Chapter 4 - June 14, 1943
*Thanks to everyone who's been reading and following so far. I consider you all my Valentines - and hope you enjoy this belated V-Day gift.
Captain America belongs to many people - and none of them are me.
Dust motes danced in the flickering light of the projector. On the screen, images of bombed-out buildings and marching troops stood out in stark black and white, backed by the narrator's crisp diction.
"War continues to ravage Europe...but help is on the way. Every able-bodied young man is lining up to serve his country."
And one slightly less able-bodied young woman. Stevie thought with a sigh. Just that morning she had been rejected from the Army Nurse Corps - her fifth rejection, after the WAVEs, the WAACs, the WASPs and the SPARs. She had applied for each under a different name, in hope they wouldn't realize what she was doing, but there was no hiding the asthma, the glasses and the myriad other problems that disqualified her from military service.
The war effort has no use for a semi-invalid with astigmatism. Big surprise there.
"Even little Timmy is doing his part, collecting scrap metal." On the screen, a gap-toothed youngster in a smaller version of a soldier's cap scrambled around a junkyard with a pack of other boys. He held up a bicycle wheel triumphantly. "Nice work, Timmy!"
Well, there's an option.
"Who cares! Play the movie already," someone called out from in front of her. Stevie looked around for the source of the voice. Just two rows ahead, a man slouched in his seat, smiling as if he had done something witty and eating popcorn with his mouth open. What a troglodyte. Stevie leaned forward.
"Hey," she said softly. "Want to show some respect?" I mean, people are only dying over there for you.
The narrator continued, unperturbed. "Meanwhile, overseas, our brave boys are showing the Axis powers that the price of freedom is never too high."
The troglodyte appeared not to have heard Stevie. "Let's go, get on with it!" He yelled at the screen. "Just start the cartoon!" Clearly, a more forceful approach was required.
"Hey," Stevie yelled in his direction. "You want to shut up?" He turned around angrily, but, seeing that the person calling him out was a five foot tall girl with coke-bottle glasses, he laughed.
"Why don't you make me, sweetheart?" He said, with a dismissive snort.
"Okay", said Stevie, and, standing, she tossed the full contents of her popcorn bucket directly into his stupid face.
The manager of the theater had been a sergeant major in the 2nd Durham Light Infantry in the Great War, and, though not young, was still quite capable of hauling two protesting customers out into the alley when necessary - sending them off with a warning not to return to the theater until they could be "civil." Stevie was tempted to kick a trashcan on her way out, but knew from experience that would hurt her more than anyone else.
When she got to the mouth of the alley, Bucky was waiting for her. "Sometimes I think you just like causing trouble," he said, shaking his head. He wore a brown army uniform, khaki shirt and tie, a brown cap with a gold eagle pin tilted rakishly over one eye. She had never seen him in uniform before. He looked like he had sprung from recruitment poster, handsome and polished with a confident grin. All that was missing was an American flag and a catchy slogan.
"I'll have you know, I was completely justified," she replied. "What are you doing here?" Bucky had been training for the past eight weeks at Madison Barracks upstate.
"Ma said you were watching The Phantom. Thought I could catch the end, but I guess that won't be happening."
"No, I mean, what are you doing here, so soon. You get your orders?"
Bucky nodded and held out his arms as if presenting himself onstage. "Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th. Shipping out for England first thing tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Stevie felt a hard lump at the base of her throat. "That's...sudden." She had known this was coming ever since Bucky enlisted, but somehow it was still a shock. Now her old friend was a sergeant, he had a uniform, and in a few weeks he would be one in a line of soldiers march, march, marching off into God knew what. Marching off without her.
"Come on, Pigeon. Don't look so glum!" he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. He was bulkier now, too, she found, with new muscles from the endless push ups and drills he wrote home about. "It's my last night, so we're gonna get you dressed up and go out on the town." He steered her down the street.
"Where are we going?" Stevie asked. Bucky, obviously ready for the question, handed her a pamphlet that proclaimed World Expo! in bold block lettering over a picture of a metal globe.
"The future!" said Bucky grandly, "And I got you a date."
Stevie hated going on dates. Specifically, she hated the look guys gave her when they realized she was the date that famous ladies' man Bucky Barnes had set them up with. Sure, the guys Bucky found for her always said they really wanted an intelligent girl with an artistic soul who could talk about serious issues - but the unspoken addition was "and who also has a figure like Dorothy Lamour."
"What'd you tell him about me?" Stevie asked Bucky warily as they approached the crowded expo center. She was wearing makeup and a second hand gingham dress that Bucky's mother had taken in for her, all of which made her feel like she was pretending to be someone else - someone who didn't have passionate arguments about the virtues of the tower shield versus the kite shield in a combat situation.
"Only the good stuff," Bucky said, which was not very reassuring, in Stevie's opinion. He had acquired his date, a cheerful brunette with a sweet, heart-shaped face and big brown eyes. She hung on his arm, as if she had known him far longer than a few hours.
"And there he is. Bill!" Bucky waved to a young man standing at the base of a lamp post. If Bucky looked like a recruitment poster in his uniform, Bill looked more like a caricature in his - skinny, young, rumpled, and a bit daffy-looking, with an unsuccessful blond mustache.
Here it comes, thought Stevie as Bill looked first at Bucky's date, and then at her. It was almost comical, how his expression fell. She met his look of disappointment with a wry smile. You aren't exactly Gary Cooper yourself, buddy.
If Bill was a disappointment, the fairgrounds and the Modern Marvels Pavilion was anything but. A train, somehow suspended below an elevated rail, curved dramatically around a giant, metal globe. Spotlights streamed up into the sky from futuristic buildings that looked like they came straight from the pages of Astounding Science Fiction Monthly. Inside the pavilion, Stevie walked behind Bill and Bucky and Bucky's date, gawking at three-dimensional cross sections of the earth, mannequins in space suits, and a giant tank holding a scale model of an underwater city. The difference between the pavilion and that afternoon's filmstrip, with its images of European monuments reduced to rubble, was jarring. The future and the present. Hope and fear.
Bucky's date was pulling him forward towards a stage where a sleek, red sportscar stood, decoratively surrounded by women in chorus-girl attire - sparkly tuxedo tops and tights.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said one of the tuxedo girls into a large microphone, "The mind behind the Expo, the world-renowned inventor - Mr. Howard Stark!"
Bucky's date squealed and clapped as Mr. Stark strode on stage, a suave man in a sharp suit, with oiled black hair, a pencil mustache and the swagger of a man who had gotten everything he wanted for most of his life. Before taking the microphone from his chorus girl announcer, he gave her a kiss on the lips that almost dislodged her top hat. Stevie rolled her eyes. She had precisely zero desire to see Howard Stark showboating.
"I'm going to get some Cracker Jack," she said to Bill, who had been doing his best to ignore her since they met. "Want any?" His eyes were still glued to Bucky's date. "Good."
Stevie had noticed the recruitment station on the way in, and now she stood in front of it, wondering if, in her case, the sixth time would be the charm. On the men's side, there was a special, full length poster of a uniformed soldier without a face. Thanks to a trick of mirrors and lighting, a man who stood in front of it would see his own face beaming out from under the helmet. By the smaller, women's entrance, there was a poster of a smiling woman in uniform, carrying a pack.
This is my war, too, the poster said.
"Damn right," Stevie muttered, and strode into the lobby. She introduced herself to the woman at the reception table, only to turn around and find Bucky behind her. Good grief, that was fast. Did he have eyes in the back of his head or something?
"Kind of missing the point of a double date," he said. "We were going to go dancing."
"You go ahead," said Stevie. "I'll catch up with you."
"You really gonna do this again?" he asked.
"Well, it is a fair," said Stevie lightly. "I thought I'd try my luck."
"With who? As who?" said Bucky, "You've tried literally everywhere." He pulled her away from the reception desk and lowered his voice. "Ma told me you went to your last appointment as 'Jane from Ohio.' That's illegal, Stevie. They could catch you. Or worse, they could take you."
"Look, I know you're worried," said Stevie. "But it's not like I'd be on the front lines! I know I can't fight, I just want to help."
"Then help here."
"Doing what? Collecting scrap metal? Knitting socks?" Stevie had forgotten about being quiet. The receptionist was openly staring, as was a short, balding man in a white coat, probably one of the doctors. "There are men laying down their lives over there. If I can't do that, then I have to do the best I can to help them. And that isn't sitting in a factory, Bucky. I know I can do more."
Normally, at this point, he would argue, but instead he looked at her with a wistful smile that struck Stevie speechless. "You've got nothing to prove," he said.
"Hey, Barnes," Bucky's date was waiting on the stairs. "Are we going dancing?"
"Yes, we are," he called back. "Sure you're not coming?" He asked Stevie.
She shook her head. "Should we see you off at the station tomorrow?"
"I hate big goodbyes," Bucky said. "Don't do anything stupid until I get back, okay?"
"How can I?" Stevie said sweetly. "You're taking all the stupid with you."
Bucky ruffled her hair. "Pigeon."
She swatted his hand. "You're such a jerk," she said, and he folded her into a sudden hug.
"Write me, okay?" He said. Stevie heard something beneath the words. Something like worry, like tension, like the beginning of fear. That couldn't be right. Bucky wasn't afraid of anything.
"Of course."
And then he stepped away from her, all smiles and charm again. "Come on Liz," he said, holding out an arm to the girl on the stairs. "They're playing our song."
Stevie sat in one of the exam areas, behind a white curtain. She had been waiting what seemed like an unusually long time, which worried her. What had the receptionist overheard? Did they know about Jane from Ohio? She was debating whether to just slip out the back when the curtain opened, admitting the same short, balding man she had seen in the lobby, carrying a file and a dog-eared notebook. His fringe of graying hair stood out from his head like dandelion fluff and his chin bore several days growth of salt-and-pepper beard.
"So," he said brusquely. "You want to join the Women's Reserve." He had a clipped, Teutonic accent. Was he…German? It seemed rude to ask.
"Yes, I do," she said, and tried to sit up straighter so she wouldn't look so short. The doctor peered at her intently through a pair of spectacles almost as thick as her own.
"I am Doctor Abraham Erskine. I represent Strategic Scientific Research," he said. Stevie had never heard of it. "And I am German. Does this trouble you?"
She shook her head. "I'm Stephanie Rogers," she said.
"Are you?" He opened the file he was carrying and began flipping through pages. "Or is it Jane from Ohio? Or Mary from New Haven? Five exams under five different names."
Damn. "Um…" Stevie said, "That might not be the right file…"
Dr. Erskine directed a sharp look at Stevie. "It's not the exams I'm interested in. It's the five tries."
What does that mean? Stevie thought. She was finding it hard to tell whether or not she was in trouble.
"So, back to the Women's Reserve," he continued. "You want excitement, adventure, maybe a little romance, yes? To prove yourself, and be able to write impressive letters back to friends and family at home? Who knows, you might even get to kill a Nazi." He said that as if it were a treat, or a prize she could win.
"What? No!" Stevie felt like she had been insulted. The doctor was watching her from behind his spectacles, waiting to see what she would say, what she would do.
"Is this some kind of test?" She asked.
"Yes," the doctor said flatly.
"I'm not in it for excitement, or...romance. God, no. And I definitely don't want to...to kill anybody," Stevie paused to think. If this was a test, she was going to tell him the unvarnished truth and hope it was enough. "I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from. I just want to do my bit. I want to help."
Dr. Erskine studied her for a long moment, and then he smiled.
"Well," he said. "There are already so many big men fighting this war. Maybe what we need now is a small girl."
"Huh?" That was just about the last response Stevie had expected.
Dr. Erskine was filling out a form. "I can offer you a chance," he said. "Only a chance."
"I'll take it," Stevie said immediately.
"Good," the doctor gave her the form. It was stamped 1-A. Fit for duty.
Notes: Here we are - in the movie timeline! What exciting stuff is on the way!
My sister, a German scholar (who goes by Hey Gal on the Something Awful forums - check her out), informed me that Erskine is not a German name, and dangit, she's right! It's Scottish. So now, in my mind, Erskine's grandfather was Scottish.
Also, as the story proceeds, you may wonder how I know what dates things are happening. The awesome Marvel Cinematic Universe Timeline is the answer! And a great resource for all writers of MCU fanfiction. It's over at the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki.