Chapter Text
“Here, Erskine, I found you an assistant. He can help you out, like, er,” Colonel Phillips eyed his charge balefully. He’d intervened before the kid could get arrested for falsifying information at the recruitment center in Queens. “Like a gerbil.” Well, the kid kinda looked like one, anyways.
Erskine peered at him from over the top of his glasses with the look he’d perfected over the last few weeks of this project. He made that noise in the back of his throat, the one that Phillips knew meant an argument was coming.
“Look, Doc, you were the one asking for an extra hand around here. He’s two extra hands. Take him or he’s going with the MP for lying on his forms.” Now Erskine turned his skeptical gaze on the Rogers kid.
“A rule-breaker, eh? I may have use for you.” He smirked, the closest Phillips had seen the man to a smile in all the months he’d known him.
The kid squared his shoulders and held out his hand, “Steve Rogers, sir. I’m happy to serve my country in any way I can.”
Erskine waved him off and turned back to his notes, “Yes, yes, and stay out of jail, too, I’m sure.”
Wide-eyed little Rogers looked back at Phillips, who shrugged and left him standing there in Erskine’s cramped office.
All told, it was really one of the better jobs Steve had worked. Not too much physical exertion, three square meals a day, housing provided. His days are filled with taking notes and listening to Dr. Erskine, who really was a genius, mutter theories half to himself. Once, he’d lost a train of thought and Steve, who’d been straining to hear it all, as it would make for a fascinating story to tell Bucky later, picked up the thread for him and helped him back on track.
The men they were evaluating were mostly okay, though Steve was frankly surprised to see so many strong, upright young fellas who hadn’t been sent overseas yet. No wonder he’d kept getting rejected. The front runner, Hodge, was a nasty piece of work, though. Steve kept well out of his way.
There’s a woman on the project, too, an Agent Carter. From what he can tell, she works for Colonel Phillips in much the same capacity as Steve works for Erskine. She seemed to dislike Hodge just as much as Steve did; she’d laid him out in the mud with a hell of a punch on the first day of training. That certainly made Steve sit up and take notice. Already in quiet moments, he found himself sketching her dark, canny eyes, the knowing quirk of her full red lips. Already he knows he’s fully gone on her. Erskine’s noticed, of course, the good doctor misses nothing, except occasionally his glasses when they’re sitting on top of his head. He’s made a few encouraging comments to Steve, never in the presence of anyone else, thankfully. He knows how he stacks up against any other man on base. He’ll continue to get by on his own just fine.
Still, he finds himself alone with her every so often, compiling notes, swapping lists between Phillips and Erskine. He tries making small talk, but as always he’s awkward, the conversation stilted. Steve would love to know what made her choose this particular branch of service, but it comes out as a chauvinist comment about her looks. He could crawl under the lab table and die right there. As he flails, she watches him carefully with her unfathomable eyes, but the look on her face isn’t unkind.
Steve knows Dr. Erskine is working on a serum, the calculations and theories he brought with him when he fled Germany. He explained to Steve how he’d been researching a genetic cure to common ailments like asthma, a way to rewrite the basic structure of the human body without starting from scratch. When the Third Reich came to power, Hitler compelled him to use his theories to make a superman, the Germanic ideal. The trials all failed, and Erskine had barely escaped with his life. Now he’d been compelled to continue his efforts for the Allied Forces, and Steve could see how conflicted the doctor was. Still, whatever the reservations, they needed something to help turn the tide of the war. Erskine’s serum might be just the ticket.
“Okay, pal. You say you need radiation, I’ll get you all set up. We just can’t do it out here in cow country,” Howard Stark took a look around the cramped office, his eyes sliding right past Steve Rogers like he was invisible.
“Whyever not, Mr. Stark?” Erskine hated to even leave his little lab, let alone the army base. Late one night, he confided to Steve that he thought some of HItler’s operatives might have tracked him down. It was why he’d insisted Steve be trained with firearms and be issued a sidearm even though it wasn’t standard for pencil-pushers to have them. Steve may be color-blind, but his eyesight is fair and he’s not a half-bad shot. Not as good as Bucky, to be sure, but he thinks he could protect the Doctor, if it ever came down to that. Even with the entire Atlantic between them, Erskine still fears reprisal for his failure and defection, still feels the guilt of leaving behind family members he could never have saved in the first place.
“Not enough power out here. We’ve gotta use a lot of juice for what you’ve described. And since you’re no Frankenstein, we’re not gonna wait for a thunderstorm to charge up the batteries. If we set up in the city, I can tap into the extensive power grid.” Stark chewed on the end of his pencil, looking down at his notes. “I’ve got just the place in mind, a little hidey-hole in Brooklyn the SSR has been using for counter-intelligence. There’s an underground bunker that should be big enough to hold the equipment, and I won’t have to…”
“Brooklyn?” Steve piped up, “We’re going to Brooklyn?” Maybe he could look in on his old place. Old Mrs. Jenkins had promised to hold it for him and Bucky while they served. He knew she’d let it out to some women who’d come in from the country to work in the shipyard for now. But they wouldn’t know any of the building’s quirks, and he’d had to leave so suddenly, he hadn’t left a note or anything. If he could get an afternoon, maybe once the procedure was done, he could look in on her, make sure things were still running smoothly.
Stark looks blankly at him, then turns away, muttering to himself about joules. Erskine catches Steve’s eye and shrugs before shooing him out the door. “Let Agent Carter know we have some requests, please, Steven. If she could join us at her convenience.”
“She? Agent? We’ve got a dame in this godforsaken place?” Now Stark could see Steve as he hesitated in the doorway. “Never mind her convenience, tell her she’s needed immediately and that I could use a good stiff brandy.”
Steve curled his fists but only nodded curtly at Dr. Erskine. This time of night, he was likely to find Agent Carter training in the gymnasium. He watched her pummel the heavy bag for a moment, superimposing Stark’s mug on it just for a laugh. “Agent Carter?”
She kept right on, whether she heard him or not. That was one of the things he found so impressive about her: single-minded, focused in the extreme, even with all the ways the men on base tried to distract her. Agent Carter was here to work, and to do it well. She was here because she knew it would help them win.
He stepped closer, trying not to notice the way her simple white undershirt clung to her damp back. She landed punch after punch in quick succession, breathing hard. A stray curl had escaped the complicated ‘do she’d put her hair in, and stuck to the side of her cheek where sweat poured down. Half the men in the program didn’t push themselves as hard as Agent Carter pushed herself. She kept her head down, a scowl on her face. Steve had never seen her smile, he realized with a start. She came close, once or twice, with Erskine, the respect and admiration shining clear in her eyes, but never an outright smile.
“Agent Carter!” She showed no signs of stopping, and while Steve was happy to make Stark wait, he didn’t want to spend much longer watching her without her knowing. It felt wrong, to be able to look as much as he liked without her frank gaze assessing him as well. He edged closer to the mat. Suddenly, she stopped, pushing the bag away with both hands and making a noise somewhere between a sob and a snarl. As it swung back at her, she jumped up to plant both boots on it in a powerful front kick that set the bag rocking wildly on its chain and landed her flat on her back on the floor. She didn’t move.
“Agent Carter?” Steve rushed over, “Are you all right?”
Her eyes were wide and wild, and her mouth opened as she gasped shallowly for a breath. Steve guessed she must have knocked the wind out when she hit the ground. He knelt at her side, wanting to reach out but unsure where to put his hands. As she managed to drag air into her lungs, she started laughing. She laughed and gasped for a while, Steve sitting awkwardly beside her until he finally joined in, caught up in the absurdity of the moment.
Eventually, Agent Carter wiped the tears from her eyes and rolled onto her side, facing him. The neck of her tee rode low, and he caught a glimpse of her collarbone and just a hint of her decolletage beneath. He stopped laughing.
“We make quite the pair, Mr. Rogers,” she said, stretching out her arms. He looked back at her, askance. She groaned as she sat up, “Neither of us are seen as fit for active duty, yet it’s all we want in the world.”
“We’re still serving the war effort,” Steve retorted, stung. “We’re not useless.”
“We may as well be toting a little red wagon, collecting scrap metal,” She clenched her hands into fists, and Steve unconsciously echoed the gesture with his own. “You fetch coffee and keep Erskine’s notes. I supervise the dumbest lot of recruits this side of the Atlantic and fetch Phillips’s antacid. We could both do so much more.” She regarded him for a moment, eyes blazing, “I know you feel the same. You’re so tense with anger all the time. I know that feeling, Steve.”
He couldn’t hold her gaze. Sighing, he said, “I don’t see how it can be any other way. I’d rather do something than nothing.”
She shook her head and got up off the floor, moving towards her things.
“What are you gonna do about it?” He asked, feeling that anger rising, “Sure, I’m pissed all the time. Pissed that Hodge will be chosen for something he doesn’t deserve, pissed that my best friend shipped off without me, pissed that Phillips calls me a gerbil to my face. Pissed that you…” He cut himself off, face turning red. “I’m pissed, Agent Carter, but there’s a war to win. The SSR doesn’t give a good god-damn whether I do this work with a fuckin’ song in my heart or if, in my head, I’m six-foot-two and giving Hodge what-for as I take my notes. I just take my notes. I do the job. That’s what we’re here to do.” Now he was breathing hard and a little light-headed.
Agent Carter looked chagrined, but also still angry. There were twin spots of color blooming on her cheeks. Still her voice was even as she said, “I know my value. I was meant for more than this.”
Steve ground his teeth together in frustration as she turned and stalked away. As she let the door slam behind her, he realized he’d never told her Erskine’s request.