Gold to Airy Thinness Beat

Chapter Four

Stephanie opened her mouth and then shut it again as she struggled to think of a response. She couldn't just say anything, it needed to be the right answer, the one that would keep her out of prison if such an outcome was even possible.

"Do you want to kill Nazis?" the man asked again. He was older, with white flyaway hair and stubble and looked more like a scientist than someone in the military.

Stephanie swallowed, her throat dry. "Is this a test?" Were they trying to find out if she was violent? Crazy? Or something else entirely?

"Yes," came the simple answer and her heart rate spiked again. She glanced toward the exit but doubted, if she ran, that she could make it out of the center before being caught. She tended to run out of breath easily, she'd probably make it five steps. Not to mention they clearly already knew who she was and could just show up at her front door, or Bucky's front door in this case which was ten thousand times worse.

"I don't want to kill anyone," she said finally. Refusing to answer would probably just get her thrown in prison. At least, at the moment, he was waiting for an answer. If she could just figure out the right combination of words, the right thing to say. She took a deep breath, her mind racing. "I just hate bullies." That was easy enough to prove. Her history with bullies was long and well established in her neighborhood. The thought passed through her mind that they could question Bucky about it and she mentally cringed, praying they didn't.

She tried desperately to think of something else to add, something deep and profound and worthy of not being sent to prison, but her mind decided it had helped enough and proceeded to go completely blank. Giving up, she clenched her hands in her lap and waited anxiously as the man studied her, his face unhelpfully blank.

Finally, he started talking. His name, Stephanie found out, was Dr. Abraham Erskine and, much to her shock and everlasting relief, he wasn't there to arrest the insane woman who'd tried five times to pass herself off as a man to try and join the war effort. It would have been nice, Stephanie thought in irritation, for him to mention all that before she'd nearly had a heart attack but, for once, she decided silence was the better option and kept her peace.

Erskine had apparently overheard her talking to Bucky earlier and had been impressed. She had no idea how they'd identified her so quickly, or connected all her other enlistment efforts but, again, now was probably not the best time to start demanding answers. "There are already so many big men fighting this war," he told her, his tone excited. "Maybe what we need now is a woman, ja?"

Stephanie blinked at him in surprise. Had she given him an idea to let a woman join and fight? "You think you can convince them to take a woman?" she asked, her tone disbelieving. If he knew about her attempts, then he knew they'd all failed spectacularly. Even if he could find a woman in top physical health, a female version of Bucky to parade about on camera and in the field, she doubted the people in charge would ever let her join.

"Ah," he said, "that is where it will be complicated I'm afraid. I do have some power in who I choose for my program but I fear there are those who will be far too shortsighted to see what I do when I look at you."

Program? Stephanie thought. What program? He hadn't mentioned anything like that had he? Then the rest of what he'd said registered and shock rattled through her, followed closely by the desire to scream in frustration. He wanted to help her enlist? The help she'd been waiting for, the chance she'd been hoping for, and it was offered now. Now, when she'd given up and set out on another path.

"It will be hard to convince them," Erskine was saying, "given your size, but it can be done. As for the rest," here he made a vague gesture at her that she figured was meant to encompass her female attributes, or lack thereof. "We shall have to be...creative. You will enlist as Steve Rogers, and will be housed in my lab. We shall say your parents are quite wealthy and donated heavily to my experiments in order to ensure your every comfort."