"The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is." -C.S. Lewis
Disclaimer: I own squat.
"Tony?... Can you hear me?" Someone gently patted his face with a warm hand. "Open your eyes, Tony. I know you're awake."
Tony groaned, his eyelids fluttering but never really opening. "Tony, open your eyes. Please." The voice was getting more persistent.
"Doctor Erskine, Sir... Was there a possibility of the serum affecting his brain? We could know so much more if you'd only let us run some test-."
"No, I do not believe so." Erskine cut him off. " I just think that this annoyingly lazy," the man leaned in close to say this, "man here just doesn't want to wake up."
"M'wake." Tony mumbled. Like Hell was he going to sit around and let two people talk about him right over his head, especially if one of them happened to be trying to wake him up before the stupid doctor found and messed with his arc. Tony concentrated on his body, piece by piece. Toes? Wiggle. Legs? Tucked in a bit too tight by sheets, but other than that, okay. Chest? Well, he's breathing so that must be a sign. Hands? Tony gripped his hands around the side of the metal bed frame, most likely located in the Med tent. Head? A little groggy, a little heavy, but still okay.
Tony tried to open his eyes again, squinting against the harsh summer light filtering in from the open flaps of the tent a few feet away. He groaned. It's not that he was sore from working out or anything, he just felt as if he had been lying down for a few days while slowly being stretched out.
"Tony? How do you feel?"
Tony used his handholds on the sides of the bed and his abs to pull him into a seated position. He squinted at Erskine as his eyes finished adjusting to the light.
"I don't know," Tony trailed off for a second. "A little sore, but I also feel pretty good," Tony admitted. His scar tissue around the arc wasn't at all bothering him, his joints felt well oiled and he felt as if he could run through his exercises three times over.
"Tony, the serum," now it was Erskine's turn to trail off.
"Yeah? How'd it turn out? They didn't kick us out so I'm guessing something went right."
Erskine nodded his head to Tony's hands. Tony looked down and saw them gripping the metal bedframe which he saw had been bent slightly into two hand shaped dents when he removed his hands. The doctor silently handed Tony a mirror on the small side table next to his rickety chair. Tony accepted it carefully, holding it up to assess the changes.
"You were out for four days," Erskine said. So that's why I'm so hungry.
"Yeah, but that beauty sleep really did the trick, huh?"
- . . - - .
After waking up, Tony had opted for a nice shower and a meal before he and Doctor Erskine got back to business. Tony stared in the small mirror above the sink. He had just showered, his wet hair combed back from his face and a towel rested on his hips. Tony looked at the larger muscles of his torso, his arms. His arc didn't quite stick out as much, his newly enhanced body thankfully accepting it a little better than before, though the pressure in his chest didn't seem to have increased.
Changes that he did not expect to see? The mirror-Tony looked younger, probably around twenty something years old. The dark circles under his eyes form years of nights in the lab were gone, as were at least half of the small wrinkles on his face. All of the small scars on his hands and arms from his past accidents in the workshop, battle, or Afghanistan were gone as well.
Tony grinned at his new self and set to shaving his slightly overgrown goatee back to it's signature shape.
- . . - - .
As soon as Tony had walked in, the doctor had started speaking. "Congratulations, Anthony. You are, once again, twenty five years old."
Tony simply stared at Doctor Erskine, who chuckled. "Yes, you thought it only made you look younger." Tony nodded. "Well, the purpose of the serum was to achieve the peak of human perfection. A forty something year old man is not at his peak, so the serum literally made you younger. I am also fairly sure that you will still age much slower than normal, even though you received a smaller and less concentrated dose."
Tony nodded again, not really knowing how to respond. I'll get a kick out of this if I ever get home, Tony thought, thinking of how everyone, even if he couldn't really remember anyone, would react to a younger him.
- . . - - .
Steve had been accepted into the army. Steve was going to Rochester, New York. Steve was hoping that, somehow, he might just see a man there. A man that, in just a few short days, had become as close to him as Bucky, but who had left as suddenly as he had arrived. A man, Steve would hardly admit to himself, that he might, just possibly, have had a tiny, miniscule, barely there crush on the man. They may have not seen each other in a little over a year, but on occasion, those soulful brown eyes still visited him in his dreams.
- . . - - .
Tony watched from his tent as the new recruits lined up from where he was standing in a randomly placed tent a few yards from the new recruits. Tony didn't really know what the purpose of the tent was, there was nothing much in it, but at least he could scope out the fresh meat from under the shade. Tony had discovered quite a while ago how fun it was to mess with new recruits, and this group wouldn't be any different.
He watched as Peggy Carter surveyed the group. A man made some comment to her with a look on his face that reminded Tony of the first time he had been about to turn twenty six years old. He laughed loudly as she decked the guy, then calmly spoke to the Colonel.
Colonel Phillips gave some speech, Tony not really hearing much of it, but noticing when the man stopped to stare at the smallest man in line. As Phillips continued, Tony's eyes stayed on the small man. He was scrawny, a little bit of blonde hair was visible from under his helmet, and his beautiful blue eyes were- Wait. Beautiful? Tony couldn't remember ever being attracted to another man before, whether it was in the twentieth or the twenty first century.
Well, except for that kid when I first woke up in this time. Tony's thoughts trailed off. He remembered Steve Rogers, the man with all the bravery in the world, but also with all sorts of sicknesses and problems. Little Steve with his always happy, kind of dorky but kind of adorable smile. His perfectly fixed hair that Tony had been tempted to run his fingers through it to mess it up so many times. And his eyes, bright and blue, reminding Tony of the freedom of flying high in the sky as Iron Man.
Tony knew then that he could never forget those eyes, and on multiple occasions, even his dreams refused to ignore the memory of them. Those amazingly blue eyes that followed something as it flew quickly overhead, then disappeared from Tony's sight as Steve turned and ran.
Tony jumped as his brain caught up with his ears. Someone had just yelled "grenade," seconds before Steve took off. Tony's body lurched towards the man now laying on the ground, but he fell back in shock as he yelled for everyone to get back.
Off to the side, Erskine grinned at Colonel Phillips, who glared just a bit harder than his normal face.
- . . - - .
"Now, Steven, I would like to make sure you understand what is going on here, what will happen at the end of your training."
"I will be injected with the serum, correct?" Steve asked Erskine.
"Yes, but more than that. I, with a few fellow biologists have worked to create a serum to change any man, even a small man such as yourself," Steve blushed, "into the perfect soldier. You will be faster, stronger, you will heal faster and won't need as much sleep. You will see and hear better than the average man, and this will help you in battle. Before the serum, you will study and train as any other man new to the army, so you can't slack off."
"I wouldn't, Dr. Erskine."
"I didn't think so, good."
"Dr. Erskine, how will the procedure work? Is it just a shot, a surgery, what?"
"Ah, yes. You will be put into this chamber, only big enough to hold a single large man. It will close up, and needles will be inserted into your major muscles. The power will be turned on and the machines will all be monitored by our main engineer. It will activate the serum, then poof, the chamber will open and you will be a new man."
"What if something happens? What if the engineer makes a mistake or if he did make one while they were building it?"
Erskine laughed. "Ah, out of all the things to worry about that day, the engineer should probably the very least of your worries. When I called him the main engineer, I meant more that he did everything himself and would only let the other engineers work as simple assistants to hand him tools or such. Tony- Oh, there he is," Erskine spotted Tony through the open flaps as he walked across the camp a few tents away. Erskine stepped out and yelled "Anthony, come here, if you will!"
Tony looked up, shrugged, and headed over to where Erskine had just disappeared into one of the tents. It took a moment for Tony's eyes to adjust to the darkened tent for a moment, but Erskine had already started talking.
"Steven, this is the engineer, Anth-"
"Tony?" Tony blinked and looked at Steve as he sat on one of the cots across from Erskine.
"Steve," Tony nodded. He had planned to talk to Steve at some point, but right now he couldn't think of a thing to say to the man.
Erskine looked a bit confused until Tony explained "Steve was the one who found me in Brooklyn when I first woke up with no memories."
"Well, isn't this a small world. Anthony, I was just explaining to Steven that he shouldn't worry about your work, but perhaps the two of you would like to catch up." He turned to Steve, "See you later, Steven."
Tony gave a low chuckle after the man had gone. "He won't call me Tony, even still, and I have no idea why." Tony shrugged and sat down on the cot Erskine had vacated.
"And he was right, you know. Erskine and his crew came up with the serum, I designed and am building the machine, and Howard funded it all, so there's nothing to worry about." Steve thought back to when Tony had lived with him for that short while and knew that he could trust the man in front of him to not accidentally kill him with some odd machine.
- . . - - .
To be honest, I wasn't going to post this for a while, but I really needed a distraction. Please leave a review; it would really make me happy. -PUV