First Flame. ~Book One~

Chapter Three: Super Soldier.

"I know this neighborhood." Steve said as he rode in a car with Peggy beside him, though he wished that he had Red with him instead, maybe then he wouldn't feel so nervous. "I got beaten up in that alleyway, and that parking lot, and behind that diner." He explained as they passed another alleyway. "And met Red in that alley... while I was getting beaten up." 
"Did you have something against running away?" Peggy asked with a small sigh of her own. 
"You start running away, they'll never let you stop." Steve said with a small shrug. "You stand up, push back... can't say no forever, right?" 
"I know a little of what that's like." She said as she glanced out of the window beside her. "To have every door shut in your face." 
"I know a little of what that's like." She said as she glanced out of the window beside her. "To have every door shut in your face." 
"I guess I just don't know why you'd wanna join the army if you're a beautiful dame-or-or a beautiful-a woman, agent! Not a dam! You are beautiful, but-" Steve cut himself off, silently kicking himself for stammering himself into a hole. Maybe Bucky was right, he should've dated more.
"You have no idea how to talk to a woman, do you?" 
"This is the longest conversation I've had with one." He reluctantly admitted. "Women aren't exactly lining up to dance with a guy they might step on." 
"And Red doesn't count?" 
"She does, but she's one of my best friends... and she's dating Buck," Steve shrugged. "She's practically one of the guys." He sighed as he looked out of his window. "I'm not helping my case, am I?" 
Peggy chuckled as she shook her head. "No, not really, but you must have danced?" 
He decided that he already dig his hole this deep, might as well keep telling her the truth. "Well, asking a woman to dance always seemed to terrifying, ad the past few years, it just didn't seem to matter that much." He paused for a moment before he shrugged. "Figured I'd wait." 
"For what?" 
"The right partner." 
She was about to say something else when the driver pulled up to an antique shop. "This way." She said as she led the way out of the car and into the shop. 
"What are we doing here?" 
"Follow me." Was all Peggy said in reply. 
The minute they walked in, it looked like it was just as ordinary looking on the inside as it did on the outside, even had a just as ordinary looking elderly woman running the store.
The woman smiled at them. "Wonderful weather we're having this morning." 
"Yes." Peggy said, returning the smile. "But I always carry an umbrella." 
The woman said nothing in reply as she reached down and under the counter. Suddenly, the wall behind her opens, revealing a secret hallway. Peggy led the way down the corridor and into a secret lab, with a human sized pod sitting in the middle of a platform. 
Steve hadn't realized how nervous he really was until he spotted Red, standing in the middle of a viewing booth, surrounded by politicians and other agents, he felt his stomach writhe with mixed nervous anticipation and fear, was there a chance that this wouldn't work? But all the same, she fell into step beside him with Peggy following behind them. 
 "Ready for your big day?" She asked. 
"As I'll ever be." 
"You're gonna do great." Red said as they walked down the stairs. "I can feel it." 
That seemed to at least calm his thoughts, even if it was only slightly. "You think it's gonna work out?" 
She gave him a gentle smile. "I know it is." 
Grasping for a new subject, he said. "You get those letters send out?" 
Red nodded as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her trousers. "Yup. We should hear back in a few weeks or so." 
Steve stayed silent as they made it down into the lab and got surrounded by doctors and scientists alike, but Red never once left his side, even when Erskine joined them.
"Good morning." He said as he shook Steve's hand, and someone-Steve didn't know who-took their picture. "You ready?" He asked as he caught Steve eying the pod. When all he did was nod, Erskine smile. "Good, now, take off your shirt, tie and your hat." 
As he got undressed, Red finally left his side to talk to Howard.
+++
With Steve looking like he might throw up any second, Red approached Howard with her hands still deep in her pockets. "So, you think that this is gonna work?" She took a deep breath. All morning, she'd been trying to keep her mind off of Bucky and the feeling that something was about to go horribly wrong. No matter how hard she tried, she could either think about one or the other, and decided that it was better to just think about how much she missed Bucky. 
"I sure hope so." Howard said, glancing at her as she reached up to touch the dog tags that hung around her neck. "You doing alright? I know you don't like being away from Barnes for this long." 
"Yeah." She started rather quickly. "I mean, I saw it coming, you know? Besides, it's only a matter of time before this is all over and he gets to come home." He said that he'd always come home, and every time, he always had.
"That's the spirit, Red." He said with an encouraging smile. 
And it would be a relief when she'd get to stop keeping secrets from him. "Anyway, have you heard anything about where we're going next?" 
"I have not," he said as he went about his work. "But when I do, you'll be the first to know." 
"Brilliant ." She muttered before she turned on her heel and went back up to the booth, just in time to dump into Senator Brant as he and Philips spoke to one another. Red had never particularly liked Brant, he had always seemed more focused on his image rather than the state of the country.
"Ah, Red." He said when he spotted her. "I was just telling Chester about the funds." 
Red gave a tight smile as she leaned forward to shake his hand. "Of course, and it's nice to see you again, Senator." 
"You as well," he said enthusiastically. "You as well. Glad you could make it." 
"You too." She said shortly as another man joined the small group. Red didn't recognize him, she didn't even think she'd ever seen his face before, but she shrugged it off, deciding that this was one of the many people that Philips had invited. 
"Fred Clemson," the man said as he shook each of their hands. "State Department." Fred gave a chipper smile as he looked at them. "If this project of yours comes through, we'd like to see it used for something other than the headlines." 
"Yes, well, that is the hope." Red said with an uncomfortable chuckle. She didn't like how he inserted himself into their conversation. 
And thankfully, Brant got distracted as he looked down, into the lab, and spotted Steve. "Jesus," he said. "Somebody get that kid a sandwich." 
+++
Steve stood awkwardly in the lab before he clambered into the pod, anxiously waiting for whatever might happen next. "Comfortable?" Erskine asked as he looked at him.
"It's a little big." He said in a half-hearted attempt to make a joke, but he cringed when he heard it come out sort of flat. "You save any of that Schnapps?" 
"Not as much as I should have." He gave Steve an apologetic smile. "Sorry, next time." Erskine said before he turned to face Howard. "Mister Stark, how are your levels?" 
Steve looked at Red, who was still in the audience booth mingling with the politicians, feeling as if he was doomed. If Howard Stark, who had failed the demonstration of what was supposed to be this generation's first flying car, was in charge of his operation, was Steve supposed to expect that he'd crash and burn too? But when they locked eyes, and she gave him an encouraging smile with a double thumbs up, he felt somewhat relieved. 
"Levels at one hundred percent." Howard said. 
"Good." 
"We may dim half the lights in Brooklyn, but we are as ready as we'll ever be." 
Erskine then turned to look at Peggy, who was still hovering around. Steve wasn't really sure why she decided to stay around, but it made him happy nonetheless. "Agent Carter? Don't you think you would be more comfortable up in the booth?" 
Peggy looked confused for a moment as she blinked dazedly before she realized where she was. "Oh-yes, of course." She then quickly walked away with a hastily muttered 'sorry'.
As soon as Erskine was sure that both Red and Peggy were safe in the booth, he picked up a microphone and gave the top of it a gentle tap. "Do you hear me? Is this on?" When the group collectively nodded, he continued. "Ladies and Gentlemen, today we take, not another step toward annihilation, but the first step on the path of peace. We begin with a series of micro injections into the subject's major muscle groups. The serum infusion will cause immediate cellular change." As Erskine spoke, he prepared a shot for Steve. "And then, to stimulate growth, the subject will be saturated with Vita-Rays." He then jabbed the needle into Steve's arm. After everything that had just been described, getting a normal, mundane shot sounded so ridiculous. 
But he felt even more ridiculous when he said. "That wasn't that bad." And hoped that that was the serum and that the operation was over. 
Erskine chuckled. "That was penicillin." He turned to face the surrounding scientists. "Serum infusion in five... four..." Steve closed his eyes and tried to calm his breath. "Three, two..." It wouldn't hurt all that much, he tried to convince himself, just one quick poke and it'll be over. 
"One!" The serum was injected into him and it took everything in him to not gasp or even flinch in pain. "Now, Mister Stark!" 
As Howard pulled down the lever, the pod suddenly moved up right and the doors closed around him. Through the small window, he could just barely see Red nervously biting her thumbnail. He almost jumped when there was a little knock on the pod doors. 
"Steven," Erskine said. "Can you hear me?" 
Steve shrugged before he remembered that the doctor couldn't see him. "It's probably too late to go to the bathroom, right?" 
He heard Erskine chuckle. "We will proceed." 
+++
Red nervously watched as they got ready to turn Steve into a super-soldier. The only other success was Schmidt, and even then, she wouldn't even consider it a success considering the state of that man's face and all. What if Steve died? Or worse, what if he became the Blue Skill and had to go the rest of his life, looking like a hideously strong rage monster?
"That's ten percent..." Howard said. "Twenty percent... thirty..." He raised his head to look at Erskine. "That's forty percent." 
"Vital signs are normal." 
"That's fifty!" Howard called. "Sixty... seventy..." The moment he called out seventy, the pod lit up with an almost blinding blue light and Steve started to yell out in pain. Before anyone in the room, including herself, could even move to stop her, Red was flying down the stairs. "Steve!" She yelled, feeling her heart stop in her chest before it frantically started to beat again. 
"Steven!" Erskine called. 
"Shut it down!" Peggy yelled next. 
"Turn it off!" Red repeated, panic clear in her voice. 
"Kill the reactor, Mister Stark!" Erskine yelled as Red landed at the bottom of the stairs. "Turn it off! Kill it! Kill it!" 
The only think that made any of them pause in the act of turning off the reactor, was the sound of Steve's voice, finally breaking through his screaming. "No! Don't!" There was a short pause, and then he very stubbornly said. "I can do this!" 
Howard glanced at Red, as if he was asking for the all clear. Steve's fate was now resting in her hands, if he died now, it would be on her hands. With a sigh, she nodded. "Eighty!" He called out. "Ninety! That's one hundred percent." For a moment, it seemed like the entire scene froze, and the only thing that was moving was the bright light shining from the pod that Steve was in. Red raised her hand to cover her eyes before the reactor shut itself down and she was the first to reach the pod, desperate to see if she did just kill her friend. "Open it." 
Erskine nodded and turned to face Howard. "Mister Stark?" 
Howard quickly opened the pod to reveal a living, breathing, Steve, who had gotten taller and more muscular. The serum had been able to take hold, and he hadn't taken any sort of monstrous form like Schmidt had. But more importantly, he was alive. 
"Steven?" Erskine asked. "Steven?" 
Together, she and Howard helped Steve out of the pod and onto the platform, supporting him as the people up in the audience booth spilled out and into the room proper. "I did it." He muttered to Red. 
"Yeah you did." 
"Yeah..." Erskine repeated, sounding dazed. "Yeah, I think we did it." 
"We actually did it." Howard said, giving Red a big, disbelieving grin. 
"I can't believe this worked." Red mumbled in response. 
"Really?" 
"Yup." 
As she and Howard continued to help Steve stay standing up, Peggy finally pushed her way through the crowd and was able to approach them. "How do you feel?" 
"Taller." Steve said with soft laugh. 
Peggy reached up and just barely touched his chest with a mumble of. "You look taller." To which Howard and Red shared a very uncomfortable look that simply asked 'what the fuck?'
"How do you like Brooklyn now, Senator?" Philips said to Brant. 
"I can think of some folk in Berlin who are about to get very nervous." Brant said as he reached over to shake Erskine's hand. 
"Thank you, sir." 
As if in slow motion, as Red turned to say something to Howard with a smile on her face, the booth above them exploded, and they fell back from the pressure of the explosion. Howard let go of Steve and kept Red covered from the flaming rubble, and then... a gunshot sounded and as Erskine fell, the weird Fred guy started to run away. 
Peggy was the first of them to take off running, with Steve and Red following closely behind her. Before she even knew it, they were outside and Peggy was about to get hit by the getaway car as she fired at it. Red pushed herself to fly as fast as she possibly could and tacked Peggy out of the way moments before the taxi barreled past them. 
"I had him!" Peggy yelled as Red got back to her feet. 
"No you didn't!" She yelled back before she and Steve took after the car. 
"Sorry!" Steve called over his shoulder. 
As they ran, or in Red's case, flew, after Fred and his taxi, they turned a sharp corner and Steve crashed through the window of a wedding shop's storefront. She helped him back to his feet and they continued their pursuit. 
Red pointed down an alleyway when she spotted the getaway car and they started down it, they were able to easily catch up with with Fred and the stolen taxi as they reached the pier. The moment they appeared in front of him, he crashed the taxi and the door fell with a loud clatter onto the pavement. Steve picked it up and used it as a shield to keep them covered as Fred fired at them and took a young boy hostage. 
"Steve," she whispered. "Focus on Fred, I'll try to get the kid." 
"Understood." 
She flew off and toward the edge of the pier, trailing Fred from the side as Steve pursued him from the front. She just hoped that that gun was about to be jammed, this would be the literal worst moment for Steve to die.
+++
"Get back!" Fred yelled as he pointed the pistol at Steve.  
"Let me go!" The boy yelled as he struggled. 
Steve followed him and the boy, still keeping himself shielded by the door as Fred used up the bullets in the gun. The closer they got to the water, the lower Red hovered over it, but both of them froze when Fred pointed the gun at the child's head.
"Wait!" Steve yelled as he dropped the car door. "Please don't." To his relief, Fred then pointed the gun at him, and when he pulled the trigger, Steve felt his heart stop in his chest. He feared that after everything he had just been thought, after all the work he had put in to be standing as he was, that he would die before he even got to help in the war. He had never in his life been so relieved to hear the sound of a gun clicking, revealing that there was nothing left in the chamber to fire. 
When it was found that the gun was empty, Fred threw the child into the water, where Red was hopefully still waiting. Steve rushed over as the man fan away, and found Red, grinning up at him with the child in her arms. "I've got him, go after Fred." 
Without giving it a second thought, he ran after Fred, and caught up with him just in time to watch him get into a strange looking submarine and start to make his great escape. Steve dove in after him and held his breath as he attempted to break into the vehicle. Just when the air in his lungs was screaming for escape, he managed to open the hatch and drag both himself, and Fred, out of the water and back onto the pier. 
Steve was still surprised that he had become as strong as he did, even more surprised still that he was able to keep a grip on the man as he struggled in his grasp. A vial of serum fell out of his pocket and shattered when it hit the pavement. 
"Who the Hell are you?" Steve asked as he pinned Fred down to the ground. 
"The first of many." Fred said as he got suddenly still. "Cut off one head, two more shall take it's place." He knocked a tooth loose and bit down on it before Steve could even say anything to try and stop him. "Hail HYDRA." He said before he choked on the poison pill and died. 
Steve picked up the body and carried it back to the entrance of the pier, where Red and other agents, including Peggy, we waiting for him.
"How did he die?" Red asked as they took the body away. 
"He killed himself after he said something about a hydra." Steve said, watching in confusion as the blood drained from her face. "You know it?" 
"Know it?" Red repeated with a bitter laugh. "Steve, that's the bigger part of the reason I came here."