Work Text:
Contrary to what they had him believe, or perhaps what Steve had decided to foolishly believe himself, his transformation into a Super Soldier did not result in him joining the war effort.
Well, at least in Steve’s opinion, it didn't. They were of the opinion that he did contribute. In his own way, you understand.
They forced him in a ridiculous suit and tights and paraded him around like one would a monkey in a circus.
With a nice, bright smile and a chipper voice through everything.
He even had his own tricks, see?
Steve hated it, hated being gawked at, leered at, and paraded around like an oversized show monkey.
No matter how often he tried, he was always met with rebuttal. Selling war bonds was a crucial part of the war effort, was it not? How else would the soldiers, the real was left implied, have the resources to protect their country?
They used his voice, his face, his body like he were nothing more than a shiny object for them to pass around. Because, Steve learned, it didn't seem to matter what body he was in. Skinny and small or big and muscular: no one saw beneath the exterior, and he was treated as such.
Perhaps that was why he could not even begrudge the USO girls that joined him, crammed together on the far too small stage in front of a far too big audience: all of them were just bodies, products to be sold.
And gawked at.
Again.
And again.
The way men had looked at them... It was abhorrent. And because of that, Steve didn't even mind the extra eyes on him as he put on bigger and bigger shows; just to keep the eyes away from them and on him.
Even if it were just one pair of eyes, it was worth everything.
In truth, he quite liked them. They were all nice ladies with charming smiles and even more charming voices. And they, perhaps sensing that he didn't view them the way he was supposed to, even if they weren't sure why, quite liked him, in turn.
They told him about their aspirations. About their dreams. About how they had landed here, with him: performing monkeys on a stage for everyone to see.
Most of them had a fella at home, they told him. Or a fella at war. And most of them, like him, had scraped together their last pennies to get here. Because war didn't treat anyone kindly. Even those who didn't have to fight in it.
But above all, Steve learned that each and every one of them was their own person. A given, really, at least it should have been.
Maybe that was why he had written down every name, recounted every last detail they had shared with him and deserved to be shared with the world.
The Smithsonian now had a nice gallery honouring them. The wonderful ladies of the USO, who they had been, who they had wanted to be. Because they were more than the pretty faces accompanying his feats of strength.
They were women, yes, but first and foremost, they were people just like him. History seldom tended to recognise such things, and even he had needed to be reminded, unfortunately, but when he had, he swore to never let anyone make the same mistake.
Audrey had always wanted to be a professional dancer, she told him. Her mother had been a shining star of ballet before she settled down with her husband. Even though she never said, Steve knew what she wanted to say: I want to do both. And she did, he learned. He sometimes drove by her ballet school, making sure no one noticed him, just to peer inside and watch that young woman he had admired so do the thing she loved most.
Barbara, Barbs as she wanted to be called by her friends, had a fella at war. A nice gentleman she had known since she was little. He had been drafted not long before Bucky. Barbs had said he had inspired her to follow him, in her own way. To make sure there was always enough for him to go on with. In confidence, she told him that another reason she left her hometown was because she wanted a new beginning. Her family hadn't quite approved of her fella, because they wouldn't have children. Whether out of choice or because they couldn't, Steve didn't know, didn't think mattered. Barbs had always wanted a dog: a large mastiff with a fluffy coat and big ears. He hoped that she got one, after the war, at the very least.
Angela, contrary to her name, was the most rebellious person Steve had ever met. With a mean strike a mile long, promising to obliterate everyone that wronged her, but more than enough heart to make up for it. Angela didn’t have any specific dreams. Most of the time she was happy enough just letting life guide her. Joining the USO had been another such decision. Steve found it important to include her, nonetheless. Because even if Angela didn’t have dreams that promised to shatter the world as we know it, her life wasn’t any less for it. People ought to recognise that more.
After a few months of travelling America and putting out mindless show after mindless show, Steve stopped questioning, and just started being. These days, scientists marvelled at how skilled human beings were at adapting themselves to whatever environment they found themselves in.
The Inuit in Canada.
The tribes living in the Amazon Rainforest.
Hell, everyone residing on the continent of Australia. Why anyone would choose to live there, Steve had no clue. When he’d been little, his mother had threatened to send him there if he misbehaved. And so help him God, the animals would be the least of his problems. It was unexpected to hear that it was no longer a prison colony. Unexpected, but surprisingly delightful.
The Bedouins in the Sahara. (Steve had almost said “Sahara Desert”, there, but if living in the 21st Century had taught him anything, then that most of the things he had grown up thinking were true were either misguided at best or utterly bullshit at worst. Just like Sahara meant desert and chai meant tea and the M in ATM stood for machine and the N in PIN for number. It was cathartic, in a way he couldn’t describe until then. Because just like all these things were redundant, the “Captain America” in Steve Rogers, Captain America, was as well. He was the same without the honorific.)
Shame that people didn’t see it that way.
And so he, too, had adapted. After a while he even began to enjoy himself, even if just a little. He made a show of lifting motorcycles over his head, spinning it ‘round and ‘round and ‘round, hearing the ladies shriek as he made them spin like their own personal funfair ride.
He threw them into the air and spun them around and especially Audrey, who had grown up watching the graceful movements of ballet found it delightful. Still, Steve never jostled them hard enough for them to feel sick. He’d had one too many such experiences with Bucky on the rides at Cony Island, he reckoned. No need to overdo it.
While his time on the stages was flashy, filled with music and laughter and peering eyes, with punching Hitler over and over, even if he was just a sham, a nice one at that, Reginald was such a swell fella, Steve sometimes forgot he was supposed to punch him; normal life was mostly mundane.
Broadcasting on the radio to promote Captain America and sell war bonds, for one.
After a while, he just zoned out while he talked, voice tilting in that broadcasting speak Bucky had used to mock with him whenever they had loitered around the corner store with the only decent radio in their area. Sometimes, when he wasn’t paying attention, his voice still slipped into that overenthusiastic, nondescript tone.
Once a sellout, always a sellout, he figured.
And so that's what his life became. Putting on a big show on stage and squeezing into the small trailer of his when they were done.
Simpler times, certainly.
If they had just stayed that way, of course.