Chapter Text
Project Rebirth
Key Components:
- Super Soldier Serum (Erskine serum A-002 Alpha variant): ██ units
- Stark Type 40 Vita-Ray Chamber (patent pending) capable of ███ gr vita-radiation
- Note: Initial dosage ██ gr required to initiate absorption
- Sustain maximum dosage of ███ gr for ██ seconds (Or until we black out the grid - Howard)
- A Good Man
These are the components necessary to create a Super Soldier.
*****
It was easy enough on paper. Abe already had his fancy serum all whipped up, the plans he’d smuggled during his exodus from the Fatherland were simple to replicate -- with a few patented Stark upgrades slipped in, of course. He’d already done the hard part for me by perfecting the serum. Using the vastly inferior German design as a base, I was able to create the new and improved Stark Industries Vita-Ray Chamber (patent pending). Hell, he’d even offered to locate a test subject, which I graciously took him up on.
Good thing too. Erskine’s stipulation for a suitable subject was that he must be a ‘Good Man’. Vague. Non-specific. Irritatingly open to interpretation. Believe me, I’d tried to squeeze clarification out of the man. But it turns out, even I couldn’t get blood from this particularly stubborn rock.
“What do you mean, ‘what is a good man’?” He shot me a questioning look as we moved through the over-sterilized hallways, our shoes tapping out a disjointed rhythm that echoed off the walls. “It is exactly as I requested -- a good man .”
“You can’t just clarify a term by repeating the term , Abe.” I admit, my tone was a bit short. But I had my right, damn it. “It’s like I don’t speak the language, so you just repeat the question louder. It doesn’t work that way.” Erskine chuckled in response and I felt my back begin to tense.
“Abe,” I said, reaching for his elbow to slow him. “What makes a Good Man?”
“Ah, that is the age old question, isn’t it?” Abraham paused thoughtfully, as if we were philosophizing over drinks in some burlesque he’d likely never approve of. “What is the measure of the common man?”
“Yes, that is precisely what I’m asking you.” I heard the bite in my own voice, snarled out through clenched teeth, and forced myself to take a breath. I’m a Man of Science, a man of answers. If I come across an unknown, you’ll be damn right I’ll gnaw on it 'til I know it inside and out. And now I’ve been presented with a question and this smug bastard has the answer but he won’t just give it up. Instead, he dangles it over my head and had the audacity to look amused. He smiled at me with those warm brown eyes, and frankly I’d kiss him if I didn’t want to punch him so damn bad.
Abe looked away, still smiling faintly as he finally, finally considered my question seriously. “Well. I suppose it’s a man of courage. Of great inner strength. Strong spirit. Strong heart.”
“Ah Doc, you’re killing me here,” I wail and he laughed again. “That’s subjective!”
“It is,” he agreed.
“You can’t measure a strength of character -- what did you have a test?”
“Of sorts,” he conceded.
“Well let me see it then.”
Shaking his head at me, he smiled again and once again I’m torn two ways. “It’s not the sort of test you can record on paper. The man I picked has a good heart.” Turning on his heel, he was walking and I had to jog a step or two to keep up.
“A good heart. There’s that term again. So, what? He’s a nice guy? You picked a nice guy?”
Again there was that laugh, and he shook his head. “Not necessarily.” I wait for him to elaborate. When he didn't, I level a Number Three scowl at him. But he wasn't not looking, so I had to make due with a heavy sigh instead.
“Fine then, keep your secrets. I guess I’ll find out for myself soon enough.” The door to our designated exam room was coming up, and the two MPs in their sharp olive drab snapped to crisp attention. I’d say I didn’t still get a little thrill of superiority every time, but then God’d strike me down for lying.
One of the MPs opened the door, and when Erskine shifted to step in before me, I let him. My mind was still turning over and over what to expect. In a way, I suppose I didn’t really want the mystery to be over yet. I hated it. But I loved it. I knew he’d chosen from a pool of soldiers, so I had a general idea of what to expect. Big, brawny and dumb. A ‘good man’ probably meant easy to boss around. Maybe on the naive side. There were so many tender young recruits from Podunk Nowhere, I was pretty sure whatever poor scrub he picked was just thrilled to be Special.
I’d just be thrilled if he survived. I was putting a lot of grease in a lot of palms in order to pull this little experiment off.
Erskine stepped aside and looked at me expectantly and I straightened, drew my shoulders back and prepared to have reality measured to my expectations. Would I be overwhelmed by some Adonis? A pristine slab of marble simply waiting for my -- our -- expert chisel? Or would I be underwhelmed by some gangly corn husker from the bowels of Indiana or somewhere equally ridiculous? I decided to set my barometer for ‘whelmed’ and took in the room.
Instead I was greeted with…nothing. This seemed to be the right room, but on the low metal table where my Good Man should be sitting was some runty teenager being tended to by a nurse. A buxom nurse, who gave me an immediate sensation of familiarity. I wondered for a moment just how intimate that familiarity really was, and when her lovely green eyes met mine, the flicker there gave me all the information I needed.
Well, not all of it. Her name escaped me, though to be honest, hers wasn’t the important one that particular evening, as it was my own from her lips that rang in my ears. No matter. This was I game I was very well versed in. All I had to do was stall a bit.
I strode forward and offered her -- Mary? -- one of my more charming smiles, ‘casually suave with a bit of mischief’ should do it. She turned to face me, her -- Margaret? -- lower lip jutting slightly in a pout that could use a bit more practice. I countered with a boyish smirk and a tilt of my head, slightly back and to the right.
“Well,” I said, metering the warmth in my voice. Friendly, but not too friendly. Enough to nullify any expectations of something serious while not slamming the door in the face of a second romp. “Aren’t you the most lovely surprise?” I asked, taking her proffered hand and bowing to kiss the back. My eye flit to the front of her blouse, but she wasn’t wearing a nametag. Funny, I thought that would be mandatory with such a high security lab. No matter, the view was quiet splendid nonetheless.
Maggie(?) didn’t giggle, but when she drew her hand away, it was with a gentle separation instead of a huffy jerk. I made a mental note to have Jarvis clear my schedule and make a reservation at La Casa di Antonio . I straightened and let my eyes slowly glide from her chest back up to her face. On second thought, maybe Anthony’s on 103rd would be more suitable.
“Thank you, Elizabeth,” Abe said, and Molly(?) nodded to him to take her leave.
Newly deprived of my distraction, I nodded to the kid on the table and looked back at Erskine. Abe was doing that thing I hate, that patient stare that told me I was somehow missing something important. I met his eyes. He looked purposefully towards the kid, then back at me. Confused, I let my eyes skim over the boy on the table. A cursory glance told me everything I needed to know.
Judging by his height and weight, I pegged him around fifteen, maybe a slender sixteen. Eyes were pale, most likely blue, probably watery. Blond hair laid across his forehead, both falling limp in places and sticking up rebelliously. He was skinny and small and frankly not worth a second glance.
“Hey kid, how’s it going.” I didn’t bother even pretending the greeting was genuine. My brow raised as I turned to Erskine again. “So what’s going on? Where’s the guy?”
“This is our ‘guy’. Howard Stark, this is Steve Rogers.”
The man on the table reached a hand out, likely to shake, but I felt my body pivot away as if it were a live snake. “Is this a joke?” I demanded of the doctor.
“You asked me to find a good man,” Abe said, as calm as ever. The hand was still held out, the kid didn’t have the social awareness to know when a moment had passed. Or maybe he was too dazzled at the realization that he was in the presence of greatness.
“ You demanded a ‘good man’. I demand a viable test subject.” I snapped back. Still that damnable hand remained.
“He is perfect.”
“He is malnourished.”
“He is right here and can hear you,” the young man said. His tone was harder than I expected, and when I glanced at him, I realized the eyes I had originally evaluated as watery were full of flame and fury. The hand wasn’t being held in some starstruck desperation to press palms with an idol, but stubborn defiance. Still...
“Shush,” I swatted his hand away finally and turned on Erskine. “Where did you even find him?”
“Howard,” Abe’s voice had that chiding tone. Fine. I turned my ire on the kid instead.
“Did he pick you up in a subway?” I asked, a hand on my hip, locking eyes with him. “Were you homeless? Did he bribe you with a sandwich and a hot meal, because you’d better make sure to cash in on that.”
Those intense blue eyes locked with mine, and I saw his jaw set stubbornly. Though he hadn’t moved, I felt as though I was being squared up against, as if suddenly we were toe to toe and nose to nose. Though in reality, I doubted he’d come up much past my chin. Well fine. If he wanted to fight, I’d be happy to oblige. I shifted my stance and set upon him my second most intimidating glare.
He didn’t flinch.
I’ve had military generals wither under a Number Two and to my intense alarm, this man didn’t even falter. He held my gaze as if he were some tool forged from foreign metal, designed with the express purpose to bend me. Well I wouldn’t be bent. I whirled on the easier target, ignoring the strange new tingling sensation in my chest.
“You said you were bringing me a soldier.”
“He is a soldier,” Erskine said calmly. The ghost of that damned smile made my own lip curl. Annoyed, I moved to the end of the table and snatched the clipboard off the tray, flipping through his writeup.
“This isn’t going to work,” I muttered. Asthma. Hypertension. Heart palpitations. Nervous trouble.
“He is perfect .”
“You know, you keep saying that…” I shook my head as I went through page after page, my frown deepening with every new line.
Abe moved over to the Rogers kid and rested a hand on his shoulder. “He has a good heart.”
“Yeah this paperwork tells another story.”
“He has a good soul ,” Erskine pushed.
“And that does me a fat lot of good if we can’t keep it tethered to his body.”
“Howard,” he finally said. “You asked me to find you a good man. And that is exactly what I did.”
“I should have been more specific,” I grumbled, reaching up to pinch the bridge of my nose against the sudden headache. “I should have been way more specific.”
“I need you to trust me…” Abraham’s voice was so soft. I knew his game. The louder I’d get, the softer he’d go. If I wanted my answers, I’d have to meet him on his level. I knew he was playing me. It still worked.
Dropping the clipboard to my side I sighed and turned. “Kid. I don’t know what he told you, but this isn’t a game.”
“I’m not a kid,” the kid replied. “And I know. I know what’s at stake and I’m not afraid.”
“Uh huh,” I rolled my eyes and tried a Number Two again. Again he didn’t flinch. Maybe I was losing my touch. “How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?”
“Twenty-five.”
I felt a cog slip in my brain and for a moment my thoughts stuttered. My evaluation was wrong? My evaluations are never wrong. I paused and skimmed him over again, more carefully this time. He was small, yes, but he wasn’t soft. The hands that rested on either side of his skinny thighs bore scarred knuckles, his forearms were mottled with fading bruises. The blue eyes that even now remained locked on mine were accented by a blush of fresh bruising along the top of his cheekbone and the bridge of his nose had a slight bend that made his entire face look subtly off-center. I may have perfected the art of fighting my battles from a distance, but I recognized the marks of a warrior. I’d just never seen them on such an audaciously small frame before.
“As for where he found me,” Steve said, still not averting his gaze like he was supposed to. “I was at the World Exposition of Tomorrow.” Oh no.
His lips, which until now I’d thought were permanently fixed into a frown, slowly curved into a distressing smile. “I liked your hovercar,” he said. Had I not known where this was going, had I not been at the Expo myself, I might even have taken him as sincere. “I think it’s real swell how the tires don’t need to touch the ground. Maybe with a few upgrades, the rest of the car won’t have to either.”
Erskine couldn’t resist a chuckle at my expense, shaking his head as he moved away from Rogers and the table. “He’s perfect .”
“He’s a jerk,” I decided, moving to join Abraham, arms defiantly crossed over my chest.
“Well you did antagonize him,” Abe said with a slight shrug.
Such a baseless and frankly insulting insinuation didn’t warrant a response. Together we glanced back at Rogers, whose sour expression seemed to have sweetened a little with his victory. Perceived victory.
I turned back to Abe and lowered my head a bit, dropping my voice. “You’re sure about this one then?”
“I have made my decision.” Erskine’s voice didn’t lower to match mine and I felt myself jarred slightly as he clapped me on the back. “I have paperwork to finish, I shall leave you two to get acquainted.”
Without waiting for my reply, he turned and took his leave. Then it was just me and Rogers. I couldn’t help but wonder what Erskine saw in this man. If there was some sort of ulterior motive from the German I had failed to take into account.
No , I immediately thought, shaking my head. People may hold a lot of assumptions about my friend, but one thing was always clear. Abe was one of the good ones. Still… I couldn’t be blamed for an errant thought like that. It’s not like baddies wear skulls on their hats or something.
I felt eyes on the back of my neck and wondered how much longer I could ignore him. The reality was, as much as I trusted Erskine, I wasn’t sure I trusted his decision on this. No. Scratch that. I absolutely didn’t trust his judgement here. Rogers was small. He was skinny and to list out all the things that made him unsuitable for Project Rebirth would wear out a pool of the best typing gals New York had to offer before we were even halfway done. Erskine was wrong. And he was setting this kid up to die.
No, not a kid , I reminded myself. He was only a year my junior, despite how he looked. Only a year separated the two of us and --
“Look, Mr Stark. I think we got off on the wrong foot.” I immediately bristled, but turned. To my surprise, that mouth I’d found so damn worrisome earlier was curled into a smile again. This time there was no malice behind it, no vindication. It was a little awkward, lopsided but with its own sort of scrawny charm. Like the rest of him, I supposed. “I’m Steve. It’s nice to meet you.”
Something churned in my guts. That hand was out again, his eyes hopeful. A vibrant blue that seemed to catch you like a bug in a glass. They were kind eyes, despite the fire I knew they were capable of. Trustworthy. I immediately turned away to go back to the charts, ignoring his hand.
“Look pal, if you survive this ordeal, I might learn your name. Until then, you’re just Test Subject Seventeen.”
I shot him a low-level scowl to drive the point home and saw something flicker in his eyes. The warmth didn’t vanish, but it did retreat inward. Fingers hesitantly closed into his palm and he lowered his hand to his thigh. I sighed, looking at the pages again. Erskine was wrong. He wasn’t the right man. He was just some poor skinny guy who’d somehow managed to charm his way into my lab. This wasn’t right. I had to do something to scare him off.
Dragging my eyes away from the depressing report, I glanced around the room for the tools to do so with. Luckily, the exam room was well stocked for such an occasion. “So. You got a family, kid?”
“I’m not a kid,” he repeated, but I was already moving to the cabinets, looking over my options. “And… No. Not really.”
“You’re trying to tell me you don’t have parents, Seventeen? I’ve heard near everyone gets at least one. Sometimes two.”
There was a long pause from behind me, and I could tell I hit a nerve before he spoke again. “No, um. No. Both died. My father in the war. Mustard gas. My mother was a nurse in a TB ward. Got hit, couldn’t shake it.” There was something rehearsed in the way he recited the means of their ends. A distance he put between himself and their deaths. I mentally dogeared that to return to later.
“Uh huh.” A nice thick syringe was resting in a drawer and I picked it up, making a show of checking the needle, holding the glass to the light. “Got a gal?”
If he was intimidated by the tool, I couldn’t hear it in his scoff. “Uh, nope.. No. No gal.”
“So you figure: no family, no wife, might as well go to war and try your chances there.” No family. No next of kin. No one to sue if this went south. And I had a suspicion that this whole ordeal would be crossing the border into Mexico before we were done. Erskine, you asshole. Was this your play the whole time?
“No. I figure there are good men out there laying down their lives. Men better and stronger than me. Why should they risk their lives and I stay behind? It’s not fair. It’s not right.”
Anyone else, I would have called bullshit. I would have scoffed and laughed and asked what color they wanted their medal. If they needed a bandage for that bleeding heart. But Rogers spoke with such conviction that I felt something stir in me. No, Howard. Focus.
“What I’m hearing is that you’re tired of waiting for TB to stick, so you thought you’d give the mustard gas a chance.” A set of calipers looked particularly vicious to an untrained eye, and I added them to my pile beside the syringe. Behind me, he’d gone quiet again.
“No.” He answered, voice firm. I waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t.
I picked a few more bits and bobs, added them to the tray and turned back to him. To my immense displeasure, those eyes were locked on me again. He didn’t even spare my little collection of horrors a glance.
“Well,” I said, coming over and setting the tray down. It clattered noisily. “That’s what it sounds like from where I’m standing.”
Rogers still didn’t react. His mouth had set into a hard line again, and now that I was close enough to get a good look, I could see the dark stripe where someone’d recently split it for him.
“Take off your shirt. Right now,” I commanded, picking up the calipers. “I don’t know what Doctor Erskine told you, but this experiment of his is dangerous. It’s killed stronger men than you.”
Rogers moved slowly, taking his time to gather the hem of his shirt as he considered my words. “I know it’s dangerous. I know it’s likely I can die--”
“Does ‘now’ mean something different where you come from? Shirt. Off. Now. ”
“Yessir.” Without his top he was even more disappointing. I could count his ribs if I wanted, but I already knew what number I’d come out with so I didn’t bother. “I know it’s dangerous. But I’m not afraid.”
“Well you should be.” I turned on him, grabbing his arm roughly and bringing the calipers to his forearm, tightening them more than necessary. He winced slightly, and finally I had some sort of reaction from him. “You can -- and likely will -- die. I don’t know what sort of game you’re playing but--”
It was my turn to be interrupted. “Mr Erskine is confident that--”
“That’s Doctor Erskine to you. And his confidence doesn’t change the fact that I could lose you to a light breeze, let alone several hundred gigawatts of experimental radiation.”
“Doctor -- Mister? -- Doctor Stark--” I didn’t correct him. His blond brow was set, staring at me with that stubborn determination. “You’re a man of science. If this experiment works, it can bring about an end to the war, correct?”
“Among other things, yes.”
His gaze didn’t waver from mine. “And if it doesn’t, it will still advance your research, correct?”
“At the cost of your life, also yes.” My grip on his arm tightened, but he didn’t wince this time.
“Then how is that different from any other soldier laying down his life in the hopes that it will bring the end of the war just a little closer?”
Though I groped mentally for an answer, none seemed suitable. I released his arm, straightening.
“I know what I’m submitting to--”
“I don’t think you do,” I cut him off. “This is very likely to kill you and it will hurt the entire time you are dying.”
“I’m not afraid of pain,” he scoffed as if I’d warned him it’d discolor his toenails. “And I’m not afraid if it means it will make me useful to the cause.”
“You should be afraid,” I demanded. My voice felt louder than I’d meant it, but I no longer cared. He needed to hear me. He needed to listen . “You are making a terrible decision.”
“Maybe,” he replied with a shrug of a single shoulder. His voice softened slightly as if I were the one needing comforting. As if I were the one not seeing the grim reality here. And that lopsided smile was back. “But it’s mine to make.”
I stared at him, glancing between either eye, hunting for any waiver in his resolve. But I found none. With a sigh, I gave up, loosening the calipers to take my measurements properly. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, kid.”
“It’s Steve, actually.”
With a grunt, I jotted my notes on the page, no longer able to withstand the heat in those blue eyes. “We’ll see about that, Seventeen. We’ll see.”