Disclaimer: Not mine
I have a new story up, my first Transformers attempt, please let me know what you think.
Chapter 9
Frigga opened her eyes and smiled at her weaving, it had been centuries since anything had been revealed to her but now she could be content. Despite Loki's broken heart she knew he would find love again one day, although she hadn't seen exactly when. Thor too would find love around the same time, which would help with Odin's rule that Thor must marry first. She had not seen much of the women involved other than one blaring fact, they were both of Midgard. This would require a lot of work to prepare for.
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Steve felt very small and out of place as he walked through the camp to the ten where he'd be living for the next several weeks. He quickly stowed his gear and then went to the mess for lunch before joining the others in line. He stared in shock as the most beautiful dame he'd ever seen walked up, dressed in uniform.
"Recruits, attention! Gentlemen, I'm Agent Carter. I supervise all operations for this division."
Another recruit, Gilmore Hodge, sneered at her, "What's with the accent, Queen Victoria? Thought I was signing up for the U.S. Army."
"What's your name, soldier?" She asked, hands behind her back.
"Gilmore Hodge, your Majesty," a few of the men chuckled.
"Step forward, Hodge," she ordered, and he stepped forward. "Put your right foot forward."
"Mmm… We gonna wrassle? Cause I got a few moves I know you'll like," he leered, and she moved, punching him in the face, hard, right as Colonel Phillips was driving up. Much to his embarrassment Hodge hit the ground, clutching his face in pain.
"Agent Carter," the Colonel called as he walked over.
"Colonel Phillips."
"I see you're breaking in the candidates. That's good!" he looked at Hodge, "Get your ass up out of that dirt and stand in that line at attention till somebody comes tells you what to do."
Hodge scrambled up and back into line. "Yes, sir."
Phillips looked at the recruits in line, blinking and shaking his head when he saw Steve. "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… 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 will choose that man. He will be the first in a new breed of super-soldiers," Chester could see several possibilities in this group, then again he'd seen some in the last four groups Erskine had rejected. Why did the good Doctor want the shrimp Rogers here? There was no way he would be chosen. He'd seen the kids records, anything and everything that could go wrong with the human body seemed to hit him, Chester felt sorry for him, but he wasn't fit for the army.
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Steve sat in the shade, enjoying the day off and spending his time sketching. He was not enjoying basic training at all, it was worse than anything Bucky had told him. Then again Bucky probably hadn't had his whole unit against him.
"You're good at that," a female voice said, and Steve looked up to see Agent Carter.
"Thank you, ma'am."
"Have you considered going professional?" she sat beside him on the log and Steve swallowed nervously.
"Before the war I was taking classes. We used to say that Bucky would write for comics and I would draw them," he smiled slightly.
"Bucky?"
"My best friend, he's in the 107th now, in Europe. We tried to sign up together after Pearl Harbour."
"You're worried about him?"
Steve put the pen down and nodded. "We've always done everything together since we were kids. Now he's on his own over there."
"So, you wanted to join up to watch his back?" Peggy asked, curious. She'd read his file but didn't understand why he kept trying, there were other ways to help the war effort.
"It's not just that," Steve admitted quietly, leaning back to soak up the sun. he hadn't just sat and talked to a woman like this before, most of the time they ignored him. Then there was the added complication that she outranked him, but she was relaxed which meant he could be relaxed too. "I don't like bullies. The Nazis are nothing but bullies and if they aren't stopped a lot more people will die," he tried to explain the way he saw things and she nodded.
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"Faster, ladies! Come on. My grandmother has more life in her, God rest her soul. Move it!" Peggy yelled at the group as they struggled to keep going with their push-ups. She kept an eye on Steve, it was painful to watch him fight to keep up with the others.
Chester watched as he walked through the camp with Erskine. "You're not really thinking about picking Rogers, are you?"
"I am more than just thinking about it. He is the clear choice," Abraham answered firmly.
"When you brought a ninety pounds asthmatic onto my army base, I let it slide. I thought, what the hell? Maybe he'll be useful to you, like a gerbil. I never thought you'd pick him," Phillips shook his head. "You stick a needle in that kids arm and it's gonna go right through him," he warned, watching Steve struggling whilst training with the other new recruits.
"Come on, girls," Peggy called as the group moved to jumping jacks.
"Look at that. He's making me cry," he pointed at where Steve looked like he was going to drop.
"I am looking for qualities beyond the physical," Abraham gave him the same answer he always did when asked what he was looking for. He had seen what the wrong person undergoing the procedure would produce, he would not make another Red Skull.
"Do you know how long it took to set up this project?"
"Yes, I know," he remained patient, Philips was a military man after all, they awalys wanted the biggest and best.
"All the grovelling 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. Hodge passed every test we gave him. He's big, he's fast, he obeys orders. He's a soldier," Phillips pressed.
Abraham snorted, shaking his head, "He's a bully."
"You don't win wars with niceness, doctor," he warned, grabbing a hand grenade from the back of a nearby truck. "You win war with guts." He threw the grenade at where the new recruits were training. "Grenade!"
All the soldiers moved away quickly, scattering, trying to get to safety, but Steve jumped on top of it covering it with his body. "Get away! Get back!" he yelled, curling up and waiting to die, praying his body would be enough to absorb the explosion and save the others. After a minute he opened his eyes to find he was still alive.
"It was a dummy grenade. All clear. Back in formation," an officer yelled, and everyone slowly got up, wary.
Steve looked at the Doctor and colonel in confusion, "Is this a test?"
Erskine smirked slightly as he looked at Phillips as if to confirm his point about choosing Steve.
"He's still skinny," he grumbled, despite how impressed he was by Roger's selfless act. The kid would have been blown to pieces if that had been real and yet he hadn't even hesitated. He walked away, pondering the issue. Maybe there was more to Rogers than he was seeing.
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Loki gripped his knives, keeping his body lose as he faced his opponent, one he had never bested. He grinned and received a grin in return and then they clashed, blades flashing. They clashed again and again until finally Loki was on the ground, disarmed and at her mercy. "Yield," he called, and his Mother stepped back.
"Very good my son, you continue to improve," she praised as she stepped back to give him room to get back to his feet.
"Thank you, Mother," he smiled and collected his blades, accepting the goblet of water. He wiped down with a damp cloth before donning his tunic and moving to sit on the edge of the balcony.
"And how is Midgard?" She asked as she emerged from her dressing room, back in a gown fit for a Queen rather than her training gear.
"In turmoil, more and more lands are being dragged into this conflict and…there is something…a waking power. I fear they may have disturbed a lost artefact that has been hidden on their planet," he admitted, and she frowned.
"That is not good," she agreed in concern. There were many relics that had been lost and could be on Midgard…and some that had been purposely hidden away there such as the Tesseract. They humans could not have discovered it wherever Odin had hidden it, could they? "Keep a close watch Loki, there are many dangers hidden on that realm."
"Of course, Mother."
"No, go get ready for the banquet," she smiled and shooed him out the door to Loki's grumbling.
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Steve lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling of the barracks, still not sure this was all real. Tomorrow he would be leaving to undergo the procedure and he could admit, if only to himself, that he was scared. Dr Erskine said the formula intensified what was already inside, good became better, bad became worse. He really wished he could have had some of that schnapps, maybe it would have helped him sleep.
He was afraid of what was going to happen, not that it might hurt, but if it went wrong. But this was his one chance to really give to the war effort, to join Bucky and the others on the front and do his bit.
He spent all night thinking, unable to relax enough to sleep and when morning came he showered and dressed in his uniform, making sure everything was perfect before leaving the barracks for the last time. He walked to the waiting car and found Agent Carter waiting inside. She smiled in greeting as he slid in. "Good morning ma'am," he greeted.
"Good morning. Nervous?" she asked, and Steve managed a smile.
"Of course not, what's there to be nervous about?" the car started, heading back to New York and to his childhood neighbourhood.
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"Good morning," Abraham greeted, shaking Steve's hand as a phot was taken. "Please, not now," he chided, and the photographer walked away. "Are you ready? He asked, seeing Steve looking at the pod and Steve nodded. "Good. Take off your shirt, your tie and your hat," he ordered, and Steve hesitated but began disrobing.
"Senator Brandt, glad you could make it," Colonel Philips greeted in the observation room.
"Why exactly am I in Brooklyn?"
"We needed access to the city's power grid. Of course, if you'd given me the generators I requisitioned…"
"A lot of people are asking for funds, Colonel. Oh, this is…"
"Fred Clemson, State Department," he introduced himself, shaking Phillips' hand. "If this project of yours comes through, we'd like to see it used for something other than headlines."
Brandt looked down and grimaced when he saw Steve. "Jesus. Somebody get that kid a sandwich."
Steve climbed into the pod and lay down, trying to keep his breathing even, last thing he needed right now was an asthma attack.
"Comfortable?"
"It's a little big," he gave a shaky smile. "You save me any of that schnapps?"
"Not as much as I should have," he admitted with a wince. "Sorry. Next time. Mr. Stark how are your levels?" he looked over at Howard Stark who was looking over the control panels.
"Levels at 100%."
"Good," Abraham nodded, patting Steve's arm as his aides moved to strap Steve in.
"We may dim half the lights in Brooklyn, but we are ready as we'll ever be."
"Agent Carter? Don't you think you would be more comfortable in the booth?" Abraham asked her as she stood, watching.
"Oh, yes. Of course. Sorry," she smiled and then turned to go to the observation room with the others.
"Good." He took a microphone and tapped it. "Do you hear me? is this on? Ladies and gentlemen, today we take not another step towards annihilation, but the first step on the path to peace. We begin with a series of micro injections into the subjects' major muscle groups. The serum infusion will cause immediate cellular change. And then to stimulate growth, the subject will be saturated with Vita-Rays."
A large needle was pressed into the vein of his arm and Steve grimaced but then relaxed. "That wasn't so bad."
"That was penicillin," Abraham told him and then looked up. "Serum infusion beginning in five, four, three, two, one," he counted down, everyone watching as the serum was injected into Steve. "Now, Mr. Stark."
Stark lowered a leaver, the pod moved upright and enclosed Steve inside.
Abraham knocked on the capsule that Steve was locked inside for the procedure to change him. "Steven, can you hear me?"
"It's probably too late to go to the bathroom, right?" Steve yelled back nervously.
Abraham chuckled and turned to Howard. "We will proceed."
Howard began turning the wheel, "That's ten percent. Twenty percent. Thirty. That's 40 %."
"Vital signs are normal," another doctor reported.
"That's 50 %. Sixty. Seventy."
Steve began screaming in pain as he was receiving the vita rays, loud enough to be heard through the capsule. Hearing him Abraham rushed back to the capsule. "Steven!"
Peggy ran out of the observation room, grabbing the rail and looking down. "Shut it down!" she yelled.
"Steven!" He knocked on the pod.
"Shut it down!" Peggy yelled again.
"Kill the reactor, Mr. Stark! Turn it off! Kill it! Kill the reactor!" Erskine ordered.
"No! Don't! I can do this!" Steve yelled, sounding very strained.
The group exchanged looks but Stark went back to turning the wheel. "Eighty. Ninety. That's 100 %." He backed off as everything overloaded until the reactor closed itself down.
"Mr. Stark?" Abraham called, and Stark moved to open the pod. "Steven. Steven," he called, worried for the boy but slowly a blonde head lifted, and blue eyes blinked open. They quickly undid the straps and Steve stumbled out, being steadied by the doctors.
"The son of a bitch did it," Phillip's muttered in shock as he took in Roger's altered physique. Everyone poured from the observation room, no one noticing Clemson leaving a small, metal object like a cigarette case behind.
"I did it," Steve gasped out and Abraham smiled.
"I think we did it," he agreed.
"We actually did it," Howard laughed as Peggy approached them.
"How do you feel?" she asked, reaching out to touch his chest and Steve shivered, swallowing hard.
"Taller," he choked out.
"You look taller," she answered and then pulled her hand away, realising what she was doing to someone she barely knew.
"How do you like Brooklyn now, Senator?" Phillip's asked as they got a good look at Steve.
The Senator grinned, "I can think of some folks in Berlin who are about to get very nervous. Congratulations, Doctor." He shook hands with Erskine.
"Thank you, sir," Abraham said and then they were all ducking as the observation room exploded, no one seeing as Clemson grabbed the sole remaining vial of serum.
Abraham stood and looked to see it missing. "Stop him!" he looked at the man as he raised a gun and knew, this was it. He didn't mind, he would be with his family again. The gun went off and he felt himself falling, it didn't hurt as much as he thought it would. The lab was a mass of confusion, but Peggy took off after the shooter even as Steve knelt beside Abraham who was gasping for breath. He lifted his hand and pointed at Steve's chest twice before his arm fell back down and his eyes closed for the last time.
Steve stared down at the doctor, shocked by what had happened. He'd believed in him, just like Bucky, and now he was dead. He should have covered him as soon as the explosion went off, he was the obvious target for getting the serum to work. His head snapped up and then he was up and running, he had a killer to catch.
TBC…
