Stephanie Rogers was not one for sexism. In fact, she found it absolutely irritating.
"Sweetheart, your husband needs to come and complete his form in person," said the officer.
"If you'd look at the name, you'd see that it's my submission to be in the army wherever would be most helpful," Stevie said coolly.
The officer blinked twice, then actually looked at the file in his hands. Then flipped through the pages, frowning more and more.
"Don't even try, doll," he said. "Though, even if you were a man, I'd still tell you the same thing. You've got a list of problems as long as my arm—literally. Go home. Buy bonds."
"But, sir!"
"Next!"
Three applications as a woman rejected. Another four as a man rejected.
(Thank God for her nonexistent breasts.)
"You are a very interesting man, Steve Rogers."
Stevie whirled.
"There's a program," he continued, his accent heavy and rolling. "Experimental. You would still have to go through basic training, but you could potentially be accepted into the Army."
"Yes," she said immediately.
And that was that.
Dear Agent Carter, Stevie later thought, mentally peeing herself from laughter. I'm sorry for hiding my gender and potentially letting myself out as available to date. I just wanted a ride in a car so that I didn't have to keep up with my fellow trainees (who are, incidentally, idiots). Sincerely, Stephanie Rogers
Yeah, she added. That would go over really well.
It went over even better when the serum that they injected her with gave her breasts, full and heavy, what the hell, why where they so heavy?
Honestly, she knew for a fact that Howard Stark had seen some breasts, it was practically announced to anyone within three degrees of him. Yet, the man still gaped at her chest like he'd never seen a pair before.
"That…was not intentional, I promise," Stark managed to stammer out, still staring at her chest. "I…um…we can, uh, fix this. Probably."
Agent Carter, even, seemed stuck on her chest, too, and wordlessly shrugged out of her blazer to give it to Stevie.
Then Dr. Erskine was shot, and Stevie bolted after the killer, after realizing that saving the man was not possible.
Running with breasts was painful, Stevie decided, and resolved to not do it again without some kind of support.
Howard Stark showed up on her doorstep not three hours after the fact, looking frazzled.
"Stark," she said, before he could get a word out. "Don't try. There was nothing in the serum that made me a woman."
He just stared at her dumbly for at least six seconds before it finally clicked, and he went from worried to furious in a blink of an eye, then extremely tired. He flopped down on the ground like his knees had given out from under him.
"I don't know how you survived, then," he said after a moment, brutally honest. "That serum was made for men, Steve. What's your name, anyway?"
She quirked a smile. "Stephanie. Still go by Stevie."
Howard groaned, head thudding against the wall. "You never give up, do you?"
"I'm Irish, Mr. Stark," she said, her smile turning into a smirk. "Stubbornness is in my blood."
He groaned wordlessly.
She decided that she liked him.
Being a chorus girl was irritating to the extreme, because it was sexist and demeaning.
Otherwise, she might have enjoyed it. Actually being able to use the steps that Bucky painstakingly taught her, without having to stop to have an asthma attack? Amazing. Simply amazing.
She could see why he loved dancing now.
Although, she wasn't much for brass instruments, and much preferred guitar. The brass was far too harsh.
Her fellow girls were nice enough, she supposed. She learned how to braid, once her hair got long enough, both her own hair and someone else's hair. She learned about makeup, and how to navigate the bear traps that were heels.
And sex. She learned a hell of a lot about sex. Probably more than she ever needed to know.
Bucky would have a stroke if he found out.
Come to think of it, so would her Ma.
A month and a half in, Stevie got her first cycle at the tender age of twenty-one.
The other girls fluttered around her sympathetically, one handing her a hot water bottle and another rubbing strong hands over the tender muscles in her lower back as she cried. It hurt, worse than the pneumonia that almost killed her five years ago, worse than the broken nose that she got when she was fourteen, worse than when she stepped on a piece of broken glass in the middle of a fight. She could feel her inner muscles straining and fluttering out of her control, the pain coming in harsh waves. She was too cold and sweating buckets at the same time, her core temperature skyrocketing to a hundred and three.
After four days, her temperature broke. Six days, and her period stopped altogether.
She woke on the seventh day after passing out on the second to Jillian reading her Dracula, which promptly cut off with a squeal and a, "You're awake! Sister, that is the period from hell. Let's not do that again next month, shall we?"
Stevie blanched at the very thought.
Four months on the road and then they headed to Italy.
Shortly after, she learned of the 107th's fate.
"James Barnes, B-A-R-N-E-S, was he on the list of condolence letters," Stevie demanded Colonel Phillips.
"I've signed hundreds of them, but yes, it sounds familiar," he admitted.
Stevie pursed her lips, and readied herself to be Bucky's one-woman army.
"You know how to fly a plane?" she asked Peggy.
The agent looked a little startled, but nodded.
"Good. You'll be helping me get to the rest of the 107th squadron."
"What?"
Howard couldn't help sticking his nose in, so he ended up flying the plane.
"How exactly are you going to be getting back?" Peggy yelled over the sound of gunfire hitting the craft.
Stevie held up the radio. "I'll radio."
The radio got shot on the way down, of course.
I made a twitter! redheadauthor
Come yell at me when I don't update this fast enough. :( -Ruby