Chapter 15: The Serum is Finished

I trailed behind Peggy, a crate of clipboard in my arms. Erskine had all but thrown me out of the lab for a couple of days while he analyzed the samples I'd given him to see if they could be replicated and incorporated into the serum. Until he was sure, I had sort of turned into Peggy's unofficial assistant, fetching her papers and files.

I didn't mind at all though. We'd patched things up after my slip during our spar and now we were friendly again. I think we were both grateful for the female company to be honest. I knew I was starting to get sick of being the only woman I saw for ninety-five percent of my day. Now I spent most of my time with Peggy or Phillips running errands and filing paperwork.

On top of that, Peggy had agreed to run with me in the mornings and we had even sparred again a time or two. I was feeling more active and stronger than I had in a while, last I heard Erskine was making good progress with my samples, and the serum was almost ready for human testing. Things were better than they had been in months.

There were only two glaring problems. One, I hadn't heard from Bucky in almost a month, which was odd because he was nearly religious about his letters to me.

"Are you sure that's not too heavy?" Peggy asked, glancing at me sideways. It wasn't the first time she'd asked.

I laughed. "I'm fine, Peggy," I assured her. "Getting back into the swing of exercise has gotten me used to doing things like this again."

"Alright," Peggy said skeptically as we approached the line of new recruits. I ran my eyes over the line. Broad shoulders, skinny shoulders, broad, broad, skinny, the top of a head.

That was the second problem. Steve. He was Erskine's top pick, and while that wasn't strictly-speaking a guarantee he'd be the one climbing into Howards Vita-Ray chamber, I knew Erskine well enough to know that he would claw and fight to get his pick into the experiment, and I knew better than to bet against him.

He was the tiny figure about three-quarters of the way down the line. His blonde hair was covered by his helmet but I knew Steve when I saw him. He looked tiny standing between two taller men who were chatting amiably. I tried to imagine him as a tall, strapping soldier, a miracle of science that the country could pin their hopes for the war on – it was too odd.

"Attention!" Peggy barked, and like good little soldiers, they all straightened up and faced forwards, conversation dying instantly. She walked down the line of recruits, barely glancing at each of them. I followed behind her, handing out clipboards. "I am Agent Peggy Carter, I supervise all operations for this division."

"What's with the accent, Queen Victoria?"

I looked up. Peggy stopped in front of a tall, muscular man was a sneer on his face. I smirked and passed a clipboard to the waiting soldier. These men were about to get a first-hand lesson about just why people who knew her didn't talk to Peggy Carter like that.

"Thought I was signing up for the US Army," the man continued, and I snorted.

"Digging his own grave," I muttered, shaking my head as I handed over another clipboard.

"What's your name, solider?" Peggy asked shortly.

"Gilmore Hodge, your Majesty."

"Step forwards, Hodge."

Hodge looked around at his fellow recruits and swaggered up to Peggy shamelessly, looking her up and down.

"Place your right foot forwards."

Hodge did as Peggy asked. "Are we gonna wrestle?" he purred at her. "Because I've got a few moves I know you'll like." And then he had the gall to wink at her.

I burst out laughing as Peggy punched him in the face and sent him sprawling. The recruits seemed torn between looking at Hodge and looking at me as I doubled over at the waist, still giggling.

"And that, gentlemen," I said, straightening up and forcing down chuckles, "is why it's best not to bother Agent Carter."

"Agent Carter!"

Erskine and Phillips rolled up in a transport truck. Peggy turned casually as the two men climbed out of the vehicle. Phillips looked every inch like he belonged on the base in his khaki uniform and leather bomber. Behind him, holding his briefcase, Erskine still looked like he belonged in a college lecture hall.

"I see you're breaking in the new recruits, that's good," Phillips commented as he walked over, perusing the line. His eyes lingered on Hodge, who was still on the ground, clutching his bleeding nose. Phillips shook his head. "Get your ass out of that dirt, get in that line, and stand there until someone comes and tell you what to do."

Hodge scrambled to his feet, brushing as much of the dirt off of his front as he was able to without making more of a scene. "Yes sir," he wheezed, still trying to get his breath back.

"General Patton has said that wars are fought with weapons but they are won by men," Phillips announced, strolling down the line pointedly. "We are going to win this war because we have the best… men." He faltered slightly when he looked at Steve, and no wonder. Steve was about a foot shorter than the men on either side of him and weighed at least forty pounds less.

"And because they are going to get better," Phillips added. "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 soldier. And they will personally escort Adolf Hitler to the gates of hell."

I set down my empty crate and moved over to Erskine as Phillips continued to yell and march and generally be a drill sergeant.

"You've emerged," I said softly. "You haven't left the lab for days."

"Your samples…" Erskine shook his head. "I have never seen anything like it. Es ist wunderbar."

"Not really," I disagreed. "From a scientific standpoint, yes. From a personal one… not so much."

Erskine placed a hand on my shoulder supportively, turning me to face him slightly.

"It can work!" he said earnestly. "Josie, it can! You may have just saved that boy's life."


"What are you doing over here by yourself?"

I looked up from the letter I was scrawling on my lap, the paper balanced on a file. I quickly slid the paper inside the file. I didn't trust Howard not to try to snatch it from me and start with the teasing. I looked up at him.

He was right. I'd gotten to the lab in Brooklyn and I had immediately retreated to an abandoned corner with a folding chair, settling myself in out of the way to wait for Howard to finish what he was doing and get me the report I needed to take back to Erskine.

I blinked. "I don't-"

Howard looked down at me shrewdly. I shifted uncomfortably under his stare but forced myself to meet his stare, waiting for him to say something. The silence dragged on and on for a while. I twitched, resisting the urge to glance to the side.

Howard's face split into a wry smile. He shook his head and dropped into a crouch in front of me. I stared at him, waiting for whatever was about to come out of his mouth. My back was so tense you'd have thought I'd become welded to the back of my chair. Howard could make or break me in this moment, and I could see from the sympathy in his eyes that he knew it.

Howard reached out and took my hands, folding them together inside of his.

"Josie," he said quietly, "we've all got our talents. Me, I can make an engine out of a can of tuna and some paperclips. You?" He chuckled. "Well, that's another story." He leaned closer and looked around secretively. "Don't tell anyone I said this, but I think your talent is way cooler."

I felt like someone had just wrapped me in a warm blanket as I crumpled with relief. Tears pricked my eyes and I hastily scrubbed them away. I wasn't going to break down in tears over this.

Weakly, I managed to work out the words of my greatest fear. "You're… not disgusted? Not... Not afraid?"

Howard scoffed. "No offense Josie, but you're not the most threatening person I've ever met. I could blow up Brooklyn. Doesn't mean I'm gonna."

I closed my eyes and sagged back into my chair. "Howard, you are a blessing," I breathed, a smile starting to twist the corners of my mouth.

Howard winked. "That's what all the ladies say. Now, come on." He placed a quick kiss on the back of both of my hands and tugged me to my feet, giving me a spin. "We've got a super soldier to make!"


"What do you mean you can't tell me?" Worth was frothing at the mouth, and unsurprisingly, it was about something I'd done. "I'm the senior geneticist on this project! I have a right to know!"

Erskine sat behind his desk looking tired. I didn't blame him. He and I had spent the last few days staying up late trying to integrate my samples into the serum itself. And last night we'd finally managed it. The serum was ready for human testing, and the chance of survival? Eighty-eight percent. It wasn't perfect, but it was far better than I'd hoped, and I was confident Steve could make up the last twelve percent on his determination alone.

No one had expected him to do well in basic, and he really hadn't. He was at the bottom of the class in everything. He couldn't run, couldn't carry heavy packs. He was a decent shot but that was about it.

That wasn't the impressive part though. More than once he'd come to the infirmary barely able to breathe, sweating and shaking, his muscles about to give out. But not once had he ever complained, not once had he ever given it less than his best, and even if his best wasn't as good as the other recruits, he was still the most impressive.

Everything had been going perfectly. Until this morning when Erskine had announced that the serum was ready, that it was better than expected, and that it was thanks to my contributions.

Worth had exploded.

"She comes in with some secret compound and we're expected to just accept that?" Worth demanded, swinging an arm out to point at me and nearly hitting me in the face. He'd long ago abandoned his chair in favor of towering over Erskine's desk, but I was still sitting, my hands folded in my lap, resisting the urge to grab his outstretched finger and break it. Didn't his mother ever tell him it was rude to point?

"Yes, you are," Erskine said calmly. "Fraulein Josie has contributed a key part of this project and if she shad other interests to protect, I'm willing to allow it."

"Fine, she can keep her secrets from the meatheads, but the rest of us have a right to know!" Worth continued to rant. "We poured time and energy into this project too! Then she comes along with some secret formula and suddenly the survival rate spikes? What the hell? For the sake of science if nothing else, I demand to know how she did it!"

Erskine sighed wearily and looked at me from under Worth's arm.

"It's not my secret to tell," he said, and nodded to me. "If you want to know, you will have to have Josie tell you."

Worth immediately whirled to me, crossing his arms over his chest. He stared down his nose at me imperiously, strands of ginger hair falling in his face.

"Well?" he thundered. "What did you do? How did you do it? How did someone like you figure out how to do that?"

"I'm not telling you," I said bluntly, which was the same thing I'd told him when he approached me out in the lab. He'd hauled me before Erskine, furious, and demanded answers. "And if," I said, placing my hands on the arms of my chair and rising to my feet, "by someone like me you mean a woman, it's very simple. Despite what you seem to think, you ignorant misogynist," I growled, "women have brains too."

Worth scowled, his hands fisting at his side. "How dare you? You're just some nobody Erskine hauled in here out of pity; you don't even have a degree. I have a doctorate from genetics from Harvard. It wouldn't surprise me if you weren't really what you said you were, if you were just trying to make a name for yourself off someone else's research." He sniffed. "No way some uneducated hick is-"

"You will not insult where I come from!" I said furiously, feeling the red begin to creep into my vision. I was close to the edge, I could feel it. It was right there these days, so close to the edge. My protective instincts were raised worrying over Steve and with them came everything else I usually tried to suppress.

"Doctor Worth, you need to leave," Erskine said sternly. Worth whirled to look at him, startled.

"I'm not finished, I want an answer, I deserve an answer-"

"You are finished," Erskine disagreed. "The project is over, you are not necessary for the final stage. I have received reports from numerous other scientists here that you have belittled them. But oddly enough, none from Miss Ealum, despite the fact that you seem to hate her in particular. You will receive your final payment in the mail in two weeks time, but for now, I want you out of my lab."

Worth's mouth dropped open, like he couldn't believe what had happened. He looked between me and Erskine, horror, denial, and anger written on his face.

"Y-You can't-" he stammered weakly.

For a moment his face was utterly crushed, and some part of me reveled in seeing the arrogant doctor brought low like that. Then I smacked that part and shoved it into the back of my mind. Worth's expression hardened, his jaw tightening and his eyes turning to steel.

"You'll regret this," he hissed, before turning on his heel and striding from the room. The door slammed shut behind him with enough force to rattle the room.

"You didn't have to do that," I said quietly.

"I saw the look on your face," Erskine replied just as softly. "If you had wanted to, you could have ripped him apart for saying those things, couldn't you?"

I nodded slowly.

"How does it feel?" Erskine asked curiously. "To know that you have that kind of ability?"

I slumped, the anger draining out of me. "Terrifying," I admitted weakly, sitting down in the chair again. "The only thing stopping me is my moral compass, and I know that doesn't exactly always point North."

Erskine nodded thoughtfully. "As it happens, Worth was wrong about one thing."

"Only one?" I replied cattily. Erskine sent me an unimpressed look and I hunched apologetically. He reached into a drawer of his desk and pulled out a piece of paper. It was thick, heavy parchment, the kind used for official documents. He handed it to me.

I took the paper curiously, looked at it… and burst into tears.

"Josie!" Erskine cried in surprise as he hurried around the desk to place a hand on my shoulder. "Liebling, are you alright? I thought you'd be pleased!"

"I-I am!" I sobbed, looking down at my name, my name written on the certificate. This piece of paper was everything I'd worked for most of my life – with this, no one could question my abilities, no one could say I didn't have the right to do what I was doing.

Finally, finally, I was a scientist.


I know, I know! I'm still being mysterious! Don't hurt me!

Es ist wunderbar –It is wonderful

Leibling - love