Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Heyyyyy, Granddad.” Angela’s voice came through on the other end of the line. “You busy the last Saturday of the month?”

Her tone was so pointedly casual that it immediately made Steve suspicious. Angela was sixteen, full of personality, and never sanguine about anything. “Don’t think so,” he said, a little warily. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I thought we could spend the day together. It’s been forever since we went into the city!”

“Sounds nice... any particular occasion?”

Angela scoffed, exaggeratedly indignant. “What, I can’t want to have a night on the town with my great-grandfather without an ulterior motive?”

He chuffed. “I don’t know, honey, can you?”

“Jeez, Granddad, don’t you want us to spend time together?”

He had to chuckle at her wounded tone. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Of course I do. What did you have in mind? Museums? Dinner?”

“Oh, I was just thinking we could…” She paused, thinking just a little too long. “Maybe take in a show!”

“A show?” She was working damn hard to make it seem like it was off the top of her head. If he’d been suspicious before, now the alarm bells were staring to go off.

“Yeah! Broadway, right? Best theater in the world! And you know what’s really hot right now...”

Slowly the extent of the horror started to dawn. “Oh, honey. You don’t mean...”

She did. “Yep! Rogers: The Musical!”

Steve groaned. That was it. He’d heard of its existence from some newspaper headline over breakfast a few weeks ago, since he’d gotten back to his own timeline after his brief dimensional skip back to hand off the new shield to Sam. He choked a little on his morning coffee to see his old surname, all in caps and followed by the clarifying subtitle, in an article about a band-new biographical musical, about the remarkable true life story of the heroic Captain America. Or, at least, as true to life as two hours of singing and dancing could be, when you hoped to sell tickets at fifty to a hundred bucks a pop.

“Angie,” he sighed. “Anything but that.”

“Come on, Granddad! They’re saying it’s a smash!”

“Not sure that’s how I’d describe that period of my life.”

“Well, it’s art!” Angela said impatiently. “There’s bound to be some artistic license. Aren’t you the least bit curious? As to how they interpreted things?”

“Curious isn’t the word I’d use,” he deadpanned. “Avoidant, maybe? Or, on the bare edge of horrified?”

She considered that, then forged blithely ahead. “Well... I already got the tickets, so there’s no use letting them go to waste.”

Again he groaned. “Angie…”

“And I got pretty good seats. One of the nice balconies— you know, so you’d be comfortable!”

“How considerate,” he grumbled. “How much did that run you?”

She made a noncommittal sound. “I don’t exactly remember. But I did use your credit card, so you can probably just check that.”

“My credit card? And how, young lady, did you get a hold of that?”

“That’s not important,” she scoffed. “But I’m pretty sure they’re non-refundable. So you might as well just come and get something out of them!”

He sighed. “You can’t just take one of your friends with you?”

“Grandpa! Of course I can’t. Not without telling anybody about my secret time-traveling great-grandfather. You know, like somebody asked me not to.”

“Uh-huh. For which I thank you.”

“Yeah, I’m cool like that. And, well, I’d rather folks not think I’m crazy.” She paused, and her airy tone got a little more down to earth. “Besides, it’s your story. Of course I want to see it with you.”

He couldn’t help but smile a little. “You know it’s not going to be really how it happened, right?”

“Well… who better to tell me the real story than you?”

One of his eyebrows raised. “You really want to hear all that?”

“Of course I do.”

Genuinely touched, Steve chuckled. “Well. Can’t argue with that. If it really means that much to you…”

She cut him off excitedly. “Aw, yes! I knew you’d get into it.”

Steve didn’t know if tagging along grudgingly under the duress of a stolen credit card counted as getting into it, but he was happy that she was happy. “What time is curtain?”

“It’s a two PM matinee. I thought you’d want us to get out in time to catch the early bird specials.”

“How considerate of you, dear. In that case, I’ll meet you at the train station at one-thirty.”  

She made a disappointed whoop. “Awww, you won’t pick me up?”

Steve couldn’t help but chuckle at her wheedling. “Hey, you’ve already got me coming out to the city. Don’t you push it, kiddo.”

Angela blew out, making a sound like a horse.

He grinned. “Eh, don’t pout. You can put that ticket on my card too.”

“Oh, you can count on that!” And she smartly clicked off the phone.

Chapter Text

That Saturday, Steve was at Grand Central ten minutes before the appointed time as was his wont, keeping an eye out for Angela. She wasn’t hard to spot in the crowd, with her pink-dyed hair and her bright yellow T-shirt. When he made his way through the crowd to her, he groaned to the see logo on it, the black silhouette with the shield and the name in glittery letters. “You bought merchandise already?”

“Yeah, off of eBay!” Angela said. “You think I was going to pay gift shop prices?”

They set off on the fifteen blocks to the theater, Angie’s nose buried in the map on her phone. “Hmm, we’ll have to pick up the pace. This thing’s popular, we might have to wait in line to get in.” She glanced over at him. “Can you handle the hike, old man?”

Fortunately for both of them, the super soldier serum had kept Steve spry even at his age— whatever that was, given the idiosyncrasies of how he’d experienced time. “Don’t you worry about me. At least— not on the walk over.”

Angela rolled her eyes extravagantly. “Oh, take it easy. This doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

“Hm, not for you, maybe.”

“Jesus, you big baby.” She tossed back her head. “I don’t get what the problem is!”

He snorted. “You don’t? You can’t imagine why somebody wouldn’t want to see somebody else’s song and dance version of their life?”

“We’re just going for the laughs.”

“Oh, that’s it? Well, I’m glad you find your great-granddad so funny, then.”

“It’s not you, Granddad. Everybody knows that they’re going to glitz up the story in ridiculous ways to sell tickets.”

“Does everybody know that?”

“I think they’re going to know you didn’t stop in the middle of fighting Nazis to sing about your feelings about fighting Nazis.” She eyed him sidelong. “Is that what you’re worried about? What everybody thinks about you?”

“Not really,” he said placidly. “Once you’ve been hunted by the government as a war criminal, you learn not to sweat the small stuff.”

“Then I’d think you’d be able to let a little historical inaccuracy roll off your back.”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “Hell, you should have heard this radio show they did after the war. Called it the Captain America Adventure Hour, where old Cap had to rescue his best girl Betty Carver from bad guys between ads for sewing machines.”

Angie’s eyes bugged out at him. “And how did Grandma Peggy feel about that?”

“She wasn’t a fan, if you can imagine.”

She considered that a moment, then brightened. “Well, this one’s at least got to be better than that, right? Written with a more modern sensibility? I mean, if you could put up with that radio show, this one will hold no terrors.”

Steve shook his head— this show being worse than the previous one was the last thing he was afraid of. But just as he was about to attempt to explain, Angela cried out triumphantly and pointed. Just ahead, they’d reach the theater.

The line was indeed out the door, but it seemed to be moving pretty well. As they took their place at the end, Steve couldn’t help but notice how many people had come in Captain America merchandise of their own. And it wasn’t just with the yellow and black logo of the musical; much of it was the red, white, and blue stuff from his old suit, the star in concentric circles on T-shirts, ball caps, even small plastic versions of the shield itself. And that wasn’t even counting the tributes to the other members of his old team— arc reactor shirts here, winged helmets there, even a pair of oversized green novelty fists. He knew it was something that people did, but it had been a little while since he’d seen it in person— and in concentrations as high as this.

“Let’s move it, Granddad. The show’s starting soon.”

He trailed behind Angela as she consulted an usher and hustled him to their seats. The house was full but not packed, and they dodged around folks headed for the orchestra section to reach the stairs to the balconies. The mezzanine was ringed with them, little elevated boxes each with their cluster of ten or fifteen seats. Their box was the second from house right, not so far to the side as to obstruct the view of the stage, and they sat within the row on the very edge of it. It had a fancy feel— too fancy for his liking.

“Tell me again how much these cost?” he muttered as they settled in.

Angie rolled her eyes, and thrust a program into his hands. “Sorry you can’t get anything for a nickel a pop like they did in your day anymore.”

He grumbled. “Back in my day, when folks punched you in the gut, at least they didn’t charge you for it.”

She threw back her head in exasperation again. “Oh, my God. Are you planning to complain through the whole thing?”

“Probably. Since you’re so interested in my opinion.”

As she so often did when seated, Angie pulled her knees up in front of her nose to get comfortable; the girl was incapable of sitting normally in a chair. “Well, then you won’t mind if I return the favor. Because I’m definitely going to have thoughts and questions as we go.”

“Swell,” he sighed. “Gonna be a great show for anybody who’s got to sit near us.”

“Oh, hush up and read your program, then.”

The lights flickered up and down then, just as he was opening the booklet. Angela grabbed his arm. “Oh, my God, it’s starting. Buckle up, Pap!”

Here they went. With a deep breath, Steve crossed one leg over the other and leaned back in his seat, as the strains of the overture began to swell.

Chapter Text

To the strains of the big band overture, heavy blue velvet curtains swept apart to reveal a tableau of New York. A backdrop of stylized, sketched-out skyscrapers towered over a stage that soon filled with an ensemble of people in trench coats, wiggle skirts, and victory rolls, bustling about in a facsimile of the city in the 1940's. From this hubbub a figure emerged, to stand downstage beneath a streetlamp. He began to sing in a light, energetic baritone, and Steve got his first look at the man they'd chosen to represent him.

" When you're the little guy, they tell you,
You're gonna get kicked around.
The trouble and strife, the drags of life,
And there ain't no breaks to be found."

The guy was blond and, he thought, blue-eyed, in a sweater vest, bow tie, and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. If the heavy-handed nerd styling didn't do it, the stature of the man was enough to give him pause.

" The Depression's made life depressing—
Tough for the best of us to pep up!
But now the world's at war, and more and more,
I feel it's time for me to step up…"

Steve raised an eyebrow. "Hm. Big healthy fellow, isn't he."

"What did you expect? I've seen your old pictures, Granddad. You were a beefcastle."

"I was a what?"

"You know! A big, handsome guy."

He'd actually had the experience of meeting himself during those years— being a time traveller meant stuff like that happened sometimes —and he had to admit, that serum had done good by him. "Still, whatever you call it, I wasn't any such thing before the procedure. Those are the pictures they never show you." Nobody kept that one around, except for Peggy, who'd put it in her office to remember him by.

Angela waved her hands around. "What do you want, a skinny dude quick-changing into a muscle suit? What's he supposed to do?"

Okay, she had a point there. But still, there was something vaguely hilarious watching a young man built like a Ferrari hunch his shoulders in a sweater vest and horn rims, trying to look like a shrimp.

" But I'm just a kid from Brooklyn—
Just a kid from Brooklyn…
What can I do?"

As if that were their cue, a pack of other fellows soon emerged from the crowd, flanking show-Steve and cracking their knuckles in comically obvious displays of threat.

"Ooh, they gonna start snapping like West Side Story?" Angie snickered, as they closed in around him, shoving him back and forth between them as they lobbed cheesy insults.

"Hey, pipsqueak! What did we tell you about hanging around on our turf?"

"Easy, fellas," show-Steve said warily. "Just on my way to the recruitment office, to do my duty like everybody else." Because apparently this version hadn't been trying every trick in the book at every office in the tristate area to get around that damn 4F.

One of the bullies let out with a cackling laugh, though because of a different absurdity. "You? You think the army would take a scrawny little shrimp like you?"

"We've all got to do our part," show-Steve rejoined bravely, as the tallest jerk pushed in close. "It's the right thing to do."

"Oh, yeah? In that case, let me do my part right now." And he threw a right hook so wide that anybody in a real fight would have seen it coming from the top of the Empire State Building. Show-Steve took it on the chin, with a spin that turned him entirely in the opposite direction. "By keeping the recruiters from having to turn your skinny tail down!"

Angela clucked sympathetically at the beatdown, and Steve had to roll his eyes. "Oh, he can take it."

"Oh, yeah, excuse me that I don't like to think of you getting your ass kicked in alleyways."

"Yeah, most people prefer to think of it in the French countryside or the Battle of New York. Chitauri hit a lot harder than those jokers, let me tell you."

At last one bully seized show-Steve by the collar and yanked him in close. "Had enough?"

But the plucky fellow just lifted his chin in defiance, and, with a slight turn of his head out so that the audience could see his face, said, "I can do this all day."

Steve shook his head with a groan, while Angie joined the rest of the audience in a cheer. "Look at that!" she exulted, as if impressed. "Somebody did their research, I guess!"

But Steve was significantly less so. "If taking a walk around a room in the Smithsonian counts. Could do that on a lunch break." For whatever reason, the exhibit had really latched on to that quote, emblazoning it on a wall next to an image of the Howling Commandos. He guessed he had said it a lot, enough that when asked about him later in interviews post-war, the other guys would bring it up.

"Hey, at least it's something accurate! I'd think you'd be glad they actually got something right."

"Yeah, yeah. Let's see if they use anything they actually had to crack a book to get." A couple of the Commandos had even put out memoirs; Gabe Jones had published the journals he'd kept during that time, while Jim Morita had written his with the help of his grandson.

In the meantime, the trio of bullies seemed to have resolved to crack open show-Steve's face. Before long, two of them had our hero by the shoulders, holding him in place as he struggled. The third bully paced in a circle, making a big production of winding up for a punch. He turned to show-Steve and let loose for the blow— but that was the moment that another big, handsome actor strode out onto the stage and countered with a haymaker of his own.

The actor didn't really look like him, not even at this distance. But Steve supposed they got the broad strokes right— the strong shoulders, the thick dark hair, and something of the old confident swagger, from before the years made them wiser men.

"Woooo Uncle Bucky! You show 'em!" Angela cheered at the newcomer, who paused for the moment of applause before he set about driving off the bullies with a few well-placed blows. Then he paced over to where show-Steve had fallen and extended a manly hand to help him up.

"Aw, geez, Bucky, you didn't have to do that," show-Steve grumbled. "I had 'em right where I wanted 'em."

"Sure you did, buddy. You had their fists in your face."

Show-Steve pulled a mug to give the audience a moment to laugh, then looked over show-Bucky's Eisenhower jacket with envy. "You got your uniform on?"

"Yep!" show-Bucky said proudly. "Shipping out in just a few days. Gonna go punch Hitler in the eye and send him back to Germany with his tail between his legs."

Show-Steve heaved a dramatic sigh. "Sounds like a good time, Buck. While you're off being a hero in Europe, you're going to forget you ever knew me."

The actor playing Bucky put his arm companionably around his shoulders. "No chance of that, pal. I'm with you 'til the end of the line."

"Awww," the audience hummed, including Angie beside him.

"You gotta admit, Granddad— that's a good line."

"That's for sure. But they can't take credit for that one. Bucky used to say that to me all the time."

She turned in her seat to look at him. "Really? He actually said that to you?"

"Yeah." Steve smiled at the memory. "You have to understand, honey. What it was like back then."

"Folks were really rough on you."

"This wasn't the half of it. My ma and me, we were on our own since my dad died in the Great War. She did the best she could, but she had to work all the time in the TB ward. Then there was me, this sickly Irish brat, didn't have nothing and nobody. Ma did the best she could, but when I lost her…"

He sighed, remembering. Angela wound her hands around his arm. "When I was hungry, when I was lonely, when I was scared… he was there for me. Not just when those meatheads came after me— he brought me to dinner at his mother's table. He bucked me up when I was down. When I had nobody… I had Bucky." He thought back then to every moment his friend had saved his life— down to the moment he told Steve to seek out the life he truly wanted. "He was with me through it all."

Angie laid her head against his shoulder and gave him a squeeze. "Wow," she murmured. "No wonder that's the line they put on the back of the T-shirts."

Steve snapped around to stare at her. "Are you kidding me? The T-shirts?"

Angela looked up, lips pursed in mock-confusion. "What's the problem, Granddad? You don't like your relationships merchandised?"

He sputtered. "Yeah, you think so?"

"Imagine that! I guess if you don't want folks monetizing your personal life, you should be less quotable next time."

"I'll try and remember that," he grumbled. "You know, for the next time somebody steals my life to put on Broadway."

"Well, if you liked that, you're gonna love this…" Angela grinned impishly. "Can you guess what the next song is going to be?"

Steve smacked his forehead into his hand as the rollicking strains of the duet began to play.

" The storm may be raging, the war may be waging,
But no matter what, it's all gonna be fine!
'Cause I'm with you…
'Cause I'm with you…
I'm with you 'til the end of the liiiiiiiine!"

"Wonder if Uncle Bucky has a better sense of humor about this than you," Angie murmured.

Chapter Text

When the light came back up, the setting had changed to an office, vision charts and recruitment posters pasted on the partial walls. Show-Steve hunched in a chair by a woman at a desk, chewing on a pencil and staring at a clipboard. She was blonde, pretty in a slightly overdone way, far too much for the standards of enlisted women in the era, and in a manner that clearly was afraid not to cater to modern tastes. Honestly she reminded Steve a bit of that woman they’d sent in to greet him when he’d first woken up in SHIELD custody, with her hair too long for regulation, and, frankly, in the strangest-shaped foundation garments he’d seen up to that point.

She was busy noting down his litany of medical conditions, with an increasingly dubious expression on her face. “So… let me make sure I have all this straight.” She tapped her pencil against the form on her board. “You’ve got… asthma, scoliosis, a heart murmur, stomach ulcers, pernicious anemia, and… you’re deaf in one ear?”

“Just a little deaf,” show-Steve answered, looking down at his shoelaces. “At least my feet aren’t flat.”

“Thank heaven for small favors,” the woman deadpanned, while Steve quietly scoffed—seeing as they definitely had been.

“Jesus Christ. Were you really that sick?” Angie asked, as the woman took down a medical history that included TB exposure and fevers both scarlet and rheumatic. “Pernicious anemia sounds really bad.”

“There’s a reason they don’t call it friendly anemia.” He pulled a face, remembering. “I don’t miss the raw liver, that’s for sure.”

“Raw liver? Ugh, really?”

“Take my advice, sweetheart— don’t ever get chronically ill in the first half of the century.”

Even as he joked, however, he found himself distracted by the character of the woman. Steve was no writer, but they were spending an awful lot of time on her for her not to be important. “Hey, this lady— who is she supposed to be?” He groped for his program, in case the cast list would give a clue. But he then noticed Angela looking at him almost pityingly, as if he were a little slow.

“What?” he asked her.

Her tone was almost pained. “Granddad. That’s Grandma Peggy.”

“What?” Steve’s head whipped back to regard this pencil-thin, pencil-skirted pencil pusher sitting behind a reception desk. He sputtered with the sheer indignation. “That’s— that’s supposed to be Peggy?”

Angie tapped the playbill. “That’s what it says in the program.”

“But— she wasn’t at the recruitment office!” Outrage made his voice way too loud. “Did they think she was… some secretary?”

Angie’s gaze began darting side to side, for the first time concerned that they might be disturbing their neighbors. “Granddad, keep your voice down. People are looking.”

Oh, now she was worried about that? Steve certainly wasn’t at this point. “As if she didn’t have anything better to do?” He waved his hand in the direction of the stage. “Then to… take notes on scrubs like me?”

“It’s just a narrative expediency. Gets her in the story faster!”

“She was an officer! She was out on the front lines! For God’s sake, she founded an entire intelligence agency.” He fixed narrowed eyes on the actress, in all her slim, blonde, American glory. “And this little slip of a thing playing her— with that accent—”

“Granddad!” Angie hissed. She jerked her head this way and that, indicating the glares that were now starting to turn their way. Steve bit his tongue grumpily, as the actor playing him was pleading with the woman to give him a chance.

“I just want to do some good,” Show-Steve said. “If somebody will just give me a shot.”

He could see Show-Peggy’s expression soften, her sympathy growing. “Well… I know a little bit about being underestimated by folks.”
She may have been a little slip of a thing that Peggy could have broken over her knee, but when she opened her mouth to sing, she had a voice that seemed too big for her body.

“When nobody sees what you’ve got to give,
What are you supposed to do?
When every eye is turned your way,
And they only look straight through?”

On the second verse Show-Steve stepped forward, picking up on the theme.

“How do you make the world see you,
And all the amazing things you can do,
When they’ve all got scales in front of their eyes
And they’re shaped like folks like you?”

Soon their voices blended, weaving in and out of each other in a pretty harmony, his clear strong tenor and her rich contralto.

“At least she’s a decent singer,” he conceded. “If they’re not going to bother getting her accent right.”

“Guess they have to make her American. You know, to fit with you.”

Steve groaned quietly. He actually had heard that before, people’s surprise that Cap’s best girl could have been English. “She wasn’t marrying the shield, for crying out loud.”

“As far as they know, she didn’t marry you at all. Couldn’t be that unpatriotic, I guess!” Angie waved her hand at the stage. “But, see, they’re making it clear she was a huge part of your story. Right from the beginning!”

But Steve wasn’t buying it. “Because, what? Her real accomplishments weren’t enough?”

“Well…” He was surprised to see how subdued Angie became, whose opinions were usually so strong they ought to come with milk and sugar. “A lot of that stuff wasn’t widely documented. So much of it was classified, if you look it up… there’s not that much to find. Even if they wanted to.”

He turned to look at her expression, now oddly sheepish. That gave Steve pause— and not about the motivations of the dramatists. Angela had only been eight years old when Peggy passed; the girl had known her, but her memories were that of a child, and of a woman at the end of a long life.

Steve’s indignation softened a little. “Honey, how well do you remember your great-grandmother?”

Angie shifted awkwardly in her seat. “I mean… I remember her, of course. Some things. But… she was over ninety when she died. I loved her, but… I think I missed a lot of her.”

“Ah. I see.” He reached across the armrest between them to wrap her in his arm. “She did amazing things, sweetheart. She never got credit for them the way she deserved. And yeah, it was partially because it was all covert. But she was also ahead of her time. Women didn’t get to do the things she wanted to do… and she did them all anyway. And she kept doing them, no matter what anybody said.” He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Hell, I showed up late. I had to run to keep up, so I could be of any use to her at all.”

He could hear her little sound of pleasure in the dark. “Sounds like Grandma Peggy didn’t need you to save her.”

Steve’s throat went tight. “She didn’t,” he murmured, warm with the memory. “She didn’t need me at all.”

Angela laughed, as if for a moment she thought he was joking. But he wasn’t at all. “She didn’t need anything or anyone. She chose me. She could have had any life she wanted… and she chose to make one with me.” His throat tightened with emotion. “Damn, I was lucky. I was so damn lucky.”

Steve groped in the darkness until he found Angie’s hand. She clutched him tightly with a small happy squeal. “Maybe you would have preferred to see Carter the Musical.”

A laugh broke out of him, overcome. “And not just because I don’t go by my maiden name anymore.”

She joined in delightedly. “Not a bad way to be remembered forever.”

He patted her hand in his. “Forever’s a long time, kiddo. And I was married to your grandma… forever.”

At last the two figures on the stage were facing each other, voices swelling as one in the song’s final stanza.

“If nobody else will look our way,
It’s up to us to open the door.
If I see you, and you see me,
Maybe then we can do something more.”

When the applause died down, show-Peggy excused herself offstage. “I’ll go get Dr. Erskine.”

Chapter Text

The next few scenes were impressive in their efficiency. They managed to compress his first few months in the service into just a handful of set pieces, the action conducted along briskly by the songs. Once show-Peggy ushered in the figure of Abraham Erskine, a number launched off in the form of an interrogation, the doctor firing off questions about show-Steve’s intentions in a strong German accent, while the ensemble ushered him through the travails of basic training.

“Do you zhink zhat you’re a hero?”
“I’m just any old slob!”
“Vill you knock the Nazis down to zero?”
”I’m just doing my job!”

Steve had to admit, he was impressed at the guy’s lung capacity, being able to sing while fake-struggling through pushups. Meanwhile show-Peggy circled around the action, commenting on his progress and articulating the changing of her own impressions.

“I hate to say how much I doubted him—
The poor guy was just so small!
But he’s got so much heart and grit in him,
He might as well be ten feet tall!”

It was, he supposed, a lot more straightforward than depicting them actually getting to know each other. At last it all culminated in show-Steve sent into the laboratory with Erskine and Howard Stark while the rest of the ensemble danced and sang around him.

“Project Rebiiiiiiiiiiiirth!
Rebiiiiiiiiiiiirth!
To win a war that’s spreading
Across the eaaaaaaaaarth!”

In a burst of purple fog, a man-sized capsule rose from a trapdoor in the stage.

“Rebiiiiiiiiiiiirth!”

With slow, deliberate ballet steps, show-Steve was led to the tube, where he was promptly shoved inside. Colors flashed in lighting bursts while the dancers pulsed in and out around it.

“Reeeeeebiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirth!”

On the final note, he bust back out— all traces of nerd frailty gone, shirtless and flexing newly revealed muscles oiled to a blinding sheen. The crowd went wild, cheering and hooting at the sight.

Steve’s brow furrowed in mild distaste. “Did they have someone backstage waiting with baby oil?”

Angela was looking about her at the frenzy, eyes wild as if scandalized. “Hey, that’s my granddad you’re leering at!”

He had to hand it to them, they seemed to understand the enormity of the moment for him— even if they chose to express it by means of strobing lights and a smoke machine. Most people thought only of the exterior changes, how he’d gone from a scrawny asthmatic to a heroic edifice. But he remembered most vividly the way it felt in that new body, how even the sensations of being alive had changed. The oxygen in those first full breaths were enough to send him on a high, after twenty-plus years of asthma. Everything was suddenly heightened, from his strength to his senses to the vantage point from which he saw the world. Even the colors seemed more vibrant— he’d gone through all of art school at that point and hadn’t even realized that he might have been partially colorblind.

But of course, best of all he remembered that little moment where Peggy had reached out to tap the newly formed muscles in his abdomen— light as a feather, just for a moment. At the time, he thought it had to be from concern, as if she was afraid he was swaying on his feet. His head had been swimming with the oxygen high, so perhaps he had been. But even if he had dared believe it in the moment, there was no mistaking the gleam that had come into her eye then.

The show gave a small nod to Peggy’s presence, as her character was one of those crowding in around him with show-Erskine and show-Howard Stark. But they were swept away by the gaggle of slick-haired men in suits who rushed up to crow over the wonders of American ingenuity— never mind that the inventor in question was German. They surrounded show-Steve and gushed over him, congratulating him for something other people had accomplished, rubbing their hands together in anticipation of all the use they could make of an army of men just like him.

“It’s our lucky day, kid!” some senator or other said, clapping show-Steve on the shoulder. “You’re gonna win us a war!”

A rumble of laughter rippled through the crowd at the heavy-handed foreshadowing, but Steve couldn’t get into the spirit. Not when he knew what was going to happen next.

He had to admit, he was impressed at how they staged the chase. When the assassin leapt out from the crowd of suited government types, and shot the bullet that took away both Dr. Erskine and Project Rebirth in one fell swoop, he tore out and disappeared just long enough for the scientist to pass away in show-Steve's arms.

“Only remember vhy I chose you,
Vhile you’re doink vhat you can…
Zhat’s not as a perfect soldier…
Not as a perfect soldier…
Just as… a good…”

There was a beat of silence, as show-Erskine’s body went limp and his voice faded out. Then, the music rose, and the voices cried out, and both fellow actors and set pieces slid away so that our hero could take off after him. While Show-Steve pelted and huffed, mostly in place center stage, the ensemble ran around him holding fences and ash cans and other stationary objects, creating the illusion that Steve was the one moving.

“Well, that was clever,” Angie murmured. “Don’t you think?”

Steve shrugged. “I suppose. It doesn’t bring back good memories for me.”

“Oh. Of course.” She winced as if that had not occurred to her. At last the assassin reappeared onstage, as if show-Steve had caught up to him. Blows were exchanged, big showy fight choreography that a real assailant would have seen coming a mile away. But when show-Steve finally got his hands on the man and demanded to know who sent him, he reached into his pocket with a flourish and chomped down on a cyanide capsule with a jerk of his whole head. As he stepped away from the now-limp body, the light narrowed down to just around our hero while he looked skyward for the reprise.

“Not as a perfect soldier…
I’d have caught him, if I were a perfect soldier…
I’d have stopped him, if I were a perfect soldier…
I’ve only done the best that I can!
But if I’m not a perfect soldier…
Can I be a good enough man?”

“Did you know him very well?” Angie asked, as the audience burst into applause all around them. “The scientist, Dr…?”

“Erskine. Abraham Erskine. And not very,” he admitted. “Though better than you’d think from this. We talked a few times. He was a brilliant man, and more than that, he used that brilliance for good. He had to leave behind everything he knew to get out of Germany, because he didn’t want his work to become a tool of the Nazis. Took guts— to stand up to your whole country like that. Just to do the right thing.”

He took a deep breath. “And… he believed in me. Before even your grandmother… maybe even before Bucky,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong— Bucky loved me, and knew I wasn’t just some helpless gimpy kid. But Dr. Erskine, he was the first person who thought I could have something more to give.”

Angie gave his hand a squeeze as the clapping died down, and show-Steve was collected by show-Peggy and show-Howard. He turned to them with a look of being lost.

“What now?” he asked, as the slick, downright greasy-looking man they had playing Howard threw an arm around him.

“Brotha,” he said, in a thick Jersey accent for some reason. “Have they got big plans for you.”

As they led him offstage, the strains of the next song were struck up. Big band music, lots of brass and percussion, that, as if in some ingrained Pavlovian response from somewhere deep in his bones, made his shoulders tense with the memory of pre-show jitters. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

“What?” Angie whispered. “What is it?”

Steve breathed out through his teeth. He’d heard it so many times that he could probably have sung it in his sleep.

“That, my dear,” he grumbled. “Is my theme song.”