Work Text:
(Steph)
Before the war, Stephanie “Steph” Rogers didn’t have much of an aim in life. She fell into comic art because it was hack work, because she wasn’t expected to draw anything with any higher social regard. People didn’t expect a thing from her, except to smile and stay out of the way and stay quiet. Steph was a slip of a girl, a blip on the horizon. The doctors hadn’t even expected someone with her laundry list of physical conditions to survive past puberty.
They didn’t know that Steph Rogers was a fighter.
She tried four times to enlist in the army as a woman. They didn’t even do a medical – as soon as they realized she was a woman, they turned her away. The fifth time... Well, Steph was a slip of a girl. She stripped to the waist and joined the queue.
The officer checked her medical list this time. Steph tilted her chin, and hoped the officer was too dumb to know men couldn’t have Stein-Leventhal syndrome. He was. But she had too many other illnesses, and the 4F stamp came down.
Steph was angry. Furious. Upset. So when Dr. Erskine pulled her aside, praised her bravery and offered her an amazing chance - a mysterious serum, it didn’t matter that Erskine was the first female or first German doctor Steph had ever seen. She leapt at the chance. Fighting for justice was all she had ever wanted.
And when she woke up in the future, and the war was over, and everyone she knew was dead, at least she still had that. The world might have taken the past from her, might have stolen Gary away from her, but Steph Rogers could still fight. And she would fight until the end.
(Gary)
It's easy to be a man in the army.
People expect men to be in the army.
Gary's never realized how easy he's had it until the first time he sees Stephanie Rogers and knows it, deep in his bones: she'd be having a hard time here at training even if she wasn't approximately the same size and weight of a fart in the wind.
There's no one to match her in size, but there's no one to match her in bravery, and Gary knows Erskine's found the one when Steph throws her body around the grenade. Gary, informed of the plan, knows it's a dud, but his stomach still lurches uneasily seeing at how quickly she would throw her life away for the men around her. The men who had been taunting and insulting her since the instant she turned up at the camp.
And then, later, there's Dr. Erskine's wonderful serum. Seeing Steph lying in Erskine's contraption... Gary had to clench his fists. She looked so small. The machine looked like a tomb, closing around her. Gary's always played his cards close to his chest, but her screams when the procedure sparks out make him call her name, spilling his heart out along with his panic into the crowded lab.
Her bravery hits him like a physical punch to the gut.
Gary's a man in the army. Bravery is expected of him. But he knows in that moment that he will never be as brave as Stephanie Rogers.
When she emerges from her metal chrysalis, transformed, he's transfixed. Here, now, is all her inner strength, so easily on display. When Erskine is brutally murdered, and Steph cradles Erskine's body until her dying exhale, and Steph races out into the chaos with unmatchable fleet-footed speed and strength, Gary thinks, so sure, that there is no way the Powers That Be will fail to notice the beautiful, strong, brave creature under their command.
He was wrong.
He finds her, hiding after the catcalling from the men insulted by a woman calling them to fight, even it is by a woman dressed in provocative red, white and blue. She's scribbling a dancing monkey that’s wearing her ridiculous costume, and even though she's desperately upset she doesn't cry.
Gary doesn't console her. Doesn't condescend. Plants an idea in her head that he knows will blossom with her strength, that he knows will lead her straight into chaos and danger -- but he knows she won't be happy any other way.
Watching her grow to believe in herself is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. He can't help but fall in love with her. He's got enough strength to admit he probably fell for her seeing her deal with that grenade. He doesn't have nearly as much strength as she does, but then none of them do, and serum aside, that's all her.
When she accepts his offer of a date, to teach him how to dance, Gary doesn't think he could be happier. He’s too happy. His heart could burst with it. He wants to be with her forever.
Of course, he gets his wish in the worst possible way. They do end up together. When Steph crashes the plane down into that ice, his heart goes down with her.