Chapter Text
Port-au-Prince, Haiti. January 1947.
The chairman of the board of Advanced Idea Mechanics was displeased with the recent turns of events. He didn’t like the publicity the new moron in the suit was getting. He didn’t like that said new moron was scaring off his clientele. And he especially didn’t like that fear of said new moron was beginning to infect his soldiers.
Soldiers like the Flag-Smasher, who was standing now on the balcony of A.I.M.’s Haitian headquarters with his back to the stone wall of the building, his eyes constantly roving the hills on the horizon as if the new man in the suit was going to pop up and sock them both. Karl Morgenthau wore his usual uniform—a black and white bodysuit with a black cape and cowl, the cape lined in blood red. He looked, in a word, ridiculous.
But he was also one of the world’s most effective terrorists, bringing entire cities to their knees and spreading anti-nationalist sentiment. He was good to have on the payroll. The chairman had no wish to ruffle Morgenthau’s ridiculously colored feathers, especially not when he was so effective at sowing seeds of discord, sending new customers running right into the chairman’s waiting arms.
“He isn’t alive,” the chairman insisted. He’d said this many times before, and his voice usually carried only the slightest hint of exasperation. But his tone was now edging toward anger. It had been almost amusing to watch the A.I.M. soldiers run for cover when the rumors first broke, but it had been four months now. Enough was enough.
“Have you seen the papers?” Morgenthau replied, his Germanic accent thickening as his agitation grew. “The headlines in the New York Times, the Guardian?”
The chairman felt entirely at ease, but Morgenthau’s every muscle seemed poised for a fight. Hoping to spite his underling, the chairman moved out onto the balcony and tilted his head back, enjoying the tropical sunshine.
“It’s impossible,” the chairman said, his eyes closed. “Steve Rogers is dead. His plane went into the Arctic Ocean and, top-secret serum or no, he did not survive that.”
“They did not recover a body.”
“He’s dead,” the chairman said bluntly, looking to his companion. “How else could we have made such progress? Surely Captain America would have stepped in to stop us by now.”
“He has,” Morgenthau insisted, “in raids across the United States. We have not been able to send or receive a shipment in New York, Boston, or San Diego, for weeks.” The man inhaled deeply. “All I know, mein herr, is that someone who looks an awful lot like the man in the newsreels is causing us trouble.”
The chairman flashed him a patronizing smile. “You aren’t . . . afraid of him? Are you, Karl?”
Morgenthau’s right hand curled into a fist. The chairman made note of it but didn’t move away.
“Only a fool would ignore these signs,” Morgenthau said, his tone admirably cool for a man so obviously itching for a fight.
The chairman paused, as if seriously considering his soldier’s words. “May I ask you a question, Karl?”
“As long as you don’t question my instincts again, mein herr.”
The chairman laughed amiably and clapped Morgenthau on the shoulder as he passed. “Come along inside. And take off that mask, why don’t you?”
Morgenthau trailed the chairman back into headquarters, relaxing just a touch as they left the balcony, though he didn’t remove any part of his costume.
The room they were in now was the enormous research and development lab that took up the entirety of the top floor of this branch of A.I.M. There were locked cabinets and sleek metal tables everywhere. Most of the working equipment and special projects were locked away, but there were a few in-progress toys left under sheets, awaiting their creators’ return. It was early yet, not long after dawn, and most of the researchers weren’t due to the lab until about nine.
“Why in hell do you wear that get-up, anyway?” the chairman asked as he settled onto a stool behind one of the empty workstations. “Everyone here knows who you are.”
“I have been fighting for one thing or another all of my life, mein herr,” Morgenthau said. “I like having a uniform. And I especially like that it is my own uniform.”
The chairman was about to make a comment about hiring a better designer, but Morgenthau held up a hand and turned his head back toward the open balcony doors. “Did you hear that?”
They sat listening for a moment or two, until the chairman sighed. “All quiet, Karl. This whole Captain business has you—”
A figure came careening through the balcony doors and rammed, full-speed, into Morgenthau. There was a dull clang as something metal connected with Morgenthau’s body armor, and then the supposedly indomitable Flag-Smasher went flying across the room. In a flash, the gatecrasher had clutched the chairman by the neck and pinned him to the worktable.
“—paranoid?” the chairman managed, finishing his thought even as he felt his trachea being crushed by a gloved hand.
He had only a moment to take in the blue hood and mask, marked across the forehead with an almost comically large capital A, before he was being raised into the air again by his neck. The intruder flung the chairman through the air as if he were a ragdoll, so he collided with a charging Morgenthau. The two men fell into a pile on the floor, where the chairman immediately went limp, playing dead.
Morgenthau, though, climbed back to his feet to meet the intruder, who approached with a firm but easy gait. The two uniformed morons grappled for two or three minutes, fists and boots flashing as they swung and parried. The chairman watched through one open eye, seeing just enough to know that their mystery guest was, indeed, wearing the red, white, and blue suit made popular by one Captain Steve Rogers. But when Morgenthau landed a shot to the ribs, the pitch of the Captain’s grunt gave her away instantly as a woman.
They locked together in a momentary stalemate, with one of Morgenthau’s hands on Captain America’s shoulder and the other raised and cocked to punch her in the nose. She was holding him off, his ready fist in her hand, her other arm, bearing the shield, trying to force his away, and her legs planted to keep from giving ground.
Morgenthau leaned closer. “You are not Captain America,” he said.
The lady landed a punch to Morgenthau’s temple and, after a brief struggle, got him down on his knees. The chairman, using the intensity of the fight as cover, began shuffling backward. He had no weapons in the lab—their employees weren’t allowed to be armed around the types of volatile chemicals (and personalities) that they came into contact with on a daily basis, and anything dangerous was locked up when not being worked on—but he knew of one special project that might be of use.
Meanwhile, the Captain imposter pulled a gun from somewhere on her belt and held it to the back of Morgenthau’s head.
“Do you require more proof that I most certainly am Captain America?” she said in the most delightful English accent the chairman had heard in quite a while.
“You are not the ‘Cap’ my men fought in the war,” Morgenthau replied. He managed to make the nickname sound like the dirtiest swear in the book.
“Semantics,” the intruder said lightly. “You were a conscientious objector and a deserter, Herr Karl Morgenthau. Apparently now you’re an A.I.M. lapdog.”
There came the crackle of a radio and then, “Carter? All good?”
The intruder kept the gun trained on Morgenthau as she pulled a walkie-talkie from her belt. “Yes, Gabe, thank you. Rendezvous in ten. Call Sousa and let him know we’ll want backup to take Mr. Morgenthau and his cohorts into custody, would you?”
“Roger that.”
Morgenthau glanced to where the chairman had been crumpled on the floor, then let his eyes rove over the lab until he located the man again. The chairman met his eye and gave a small nod, then carefully pulled himself onto his knees and reached for a prototype on a nearby workbench.
“What is your objective?” Morgenthau said to the intruder, keeping her occupied.
Cap calmly collected her shield from where it had landed a few feet away, putting it on her back and never taking her eyes or her gun off Morgenthau. “You’re a fugitive, Karl, old boy. Or hadn’t you heard?”
“And A.I.M.? I believe taking down this organization may be out of your skillset, mein leiber."
The woman pistol-whipped Morgenthau, sending him sprawling on the floor. To his prone body, she said, “It’s Captain.”
The chairman carefully lifted the weapon from its cradle. He wasn’t entirely sure it was ready for use, but there was nothing like a good human trial to test that out.
Morgenthau drew a shaky breath as he glanced at the chairman. Then he pushed himself to his knees and looked back at the intruder. “Your friends will be disappointed,” he rasped.
She cocked her head to one side. “Oh?”
The chairman, grinning, hefted the weapon into his arms, drawing the woman’s attention. “To go home with nothing to show for their operation but a dumb dead broad playing dress up in her boyfriend’s star-spangled suit.”
“Oh, now, I thought you were taking a nap,” the intruder said. She narrowed her eyes at the weapon. “What in bloody hell does that thing do?”
She raised her gun at the same instant the chairman pulled the trigger on the experimental weapon he held in his arms. There was a bright green flash as a bolt of green energy burst from the weapon. When it connected with the woman, she flashed like a dying star.
When the lights had stopped dancing in front of the chairman’s eyes, he saw that the woman was gone.