Happy Ending *Completed*

Chapter 6

*Y'all know what this means by now*

Today is the day, the day that Steve is going to change forever. I came separately from Peggy and Steve, Dr. Erskine wanted to ask me a couple of questions before the procedure. I was going to help with the procedure since I helped Stark and Erskine with it a bit. I was focusing on completing a few more settings when I heard the door open and Erskine welcome someone in. It must be little Steve-o, well... soon to be big Steve-o. I'm drowning out all the conversations that were happening around me so I could finish up the last adjustments. I finished just as Steve was entering the pod.

"Comfortable?" Erskine... it's a giant metal tube... how could it be comfortable?

"It's a little big." It won't be big for that much longer if this all goes according to plan. "You save me any of that schnapps?" Woah, hold up, schnapps?

"Woah, Woah, schnapps? You do not need any alcohol in your system mister." I will go momma bird on your butt, Steve.

"Don't worry Dolores, I didn't take any. Erskine actually took my pour." Good, who knows what alcohol would have done.

"He better have. Now I'm going to get some of it." Erskine began his schpiel on what was going to happen during the experiment while Stark and I began to get our positions ready. Erskine signals to begin the procedure and Stark and I begin. The percentage slowly rises and Steve's vitals are looking okay. Then Stark hit seventy percent and all hell broke loose. Steve begins screaming probing Erskine, Peggy, and myself to push for the whole thing to be shut down. Then we all heard a distant scream telling us not to... and it was coming from the pod.

"No! Don't! I can do this!" So Stark kept raising the percentage, and when it hit one hundred everything overloaded. Slowly the pod opens revealing Steve... and when I said he was going to be big Steve-o soon I wasn't wrong, he used to be barely taller than me and now I'm at his shoulder, maybe. Then of course just as I was about to go talk to Steve a bomb goes off... sometimes this job sucks. Oh look, and there goes the guy that came with Senator Brandt with the last vial of serum. Again, sometimes, I hate my job. Just as I was about to run after him the son of a female dog shot Erskine... I hope he dies a painful death. Steve and I kneel down next to him, and he points towards Steve's heart, then collapses. Steve gets his frustrated look and goes running out the door.

"He's gone... right?" Erskine will be the death of me.

"Really? You faked your death?"

"Kind of, I am probably going to die soon, but I wanted to tell you, remember what you are, and don't forget it, keep the world in check." And with that Erskine drew his last breath, dying for real this time, while I sat there thinking about what he said.

*I know, I'm skipping around a lot, but Y'all should know what's generally happening*

Steve's become a dancing monkey, nothing like what Erskine wanted him to be. So it's not surprising when he feels disheartened when he's practically booed off the stage. The guys weren't exactly easy on him, I mean I saw it and they were ruthless. Knowing that Steve would enter a self-deprecating state I set off to find him, finding him sitting on a bench doodling a circus monkey, not far off what he practically is right now.

"Not bad, would be better if it were in a more natural habitat."

And a startled Steve jumps to face me a bit more, "Dolores? How did you get here?"

"What? Can't I come check on one of my only friends? So how is it being the poster boy of America?"

"Well, it generally goes better than that. Bond sales take a ten percent bump in every state I visit."

"That doesn't sound like the Steve I know, I didn't hear a thing about the war it's self." That earned me a chuckle, nothing like a sad almost pitty sounding chuckle. "For as long as this war has been going on I had to sit there and listen to you talk about going to fight for your country, now it may not be the way you thought you would be doing it, but you're here, and you never know what may come from it." Just as I finished my sentence two of the showgirls walked past us talking to each other.

"Isn't it sad that's all that's left of the one-oh-seventh? I don't know how their families can handle this."

"I know, I would never let any of my family come out here."

Steve and I just looked at each other, we were both thinking the same thing, "Bucky."