after all, and what was happening in Europe wasn't OUR problem. Captain America had made the scene, along with mystery men like the Avenging Angel, the Destroyer, and Father Time. Would any of them make a difference? That was the question that plagued Steve as he went to bed that night. He didn't know, had no way of knowing, that outside the bubble of Camp Leleigh and its military matters there was word on the street. That his name was on every pair of lips. That there was an indefinable SOMETHING that separated him from the slightly spooky mystery men and the freakish Marvels like the Torch and Namor.
Captain America was an overnight sensation.
CAP
"So you see, Bernie… they never really wanted or needed me to be a crime fighter. They wanted a poster boy. Uncle Sam wasn't working for them, so they turned to something new."
"I totally understand, Steve." She said as she drank her hot chocolate. She had no idea why she had made it for them. Maybe only because it was starting to get so cold outside. He hadn't touched his.
"They pulled out all the stops. Lunch buckets, comic books, personal appearances at orphanages, the works. There has never been another time in my life that I felt like more of a fraud."
"You weren't a fraud, Steve… just a soldier following orders." Bernie said.
"That is the problem. I was young, and didn't really know what to do with the power that had been given me. So I just followed orders at first, but as time went on... My father hadn't brought me up to be an automaton like that. He had brought me up to think, reason, object, and dissent if necessary. That was what kept bringing me into conflict with the brass that were trying to handle me for their own purposes. They found out too late that I wasn't the perfect soldier after all."
Then the alarm on his Avengers ID started blaring. It wasn't the normal alert, which was a polite beeping that meant that there was a message to follow. It was the one that meant "Avengers Assemble."
"I'm sorry, Bernie I…"
"…have to go." She finished for him.
They crossed the distance between them and took each other in a firm embrace.
"As soon as I am done, whatever is going on… I'll come back to you the minute it is over. I promise you that."
She had never heard him make that promise before, and as she pulled away from the hug she shuddered as she felt beard stubble scrape her cheek and his lips press into hers. She closed her eyes and sucked in his breath, giving back some of her own, letting him know that it was ok. Letting him know without a doubt that she wanted him to come back. Even though they both knew that he needed to hurry, Steve Rogers and Bernie Rosenthal stood for several seconds and enjoyed the moment for all it was worth.
CAP
The Captain burst through the doors of the meeting room exactly when the Vision had calculated that he would, and there was no surprise on his face that the Vision was the only Avenger waiting in the ready room. They were so very often the first two to arrive that it was almost business as usual. Almost. The Vision was the one that knew differently. As surprising as it was to imagine, it was the all too human Captain that had turned a blind eye to the emotional aspect of things, and the inhuman Vision who had let it overwhelm him.
"What is the problem." The Captain said, always cutting to the heart of the matter. Even with his limp, in his beaten and tattered uniform he was still ready to leap into the fray.
"That is the question, isn't it?" The Vision responded.
That got Cap's attention. It was very uncommon, almost unheard of, for the Vision to answer a question with a question. He always prided himself with having answers, or at least an observation.
"What was the alert about, Vision?" Cap asked without any sense of strained patience.
"I apologize for that, Captain. I just needed to speak with you privately and knew that it was the swiftest way to summon you."
"What about the others?"
I saw to it that you were the only one summoned."
"Vision… you know that the emergency alert is only for the greatest of crisis…"
"That is the problem, Captain." The Vision said coldly "You do not realize that this is a crisis."
Cap looked at him with puzzlement. What fools human beings could be.
"I have been reading a great deal of English literature recently." The Vision explained as he floated around the table "Chaucer, Blake, Milton, Mallory, and Shelly. Books that take unflinching looks at humanity and what it means to be human. I know that it would be more efficient for me to download them directly into my memory core, but I have found the diversion or reading more pleasurable than simply the act of absorbing information."
"That is very good, Vision, but I fail to see what this has to do with…"
"You fail to see, Captain. That is the problem." The Vision said the angry words in his spooky monotone, like Hal the computer begging not to die listlessly as Dave turned the keys. Even so, Cap had known him long enough to tell his anger by his expression. Long enough to be surprised by it.
"Is there something that you need to tell me, Vision?"
"Come now, Captain. Surely you can guess. Some people call you the King Arthur of this round table." The Vision said, swinging his arm in a sweeping gesture of the Avenger's meeting table. He tossed the book that he was holding to the super soldier, who caught it with ease.
It read Le Morte de Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory. It meant "The Death of Arthur."
"What I do need to ask you, Captain, is this; do you think that you are Arthur… or are you Lancelot?"
Next: Spies and Saboteurs
Is this how it ends? What can Captain America do against the might of a Vision enraged? What does this have to do with how Cap met Bucky? Tune in next week, True Believer!
