The Tale of Steve Rogers, part 4

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

The SSR camp looks like an ordinary Army base, as far as Steve can tell. There are tents and Jeeps and barracks, recruits doing calisthenics, and people in uniform walking and talking fast and importantly.

Steve is the smallest recruit in all the company. (He's also, apparently, the only one who brought books.)

The supervisor, Agent Carter, is a woman, which is unexpected enough. She's also English and beautiful, and when a recruit named Hodge gets fresh (Steve can tell already he's going to have trouble with this guy--he knows the signs) she takes him out with a single punch. Steve likes her already.

The CO is Colonel Philips, whiskey-voiced and gruff, a veteran of the Great War, most likely. His opening speech, "We are going to win because we have the best men," falters a little at the sight of Steve. But he carries on, and explains the Strategic Scientific Reserve and what they're all doing there: they're going to choose a man to be something entirely new, a supersoldier.

It's terrifying. It's exciting. Steve stands up straighter than ever before.

***

It's one of the toughest weeks of Steve's life. The running, the climbing, the crawling through mud. Hodge is the only one to openly laugh at him, but he knows the others are wondering what he's doing there.

He wonders too, because all he has to go by is that Erskine thinks he belongs there. He's not like the rest of them. He can barely keep up with the rest of the company when they go on one of the many endless runs--in full uniform, with packs, no less.

"Pick up the pace, ladies!" the drill sargeant shouts, and then brings them to a halt beside a flag pole, the flag that marks the halfway point of their route. "The first man to bring it to me gets a ride back with Agent Carter!"

All the men start clambering up the flag pole, but none can get more than a few feet off the ground. "Fall in!" the drill sargeant barks, while Steve, finally getting his breath back (more or less) sees what no one else has seen in seventeen years.

"Rogers! I said fall in!"

Steve pulls the pin from the bottom of the pole. It falls to the ground. He pulls off the flag, hands it to the drill sargeant with a quiet, "Thank you, sir," and climbs into the back of Agent Carter's Jeep.

She's smiling.