Steve Rogers's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Steve Rogers weighed ninety pounds and wanted to fight a war. He stood on a stage in a bright field suit, shaking hands, selling war bonds to a crowd that laughed at his skinny arms. The Strategic Scientific Reserve had made him a mascot. He wanted the front. He was afraid the war would end before anyone let him near it. After the show, a doctor found him behind the curtain. The serum was ready. One dose. One frail man who might die on the table. Steve did not hesitate. He climbed into the machine before they finished asking. The pod sealed. Light poured through the seams. Steve's bones stretched. His chest broadened. Pain tore through every muscle at once, and he bit down and refused to scream. When the doctors opened the pod, a different man stepped out. Taller. Corded with muscle. Steady on his feet for the first time in his life. But the machine's power spike drew attention. A saboteur in the crowd fired a pistol, killed the lead scientist, and ran. The serum was gone. Steve was the last of it. That meant the SSR could no longer waste him on stages. It also meant enemies now knew what he was. They shipped him toward the front to prove himself. His unit walked into a French forest already burning. Shells had scattered the men. Steve found a soldier crouched in a shell crater, alone, sharpening a knife on his boot like the war was a chore. The soldier's uniform hung in strips. Old scars crossed his forearms. He looked up without alarm, sized Steve up, and went back to the blade. "You the one they built in a box?" the soldier said. "Word travels." "Steve Rogers." He offered a hand. The soldier ignored it. "Logan. Got cut off from my unit. Been walking since." He stood. He was shorter than Steve now but held himself like nothing on earth could move him. "You lost too?" "No. I'm going forward." Logan studied him a moment. Something eased in his face. "Been a while since I saw a friendly one," he admitted, and it seemed to cost him. "Fine. Forward." Machine-gun fire opened from the treeline. Steve shoved Logan flat as rounds chewed the crater rim. The enemy had them pinned. Steve grabbed a fallen shield from the mud, rose, and charged the gun nest alone. Bullets rang off the metal. Logan came up beside him, blades out, snarling. They took the nest in under a minute. When it was over, Logan wiped his knife and looked at the shield in Steve's grip. "That your choice," he said, "or theirs?" Steve looked at the dead men, then at the ground he'd won. "Mine. Starting now." He was on the front at last. But a whole enemy line stood between them and their scattered units, and Logan was the only man beside him.