~ You are life, ever young. But now you are gone and I live on, with nothing but melancholy song in your wake. ~


Steve came down with the flu in spring. For once, it didn't infuriate him – for the past weeks he hadn't done much other than sleep, eat, and work, so cutting work out of the equation left him able to wallow. He lay in bed, and turned, and winced at the sunlight that streamed through the curtains.

He'd never been like this. Even after his mom died he'd wanted action, he'd handled all the arrangements and then thrown himself into his work, desperate to do something meaningful with his time. But losing his mom, that had been about grief. This was… something else.

He hadn't done much in the days after finding that newspaper article and sending it to Austria.

And as the days and weeks stretched on, he didn't get anything in return. The longest he'd gone without a letter from Alice before was two months.

But when it hit a month he knew, in his gut, that he would never hear from her again. He supposed he'd known as soon as he sent the article.

Tom still held out hope. Steve knew he checked the mailbox every day.

A few old residents of Brooklyn had read the paper and put things together. People came up to Steve demanding an explanation, but he didn't have one. He'd never seen these people so furious. Edith and Finn, happily married for over a year, had cornered Steve outside his apartment. Edith had had tears streaming down her face, and Finn couldn't seem to speak. Steve hadn't known what to say to them.

Others had gone to Tom, and he'd been harassed at school. The first time he'd stuck up for Alice. The second time, he said nothing.

Matthias's family grieved the girl they had once known, and then never spoke about her again.

Bucky had been loudest in his disbelief when he saw the article. He'd caught the train straight back from his camp, almost getting court martialed for leaving, so he could be with Steve when they brought the paper to Tom. For all that Bucky called Alice troublemaker and questioned her choice to go back to Europe, he didn't believe it.

Steve had never been so confused, so hurt. He still didn't understand. All he had was the deep pit of devastation and betrayal that had plunged through him the instant he saw the newspaper. As the weeks went on with only silence from Alice, it deepened.

Bucky and Steve had gotten in a fight about it. Neither of them had taken a side, really, they'd just been angry and scared and started yelling at each other. When their voices had failed and silence came over them, they hadn't solved anything. They were just as confused as before.

Steve wanted to disbelieve it all too. Tom still kept coming up with possible explanations: she was a prisoner, she'd been drugged. Steve wanted to believe in that. But there was so much, for so long. And he knew Alice – she never did anything she didn't want to do for very long.

And none of them could argue with those photos.

Steve knew it made him selfish, but he hated the one at the bottom of the article the most: the one of her with that Nazi officer, his hands on her back and his mouth on hers. Alice's small smile. It wasn't the clearest photo, but he couldn't stop staring at her face, trying to read her thoughts. But it was impossible. He didn't recognize the woman in those photographs.

There'd been one of her at a performance. Not the one where she was wearing the Nazi uniform, but one of her in an iridescent white dress with sweeping sleeves. Steve had stared at it for a good ten minutes and had thought is that really Alice? She barely looked like herself. Steve's image of her in his mind was of her curled up on the couch, her hair falling loose around her face and a tartan blanket pulled tight around her shoulders as she smiled at him. This woman, with her piercing gaze and untouchable strength… that was the Siren. Steve had never met the Siren.

He still loved her. He'd spent all these months wishing that he'd admitted it to her when she'd been in his house, but she'd left too fast.

How could he still love her, after this?

He kept looking back, going over old interactions, finding new meanings in things he hadn't understood at the time. She hadn't told him about Jilí going missing until months later. She hadn't told him a single thing about her life in Austria – because she was hiding this. She'd been shying away from conversations about the situation in Europe for years.

He read her old letters, in which she'd expressed doubt and then fear about the growing power of the Nazis. How could she have changed her mind so dramatically? Before the war, her uncle had kept her hostage in their house for weeks for refusing to record a song for the Propaganda Department. Surely that hadn't been a lie?

How would I know? He thought, turning in the stale sheets of his bed. Alice was the best liar he knew.

He felt stupid for trusting her so implicitly, and then guilty, and then angry… it was an endless churning cycle of emotions. He should have asked more questions. He should have tried harder to keep her from leaving.

Steve had always thought he'd known Alice better than anyone else.

Maybe I never knew her at all.


Excerpt from 'The Captain Before the War' by Eileen Pitts, p. 33 (1982)

In March of 1943, employment records reveal that Rogers lost yet another job, this one at a department store. There is no recorded reason for his employer having let him go, and it seems that after this point Rogers did not pick up steady work again (aside from some evidence of intermittent contract work). Indeed, it is hard to find evidence of Rogers at all from this point until his first contact with the SSR. From the lack of sources, we can only assume that his focus had turned entirely to the war, and how he could join it.


Otto had noticed that something had changed with Alice. He asked, but she never told him. She didn't tell anyone.

She'd never told Otto about her life back in Brooklyn. He knew she had a brother, but they hadn't spoken about him. She knew that if she admitted aloud what had happened then that would bring it all crashing back down on her: the acute, piercing shame, the abject horror, the sensation of her heart, though still beating, being frozen in her chest.

All Otto saw was that after the movie premiere Alice had become somehow colder, more focused.

Before, she'd had a warm, distant hope for the future: she'd see the war to its end and then get on one last ship across the Atlantic. She'd step off the dock at the New York Passenger Terminal and look up to see three faces waiting for her, smiling. Thinking of it now felt like actual, physical pain: a vice around her ribs, a cold spike through her gut. She'd been so naive.

Now, she had nothing but war.

The frozen loneliness reminded her of those months in Austria before she'd found her drive to help. She still had her purpose: performances every other night, clandestine meetings in abandoned rooms, meeting her handler in Switzerland every month. But she felt as if her identity were giving way to the Siren.

Otto did his best to help, but he couldn't crack her open like she could for him.

There was nothing waiting for her now, save for the distant end of the war. Her love was gone. Her family was gone. She had nothing left to lose but her life.

When she'd summoned some semblance of strength, Alice allowed herself to think about what she'd lost, which led to obsessive wondering thoughts. When will Bucky ship out? Will I ever find out if he gets hurt, or killed?

What will this have done to Tom? He's only fifteen. What will this betrayal to do him?

What will it do to Steve?

Selfishly: will Steve fall in love again?

She wanted to wish that he would, that he would find someone softer, more caring, who would take care of him and never leave him. But she still thought of his hands cradling her face and his dark blue eyes looking into hers, understanding her. She couldn't wish for anything else.

Alice tried to picture him sometimes. She didn't know what betrayal looked like on Steve's face. She never wanted to find out.

Months dragged on.

In April, Alice and Otto toured through Italy, France, and the Rhinelands. They'd initially planned to go to the Eastern Front, but there'd been more retreats. At the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, resistance rose up to combat the increasing deportations. The Waffen-SS retaliated with gunfire and grenades, and then began burning the ghetto one block after another. Alice's contacts there went silent, one by one. She and Otto arranged to have weapons smuggled into the ghetto for the resistance fighters, but it was nearly impossible.

Distantly, Alice noted that bombings in Germany were growing more frequent, and growing closer and closer to Berlin.

She broke things off with Kurt.

In North Africa, the Allies finally seized Tunisia at the beginning of May and a week later all remaining German and Italian troops in the continent surrendered.

Alice wanted to be glad for it but couldn't summon more than a grim satisfaction.

Days later, the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto crumbled under the ferocity of the Waffen-SS. Their dugouts were blown to pieces, their leaders slaughtered on the street. News out of the ghetto was sparse, but it was clear there was no hope. Everyone remaining was killed or shipped to concentration camps.

In her dressing room, Alice shakily tossed back a tumbler of whiskey after hearing the news. She'd seen the ghetto once, on a tour of Poland (the Siren hadn't been invited, but Al had slipped out to smuggle in food and to collect intelligence). Their starving, determined faces had reminded her so vividly of Steve.

They'd held out against the German Army for 28 days. France had fallen in six weeks.

Soon afterward, Himmler ordered the liquidation of all Jewish ghettos in Poland.


Message left by Mordechai Anielewicz ("Little Angel"), leader of the Jewish Fighting Organisation in Warsaw, on 23 April 1943:

What happened exceeded our boldest dreams. The Germans fled twice from the ghetto. One of our companies held its position for forty minutes, while the other one lasted – upwards of six hours… I cannot describe to you the conditions in which the Jews are living. Only a handful will survive. All the rest will succumb, sooner or later. Their fate has been sealed. In almost all of the bunkers in which our friends are hiding one cannot even light a candle at night, for lack of air. Goodbye my friend. Perhaps we will see each other again. The main thing is this: My life's dream has become a reality. I have seen the Jewish defense of the ghetto in all its strength and glory.


June, 1943

Steve hated this part. The part when the army doctor looked down at his medical history and the look of shock went over their face.

He thought he might've had a shot with this doctor – he was the unruffled sort, grim and to the point. Shirtless and desperate, Steve watched his face closely.

But then the doctor looked up from under his heavy brows and said: "Sorry son."

"Look, just give me a chance," Steve said, leaning in.

"You'd be ineligible on your asthma alone," the doctor replied wryly.

Steve grit his teeth and glanced down. His drive to enlist had become more determined than ever; Bucky would be shipped any day now, and this war had gone on almost three years and Steve had done nothing. Alice was… Alice was gone, and he still couldn't go a day without thinking about her, but if he couldn't fix or understand that then he could still do this. He could fight to… to maybe make what she did right.

He couldn't get her printed words out of his head: Germany will succeed in its ultimate dream, I believe that.

He had to fight against the spreading Nazi tide because it was right. And because he felt, strangely, as if what Alice had done was his fault: he hadn't seen it coming.

Steve looked up. "Is there anything you can do?"

The doctor met his eyes. "I'm doing it." He reached out, planted the stamp down. "I'm saving your life."

Steve didn't need to look at the form to know what it said.


He went to the movies to take his mind off another failure, but then the commercial before the film was – surprise – about the war. Steve grit his teeth at the sight of the waving swastika.

A guy started yelling when the commercial started advertising wartime roles.

Alice would've found a way to get the guy to stop; stuck gum in his hair, or poured his drink on his shoes, or quietly gone to get the theater manager.

Steve got in a fight.

There was no one there to pull him out of it this time. No Bucky, no Alice. Good.

Steve's head collided with a trashcan.

He kept getting up though, trying to remember everything Bucky had taught him back in the day about boxing, but mostly Bucky's advice had been how to dodge. Steve tried to hit the guy but he blocked Steve's punch and then sent him back down to the garbage can. God, it smelt awful.

But then Bucky did show up. Steve slowly clambered to his feet, groaning under his breath, as Bucky sent the guy packing.

"Sometimes I think you like getting punched," came Bucky's exasperated voice.

But it wasn't the pain he liked. It was the fight before the pain, that feeling that he was doing something. He couldn't just sit by.

"I had him on the ropes," Steve winced. He straightened and pain bloomed behind his right eye. Ow. The guy had really rung his bell.

Bucky bent down and grabbed the enlistment papers before Steve could stuff them back in his jacket. He had a newspaper in his other hand. "How many times is this?" He opened the form. "Oh, you're from Paramus now?"

Steve didn't bother arguing about it, they'd had this debate countless times. So he let Bucky rib him about enlistment and New Jersey until he looked up and properly saw his friend.

Bucky stood straight-backed and well-pressed in his uniform. He never usually wore it when he was on weekend furlough, and… Bucky wasn't supposed to be scheduled for any furlough. Steve's stomach dropped.

"You get your orders?"

Bucky glanced down, sober for a moment. Steve saw him summoning his cheer a moment before he looked up again. "The 107th. Sergeant James Barnes, shipping out for England first thing tomorrow."

Steve stared numbly at the insignia on Bucky's chest. His gaze dropped and he found himself looking at the trash-covered pavement of the alleyway. "I should be going."

When he looked up he caught a flash of sorrow in Bucky's eyes. But then a smile crossed his face and he hauled Steve into a one-armed hug like he had done since they were kids. "Come on." They wheeled and walked down the alleyway towards the light and bustle of the street beyond. "It's my last night! Gotta get you cleaned up."

Steve focused on putting one foot in front of the other. His vision wasn't blurry, so the knock to his head mustn't have been too bad. "Why, where're we going?" Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Bucky toss his enlistment form away.

It almost made him smile. He was used to this: every time Bucky returned from training he tried his best to pull Steve out of his funk, distracting him with movies and dates and bars. But this time it was different. This time was the last time. His heart thudded.

Bucky handed him the newspaper. "The future."


Bucky took Steve back to his place, helped him wash away the blood and then waited in the living room as Steve got dressed for this World Exposition thing. He'd seen it in the papers and heard about it on the radio, of course. Hadn't planned on going.

When Steve walked out, dressed and combed, Bucky was sitting in the armchair, looking at the empty couch. From the far off, turbulent look in his eye, Steve knew who he was picturing there.

He must've made a noise because Bucky blinked and looked over, smiling at seeing Steve dressed up. But then he caught the look in Steve's eye and his face fell again.

"Have…" his eyes darted away. "Have you heard anything?"

Steve stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked down. "No." It'd been four months now since the article, four months of silence. Even Tom couldn't pretend that Alice's letter was just 'delayed in the post' any longer. "I mean, I've been reading the papers, trying to keep track of her… her career, but there's not a lot on this side of the pond."

Bucky nodded slowly, eyes unfocused. He paused. He started shaking his head.

The atmosphere in the room felt stifling: hurt, so much leftover confusion. Steve sometimes thought he could let it go if he just understood. If Alice wrote back, explaining that… that… he didn't even know what. But the not knowing left the wound open and raw.

There was nothing left to say. Steve and Bucky had talked it over so many times, asked all the same questions… there was no point.

So Bucky just slid his palms across his trousers and stood up. "Come on." He flashed a small smile. "Let's go."


Flushing Meadows was nearly unrecognizable. Steve stared as they got off the train: spotlights cut through the night sky which erupted with fireworks, and the park itself was all lit up like the Rockefeller Christmas tree, as if they weren't in the middle of a war. People thronged the park, excitedly chattering. A huge, winding monorail soared over it all, weaving around the giant metal globe in the middle of the park.

As they walked in Bucky tried to convince Steve to date around more, and Steve listened with his hands on his pockets, his head ducked, and a slight smile on his face. Ever since… ever since four months ago, Bucky had been so desperate to make everything okay. He'd been trying to set up Steve's life in New York; he'd talked to his neighbors to make sure they checked up on him, called every other night when he was sick, and in the gaping, painful absence of Alice had tried to keep him happy.

Steve wondered if Bucky had ever stopped to make sure that he was doing okay, instead of fussing over Steve. But he got it. Bucky looked out for other people: he always had.

Then Bucky revealed the two young women waving excitedly across the square, and Steve shot him an exasperated glance. His friend wasn't looking.

When Alice left the last time, Bucky hadn't tried to set Steve up at all. But then they'd found that article and it all fell apart, and Bucky had gone back to relentlessly tricking Steve onto dates, all the way from a military encampment. At first Steve had been so sick with guilt and anger that he'd stood the poor girl up, but after that he figured it was best to just go along with Bucky. If anything it got him out of the house, and made Bucky worry less.

He was still terrible with women though, and his heartbreak over Alice didn't make things any better.

He sighed as he eyed the women. "What'd you tell her about me?"

Bucky grinned at him. "Only the good stuff."

Steve swept his fringe back and straightened his shoulders.

"Connie!" Bucky called as they approached the young women. The one on the right, a dark haired girl who positively lit up at the sight of Bucky, darted forward to press a kiss against his cheek. Bucky beamed at her and then gestured to Steve. "Girls, this is Steve. Steve, this" – he gestured to the other young woman – "is Bonnie."

She was pretty. She was blonde. She was looking at him, and deflating.


Steve managed to give Bonnie a half-passable greeting, but she barely heard him because Bucky introduced them all effusively and then whisked them toward the Modern Marvels pavilion. He was always like this, the life of the party, but it felt pronounced tonight. He wants to have fun before he leaves, Steve realized. He wished he could shake off his grim melancholy.

Steve focused on the exhibits as they strode in, trying to distract himself from darker thoughts. He had to admit it was all pretty impressive: massive television, anti-artillery suits, model ships for going up to space. A mix of real and fantasy, a vision of what the future could be. The stuff Bucky loved.

By the time Steve realized he was drifting behind the three of them it was too late to really do anything about it. He forked over a few cents for a bag of peanuts.

Bonnie seemed to be having a good time, he thought, except for when she was reminded she was on a date with him. He didn't mind.

They walked over to the Stark show, and Bucky was trying to act cool but Steve knew he had a minor obsession with the man.

During the show as the red sedan floated off the ground, Steve caught himself thinking Alice would love this, and felt his stomach drop out. So he looked away, and spotted the enlistment poster across the multitude of milling people.

What the hell.


Bucky caught him at the enlistment center.

The argument went much the way it usually did, but there was an undercurrent of urgency to Bucky's voice now.

"They'll catch you," he argued, his dark eyes frustrated, "worse, they'll actually take you."

Steve met his eyes for a second more before he glanced down. "Look, I know you don't think I can do this but-"

"This isn't a back alley, Steve, it's war-"

Steve's eyes sparked. "I know it's a war-"

"Why are you so keen to fight? There's so many important jobs-"

"What d'you want me to do, collect scrap metal?"

Bucky rounded on him. "Yes, you-"

"I'm not going to sit in a factory Bucky, Bucky," Steve breathed out his frustration, "come on, there are men laying down their lives." Bucky went still. "I've got no right to do any less than them. That's what you don't understand." A flash of fear went through Bucky's eyes, and Steve got it – Bucky had spent their whole childhood trying to keep Steve out of fights and here he was, trying to jump into the biggest one of all. "This isn't about me."

"Right," Bucky said in a lower voice. He met Steve's eyes. "Because you've got nothin' to prove." He paused, letting that sink in. "And this has nothing to do with-"

"Don't," Steve said, because he could see from the hurt-angry-sad look in Bucky's eyes what he was going to say. Alice. Because the idea of enlisting, getting across that ocean to be even a little bit closer, though still out of reach…

They stared at each other, chins jutted out and their eyes hard.

The girls called out to Bucky and they both glanced away – Bucky to the girls and Steve down at the floor, trying to let go of his frustration at his friend. It hadn't sunk in yet that Bucky was leaving.

When they looked at each other again, the annoyance had melted from Bucky's face.

He sighed. "Don't do anything stupid until I get back."

The corner of Steve's mouth ticked up. "How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you."

Bucky's lip quirked, he shook his head, and then he strode back to throw his arms around Steve. "You're a punk."

"Jerk," Steve muttered as he clapped Bucky on the back. He pretended that this wasn't goodbye. "Be careful."

Bucky just smiled, his eyes twinkling as he backed away.

"Don't win the war 'til I get there!" Steve called.

He expected a joke but Bucky just turned to give him a sharp salute. Steve sighed.

He'd had two Bucky Barneses warring in his head all day: the kid who'd been pulling him out of fights since junior high, and this straight-shouldered soldier. In that moment he realized they were one and the same.

Bucky turned and jogged down the steps.

Steve thought, for a moment: he's outgrown me.

But then the thought faded, and he just thought about how much he was going to miss him.

He wondered if he'd see either of his best friends ever again.

Then: I shouldn't want to see Alice again.

He turned and headed in.


The small blonde boy strode into the enlistment center, and Doctor Erskine watched him go.

Hm.


Correspondence from Smithsonian Museum Archivist Peter Bint to researcher Harley Globe (10 March 2013)

Dear Harley,

Thank you for your efforts thus far, but I must ask that you look a bit harder. Some people might be satisfied saying that Captain Rogers only attempted to enlist three times before his success with the SSR, but you must trust my instincts that there must have been more attempts - and thus, more records. We'll need those records for the pre-Rebirth segment of the exhibition. We need all the artefacts we can get, since it's pretty clear that Rogers won't be making things easy for us by just telling us.

Let me know how you get on.

Peter.


On a rooftop in Paris, Alice held a rucksack to her chest as she lay above the gutter and tried to keep her ragged breaths quiet. The Gestapo unit tramped past below, their boots loud on the cobblestones.

Alice realized she could see the stars.

She had two blocks to go before she got to the warehouse, where there should be a French Resistance contact waiting for her, ready to collect the documents she'd copied and stolen at the Vichy France government building yesterday.

In May the major resistance leaders had formed a committee, the Conseil National de la Résistance [National Council of the Resistance] or CNR, to coordinate their efforts. This made Alice's and Otto's jobs a lot easier, since they didn't have to worry about choosing the right recipient anymore. The resistance would take the most important stuff back to the council, and they would decide what should be done about it.

The Gestapo footsteps receded into the darkness. Alice carefully rolled to her feet, mindful of the rucksack full of documents she clutched to her chest, and took a breath. She'd never traveled via rooftop before. It was terrifying. And slippery. But Peggy had trained her well.

She backed up, then darted forward and took a running leap into the darkness.


"So. You want to go overseas. Kill some Nazis."

This strange doctor who'd walked into the medical room talking about killing Nazis was making Steve's palms sweat. He had a knowing look about him.

They each introduced themselves, and Doctor Erskine moved to the end of the medical bed. That black-and-white IT IS ILLEGAL TO FALSIFY YOUR ENLISTMENT FORM sign was right behind his head.

"Where are you from?" Steve asked, to divert attention. The doctor's accent was similar to Alice's and her mom's, but not quite the same.

"Queens," the doctor replied. "73rd street and Utopia Parkway." He adjusted his glasses and looked down at the folders he'd brought in. "Before that, Germany," he added lightly. "This troubles you?"

Steve shook his head. "No."

And then – oh god, he had all of Steve's former enlistment forms, and Steve panicked and tried to talk his way out of it, but the doctor remained unruffled.

"Oh, it's not the exams I'm interested in. It's the five tries." Steve had actually tried a few more times than five, but he felt like now wasn't the time to be splitting hairs.

Doctor Erskine closed the folder and moved across the room to face Steve directly. "But you didn't answer my question. Do you want to kill Nazis?"

Steve glanced away, to the sign, and then back. "Is this a test?"

"Yes."

Steve thought of the photograph in that newspaper, of Alice in that uniform with the massive swastika behind her. He thought of everything else he'd heard from Europe. The families dragged out of their houses and shot by the side of ditches. The disappearances. Jilí and Franz.

He took a breath. "I don't want to kill anyone. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from."

Doctor Erskine nodded, a ghost of a smile playing across his face. He glanced down at the folder in his hands. "Well. There are already so many big men fighting this war. Maybe what we need now is a little guy, huh?"

Steve's brows furrowed.

Erskine turned. "I can offer you a chance. Only a chance." He flung open the screen and moved to the nurse's desk.

"I'll take it!" Steve exclaimed as he followed him out.

"Good." Erskine flicked open Steve's file. "So where is the little guy from?" He looked over and eyed Steve through his glasses. "Actually."

Steve allowed some of his hesitation to ease, and smiled. "Brooklyn."

Erskine returned the smile. "Ah. I have friends from there." He planted a stamp on Steve's file, flicked it shut and then handed it over. "Congratulations, soldier."

Steve opened the file again.

1A.

He drew in a massive breath and looked up to thank the doctor. But he was already gone.


Excerpt from Doctor Abraham Erskine's Project: Rebirth Notes (June 14th, 1943) [NOTE: CLASSIFIED]. Archived by Catherine Laurey, SHIELD Archivist

I'd almost given up. Stark too, though he's busied himself with his Expo to get over his worries about the Project. Carter has her work cut out for her trying to drag him away from it. He invited me today, and I ended up at the recruitment center out of pure desperation. Since then, I've been trying not to get my hopes up - I could be so desperate for the right candidate that I've misjudged the young man I met, or it may be he has yet unknown qualities which will make him unsuitable. But I have never felt so sure about someone than about him, aside from maybe [Archivist note: words redacted].

The coming days may tell, but I think this may be it.


The next day, Bucky strode along the deck of the troopship he'd boarded before dawn, his hands in his uniform pockets and his face turned up to the oncoming breeze.

He made it to the prow of the ship which reared up and then thundered down as it crested each wave. Fine seaspray washed over the lip of the prow. Bucky leaned his elbows against the rigid metal and eyed the shifting seas. He'd never been so far from Brooklyn.

The ship was probably more raucous than their commanders would like it, but everyone on board was a green soldier who knew they were about to head into the fires of war. Bucky had been well trained this last year, but he didn't know what waited for them. He'd heard they'd probably be sent into Italy.

Unbidden, he recalled Alice's letter from after Pearl Harbor. He remembered each line so clearly even over a year later, as if her advice had been seared into him.

Keep your head down. Literally and metaphorically. If you're captured, don't fight them or mouth off. They won't hesitate to kill you. Train your hardest so you have the skills you need once you get here.

Bucky ran a hand over the front of his uniform.

If you end up on the front, wherever they send you… tell everyone you can to get out. I mean the people who live there. Staying where they are is not sustainable, especially if they're Jewish. Tell them to get as far as they can.

Learn German. If you don't remember what you learned from me, pick up a phrasebook. Learning how to say 'don't shoot' may save your life.

"Nicht schießen," Bucky murmured under his breath, then dropped his head as he leaned against the prow of the ship. Sea salt blew into his face.

He couldn't reconcile that letter with what he'd learned about Alice. She'd been so frightened for them…

It was possible, he realized, that Alice was a Nazi and that she still cared about him, Steve, and Tom. Just the idea of it turned his stomach.

He looked up to where the sky met the sea.

Wherever you are, Alice, he thought, I hope you're safe.

With another sigh he turned and headed below deck to get his duty roster.


In the French countryside near the border to Belgium, Alice performed for German troops and collected rumors. The most interesting rumor of all was about HYDRA – some couriers claimed that they'd seen HYDRA soldiers near the border. And that they had strange new weapons.

She made a mental note to bring it up when she next spoke to their SSR handler in Switzerland.


Training, Steve thought, was a lot like school. The bullies, the assignments, the taskmaster teachers. The eyes that took in Steve's size and then glazed over with disappointment. No Alice or Bucky, though.

And Camp Lehigh was a far sight different from Brooklyn Senior High: uniformed soldiers marched and jogged across the dry grass from barracks to barracks, and the air rumbled with car engines and live fire tests. Steve had stared around at it all when he arrived. He'd been hoping for this for so long, it was almost surreal to actually be here.

He'd brought all his old books with him: tactics and weapons, biographies, accounts of the Great War. He also hoarded all the study materials they gave out to the new recruits so he could read up on army regulations and weapons manuals into the small hours of the morning. He didn't want to be caught out.

Bucky had told Steve all about his training, but it still took him by surprise. Each morning began with a hard slog around the barracks, made all the harder by his shortness of breath and weak limbs, followed by a long day of physical and mental tests. More physical than mental, unfortunately.

Alice had once said, not unkindly, that Steve had determination the size of the Empire State building squeezed into a newspaper stand. He'd never felt it so acutely as now. He wanted so desperately to succeed: in the pushups, the rope climb, the army crawl. But his body kept letting him down.

Gilmore Hodge was a goddamn asshole, too.

Colonel Phillips was brusque and blunt about his opinions, and generally steered clear of Steve. Steve liked Agent Carter: she took no bullshit and she had a great right hook. Doctor Erskine hovered around the edges of their training, watching but never speaking.

Despite his abysmal physical test scores, Steve still had his brains. He already knew Morse Code and all the basic ciphers, much to Agent Carter's surprise when she began teaching them all, and he knew his way around a gun thanks to Father Rickard.

It was hard to get enough oxygen to his brain to make it function most days, but it worked in his favor on the day when he stood with his hands on his knees, panting, watching Hodge and all the other recruits fighting to climb the flagpole at the halfway mark of their run. Steve caught his breath and looked up at the fluttering brown Camp Lehigh flag. Then he looked down.

Two minutes later, Steve handed the flag to the wide-eyed commander and climbed into the car behind Agent Carter and the driver. Carter smiled at him.

It was a nice smile, but Steve wasn't fooled. Carter was the biggest taskmaster of them all; all their commanders made them work hard but she made it real. He'd seen how she needled the recruits, making them irritated, and then watched closely for how they would react. It was a smart way to test character. Steve was mostly too tired to get irritated.

So a few days later, Steve wasn't surprised when he saw Agent Carter running for the grenade bouncing across the training ground as well. But for once in his life, Steve got there first. He curled up around the metal sphere, too full of adrenaline to be scared, and shouted for everyone to get away. He screwed his face up and his muscles shook. He thought about all the Great War books he'd read, and the black-and-white photographs of grenade wounds.

But then… nothing happened. He heard someone say "it's a dummy grenade," and Steve looked up to see everyone staring at him. Agent Carter's eyes gleamed. Doctor Erskine looked grimly satisfied, and Colonel Phillips practically glared at him.

"Is this a test?" he breathed.

He hoped Bucky never found about this. Bucky would kill him. He thought that Alice probably would too. He cast away the thought.

He looked back over to see Erskine smiling at him.


When he was called to the command center that afternoon into an office with Colonel Phillips, Agent Carter, and Doctor Erskine, he thought his luck was up. He stood just inside the door with his fists balled up by his sides and his face rigid. He couldn't go back to Brooklyn after this. He had dog tags, he'd been training for war, he was so close. He'd get a ticket over to Europe somehow, maybe try enlisting in Britain –

"You've been selected for Project Rebirth, Private Rogers," said Colonel Phillips in a distinctly reluctant tone.

Steve stared at them.

Phillips looked to Carter, who looked to Erskine, who started explaining what Project Rebirth was. Steve had heard bits, of course, and the other recruits had been full of guesses about what they were competing for, but he hadn't quite realized the extent of it: an irreversible, dangerous procedure that had never been tested before. And they'd picked him.

"We need to know, Private Rogers," said Agent Carter with a firm gaze. "Are you ready to do this?"

The three of them looked at him expectantly.

Steve recalled, abruptly, Alice's letter to him before the war started.

If it does come to war, I know I can't ask you not to enlist. So I'll ask you now to take one goddamn minute and think. Think about what you're throwing yourself into, think about the consequences. Think about what I'd say. Then decide. I think that's the most I'll get you to agree to, so I'll leave it there.

I'll offer you the same promise.

Alice wasn't the person he'd thought she was, and she hadn't kept up her end of the deal, but he owed it to the memory of the friend he once had to think this through.

He bowed his head.

It didn't take him long to look up once more with a lifted chin. "Yes," he told them. "I'm ready."

They didn't seem to need anything else. They told him to check into medical for some 'initial readings' and when he returned to the recruit barracks, everyone else was gone.


Excerpt from article 'Unpacking Rebirth: How Covert Science Changed the War' by Katya Baxter (2000)

Researchers of all backgrounds have found themselves frustrated when looking into the specifics of Project Rebirth. The science was not recorded in a complete way (thanks to Doctor Abraham Erskine's extreme caution) and even the decision making throughout the process seems esoteric. Why pair the refugee Jewish scientist with the most famous popular scientist of the time? Why give said refugee scientist so much freedom over the work? And the biggest question: why Steve Rogers?

Test subjects today are chosen based on general health, fitness, capability, and receptiveness to the scientific process. The most surface-level research into Steve Rogers will tell you that he did not fit many of those categories.

The answer, however frustrating to consequent generations of scientists and historians, seems to be simple: trust. Erskine, being the only scientist at that time fully capable of creating a 'super soldier serum' had ultimate control over the project, and given the hardship and desperation of the war he was allowed to maintain this control. Crucially, Erskine has been remembered for his ethics and empathy: beyond scientific discovery, the doctor felt passionately about using his developments for the betterment of humanity, or what he considered so.

And Erskine came to trust Steve Rogers. As a refugee from the privations of the war in Europe and a victim of HYDRA leader Johann Schmidt's power delusions, Doctor Erskine trusted that Steve Rogers was the best subject for Project Rebirth. We cannot fully understand the reasoning, as it was never recorded, and no one now can ask Erskine. We can only examine the outcomes of choosing of Steve Rogers, and conclude that whatever the reasoning, Doctor Erskine made the right choice.


That night, Erskine came to the barracks. Steve was just staring at his strategy book, not really reading it, surrounded by empty beds and the sound of chirping crickets outside. Someone in another barracks was listening to sad songs on the radio. The doctor was a welcome distraction.

"Can't sleep?" Erskine asked. He set down two glasses on the box by Steve's bed.

"Got the jitters, I guess."

Erskine chuckled. "Me too."

Steve set down his book. "Can I ask you a question?" He'd been mulling it over all evening.

Erskine sat on the bed across from him, uncorking the bottle he'd brought in. "Just one?"

"Why me?"

Erskine took a moment to reply. "I suppose that is the only question that matters." He eyed the bottle, which he'd set on his knee. Steve read the label. German, he realized.

"This is from Augsburg, my city." He glanced up at Steve with a measured look. Steve spotted a glint of sadness hiding behind his eyes. "So many people forget that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own."

I didn't forget, Steve wanted to say. He wanted to tell Erskine about it all: how he'd followed the path of their invasions in the news, terrified and unable to do anything to help as troops moved across borders. But he realized he had forgotten: he'd forgotten that the Nazis were more than an army, they were an idea. An infectious idea. He hadn't paid enough attention to see that idea take hold in Alice.

He met Erskine's eyes, his shoulders hunched.

"You know after the last war, they… 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…"

Steve's eyes dropped. Is that what she needed? To feel strong?

Erskine continued, explaining how Hitler had sought out Erskine for his scientific work, how Erskine had refused. How the head of this HYDRA division had been sent to force Erskine into service, and how it had all gone wrong.

"This is why you were chosen," Erskine said in a soft voice. "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."

His dark eyes were warm, empathetic.

"Thanks," Steve murmured. "I think." It was nice to be seen by someone other than Bucky and…

He cut the thought off.

Erskine gestured to the glasses, and Steve held them out so he could pour the clear liquid. "Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing." He set down the bottle. "That you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier." He leaned forward and pointed right at Steve. "A good man."

Steve felt a smile curling his mouth. He shifted a little, then raised his glass. "To the little guys." Erskine reached out to clink his glass, smiling, and Steve added: "Prost." [Cheers]

Erskine's look of soft resolution quirked into curiosity. "You know German?"

Steve's heart sank. "Some."

"Where did you learn?"

"Uh… through an old friend."

"Ah," said Erskine, tactful enough to see pain and steer away. They both brought their glasses to their lips, and Steve's nose wrinkled at the strong smell – "No no, wait!" Erskine exclaimed, reaching out. He grabbed the glass out of Steve's hand. "What are you doing, you have procedure tomorrow! No fluids!"

Steve sighed. He could've used some liquid courage. "Alright. We'll drink it after."

"No, I don't have procedure tomorrow," Erskine shot back, his brow furrowed as he poured Steve's glass into his. "Drink it after? I drink it now." He brought the glass to his mouth and tipped it back in one go.

Steve couldn't help but smile.


The night before her return to Berlin Alice slept in the loft of a French barn, safe in the knowledge that her backup singer Anna was sleeping in her five star hotel room in a blonde wig to make it appear that Alice had stayed the night there. She'd spent a hard afternoon and evening training some local résistance members in explosives.

She lay on an awfully scratchy bed of hay, hoping the farmer the barn belonged to didn't check his loft in the morning, and her mind fell quiet. She didn't often sit alone with her thoughts these days. A moment later she remembered why: because her thoughts always turned in one direction.

Alice rolled over, huffing, and forced the thought of a slender, blond-haired young man with a shy smile out of her head.


In the car on the way to the Project Rebirth headquarters, Steve looked out of the window to distract himself from his coiling nerves. But then his brow furrowed as he began to recognize the streets and buildings sliding past.

He pointed out his memories of these places to Agent Carter (realizing a moment too late that most of his memories ended with him getting beat up), and she commiserated with him by explaining that she hadn't had much luck getting recognized by her colleagues in the Army, and then Steve started fumbling his words. Had he really just called her a beautiful dame? Bucky was a terrible influence on him.

Carter turned calm, incisive eyes on him, and with a hint of a smile said: "You have no idea how to talk to a woman, do you?"

Steve huffed a laugh and looked away. "I think this is the longest conversation I've ever had with one." He purposefully skirted around the idea of Alice. She'd barely been a woman before she'd left with her uncle, and those strange few weeks when she'd come back felt like a dream. And now… "Women aren't exactly lining up to dance with a guy they might step on." He couldn't help the melancholy that slipped into his voice.

"You must have danced," Carter said softly.

A memory: sitting with Alice at the side of the ballroom as Louis Armstrong crooned into a microphone. Bucky's voice: Thought this was a ballroom, not a lounge. Come and dance, you humbugs. They'd obeyed, but they hadn't danced together. Save for those few moments where she had gripped his elbow to guide him.

"No," he murmured, picking at his fingers, "asking a woman to dance always seemed so terrifying." He looked up. "And the past few years, it just… didn't seem to matter that much." His brow furrowed. "Figured I'd wait."

"For what?"

"The right partner." He looked out the window at the familiar streets sliding by, with a heavy weight in his gut.


I've never met a man so frightfully earnest, Peggy thought as she eyed Rogers' profile. He reminded her of some of the veterans she'd met, rather than a green recruit. She agreed with Erskine's assessment. He'd be a fine candidate.

Her musings were interrupted as the black sedan pulled up in front of the Brooklyn Antiques store. Steve looked confused, and expressed his confusion, but Peggy just silently led him in. She exchanged the brief code with Doris, the door guard, and guided Rogers through the curtain to the back room, before stopping to wait in front of the bookshelf. Rogers remained quiet, watching.

Peggy remembered Alice's wry voice. Where's the hidden door?

A smile flickered at her lips, and a moment later the bookshelf swung open. She strode forward, leading Steve Rogers through the hidden headquarters toward the room where, one way or another, his life was going to be changed forever.


The New York Examiner headline: 'NAZIS IN NEW YORK: MYSTERY MAN SAVES CHILD' (June 23rd, 1943). Featured photograph: a man holding a detached 'Lucky Star Cab Company' taxicab door with bulletholes in it.


Chest heaving, Steve stood by the docks at the Brooklyn shipyard and looked down at his hands.

It felt like days had passed, but it had probably only been about an hour since Carter had brought Steve to that antiques store. All at once, the sensations hit him and overwhelmed him.

His body still ached from the residual pain from Stark and Erskine's machine. He'd never felt anything like it before: white, searing light, the sensation like lightning coursing through his veins, his very cells burning and shifting. His lungs burning from screaming.

The desperate look in Erskine's eyes as he'd touched a finger to Steve's chest a moment before he slipped away.

Carter standing in front of that oncoming car.

The expression on the dark haired agent's face: a flash of pure hatred.

Pushing himself as he raced barefoot through the streets of Brooklyn, only for his eyes to widen as he realized he hadn't hit his limit yet. He just went faster.

The car crash, then that heart-pounding duck-and-cover through the shipyards with the little boy struggling in the agent's arms.

Dragging the guy out of the depths of the ocean, and then he'd just… killed himself. Like it was easy.

Cut off one head, two more shall take its place. Hail HYDRA.

Steve's eyes flickered down to the agent's body. His eyes were bloodshot and he had foam flecked around his still mouth. Shipyard workers stared from the far end of the dock.

Steve looked back at his own hands. They were big. He'd always had narrow, nimble fingers, but these hands dwarfed what they'd once been. His gaze traveled up strong arms, corded with muscle and still dripping with seawater, to the bulk of his chest. The ground was much farther away than it used to be.

It was more than that, though. He'd just sprinted flat out for at least a mile, been in a car crash and a gunfight and punched a hole in a submarine, and… his breath came easy. He was exerted, but he used to breathe like this after climbing up a flight of stairs. The world around him was sharp, more colorful somehow, and Steve realized that up until this moment there'd been whole spectrums of light that his eyes hadn't been able to make out before.

The small, asthmatic boy that everyone he loved had known was gone. The illnesses and scars that his mom had seen him through were gone. This new, tall Steve was a Steve that Bucky had never seen. A Steve that Alice would never know.

The thought boggled his mind, but Steve didn't regret it. He felt strong.

He stood on his own two feet, his back held straight, and realized finally what Erskine had meant when he'd said a weak man knows the value of strength.

Steve still hadn't gotten a look at himself in the mirror. He'd been able to tell from the reactions of everyone back at the SSR facility that he'd undergone an enormous transformation, but all he had for now was the feeling of how much had changed. He wondered if he'd recognize himself in the mirror.

The piercing sirens of approaching police cars made Steve's head jerk up, and he looked around to see shipyard workers and civilians alike staring at him and the dead HYDRA agent.

Steve let out a breath. The hell do I do now?


Reviews:

jul (from Chapter 24): thanks so much lovely! I hope you enjoyed chapter 25, and this one as well ;)

SagaDuWyrm: Sorry for the gutpunch! Hope you enjoyed this chapter a little more x

Guest: bruh

Guest: You're welcome for the feels, I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well!