Hello again! This chapter officially kicks things off into Captain America: The First Avenger and man am I excited to get this baby rolling! I really hope you're all enjoying it so far. If you've made it to this point I'm assuming so! Considering this chapter and the following contain heavy amounts of scenes you'll find familiar to the movie, I'm giving a huge disclaimer that I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING MARVEL! Which includes it's characters and any events that come the MCU! With that being said…high-ho silver! Awaaaayyyy! Xoxo-NickyLynn
Rose ran down the sidewalk, her hand holding her jacket together at the front as a breeze kicked by, sending her hair blowing out behind her. She had spent the day working with Howard as he ran around frantically, trying to attend to the last-minute tasks for the Stark Expo that was meant to open later that evening. She had only meant to be there for part of the morning, however, they quickly lost track of time with all the tasks that never seemed to end, causing her to be late for her previous engagement. Bucky had been drafted into the war a couple weeks prior, and knowing he could receive his orders any day, he, Steve and Rose had planned to spend the day together before they ran out of time with him.
They were supposed to meet at the theatre twenty minutes ago for a showing of a new cartoon that had been playing, and now Rose was late. She picked up her pace as the theatre came into view across the street, hoping she would make it there before the showing started. She caught sight of a familiar face across the street and turned her head to make sure no cars were coming before she jogged across the street and back onto the sidewalk on the other side.
"Well, hey there, soldier." Rose said as she fell into step beside Bucky who was dressed in his newly acquired military uniform.
Bucky's head swiveled down in her direction in surprise, but smiled when he noticed it was only her. "Well hey there sweetheart. I see I'm not the only one who's running late." He said as they continued down the road.
"Blame Howard. The man could not keep himself on a schedule if his life depended on it. Sometimes I wonder how he's managed to make it this far in life." She said with a shake of her head. "What's your excuse?" she asked.
Bucky slipped his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a bundle of folded up papers, holding them up for her to see. Rose's smile fell as she recognized them. "You got your orders." She stated, her voice dropping down sadly.
"Yup." He said, placing the papers back where he had pulled them from. "One-O-seventh. I ship out tomorrow." He told her, looking straight ahead.
Her heart dropped even further at the news. "Tomorrow?" she repeated, suddenly aware that this could very well be the last night they had together. Come morning, Bucky would be shipped off to the war and Rose was painfully aware of the statistics that came with that. While she had hope that Bucky would not be among them, there was a larger chance than she liked to admit, that he would end up another casualty of the bloody war.
As they came upon the theatre Rose reached out and latched onto Bucky's arm, stopping him in his tracks. "Bucky…" she began, not sure how to voice the things she felt in that moment. As she opened her mouth to continue, a familiar sound hit her ears and she turned her head towards the alley she heard it coming out of. She stayed quiet for a moment, listening, before she took off running again when she for sure heard the familiar voice of her brother followed by the sound of trash bins being knocked over.
She ran down the alley until she came upon a guy standing over Steve who was splayed out on the dirty concrete, a bruise forming around his orbit and blood seeping out the side of his mouth. Rage filled her as she took in the sight and she threw herself at his attacker, shoving him away from Steve with all her might. The man went stumbling back, using the brick wall behind him to keep himself from falling over. Rose didn't give him a chance to recover before she cocked her arm back and brought it down onto his nose with a loud crack that sent his head snapping back.
"Oh, you bitch!" the man sneered, as he tried to stanch the heavy flow of blood that poured from his nose.
"Touch my brother again and a broken nose will be the last of your problems." She bit out at him, her anger still boiling under her skin.
"Rose, don't." Steve said, pushing himself back up from the ground, upset.
Rose turned to check on him and the man took her moment of distraction and used it to throw his own arm back, set on repaying her for his busted nose. He never got the chance to land the blow, however, as Bucky came in between the two of them and grabbed onto his fist, using his momentum to turn him and pushed him away. "Picking on someone smaller than you in one thing, but hitting a woman is a scumbag move." He said, stepping up to the man and giving him a shove on the soulders that sent him stumbling back. The man turned to catch is fall and Bucky used the opportunity to bring his foot up and give the asshole a good boot in his ass as he took off out of the alleyway.
"You know, sometimes I think you like getting punched." Bucky said after the man left the alley, turning back around to look at Steve.
Rose stepped over to Steve, reaching under his chin to bring his face into the light so she could get a good look at the damage the man had done and make sure nothing was broken. "I'm fine." Steve insisted, pushing her hand off. "I don't need you fighting my battles for me, you know. I had that." He told her, upset that she had gotten into the middle of one of his fights…again.
Rose rolled her eyes at him. "Oh yeah, you had him on the ropes." She scoffed, leaning down to retrieve the papers that had fallen out of Steve's pocket during the assault. She froze when she seen what they were. "What is this?" she asked him, holding up the enlistment papers in front of his face.
"Oh, don't start with me, Rose." Steve shot back, snatching the forms out of her grip.
"You know it's illegal to lie on your enlistment forms, right? How many times do we have to have this conversation!?" she asked him, running a hand through her hair. "You know what, we're not doing this right now." She said, shaking her head and taking a step back from him. "Today's not about us. This is Bucky's last day here."
Steve's face fell just as Rose's had at the news. He looked over at Bucky, looking him up and down. "You get your orders?" he asked him.
"The one-o-seventh, Sergeant James Barnes." Bucky said, looking down at Steve with a tilt of his head. "Shipping out to England first thing tomorrow."
Steve looked up at Bucky and let out a heavy sigh. "I should be going." He said, shaking his head.
Bucky threw his arm around Steve's shoulder with a laugh. "Come on, man." He said, pulling him into his side. "Tonight's my last night here. We've got to celebrate."
"Look, I was going to wait until after the movie, but here." Rose said, pulling a stack of tickets out of her purse. "I managed to get you guys tickets for the Expo tonight." She told them as she held out the four tickets to them.
Bucky looked down at the tickets with a smile. "You are the best, Rosie." He said pulling the papers from her hands and inspecting them closer.
"Yeah, well I'll be busy working tonight, but I figured you'd be able to enjoy yourselves, especially with it being your last night and all. There's extra tickets there, too. You should find yourself some dates. I'm sure it'll be a blast." She said, suddenly feeling horrible she wouldn't be able to enjoy it with them.
Bucky took his arm from Steve's shoulder and instead wrapped it around hers. "The best." He said again, pulling her against him and planting a kiss on the side of her head.
"Yeah, yeah." She said, pushing him off. "You go get Steve cleaned up and hopefully I'll see you there tonight."
"You sure you can't come with us?" Steve said, finally looking over at her with something other than frustration.
"No, tonight's important and I'm afraid I can't take it off. You guys have fun for me though, alright?"
Later Rose was sitting in the army recruitment tent at the Expo, scribbling notes on her clipboard and she couldn't help but let her mind drift outside the tent. She wondered if Steve and Bucky were out there enjoying themselves. Howard had been excited to do his presentation on his hovering car (though he was still a long ways off from having the kinks worked out of that machinery), and she wondered if they were out there watching it right now. She pictured their faces of awe in a crowd of spectators and let out a sigh. She hated being stuck here when this was meant to be Bucky's last night, but she knew what she was doing was important.
They were one the last steps of Project Rebirth. The hard work was done, now all that was left to do was find potential candidates for the serum. The project was mostly in Colonel Phillips's hands now. He and Peggy were tasked with training and helping choose the candidates from the enlisted men. Rose and Dr. Erskine had been looking at potential candidate after candidate, but neither of them honestly felt comfortable with any of Phillip's choices. His main focus was building a strong soldier, capable of swaying the war, but Rose knew there were other things vastly superior than brute strength.
She was tapping the end of her pen against her clipboard in thought when Dr. Erskine walked into the room. She stopped her fidgeting as he walked up to her. "How is it going?" he asked her, leaning against the counter next to her with his arms crossed.
"I don't know. There's been a few that I'm sure the Colonel will be happy with, but none of them felt right to me." She told him honestly, holding out the few folders of the potential candidates she had come across. He took them from her grasp and began shuffling through them. "Dr. Erskine, can I be honest with you?" she asked him after a moment of silence as he went through the files.
"Of course. In fact, I encourage it." He told her, not looking up from the papers.
"I'm worried. All these men Phillips has us collecting…..they're nothing but war dogs. I mean, you said it yourself that the serum just enhances what's already there. What if we make a mistake? What if we choose the wrong person?" she asked, looking up at him, her eyes filled with the turmoil she felt inside.
Abraham set the folders down on the counter behind him, giving her his full attention. "You're right. We have the power to create something wonderful….or something disastrous. The Colonel thinks that someone's strength lies in his muscles alone, and that should worry you. I told you the story of how my first serum came to be….about Schmidt….I, too, worry about what we have the potential to create this time." He told her, reaching up to pull the glasses from his face and rubbing the tired eyes behind them.
"I've known all along why the government was so eager to fuel this research. And I get it….this war needs something to change the tides of fate. Too many of these men are just being sent to slaughter." She said with a sigh, her mind drifting to Bucky. "But the Colonel only cares about making a weapon. Whoever we choose…..whatever they become….they need to be more than a weapon."
Abraham slid the glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and gazed down at her with a small smile. "And that's why me and you are going to make sure that doesn't happen." He said softly. "Don't worry, Rose, I'm sure we will find our man."
Outside the room Rose and Abraham had been in, further down the hall of the recruitment tent, Bucky stared down at Steve in disapproval. "You're really going to do this again?" he asked him, upset with his friend's persistence to die in war.
"Well, it's a fair." Steve told him with a shrug. "I'm gonna try my luck."
"As who? Steve from Ohio?" Bucky questioned. "They'll catch you. Or worse, they'll actually take you." He told him seriously, not understanding why Steve was so hellbent of getting himself killed.
"Look, I know you think I can't do this." Steve began to protest.
"This isn't a back alley, Steve! It's war!" he bit out. "And what about your sister, huh?"
Steve looked up at Bucky with furrowed brows. "What does any of this have to do with my sister?" he asked him, growing upset.
"You don't think getting shipped off to war is going to bother her? If something happened to you, it would break her, and you know it." He tried reasoning with him.
"Rose is doing her part for this country and I have every right to be able to do mine." Steve countered.
"Why are you so keen on fighting, huh? There are so many important jobs…" Bucky pressed, growing more upset by the minute.
"What do you want me to do? Collect scrap metal in my little red wagon?" Steve asked him in, voice dripping in cynicism.
"Yes!" Bucky nearly shouted.
"I'm not going to sit in a factory, Bucky." Steve said in refusal.
"Why not?" Bucky asked him. "Rose would kill me if anything ever happened to you, you know that, right?"
"I'm not some helpless puppy that you and Rose need to constantly look after!" Steve snapped. "Bucky, come on! There are men laying down their lives. I've got no right to do any less than them." He said growing tired of everyone constantly standing in his way. "That's what you and Rose don't seem to understand! This isn't about me."
"Right." Said Bucky, knowing there was nothing he could say to sway his friend's mind. "Cause you got nothing to prove." He said, staring down at Steve with a shake of his head.
Steve snapped his mouth shut, tired of trying to prove himself. One of the girl's they had come in with shouted over to them, causing their conversation to be disrupted. "Hey, Sarge! We still going dancing?" he called over to him.
Bucky turned around, throwing his hands out to the side. "Yes, we are!" he called back with a smile, before turning back to Steve and the smile dropped. They stared at each other for a brief moment, neither of them knowing what else they could say to change the other's mind. Bucky shook his head, deciding there was nothing else to say. "Just…don't do anything stupid until I get back, alright?" he told him as he began walking backwards, shaking his head remorsefully.
"How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you." Steve snarked back at him.
Bucky cracked a smile then, stepping back towards his friend, the weight of everything setting in on him. "You're a punk." He told Steve as he brought his arms around his lean frame.
"Jerk." Steve shot back, returning the embrace, realizing this was goodbye. "Be careful." He told him as they pulled apart. "Don't win the war until I get over there!" he shouted as Bucky walked back towards the girls who were waiting patiently for him. Bucky turned and gave him a mock salute before stuffing his hands in his pockets and walking away.
Despite Bucky's efforts, Steve wasn't deterred in the least. In fact, he was more determined than ever to prove he was capable of fighting just like everyone else. So, he turned and continued making his way further into the tent to try his luck with enlisting again. He filled out the paperwork, once again, forging the information in hopes that this time he would be able to slide through. A nurse directed him into one of the examination rooms where he sat and waited and prayed that he could get approved.
Rose had been back to doing her rounds and froze mid-step when her eyes came across a familiar name on the enlistment form she was holding. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me." She grumbled, swiveling around on her feet and heading towards the room her brother was sitting in. She strode up to the makeshift room as one of the doctors was about go in, but she stopped him. "I've got this one." She told him. He gave her a questioning look before shrugging it off and turning back around. The doctors and nurses all knew that Rose and Abraham were on direct orders from the government, so no one thought twice about refusing their requests. She let out a sigh as she reached for the fabric curtain and pushed it open.
Steve was sitting up on the examination table and turned his head at the sound of the curtain sliding opening. "Rose?" he asked, confused to see her there. Rose drew in a deep breath, steeling herself before closing the curtain behind her and storming in front of him. "What are you doing here?" he asked her.
"I told you I was working here tonight." She responded, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Yeah, but I thought you meant for Stark. What are you doing in the army recruitment tent?" he asked her in perplexation.
"What are you doing in the army recruitment tent?" she shot back at him, a disapproving look on her face.
"Rose…" Steve began, not ready to fight with her as well.
"Look, I get it Steve!" she nearly shouted. "You want to do your part and all that, but getting yourself shipped out to the front lines isn't going to change anything. All you'll end up doing is just adding yourself to the roster of dead soldiers." She told him with a shake of her head.
"Every body counts." He countered, recanting one of the army's God-awful slogans. "Even one man can change the tides of war." He insisted.
Rose shook her head, tired of the two of them talking in circles around each other. She knew that no matter how many times so tried to sway him off of his suicidal course, he wouldn't budge. It was exhausting her, and she feared that one of these days he would actually manage to slip through the cracks and get himself sent into the front lines. She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment, in thought. She knew that no matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to keep him from charging into the war, but she began to wonder if she could protect him in another way.
"One man can change the tides of war." She repeated under her breath. She looked up at Steve and shook her head at the crazy idea forming in her head. "Wait here." She told him, moving back to the hall.
"What are you-" he began to ask, afraid she would rat him out.
"Just wait here." She repeated, looking back at him. "There's someone I want you to meet." She told him before disappearing through the curtain to find Abraham.
When she found him, she ushered him into an empty examination room and slide the curtain shut. "Dr. Erskine, there's a candidate I'd like you to meet." She told him in a hushed tone. "But, uh…he's not like the others. I mean, I'm sure Phillips would have a stroke if he saw him, but…." She began, trailing off as she chewed on her lip.
Abraham raised an eyebrow at her, intrigued. "Who is he?" he asked, holding out his hand for the papers. Rose hesitantly handed the forms over. "Rogers?" he asked, surprised. "Your brother?"
"Look, I know how it looks, but I swear this isn't some personal agenda." She rushed out. "It's just….well Steve is….I was hoping you would just meet with him." She implored.
Abraham looked over at her with a kind smile. "You truly think he would be a good candidate for the serum?" he asked her.
Rose took in a deep breath, nodding her head. "Steve may not have much physical strength…" she told him honestly. "but he has a strength inside him that's bigger than all of the other candidates combined. Just meet with him…..please."
He stared at her for a moment before finally nodding. "I'll meet with him…if you take the rest of the night off. Go enjoy the expo for a while. You've done enough work for tonight."
Rose couldn't deny that the idea of being able to spend at least some of the night with Bucky was alluring. "Are you sure?" she asked him.
"Yes, go, go!" Abraham told her with a smile, waving her away. "Go have fun. Be young!"
"Thanks Doctor." She told him before sliding the curtain back open and making her way to trade her lab coat in for her jacket and leaving the tent. Rose wandered around the Expo, taking in all it had to offer, all the while looking for Bucky. She roamed around for about half an hour, with no luck finding him and began to wonder if maybe he had already left. With her feet growing sore, Rose dropped herself down on an empty bench and instead watched the people moving about.
There were young couples, holding hands as they walk by, small children running about excitedly, eagerly pulling their parents to all the different displays and even a few older couples, marveling at all the technological advances being made. Rose watched them all as they drifted around her happily and she found herself wondering how there could be so much happiness here when the world was growing so dark overseas. Her mind drifted to Bucky again and she nearly jumped a mile into the air when his voice suddenly called her name from behind her.
She turned to find the man of her thoughts striding up to her, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his uniform. "God, you scared me!" Rose exclaimed with a hand over her rapidly beating heart.
"Sorry." He said with a laugh, walking up to the bench and taking the empty spot next to her.
"I was looking for you." she said, looking over at him. "I figured you were off with your date or something."
"Nah. The girls caught a ride home with a friend so I was just roaming around, trying to make the most of my last night." He told her, leaning back on the bench and spreading his arms out across the back of it.
"How was it?" she asked him. "Was it a good last night?"
"Yeah, it was great. Thanks again for getting the tickets. I couldn't imagine spending my last night anywhere better." He said, giving her a grin.
They sat together in silence for a few minutes, both watching the people passing by before Bucky looked back over to her. "Hey Rose, do me a favor." He said.
Rose looked over to him. "Anything." She told him.
"Will you look after Rebecca for me?" he asked her. "If I….If something happens to me, will you look after her for me?"
Rose felt a lump growing in the back of her throat as his eyes bore into hers. "I'll look after her Buck. As long as you do me a favor and do everything you can to get back here." She told him.
"It's a deal." He said with a smile, dropping his arm down around her shoulders and pulling her up against his side. Rose dropped her head against his shoulder, letting herself get lost in the feeling of his embrace. Rose began to wonder if this was the last time she'd ever feel his embrace and couldn't stop the tears that began to fall down her cheeks, despite her trying to keep them at bay.
"You gotta come back Bucky." She told him, swallowing thickly. "You have to."