This guy.

We Were Soldiers

32. Captain America and the Howling Commandos

The screen faded to black. The credits rolled. The audience cheered and applauded. Steve Rogers tried to affect a genuine smile as, all around him, people celebrated Captain America's latest victory against the Nazis. To each side of him, in the front row of the movie theatre, people were congratulating each other. Shaking hands. Slapping each other on the back. He could barely hear Senator Brandt's words of praise over the cheering of the audience, and when Angelo Demarci reached over to shake his hand, he merely nodded and smiled as his eyes skipped over the names still scrolling across the big screen. When he saw his own, he held his breath.

Steven G. Rogers… Military Consultant.

He let out the breath. Demarci claimed that for Steve to get paid for the movie, he needed to be credited, but Steve's desire for anonymity increased as Captain America's popularity grew. In the end, they'd compromised. Demarci said he could be brought on as a 'consultant' of some sort, which Steve had quickly agreed to. The other actors thought he was odd, but they'd agreed to respect his need for privacy. To the first showing of the movie, he'd come wearing a freshly starched olive drab military dress uniform, and it was the first time since taking part in Project Rebirth that he felt even remotely like a soldier.

The roll of the final credits brought a final cheer from the audience.

'Captain America and the Howling Commandos has been brought to you by the United Service Organizations. "Until everyone comes home."'

"You're a natural star, Steve!" Senator Brandt told him, as the crowd finally began to disperse. "Isn't he a natural, Angelo?"

"Yes, Senator," Demarci agreed. Then again, Brandt was paying the guy to be Captain America's PR Agent; he probably would have agreed with anything Brandt said. "We've had a great opening night. The flick will be in a hundred cinemas by this time tomorrow, and it bodes well for the next three movies."

Steve very nearly groaned. Three more! How was he going to survive three more movies? The endless calls for wardrobe. The hours spent in makeup. The director calling for take after take after take… and people actually did this for a living!

Making movies had been a real eye-opener. He'd thought that the process would go rather like writing a book… or at least, how he assumed a book should be written, since he'd never actually done that before, either. He'd thought that the actors would come onto the stage and play out events from start to finish. That there would be a beginning, a middle and an end. And indeed, the finished product looked like that. But the actual process of making the finished product was a whole other matter.

Events were never filmed in sequence. Sometimes, the end of the movie might be shot before the beginning, dependent entirely upon actors' schedules, or set availability, or the state of the wardrobe department. Sometimes, Steve arrived on set to find that the film schedule had been completely revised, and he had to film a scene he hadn't even read his lines for. Luckily, his lines were mostly short, heroic phrases and taunts for the enemy soldiers he encountered, but he still needed cue cards. None of the other actors needed cue cards, and some of them spoke even more than him!

He was useless. Completely useless. First day on set, it had been like his first day of school all over again. Only, worse. Much worse. People ran to and fro carrying equipment he didn't recognise and still couldn't name. During shooting, other things were going on behind the crew, and Steve found himself constantly distracted. He'd been told, 'Don't look at the camera!' so many times that he was starting to mumble it in his sleep. Sometimes, two or three movies would be shooting in the same studio on the same day, so he'd start talking to one bunch of filming crew, only to find they were the wrong crew. He'd very nearly ended up in a romantic kiss scene with Rita Hayworth; Bucky would be green with envy when he found out.

And now, Steve was going to have to do it all over again.

Three times again.

He didn't think he would survive.

A bright flash seared itself across his vision, and his eyes squeezed shut of their own accord. "Darn it, Freddie. Do you have to do that now?"

"Sorry, Mr. Rogers. Just getting a couple of snaps for posterity. You look great in that uniform, by the way."

When Steve gently teased his eyelids open, he found dark-haired Freddie Lopresti fiddling with the flash on his camera. Angelo's photographer was a fresh-faced eighteen year old who'd been playing with cameras since he was old enough to walk, and he had a way of turning any situation into a photo shoot. He was pretty darn good at it, too. Steve had always loved art, and the artist in him appreciated the form and composition of Freddie's photographs, and the way the kid managed to get the most out of every shot. He even managed to make Steve look good in the Captain America costume. While Steve felt like an overdressed clown, Freddie made pictures of him look somehow… heroic. The kid was an actual, honest-to-God miracle worker.

Freddie's relentless snapping was always accompanied by compliments. You look great. You look amazing. That's an incredible shot. You're a natural. The camera loves you. Steve still hadn't been able to figure out whether the guy was being genuine, professional, or overly personal. Sometimes, he thought it might be all three.

"You know I don't like you taking pictures of me out of the uniform, Freddie," he told the young man.

The response was accompanied by a quick grin. "I can't help it, Mr. Rogers. I gotta obey my muse."

Steve snorted, and Freddie turned to take a few snaps of Senator Brandt, Kevin and Angelo Demarci, in front of the movie screen. With their attention occupied, Steve used the opportunity to slink away. He wasn't very good at slinking anymore—his new size meant that when he was trying to be stealthy, he actually just came off looking shifty—but he didn't want to stick around long enough for Senator Brandt to start talking business again. He'd had enough of business to last a lifetime.

Out in the theatre's lobby, the crowd was still milling. Parents and children, mostly; they seemed to be on the lookout for actors for autographs. A few held pens and paper, hopeful expressions written across their faces. For a brief moment, Steve regretted not coming here as Captain America. But when their eyes took in his military uniform, and slid right over him, he decided it was for the best. Captain America's autograph signings tended to cause stampedes.

The noise in the lobby was a loud din that assaulted his sensitive, super-human hearing, so he slipped into the men's room for a moment of peace and quiet. He found an empty stall, stepped inside it, then leant back against the closed door. A few deep breaths later, he was feeling a little easier about everything. He'd half feared that the movie would be seen as a joke. That the audience would boo and jeer. He should've known it wouldn't be like that. Comic sales were high, and the USO tours were sold out. Everybody wanted a piece of Captain America. But all Captain America wanted a piece of was the war. A real piece of the war.

The quiet squeak of the men's room door barely registered to his busy mind, but when he heard a stall door open slowly, and quiet footsteps continue to the next stall door when they found it empty, his breath caught in his throat. Despite his 'glamourous' new life, despite being on the road, and making movies, and signing autographs, he hadn't forgotten, not even for a second, the events which had brought him this far. The project. The serum. Dr. Erskine. Throughout everything, one thought had been constantly in the back of his mind, whispering warnings into his ear like some angel or devil on his shoulder: HYDRA had managed to sneak an operative into a secret SSR facility, and nobody had seen him coming. There was nothing stopping them from trying that again. From making sure that Dr. Erskine's legacy was entirely erased from history.

Images of a gun-wielding HYDRA agent silently checking all the stalls for his victim raced through Steve's mind, like a scene from some moving picture. Oddly, the man in his head had the same appearance as the guy who'd shot Dr. Erskine. The assassin had come to embody the face of HYDRA for Steve, even though he knew that any other HYDRA agents would look completely different.

He felt his heart beat faster as the footsteps drew closer. Just one more stall, then whoever was out there would find him. If he had a weapon, Steve would need to act fast. Bucky and his dad had been trying to teach him to box for as long as he could remember, but until now, his body had lacked the muscle to put true strength into his punches. Thanks to Dr. Erskine, he had the muscle. He had the strength. But his body was still flesh, and he suspected he would bleed from a gunshot or a stab just as easily as anybody else.

He poised ready to punch. To grab. To kick. To shove. Whatever was needed to defend himself. He had to do it fast, because if someone came in looking for him, and found him struggling with a HYDRA agent, and word got back to Senator Brandt, Steve would never have a moment of privacy again. He probably wouldn't be allowed out in public. Much as he hated the dancing, and the lines, and the endless photographs with politicians, doing the USO shows and the movies was still better than being a lab rat. And it was better than being a babe, wrapped in swaddling and isolated away for his own protection. He'd had quite enough of that already for one lifetime.

As soon as the stall door was rattled, Steve pulled it open, lunged for his opponent, and… grabbed the white shirt of a dark-skinned man with fearful wide eyes.

"Terrence! What the heck are you doing?"

"I'm s—sorry, Mr. Rogers, I didn't mean to alarm you," his fellow actor stammered, as Steve released his shirt and tried not to blush with embarrassment. "I saw you come in here and thought I could have a quick moment to talk to you without the usual circus around."

"Of course! I'm sorry, I thought you were— well, never mind about that. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Terrence stepped back to let Steve out of the stall, and did a quick check of his chest and his tux. The suit was a little worn around the elbows, but nice enough for a movie premier. Nicer than anything Steve owned. Anything that wasn't an army uniform, anyway.

"I think I'll live." He eyed Steve warily for a moment. "That's quite a grip you've got, Mr. Rogers."

"Yeah. I eat a lot of spinach," he said wryly. "But if you wanted to talk to me alone, you didn't need to follow me into the john, Terrence. You could'a just asked."

"Oh, I didn't want you to go to any trouble for me," Terrence replied. He gave Steve a small, grateful smile. "I just wanted to say thank you. For what you did, during shooting. Thanks to you, my kids get to see a black guy do something other than carry a white man's bags. I can't tell you how much that means to me."

Steve nodded. The final day of shooting had been a difficult time for the Howling Commandos. Captured by Nazis, they'd been suspended above vats of bubbling acid in some German laboratory, only moments away from being dipped to death. Captain America was kept distracted by a horde of Nazi guards, and unable to come to their rescue. Originally, one of the Commandos was supposed to break free of his restraints, climb to safety, engage in fisticuffs with the Nazi in control of the dipping lever, and save the rest of the Commandos whilst Steve took out the heavily armed guards to allow for their escape.

The producer had hated it. "I ain't never produced a movie with a weak deus ex in it, and I ain't about to start now," he'd said. "Find some other way of saving those men."

The director and three writers had pored over it whilst the rest of the team broke for lunch. After three or four sandwiches—his increased metabolic rate meant he had to eat a lot more than an average guy—Steve had approached them with his own suggestion: why not have George, Captain America's Negro bag-carrier, join in the fight, to free up Captain America and allow him to save the Commandos?

The director had not liked that idea. He didn't like black actors. There was no George in the comics, but Senator Brandt had told Demarci that the sheer number of blacks volunteering for the USO warranted some form of official recognition. The writers had come up with George; the guy who carried the Commandos' weapons and ammo when they weren't being used.

To Steve, using George made sense. He was in the scene anyway, throwing a new clip of ammo to Captain America but otherwise standing around doing nothing while the fighting went on. It seemed logical, to Steve, that any guy in that situation wouldn't just be content with supplying weapons, but would also want to use them to help. Instead of having George inexplicably standing around doing nothing until Captain America's rifle needed a reload, why not have him shooting at the Nazis, too?

The suggestion had very nearly caused the director and two of the three writers to walk. The more they insisted that a black guy couldn't fight the same way as a white guy, the more adamant Steve became that it happen. It wasn't just the fighting the director took umbrage to… it was the implication that white soldiers needed a black guy to save them. That a Negro might save the day. He never said it in as many words, but he didn't have to. Steve understood perfectly. Nobody wanted the underdog to come out on top. Nobody wanted a black guy to act heroically, just like nobody wanted a scrawny kid to keep standing up to bullies. At that moment, Steve had seen the director as a bully. And he'd stood up to him.

Before the situation could become any more heated, Demarci had come up with a compromise. Steve was starting to learn that Demarci was very good at compromising. He was a natural mediator; probably due to all that time he spent around politicians. Demarci had suggested that, sure, maybe George could help. He could pick up a weapon and shoot at Nazis. He could free up Captain America to save the Commandos. But maybe it wasn't due to skill; maybe it was due to luck. Maybe they should show George afraid, barely able to control the weapon he was firing, hitting Nazis in a wild, almost comical, spray of bullets and missing Captain America by some act of divine providence.

The producer had liked that idea. It gave a nod of recognition to the blacks, meant a white guy could save the day, and implied that God himself was watching over the heroes, keeping the bullets away from Captain America.

To Steve, it seemed a horrible compromise. It reduced the character of George to comic relief. Made him look incompetent and foolish. But the director, realising he was possibly going to lose his star if he didn't compromise, had accepted the suggestion. And Terrence seemed thrilled to be given a piece of the action, even if he had to pretend to be something of a buffoon. So, Steve had said nothing. The show had gone on.

Small victories, he told himself, as he looked at Terrence's grateful expression. Reaching out to lay a hand on the shorter man's shoulder, he said, "Every Dad deserves the chance to be a hero to his kids."

"You sound like you speak from experience. Do you have kids of your own?"

He fought back a laugh, and shook his head. "No. Just the experience of wishing I'd had the opportunity to meet my own dad. He was a genuine hero, but he died in the war, before I was born. I grew up hearing stories of him, but no amount of stories could make up for even five minutes of being with him. It's something too many people take for granted."

"Ahh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to open up old wounds," said Terrence. "I can't thank you enough, for giving me this chance to be a hero to my kids." A wide grin, full of pearly white teeth, split his face in two. "And who knows, maybe in the next movie, they'll even let me speak!"

"Maybe we can work up to speaking," Steve said, unable to help the smile that tugged at his lips. "Maybe next movie, we can have you get punched, and give a pained grunt."

"Now you're thinking like a director!" Terrence chuckled. "Say, you probably don't remember this, but I brought my kids to see you, at your last USO show."

The memory of a dark-skinned girl in a purple flower dress, and a young boy gripping a Captain America magazine, flitted across his mind, widening his smile.

"I remember."

"You do?"

Steve nodded. "Your daughter wore a dress with purple flowers on it, and your son was carrying one of the Captain America comic books. For signing?"

"Yeah. That's some memory you've got there. But… why didn't you say anything before now, if you saw us at the show?"

"I wasn't sure you wanted me to say anything. I mean, I could'a just come out with, 'Hey, I saw you at my show last week,' but that sounded kinda awkward. I've never really been good at public speaking… I have a habit of putting my foot in my mouth when I don't have cue cards to follow. And it's a pretty big foot."

"That it is," Terrence agreed. "I appreciate you noticing my kids, though. Not many people would."

"Why didn't you come up for an autograph?"

"We tried. Crowd was a little large, and it started getting towards Jacob's bed time…" Terrence shrugged, as if it was of no consequence. "But now they'll get to see their papa on the big screen with Captain America himself."

An idea started to form in Steve's mind, like a buttercup opening its petals to the sun. "Which school do they go to?"

"Westbrook. That's in Watts."

"Tell you what, why don't I go there tomorrow and meet the kids, and sign that comic book of your son's?"

Terrence stared at him for a moment. "You would do that? I mean… you can do that?"

"Sure. I mean, I guess so. My schedule's free." And Angelo was always encouraging him to get more on board with the PR stuff. Captain America turning up at a school sounded like great PR. "I like kids. They're honest," he added. Sometimes, cruelly so.

"Gee. That'd be great, Mr. Rogers. You'd make a whole school full of kids real happy."

"Terrence, I've told you a dozen times that you can call me Steve."

"Right, Mr. R— Steve," he amended, under Steve's withering stare.

"Are you coming out to the Velvet Lounge now?" he asked. He'd never been to the place, but a few of the 'Commandos' actors had agreed to meet up for celebratory—or commiserative—drinks after the premier. It sounded exotic. Lots of things sounded exotic in L.A. It was like a whole different culture, right there on the other side of the continent. New York would probably seem very grim, to Californians.

"Um, no. The Velvet Lounge is notoriously… select, about who they let in. Guys like me gotta be filthy rich or very famous to get a foot through the front door, and even then it's fifty-fifty over whether we get served once inside."

"It can't hurt to try, right?" He smiled as a memory of sitting in the back of an SSR car with Agent Carter came into his mind. "They can't keep closing doors in your face forever."

"I'm sure they can," Terrence scoffed. "And I don't wanna cause any trouble for anyone."

"Tell you what," Steve offered, "why don't we at least give the Velvet Lounge a try, and if we can't get you in, we'll go somewhere else."

"I can't ask you to do that, Mr. R— Steve." Terrence's eyes went wide with horror at the very idea.

"You're not asking. Besides, I wouldn't wanna drink in any club that doesn't let my friends in."

"Is everyone from New York as colourblind as you, Mr.— Steve?"

"Unfortunately not," he admitted. "I just know how it feels to have people judge you based on your appearance. I want to be better than that. And I think my dad would want me to be better than that."

"It sounds like your dad was a hell of a good man," Terrence said. A smile tugged at his dark lips. "Tell you what, why don't we head over to the Velvet Lounge and see if we can toast his memory?"

"That sounds like a great idea."

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

California was hot. It was a dry heat that brought a thin sheen of sweat to Steve's forehead as he walked down one of L.A.'s more affluent streets with Terrence beside him. He was doing things today that would have been impossible for the Steve Rogers of three months ago. Heck, just walking in the dry heat would've triggered his asthma. At least New York's summer heat had a sort of humid dampness to it. At least the sun wasn't quite so blistering.

"Got any other movies planned?" he asked, as they made their way to the Velvet Lounge.

Terrence shook his head. "People aren't exactly lining up to give parts to black guys. I take what I can, and to make ends meet, I do whatever other jobs come my way. In the past year I've been a bellhop, a janitor and a grocery bagger. I still bag groceries on a Tuesday. How about you? What'd you do, before becoming the nation's hero?"

"Artist," he said. And sometimes he missed it so much that he felt it as a physical ache inside his chest. He carried a pad of paper and a pencil around on tour, and he'd whiled away long hours doodling in the tour bus whilst miles upon miles of empty fields and open roads passed by, but it wasn't the same as having access to all of his equipment. "I did comics, newspapers, cartoons, book illustrations… even a bit of painting, when I got the chance."

"So how'd you make the transition from artist to actor?"

The image of a grey-haired face wearing wire-rimmed spectacles ran fleetingly before his eyes, bringing a smile to his lips. "I met a man who changed my life." And there was so much he had to thank Dr. Erskine for. Thanks to the man's desire to see his serum succeed, for the first time in his life, Steve could run a mile without having an asthma attack. Heck, for the first time in his life, he could run a mile. He was no longer as fragile as a glass cannon. His eyesight was perfect, and his co-ordination was seemingly super-human. The strength, the speed, the agility… they were nice. But they were a bonus. There was one thing, above all else, he wished he could say to Doctor Erskine right now.

Thank you for making me healthy.

Sure, the process had been agonisingly painful, but he'd come to realise that sometimes, you had to pay the price for freedom. Freedom was what he now had. His heart no longer lurched when he ran, no longer missed beats or fluttered in his chest. His blood pressure had dropped so much that it might actually be too low instead of too high. After a full day's physical work, he didn't get tired. He was finally getting to do all of the things that his friends had been doing all their lives.

The image of the grey-haired face was replaced by a pair of deep brown eyes and full red lips on an alabaster face.

Well, almost all the things that his friends had been doing all their lives.

He was still hopeless with women.

"Here we are. The Velvet Lounge," said Terrence, gesturing at the building in front of them. It was a tall, neon-lit building that would not have looked out of place if it was picked up and dumped in the middle of Time Square. There was a bouncer on the door, and he kept a deceptively vigilant watch from beneath the purple awning. The guy was almost as tall and broad as Steve.

"Guess there's no time like the present," Steve said. Nightclubs had never been his thing. Music halls, Broadway shows, sure, but nightclubs had a seedier reputation. Heavy gambling was just one of the vices they allegedly peddled, and though he knew a few guys from his old job who regularly went to rub shoulders and throw dice with some of Brooklyn's more infamous characters, Steve himself had done his best to avoid that sort of activity. The most gambling he ever did was a friendly game of poker every now and then with Bucky and a few old friends from their school days.

The bouncer's eyes lingered momentarily over Steve's uniform as he approached the door, but the beefy guy made no move to stop him entering. When he saw Terrence, however, he stepped forward and lifted one hand to bar his way.

"I'm sorry, but you're not on our guest list."

"How do you know he's not on the guest list?" Steve asked, before Terrence could capitulate. "You didn't even ask his name."

The bouncer was completely unapologetic. "The manager of the Velvet Lounge has set very specific entry criteria for patrons of the establishment. When… notable persons… are due to attend, I get their name on a list. Tonight, I have no list."

"Steve, it's fine," said Terrence. "It was a long shot anyway. You should go on in and have a good time with the guys. They can't celebrate properly without the star of the show."

"Baloney," Steve scoffed. "They're probably halfway to completely sauced already. But that's not the point." He turned back to the bouncer, squaring up to the man. "Can't you make an exception for my friend? He's not some stranger, or a trouble-maker; he's with me."

"And you are..?"

"I'm—" Captain America. The nation's hero. The Star-Spangled man with a plan. The fella who socks Hitler square in the jaw three times a day whilst the USO show's on. The little guy from Brooklyn. "—nobody."

A smug grin flitted across the bouncer's face. "That's what I thought. Now, you and your friend best be leaving. If you want to make an issue out of this, I'll have to call management."

"Oh dear!" exclaimed a sultry, feminine voice. Steve found a slender arm swiftly looped around his own, so that he seemed to be escorting the woman who'd blindsided him. "I do hope you're not turning my guests away. That really would be a shame."

Steve felt a flush begin to creep up his neck even before he looked down at the flawless pale skin, pouting rouge lips and golden-red cascading curls of Rita Hayworth. The warm flush suddenly became a heck of a lot hotter.

Rita Hayworth!

Was he dreaming? He must be dreaming. Only… this wasn't his dream: it was Bucky's. He hadn't even met Rita Hayworth before, unless you counted that day when he'd accidentally been on her set. But he'd raced off long before the cameras started rolling. Moments before Rita had shown up.

"You know the rules, Miss Hayworth," the bouncer said. Only now, he looked a lot less certain. For a brief moment, Steve pitied the guy. He was probably just doing his job. His boss said keep Negroes out, so that was what he did. Otherwise he didn't have a job anymore. He probably hadn't been expecting Rita Hayworth to show up and throw a spanner into the carefully turning cogs of the white man's machine.

"I always thought rules were made to be broken," she winked at the bouncer.

Steve held his breath. Whatever perfume she was wearing was tickling his nose something awful. Any minute now, he was gonna sneeze. He could feel it building inside his chest. Idiot. You can't sneeze all over Rita Hayworth. Hold it in! Rita carried on, oblivious to his inner monologue.

"Ah well, if you're not gonna let my friends in, I guess we'll have to go elsewhere," she sighed. "You'll be a doll and tell my photographer, Tony, that we've gone across town to Ambrosia, won't you? He's at the bar, waiting with our drinks. Such a shame. He was going to take some pictures for Vogue magazine, and the lighting in the Velvet Lounge is so much better for my complexion than the lighting in Ambrosia. But a girl simply can't do without her entourage, you know."

Steve could see the war being fought in the bouncer's mind. Let a black guy in the club versus Lose Rita Hayworth's custom and a photo shoot for Vogue. In the end, Rita won. Steve suspected there were very few battles Rita didn't win. Heck, maybe they should send her to mediate in Germany; she seemed to be even better than Angelo Demarci.

"Very well, Miss Hayworth," the bouncer said, defeated. "You and your entourage are, as always, very welcome here. Perhaps there was some error with the list of notable persons tonight."

Rita stepped forward, and with her arm still wrapped around his, Steve was forced to step with her. From the corner of his eye, he saw Terrence follow, seemingly torn between wanting to stick as close to Steve possible, and not wanting to get too close to Rita, lest somebody find that offensive. When they reached the cloakroom, an attendant dashed out to take the fur stole around Rita's shoulders. How she managed to wear the heavy thing in the blistering heat was beyond Steve's understanding. She wasn't even sweating!

Devoid of her stole, she turned to Steve and looked up at him. He'd always imagined her to be tall, but compared to his new height, she was actually quite petite.

"Miss Hayworth, thank you for what you did back there," he said. He didn't care for getting into the Velvet Lounge himself, but he felt bad for Terrence. Being refused entry because your skin wasn't the 'right' colour had to be disheartening.

"Don't mention it," she said, as she brushed a few specks of dry Californian dust from the lapel of his olive drab jacket. "So, Mr. Rogers, I believe you and I very nearly filmed an intimate scene together, a few days ago."

"Oh. That. Yes. I'm sorry. I'm kinda new to making movies, and I didn't realise I was on the wrong set. I hope I didn't cause any problems for you or your film crew."

She smiled, displaying a row of dazzling white teeth. "I'm actually a little disappointed you didn't stay longer. You'd be a much more handsome co-star than my current one. Have you done many kissing scenes before?"

"Um, no." He felt that damn hot flush creep up his neck again. Why did his skin always betray him at the worst possible moments? "I don't think I'd be very good at the… umm… romantic movies," he said. Was 'romantic movies' the correct term? Was there a better word for movies that didn't involve fighting Nazis? God, he was hopeless at this! "I'm a little out of practise."

Rita gave a soft chuckle. "How refreshing, to find a humble man in Hollywood. Tell me, Mr. Rogers; does Captain America have a lady-friend?"

"Oh. I… Um…" He floundered. He floundered so bad that he felt like he was mired in quicksand, slowly being sucked down by the weight of his own bumbling idiocy. What would Bucky do? Probably sweep her off her feet and kiss her. But Steve couldn't do that. For some reason, his head was often filled with thoughts of Agent Carter. Which was ridiculous, because Agent Carter had been nothing but courteous and professional with him. She smiled at you, and the other recruits saw it too, said a tiny voice inside his head. Think of Agent Carter. Pretend Rita Hayworth is just some dame. Like Mary-Ann, or Janet. Someone more like a sister than a real woman.

That helped. He could talk to Mary-Ann like he couldn't talk to most girls, and it was even easier now that she didn't have a crush on him anymore. She's grown out of that a couple of years ago. Probably got tired of waiting for him to see her as something more than his best friend's sister. He couldn't blame her. And now, he could think of Rita being like Mary-Ann. A friend. Just a friend.

"Captain America is currently very busy battling Nazis in the name of freedom," he told her. "I'm afraid he doesn't have very much time for the finer things in life." A flicker of an image, pale skin and deep brown eyes, jumped up into his mind. He quickly pushed it away.

"Well, perhaps I'll have my agent call your agent and see if we could maybe arrange something for one of your movies," she said. "I quite like the idea of being Captain America's best girl. He could perhaps rescue me from the clutches of Hitler."

Agent Carter wouldn't need to be rescued.

"That would be nice," he smiled.

"Us USO stars have to stick together," she said with a wink.

For the second time that night, Rita Hayworth surprised him. "You're with the USO?"

"Sure am. Signed up to do a tour for the boys on the front lines. My agent says I'll be going real soon. Maybe I'll see you out there, Captain."

"Yeah. Maybe."

She stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, then gave a little wave as she left to find her own people. For a brief moment, Steve went dizzy and light-headed—but not because of the kiss. When the dizziness wore off, he let out a groan and ran his hand through his hair.

"At this rate, Rita Hayworth is gonna make it to the front lines before I do!"

Terrence stepped forward. He seemed to consider it safe to speak, now that nobody truly famous was around. "No offence, Steve, but what does a nice guy like you wanna go to the front lines for? From what I hear, things out there aren't pleasant. The things they'll make you do, the things you'll see, it changes a man. You might not come back the same nice guy as you left."

"That only makes it all the more important that I get to go. My best friend's out there right now, fighting for all of us, probably living in deprivation, in constant fear for his life. And I'm here, making movies and selling bonds." His best friend was a nice guy. One of the best. And Steve didn't want his friend to come back a broken shell of a man. He wanted Bucky back as he had been; a smile on his face, and a carefree stubbornness in his heart.

Sometimes, when he lay in bed at night—whether that was a hotel bed while making movies, or a camp bed whilst on the road with the USO tour—he tried to imagine the sorts of things his friend might be doing. He scoured the newspapers for any mention of the war. He wrote Bucky's folks often, telling them of his adventures on the road, but asking them to keep his… transformation… out of any letters they might be sending to their son. He wanted to tell Bucky for himself. See the surprise on his friend's face. But first, he had to get to Bucky.

He simply didn't know where his friend was. All he knew was that Bucky had gone to England. From there, he could have gone anywhere. When the nights were darkest, when rain poured down the side of the tour bus, and the heat of so many people breathing fogged the windows so bad that he could barely even see the rivulets of water on the glass, he imagined his friend in some dank, filthy trench, cowering from German shells, waiting for a chance to shoot back or withdraw. Eating food that came out of packets and was hard to chew and tasted bland. Drinking water that was more mud than not. Constantly cold, always afraid that any moment might be his last. Clutching his gas mask close, for fear of mustard.

On the better days, when the crickets were chirruping and the warm night air reminded him of home, he liked to imagine that Bucky was still in England. Still waiting to be officially deployed to the front lines. Living the easy life in some temporary encampment. Getting a pass down to London every weekend, so that he could buy trinkets and souvenirs for his family back home. So that he could go to the bars and drink beer and dance with dames.

Reality, he suspected, fell somewhere between the two. Either way, Bucky was out there. Living, fighting, struggling, killing, changing. It was Steve's most frequent nightmare; that he would get to the front lines, and find Bucky had changed so much that Steve didn't recognise the man he had become.

"I can't believe Rita Hayworth wants to be in one of your movies!" said Terrence, interrupting Steve's thoughts of finding some stranger-Bucky living in his friend's body. "That would be amazing."

"She must've liked the Howling Commandos movie," Steve mused.

Terrence gave him one of those grins. The type Bucky had given him, whenever he'd 'found' a girl for Steve. "I don't think she saw the movie, Steve."

"Oh."

"Come on," Terrence chuckled. He gave Steve a friendly clap on the shoulder. "Let's go find those co-stars of ours."

They stepped into the lounge to the soft sound of a trio of piano, bass and drums. The music was low, relaxing, a soft balm to soothe away the day's troubles. A smoky blue haze drifted and swirled around the ceiling, dancing to the puff of cigarettes and cigars of the chain-smoking clientele, while on the dance floor a few couples shuffled slowly to the sedate tune.

It wasn't hard to find their co-stars. The movie's success meant they were celebrating. Loudly. And they were definitely already halfway to being sauced. Their corner of the venue was filled with laughs and cheers and loud brags of their on-stage exploits. Was this what real soldiers were like? Was Bucky in with a rowdy bunch of guys who sat around showboating and bragging about how their mission had gone down? Steve itched to get out there to find out.

Their presence in the Velvet Lounge was met with some surprise. Adam Jackson, the guy who played Captain America's right-hand man in the Howling Commandos, waved to Steve with a smile which promptly slid from his face when he saw who was behind his large frame.

"Terrence? How the hell did you get in here?"

Right then, Steve suspected Adam had picked this place simply because he knew Terrence wouldn't get in. Before the changes to the script, Adam's character was the one who'd been meant to escape his bonds and free the rest of the Commandos. He was still smarting over being rescued by George.

"A friend of Mr. Rogers' put in a good word for me," Terrence grinned, taking extreme artistic license with the truth.

"Well," another actor, Stewie Saucer, spoke up, "grab yourselves a waitress and a cocktail and join the celebration! It's about time we toasted our star."

They all moved up so that Steve and Terrence could slide onto the plush seat. Steve found himself wedged tightly between Stewie and Terrence. He tried to hold his breath, to make himself smaller. There was no doubt about it; he body was simply too big now.

He had no idea what was involved in cocktails, so he gave a 'ditto' on what Terrence ordered, and ended up with some sort of orange and peach fruit punch. It was nice, but if there was alcohol in it, Steve couldn't taste it. He would've preferred a beer, but judging by the drinks on the tables around him, this place probably didn't serve beer.

"Hey, Steve," said Adam, once they were all settled. "Perhaps you can enlighten us on a matter."

"I'll try," Steve nodded.

"When you're on those USO stages, and you're lifting that motorbike with the girls on it… how the heck do you pull that off? I mean, no man is that strong."

The group fell silent, a half-dozen faces watching him. He suspected this had been a topic of conversation before he arrived. They probably had bets riding on it. For one brief instant, Steve considered telling them the truth. But they wouldn't believe him. Who would? He'd have to demonstrate. Pick up a table with a couple of waitresses on it. Pretty soon they'd have him picking up everything they came across, just to see that he could. And Steve Rogers would be back to being a performing dog, even without the stage to perform on. That wasn't what he'd signed up for. That wasn't why he'd requested anonymity.

"The truth is…" he said, "…the bike's on wires. A couple of guys work a winch above the stage to lift it."

Adam slapped the table and grinned. "See? I told you. Couldn't be real. Everything on stage is fake, whether it's a movie, or a USO tour, or a magician pulling coneys from his hat. Cough up, you lot."

The rest of the group grumbled as they forked out a dollar, and a pang of regret stabbed Steve right in the gut. He didn't like lying to people, but he liked even less that he'd let them down. They really had believed that Steve was lifting that bike all on his own, and he'd just dashed that belief. Maybe one day, he could tell them the truth. Maybe one day, he'd make it to the front lines, and be allowed to fight in the war. And on that day, there would be nothing at all that was fake about Steven Grant Rogers.

Author's Note: During the Second Great Migration, in the early 1940s, Watts became heavily populated by black migrant workers looking to contribute to the war effort and seek better employment opportunities. Westbrook school is fictitious; to the best of my knowledge, no such school exists in Watts. For more information about the Second Great Migration, or Watts, please refer to your friendly neighbourhood Wikipedia.