Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Jeez. Looks like the rats have fled the sinking ship, Stevie.”

“Cap when we’re on duty, Sergeant Barnes,” Steve mumbles, all his attention dedicated to the mess they’ve walked into. “I guess we can blow this off. Doesn’t look like this covert weapon project still operates from here.”

There’s a crack and a grunt from behind him, then Dum Dum swearing mildly under his breath. He must’ve stepped into one of the Petri dishes strewn all over the floor, which is no surprise, given all the tables of the lab have been upended and the steel cabinets for the keeping of files tossed about in a wild array of destruction. The Nazi scientists who worked here before must’ve gotten the scent of the Howling Commandos’ impending arrival and cleared out in a hurry, neither caring to salvage much nor erase evidence of their experiments and results.

“Un moment, Capitaine,” Dernier intercepts to his left, kneeling beside a pile of ledgers, one open on his knees. He rifles through the pages, stopping every now and then to study them more closely with a frown creasing his forehead. “C’est marrant ça. On dirait qu’il y avait des expériences sur des hommes ici.”

A whole-body shudder grips Steve at the last sentence, even though he only knows a few swear words in French. Mustering his face into a calm expression, he edges closer to peer over his comrade’s shoulder, careful not to accidentally knock Jacques’ brains out with the edge of his shield. “Gabe. Tell me our Frenchman didn’t just find out they were conducting experiments on humans here.”

“Hate to disappoint you, Cap, but-” Gabriel Jones, his white teeth stark against his black smile as he grimaces and reads the German labels on a few bottles containing what must be chemical substances- “you heard right. Must be all sort of sick unholy things jotted down in those files. If you want me to translate them, I will, but one thing’s for sure: You won’t like my findings, even less ‘n me.”

Steve shakes his head wordlessly. Not necessary. There’s no need to amplify the horrors of the War once more. He sighs when he straightens up to survey the scene: Not much left to work with, in his opinion, so they might as well move out before the opposition finds the intruders in its territory. Though it irks him to leave this villa hidden in a copse of trees near Auschwitz just yet. Outside, the sky is drab and gray, hung with clouds which seem to not have moved an inch in the last fifteen minutes, and he knows that when they step over the threshold to move through the undergrowth of the forest to the abandoned dirt track where they left their army trucks, the smell will return.

The sickly-sweet smell of death, of flesh that couldn’t decay but was shoved into the oven, of barely grown-back hair. On the other side of the front line, in the camps of the American army, he’s heard rumors of the snow around Auschwitz coming down gray in the winter. Gray from ash. Gray from the flesh of human beings.

He would be lying if he said it didn’t make him want to curl up and puke his guts out.

But as it is, their time is running out, and as much as he would like to storm the gates of the KZ and free the workers there, the Howling Commandos are a small squad, numbering barely ten members. They need to get out of here, without the super weapon promised by Stark, with empty hands, but at least still in possession of their lives.

He’s about to bellow out a corresponding command when he hears Bucky’s gasp from a few doors down the hall and James Falsworth – who’s usually never lacking a joke or two – lets out an aggravated, “Oh sweet Jesus.” With a few strides, he’s out of the room with the filing cabinets, down the corridor and at his fellow soldiers' sides.

At the sight in front of him, he lowers his shield he’s had cautiously held in front of his body and feels his jaw go slack.

Bucky to his left shows very much the same signs of disgusted surprise.

“Well, fellas,” Falsworth finally says, “looks like we at least found the place where this supposed super weapon was forged.”

It’s not a room. It’s an operating theater. No windows. The floor is tiled white, laid out with a light incline so its lowest point is in the middle, and the operating table over this pit looks much the same. The straps hanging from its edge are crusted over with layers of old blood, the leather scratched at places where the doctors’ victim – or victims, countless ones, Steve can’t help thinking with dread settling in his stomach – must have been able to reach with their nails. On the walls surrounding the three men, instruments of medical torture are lined up neatly, polished blank and flawless, their bone-breaking blades shining in the cold light of the lamps humming quietly overhead.

But the most singular and fear-inducing feature in the surgical suite is not the heap of bloodied bandages Steve can’t help noticing have been discarded in a corner, or the dressing trolley with one single, strangely warped scalpel on its surface. No. What draws both his and Bucky’s gaze – the latter is just wetting his lips and Steve feels his cheeks warming but Not now, Rogers, and certainly not here, do you have any idea how darned indecent that would be? -, what makes the blood run cold with uneasy foreboding, is a metal cube standing at the far wall they’re facing.

“That looks like a safe or something,” Bucky says, voice as subdued as Steve hasn’t heard him in a long time. This must be the ultimate flashback to his torture at the hands of Hydra’s scientists. Instinctively, he thinks about hugging his friend, or taking his hand and peppering kisses all over it, to squeeze some warmth back into his body – but he can’t. He’s got other duties right now.

“A darn big safe in my opinion,” he replies and gingerly stalks towards it, always on guard. Judging from its edge length, a short man could maybe stand or lay down in it just so, and the metal appears to be some alloy of steel, with long scratches in it, dents and deformations and some air holes in its roof. There’s a door with multiple bolts embedded in its front side, but it’s unlocked, slightly ajar even.

From the puffs of breath coming from right behind him, Steve knows Bucky’s following him, so he’s extra careful with pulling the hatch open, inch after inch, slowly, like there’s a beast waiting for them inside (and maybe there is, maybe this is the weapon they’ve been tasked to find, maybe there’s an abomination sewn together from human remains waiting to devour them whole as soon as the door’s the whole way open, and yes, Steve has been reading to many horror novels in his spare time when the others of his squad were playing cards or drinking cheap Italian wine). At least his shield – its blue, red and white paint blinding in the uniform beige-gray of the suite – is up, covering his chest and abdomen. If the need arises, he can shove Bucky aside and buy his men time to get away.

The need, however, never arises. Not really.

“Christ,” is Bucky’s sole response to what they find in the metal cube.

Steve simply can’t stop staring.

Huddled in a corner of the cube is a boy. A young boy, barely in his teens, with a shock of peculiar ash-white hair and ribs that stick out in painful bows and curves. All over his body, scars mottle his skin to paint a macabre tableau of suffering, and he has his face hidden in his hands, which are knotted up into fists consisting of nothing but skin and bones. Steve thinks he can feel his heart break at the sight.

“Stevie,” Bucky whispers and attempts to push Steve aside so he can step into the square space and up to the child, but Steve holds his ground, not giving an inch. They have no way of estimating the danger they could be in. “Steve. We have to help him, we can’t just leave him ‘ere. Lemme talk to him.”

“No.”

“Steve.”

“No, Buck.” Checking behind to make sure neither Falsworth nor any of the other squad members who have appeared in the doorway are paying much attention to what their hands are doing, he quickly grabs one of Bucky’s and gives it a grounding squeeze. “I’ll go in. I’m the one with the shield.”

“You’re the one who’s three inches taller and scarier than me, but sure,” his best friend grumbles and tips his helmet. “Alright then. Off you go, Captain.”

He hears his men shuffling their feet on the tiles when he ducks and crosses the threshold of the metal room. Inside, he’s unable to straighten up, so he remains in a crouch, edging closer to the boy who’s peeking out from behind his fingers by now. His front is drawn, his cheekbones jut out sharply as if he hasn’t had a bite in weeks (which, Steve realizes with a sinking feeling to his guts, is probably the case) and his eyes are a troubled shade of gray, like the sky outside, tracking every move of Steve’s shield which he’s still holding up in front of his chest. The only item of clothing on his body – pants which ride high up his ankles – consists of a linen which is the same shade of drab washed-out white as the whole surgical suite.

“Easy, boy,” Steve finds himself whispering when his subject of attention gets into a crouch himself, as if he was ready to bolt any moment now, though Steve doesn’t know where from the kid would take the strength to even stand. “Easy.” He’s so close, only a few inches now, he thinks he’s almost there, almost able to lower his shield so he can scoop the boy up in his arms and carry him outside and to safety-

Everything happens very fast.

One moment, he’s standing over the child, hearing him cry out in German - “Nein bitte, bitte, ich werd brav sein, bitte, ich werd’s nicht wieder tun!” - and seeing him raise a hand, palm facing Steve, and the next he’s being crushed against the steel wall behind him, by nothing else but his own shield.

At first, he panics. It doesn’t quite feel like his asthma attacks back before Erskine shot that serum into his veins, but it’s certainly close. His one forearm presses into his chest painfully, and he thinks he can hear his ribs creaking.

“Steve! Goddammit, Steve!” Bucky shoves past Gabe, who’s descending into back-and-forth negotiations with the frightened boy - “Wer seid ihr? Was macht ihr hier?” and “Okay, look- Wir sind Freunde. Hilfe. Ja?” reach him through the rushing in his ears -, and begins to yank at the shield, but it won’t budge. “Shit, Steve, what did I tell you?”

Talking is getting difficult. “Hrm.” There’s a flush warming his cheeks, and it’s certainly not from the sight of the gorgeous man in front of him. More like from asphyxiation probably. “Three- ugh. Three inches scarier?”

Bucky gives up trying to dislodge the shield and puts his hands on his hips instead, with that You’ll-Never-Not-Get-In-Trouble-Will-You? look he always adopts when Steve is doing something heroic. “Yeah. Three inches scarier to that kid who’s been through a lot. Okay.” He raises his voice and turns to slide Gabe aside so he can kneel down in front of the boy instead, his voice low and gentle, as if he’s talking to a cornered animal – which, in a way, he is. “Kiddo. I know you probably don’t understand me, but let’s try this. You’re obviously doing this to my friend-” He gestures over his shoulder to where Steve is still wheezing under his shield, but he can already feel the pressure on his rib cage abate (Bucky has always had a way with kids, even when he first met Steve, and that’s why he’s still got his kneecaps intact)- “and he’s obviously not happy with the situation. So...”

The boy has flown into a full-on sobbing fit by now. His sides convulse like the fragile wings of a butterfly, the skin so papery Steve is afraid he’ll hurt himself if he curls up any tighter. Then, the pressure on his chest suddenly vanishes.

“Hey.” Bucky inconspicuously checks over his shoulder to give Steve a small nod when he sees the shield is hanging loosely from his captain’s arm again, as it should. “Well done, kid. We’re not trying to hurt you. We’re friends.” Lower and lower his voice grows, so that Steve has to prick his ears to catch the words. It’s like Bucky’s sharing a secret with the boy, a secret only the two of them will confide in. “Everything’s alright. Everything’s fine, yeah? Don’t worry, we’ll take you home.”

The boy’s traits are still twisted up with fright and sorrow when he nods, and there are tears streaking down his face in glistening rivulets. But as Bucky leans forward from where he’s squatting down to take his hand and pull him to his feet, he barely flinches. Instead, there’s a flicker in his eyes, a tiny spark.

Steve recognizes it for what it is: hope.

Bucky ends up carrying the boy all the way through the forest and to their camouflaged truck, because he’s not strong enough to walk himself after all. Steve’s blood runs cold at the sight of his legs jutting out from under his clothes: thin and bone-white like bleached twigs. There’s no fathoming what the kid has been through. He sure wouldn’t want to know if he had the choice.

But as it is, they have to sit the boy made out to be a weapon down on the bench in the back of their vehicle, with Gabe gritting out questions in broken German and the child shivering mutely. His agitation only abates when Steve and Bucky take place at either of his sides and start wrapping him in every piece of fabric they can find: a camouflage shroud, old and musty but still entirely apt to keep the cold of early spring out; Dum Dum’s spare woolen socks he gives up with a warm smile and a remark about how his mother – god bless her – would have been proud to see their use; Steve’s uniform jacket, because the serum keeps him warm through virtually anything. The boy’s cheeks soften as he relaxes tentatively and studies each of them in turn, eyes flicking to the driver’s compartment where Jim Morita and Jacques keep up a steady stream of conversation – even though the by far biggest part of it is Jacques weaseling on in French despite the fact that he should be monitoring the roads for German scouts.

Steve thinks to himself that he must’ve had the best luck on all the continents to have met those men, have the honor of fighting by their side. His heart goes out to the world’s lonely souls who are deprived of friends such as he has in the Howling Commandos.

Finally, Gabe succeeds in coaxing a name out of the boy.

“Erik Lehnshar, or something like it.” His eyebrows are all knotted up when he looks up at Steve for recognition. “Talks about a Doktor Schmidt – presumably not the one we’re after, this one seems like he’s been operating from here for a few months already – who killed his mother and took him out of the camp for experiments. He’s lost time, so can’t tell us how long he’s been on the slab, but he needs medical attention. Said he can, uh, move metal, and that he threw a tantrum to make the doctors flee without him when they heard we were coming.”

“Erik, huh?” Steve’s words make the boy’s eyes flicker over to him, attentively, on guard. He gives what he hopes is a reassuring smile and tucks his jacket tighter around the child’s frail body. “Thanks for translating, Gabe. Dunno what we would do without you.”

“Sign language,” Bucky mutters and pulls a silly grimace. It makes a smile tug at the corners of Erik’s mouth, which in turn kindles an unexpected warmth in the pit of Steve’s stomach.

It’s not like he never thought about having children, back when they were still over the pond and stuck in their daily rut. It’s just that the War has made it difficult to ruminate about anything else beyond surviving. But when he looks at Erik now, who’s carefully taking sip after sip from Bucky’s water bottle, clearly struggling not to throw up after such a long time without fluid intake or solid food, Steve has to admit the thoughts are back. And with them the sneaking suspicion that if they do this right, he mightn’t even worry about being childless for much longer.

They reach the extraction point just in the nick of time. Howard Stark is standing there, beside his invention which appears to be partly hovercraft, partly standard-issue combat plane, and he’s shouting for them to hurry up over the burr of the accelerating engine. Steve scoops their child charge up in his arms, feels Erik’s skeleton fingers dig into his shoulder and arms when he hoists him up into the aircraft, and then they are taking off, the devastated Polish soil disappearing from view as Stark makes for the front line and the safe base which lies beyond.

Curled into Steve’s chest, Erik’s eyelids soon begin to droop. And when Bucky flashes a smile at him from where he’s fastened his seat belt across from them, Steve knows that after all the despair, all the suffering, the boy in his arms has finally found the time to rest.

“With all due respect, Colonel Phillips, we were sent in to recover a weapon, not a child. You can’t expect us to hand him over to your scientists after all that’s been done to him.”

Bucky’s little nod from over the Strategic Scientific Reserve founder’s shoulder, embellished with that smile he has in store for Steve and only Steve, sends a thrill down his spine. He knows he’s not only doing this to get recognition from his best friend, that his first and foremost priority is in fact the well-being of the boy slumbering on a cot to their left, but he can’t help straightening up just a little bit more. Bucky’s attention is something to be treasured.

“Captain Rogers,” Chester Phillips sighs, his dark bushy eyebrows crawling over his forehead like caterpillars, “I know this might sound preposterous, but you have done your job. You walked out of there with that boy, and now he is no longer your duty. We will take him from here.”

“Will he be looked after?” Steve glances over as Bucky silently crosses the room and takes up guard at Erik’s side, as if he's ready for a tussle. “You could just send him over to America, to be cared for in an orphanage. I don’t see how he can be of much use to your division.”

Hunkered down on his army bed, Jim Morita sneers up at the Colonel, joining into the overall hostile atmosphere in the tent. Even Dum Dum, otherwise so calm and gentle, has his rifle at a mere arm’s length. The Howling Commandos are not satisfied with the SSR’s order to hand over Erik Lehnsherr, the boy who can bend metal and has been through hell because of it.

“He will be-” Phillips makes a pause to swallow dryly- “He could be of more use than any of you can possibly imagine. The limits to his power have yet to be explored, and were he to be trained in combat and brought to the front lines-”

“The boy stays,” Howard Stark cuts in from where he’s standing in front of the tent’s flap, his chiseled features hard as stone, machine-oil-smudged hands on his hips. “If you won’t leave him be, if you won’t let him lead a life where’s he’s cherished and cared for, he stays with the Commandos. That, or you can go search yourself another inventor to do your dirty work.”

For a few heartbeats, there’s nothing but the pitter-patter of the European spring rain on the flysheet, painting over the soft snores coming from where Erik is buried under a heap of all the blankets they could rustle up, still as deathly pale as when they first found him in that metal cube. Colonel Phillips stands and stares, gaze hardened as his eyes pin down Steve’s.

“Very well then,” he finally concedes, lips pinched up in an unhappy scowl. “But you make sure this brat doesn’t cause any trouble. And if he does, he’ll have to be… taken care of.” Then, his legs stiff like scissor blades, he marches out of the tent, past Jacques smoking his Gauloises, past Gabe cleaning his Swiss Army knife, avoiding Howard’s hard brown eyes tracking his every move until he’s out of sight.

Bucky’s the first to speak up. “Well, boys. Let’s hear it for Captain America, the savior and protector of orphans!” And with that, he gets up and claps Steve on the back, his hand lingering there just a split-second too long for it to be simple camaraderie. “Good job, Stevie.”

The Howling Commandos give subdued cheers, careful not to wake the boy in their midst, and from somewhere under his mattress, Falsworth digs up a hip flask of Single Malt Whiskey to be passed around with murmured jests and pleased smiles.

Howard, polishing the magazine of one of the hi-tech guns they freed from Schmidt, comes to stand at Steve’s left. “It’s good you wouldn’t let them have the kid. There are things going on in SSR even I don’t know about. I’ve got a son, maybe a few years younger ‘n him-” He gestures vaguely to where Erik whimpers softly in his sleep, promptly attracting Bucky who tucks the bedding tighter around the boy- “and by god, as a parent I have to tell you that I wouldn’t let them have my Tony, either.”

“So you don’t think we should attempt to send him to America on his own?”

“Anything could happen on the journey. No, he’s safest with you and your men keeping an eye on him here.” Nodding his thanks, Howard takes a sip from the flask Gabe hands him. “Just take it for what it is: The Howling Commandos have a mascot now.”

They might say the war is no place to bring up a kid. But Steve and his soldiers know better, and by the time Peggy Carter comes to join them, Erik Lehnsherr could not hope for a more caring family.

The boy refuses to stay bedridden for longer than one week after his rescue, even though the on-site doctor has prescribed re-hydration, three healthy meals per day (which should steadily but not too quickly be increased in size) and lots of rest to him. Every day, Erik’s stubborn staring matches with Bucky – who will tuck him back into bed any time the boy makes an attempt at venturing out – will drag on longer and longer, with Gabe unsuccessfully translating their negotiations, until Steve’s best friend finally caves and goes to procure fitting clothes for the adolescent. It’s not long after that Steve sees Erik up and about, quietly exploring in the mud between the tents and army wagons like a shadow who’s had to hide for half his life. Resembling a shy street cat, the boy with the ghostly white hair first shrinks back at any words addressed at him, but when Gabe explains to him the need for cooperation, he stops balking at the Howling Commandos any time they come to collect him after they’ve successfully taken out another Hydra weapons factory and are about to move their camp to the location of their next mission.

In fact, it seems Erik’s starting to take to them. He smiles at Falsworth’s more than dubious jokes Gabe translates for him. He goes wide-eyed with interest when Steve shows him his sketchbook, and then almost faints with barely veiled excitement when he’s allowed to draw some lines himself. And more than once, Steve trips over Bucky humming a subdued lullaby to Erik at bedtime or exchanging anecdotes through wild gesturing and the occasional word in each others’ language, when they think no one is around to observe them.

All in all, it seems Erik makes an excellent mascot.

The kid’s also a quick learner, Steve notes soon, in what concerns both practical and theoretical skills. Peggy smiles in pleasant surprise when Erik says a few lines to her in his broken English, a polite introduction with manners the boy certainly hasn’t learned from the Commandos but must have retained from his education before the second war of this century came about and tore down his life. In reaction to a telegram from Steve, she’s brought with her books on various subjects – English literature, mathematics, the history of the United States and the world -, books which aren’t standard furnishing in the camps only a few miles behind the front lines, books young Lehnsherr will be sat down with by Gabe or one of the other men so they can open up the world to him, despite the circumstances fate has thrown at them.

Five weeks and three stormed Hydra plants later, young Erik no longer needs Gabe translating every second word for him, and his unsettled gray eyes watch the going-ons in the army camp with uncanny attention any time he’s allowed a break from studying.

One strange feature of interest, however, remains: Ever since his rescue from Auschwitz’s labs, the boy hasn’t made a single attempt at moving metal.

So, it comes as a nice surprise when one day, only hours before the Commandos’ next move against Schmidt’s German science division, Steve finds himself looking up from where he’s tinkering with his enhanced motorcycle’s exhaust pipe and spots Erik standing in the tent’s opening, as quiet as a mouse in hiding but eyeing the various metal parts strewn over the workbenches and wooden transport crates with interest.

“Hey, kid,” Steve says and startles the boy into shifting his eyes over to him. “Looking for something?”

“May I help?” comes the answering question, asked with eyes downcast, but Erik’s fingers nibbling at each other betray his eagerness.

Steve smiles in the hopes the boy will catch on with the fact that he’s not, and never will be, a threat. “Sure, buddy. Um.” He hums, casting a glance around the tech tent. “Those screws over there-” He gestures evocatively in case the boy doesn’t have that in his vocabulary yet- “need sorting, by size. You can put them in these boxes, with your powers, if you like.” Recalling Erik’s rescue, Steve mimics the way the kid pushed his vibranium shield away with a mere flick of his wrist.

Apparently, it’s the wrong thing to say. The corners of Erik’s mouth curl downwards, and his steps are hesitant when he shuffles over to the workbench to stare at the bits of metal shimmering in the light of the electric lamp blocking out the falling dusk.

Carefully, Steve straightens up from his perch over his motorcycle’s rear end (Three inches scarier, Bucky’s words echo in the back of his head). “Hey, uh… What’s wrong? Did I do something, Erik?”

Even as Erik shakes his head – no, nothing at all –, the first tear glitters and detaches itself from his eyelashes to roll down and down, over his cheek, over his chin, a perfect roundel of liquid sorrow.

Steve knows Bucky’s closest to the boy. His best friend’s just too funny and warm-hearted and inviting, so it was never a surprise that Erik would bond with him first thing after opening up.

But Bucky’s not around right now.

Between fits of sobbing into Steve’s arms who is holding him close and shaking like a leaf, Erik tells him the whole story. It takes a whole lot of explaining, what with his – despite everything, still far from proficient – English and Steve’s basically non-existent German skills, but in the end, they piece it together.

It’s a tale of a coin that could not be moved, of a mother shot in front of her child’s eyes, of a boy for whom the sole reason he was allowed to live is that he is gifted. To Erik, it’s clear the Howling Commandos only took him because he can be molded into a weapon to win the War. He’s made sense of the whispered words from Colonel Phillips, from Stark, even from the nice Ms Peggy Carter. He is nothing but his power, and if he uses it, the scientists will come running like blood hounds who have gotten his scent. And that’s what has him so utterly frightened.

Steve decides to prove him wrong once and for all. “Look, Erik,” he says, gently patting the boy’s ash-white hair, “it’s nice that you can do that thing with iron and such. But I know there’s more about you.” He hunkers down so he’s eye-level with the child. “We all know. Wir alle. Verstanden?”

“Understood.” Through his tears, Erik smiles, all shuddery and liquefied, but it’s a smile after all.

“Great.” Steve stands and lays his hand on Erik’s bony shoulder, careful not to put too much force into it lest the boy come apart at the seams under his grip. “Now, I want you to sort those screws, and then, if we still got time- Do you know what I want us to do then?”

Erik’s eyes are widening gradually in his still haggard face, partly with anticipation, partly with fear. Steve regrets to kindle the latter in him. Then, the boy shakes his head.

Alright. Here goes. “I,” Steve says and taps the canvas bag slung over his shoulder where he keeps his sketchbook and pencils, “want to teach you how to draw.”

The smile dawning on Erik’s face then is more dazzling than he’s ever seen it, and by god, at that moment Steve gives the silent promise to coax the same enthusiasm out of the boy any chance he gets, cost it what it may.

The cost in the end isn’t quite so high. With his gift, Erik has to be his own teacher – there are indeed reports of people with powers out there, like the tale of a child goddess bringing down the elements onto the dry and cracked soil of the Serengeti, or the Frost heiress who is rumored to be made of diamond if she so wishes, but there’s no way they can be brought into contact with Erik under the current circumstances. The boy, though, fares well. Soon, he gets so comfortable as to display his powers openly in the workshop, lifting screws and tools and machine parts of any alloy, assisting Howard Stark in easy repairing tasks or helping Steve out with his motorcycles (another passion they both share, as they find out with relish). Bucky is impressed, and so are the Howling Commandos, who resume doting on their metal-bending, art-admiring mascot more than ever.

Yes, if done right, the war is a fine place to bring up a kid.

At least, it is until Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes is once again declared killed in action. For good, this time. 

Chapter Text

Night hangs deep and dark over London, heavy with the waning roar of German bombers. Entrenched in the shadows of a threadbare building, a boy with oddly white hair cowers and listens to Captain America down glass after glass of cheap liquor.

Erik can’t sleep. This is the first time he’s been to such a big city – Düsseldorf wasn’t exactly small either, but it wasn’t so sprawling. So cancerous. It didn’t go on for miles and miles, all steel beams and copper wires and rusty door handles. And there were never so many planes flying so low over it, their bellies filled with oval shapes that are the size of a small car.

Fingers shaking with the overwhelming sensations tugging at his attention on all sides, Erik tucks his knees closer to his body and tenderly smooths a palm over the cover of his sketchbook. It’s about twice as long and broad as his hand, its thick, creamy pages of close-grained paper encased by fine leather, shiny already with how much Erik’s been touching it. Mr Rogers and Mr Barnes bought it for him when their troops passed a market in a little village in the Italian Alps. Erik still remembers it so well – the fresh smell of a paper mill nearby, one of Mr Rogers’ hands on his shoulder while the other reached to touch Mr Barnes’ elbow, and Mr Barnes’ smile when he gave Erik the sketchbook and Erik just couldn’t help beaming with happiness.

It all seems so far away now. Like it happened in another century, in another lifetime. Mr Barnes is gone, and Mr Rogers isn’t the man he used to be.

A bomber plane rumbles through the sky close by, and Erik ducks his head – less out of fear and more out of the sheer overwhelming urge that tells him to reach up and rip the Nazi aircraft right out of the sky. But he can’t. He knows he’s not strong enough.

At the table near the crate behind which Erik is hiding, Mr Rogers sighs, probably reaching out right now to pour himself another glass. Erik feels a frown spread over his forehead. Mr Rogers and Mr Barnes always reminded him of the men in the camps, those with the Rosa Winkel – the pink triangle. Homosexuelle, Entartete, Schwule. Erik doesn’t know what was so wrong about these men, what could have been so wrong about Mr Rogers and Mr Barnes being happy like that. Es ist doch nur Liebe, his mother used to say, it’s just love.

The only bad thing about love, Erik thinks, is that it hurts oh-so-much when the ones you’ve given your heart to are gone forever.

There’s a crackle by the door, like glass and rubble grinding together under the heel of a boot, and then Erik can see the shape of Ms Peggy Carter enter the ruined bar. He ducks deeper into the shadows.

Mr Rogers sniffs – he must have noticed the nice woman by now – and the click of a bottle head against the rim of a glass sounds through the room.

“Mr Erskine said that the serum wouldn’t just affect my muscles,” Mr Rogers murmurs, “it would affect my cells. Create a protective system of regeneration and healing, which means, um…” He trails off.

Erik wonders if Ms Carter is giving him that look again, the one that has even the most cheerful men from the Howling Commandos shut up with their babbling.

“I can’t get drunk. Did you know that?” Mr Rogers finishes, and Ms Carter sighs. From the scraping of wood on wood, it sounds like she’s dragging one of the few working chairs from the half-derelict bar over to Mr Rogers’ table.

“Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average person,” she tells Mr Rogers. “He thought it could be one of the side effects.”

Silence falls. Outside, the moon breaks through the dark cover of clouds and bathes the wooden skeleton of the bar in eerie silver light. Erik watches the hairs on his bare forearms raise and stand on end.

When Ms Carter speaks again, she sounds very close and very warm. Like Erik’s Mama when he would come home from school with a scraped leg or one of his pencils missing.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Mr Rogers doesn’t sound like he believes her. “Did you read the report?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know that’s not true.” His voice breaks on the last note, and Erik’s knuckles turn white as he grips his sketchbook tighter. Warum muss es so fest wehtun? Why does it have to hurt so much?

“You did everything you could,” Ms Carter objects, only composed honesty in her voice. After a pause, she adds, “Did you believe in your friend? Did you respect him? Then stop blaming yourself – allow Barnes the dignity of his choice, that he must’ve thought you were worth it. And don’t forget that you’ve still got someone else to look out for.”

Erik can’t blame himself for letting his breath catch in the back of his throat even though he wants to. Who is she talking about? It can’t be-

“The boy needs you, Steve.” Fabric rustles over wood, skin rasps against skin, and Erik just knows that Ms Carter must’ve taken Mr Rogers’ hand and is squeezing it tightly right now. “Barnes might have been the one he got closest to, but Erik trusts you just as much. Believe me, I’ve seen it in his eyes – he knows what’s going on in you right now, and damn me if he doesn’t mourn for him, too.”

The rest of her words is lost to Erik as he squeezes his eyes closed tightly and wills the tears back down. His throat, his nose are hurting, clogging up, and he can feel himself trembling in the cool night air.

Why must Ms Peggy see right through him? Why must she know everyone, everything so, so well?

A sharp intake of breath alerts him of Mr Rogers’ reaction. Pricking up his ears, Erik listens with his heart beating fast and high in his throat as the Captain sighs and replies in a low voice, “I know. But Peggy, you don’t want to know how I feel about dragging him into all of this. The poor kid would’ve been safer if we had sent him on a transport straight to America-”

Erik’s blood runs cold at the mention of a transport, and he’s glad when Ms Carter intercepts Mr Rogers.

“You don’t mean that.” Her voice is firm, she’s sure of herself. “We both know what could have happened to him had the SSR got their grubby hands on him – there’s nowhere he’s safer than with you and your men.”

A pause. Then, “Peggy. I’m going after Schmidt. I’m not gonna stop until all of Hydra is dead or captured, and I don’t know if I can hold back just for Erik’s sake.”

“Yes, you can. And you will – because you’re not alone.”

You’re not alone. The words have a pleasant ring to them, and Erik savours their taste on his tongue as he leans his head against the splintered wood of his hiding place and thanks Ms Carter, thanks God for being so good to him. For giving him shelter and food and warm smiles, after all that he’s been through, and after all the atrocities the ones being so kind to him must’ve lived through, too.

He’s so sunk into this momentary lull of quiet joy that he only notices the bomb falling when it’s already half-way to the ground. It impacts a few blocks away, sending the ground juddering and the walls shaking, and Erik cries out before he can slap a hand over his mouth and smother himself.

“What was that?” Two chairs scrape backwards on the wooden floor of the bar, Ms Peggy’s voice sounding loud in the sudden quiet after the ringing explosion.

Mr Roger’s heavy steps - already on the way out the door - falter, then take up again and start heading straight for Erik’s hideaway. “I think it came from over there.”

Erik’s given himself away. Jumping up and attempting to make a run for the door is fruitless, with Mr Rogers and Ms Peggy standing right in the way, and there’s not a darker corner for him to crawl to. So, he just cowers and waits, cringing away from the sound of Mr Rogers’ steps even though he knows the man’s only been good to him so far. But as minimal as the odds that he’ll change his mind are, they still aren’t zero.

Then, Mr Rogers is rounding the crate. He comes to an abrupt halt when he sees Erik.

“Erik?” Hesitant, he brings up a hand and wipes the back of it over his mouth before he crouches down to eye-level. “What are you doing here, kid? Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

For a split-second, Erik lets his eyes flick up to meet Ms Carter’s gaze. To his great surprise, she doesn’t seem all that fazed or angered, but before he can allow relief to flood his chest, he looks back at Mr Rogers and whispers, “The sky is moving. So much metal.”

Mr Rogers shoots a glance at Ms Carter over his shoulder, and she nods. He turns back around.

“How much did you hear, Erik?”

Erik feels his bottom lip begin to tremble. “Nothing, Mr Rogers. I heard nothing, please, it's true-”

“Hey, hey, shh.” Mr Rogers is now moving like he’s trying to soothe a scared animal, and with shame, Erik realises it’s because of him. “I didn’t mean that you shouldn’t have listened. It’s okay, Erik – I’m just sorry you had to hear what I said. Now, let’s get you to bed, yes?”

Erik nods and scrambles to stand, but before he can slip by Mr Rogers and Ms Peggy, he feels himself being lifted up and hugged gently against Mr Rogers’ chest. One of the man’s hands comes up to brush a strand of hair from Erik’s forehead while the other holds him up under his thighs, cradling him close, and there’s a smile on Mr Rogers’ lips when he sees the sketchbook Erik is still clutching in his grip.

“We’ll get you a better plushie soon,” he mutters under his breath, full of promise, and Erik knows he means it. Leaning his head against Mr Rogers’ broad shoulders and then burying his face at the man’s neck when there’s no objection, he quietly lets himself be carried out of the bar and onto the street. He still notices the approving smile Ms Carter flashes Mr Rogers – for what, he can’t be sure, but he thinks he has an inkling with how warm and safe Mr Rogers’ arms fit around him.

By the time their stake-out comes into sight, Erik is half-asleep, his eyelids drooping, the grip he has on the folds of Mr Roger’s uniform jacket slackening. Somewhere in the course of their walking, the man has taken the sketchbook from him and stowed it safely away in one of the pouches on his utility belt. Erik knows it won’t get scratched or torn there.

Ms Carter strides ahead and throws back the dark tarpaulin covering the entrance to the Howling Commandos’ resting place. It's for keeping the light in, and Mr Rogers has to duck when he steps through the rackety doorway. Inside, the faint glow of a lantern bathes Captain America’s soldiers in muted gold, all of them sound asleep - safe for Monsieur Dernier, whose turn it is to keep watch.

“Eh bien, le voilà notre gars,” he whispers and jumps up when his eyes zero in on Erik snuggled in Mr Rogers’ arms. Keeping his steps quiet and his voice low, he comes over to ruffle Erik’s hair affectionately. “Il s’est caché où, mon capitaine?”

“Uh,” Mr Rogers stutters, then replies in very accented French, “Dans le bar.”

Apparently satisfied by this answer, Monsieur Dernier nods and lets them pass. Erik watches out of half-closed eyes as Mr Rogers steps over to the sleeping cot with the most pillows and covers and throws back the bedding, then hunkers down and gently lowers him onto the mattress.

Erik immediately curls up into the downy warmth and buries his head in a pillow that smells faintly of dampness and soap. Only now, he feels his tiredness wash over him – it’s making his bones feel heavy like stone in his body, pulling him down into darkness.

Mr Rogers pulls the covers up to Erik’s ears and tucks him in, a smile that looks just as tired as Erik feels gracing his lips.

“Good night, kiddo,” Mr Rogers says when he’s satisfied with his handiwork. “Sleep well – and remember that if you have nightmares, you can come to any one of us and wake us up so you can tell them. We’ll keep you safe.”

Erik’s tongue feels heavy, and his thoughts are already starting to cloud over as he opens his mouth and answers in a whisper, “I know. Thank you, Mr Rogers.”

“Nothing to thank me for, kid.” Mr Rogers’ smile seems to persevere even after Erik closes his eyes, and the warmth of his bloodstream doesn’t leave Erik’s side immediately.

The last thing Erik feels before he slips into oblivion is Mr Rogers’ fingers carding slowly but not intrusively through his hair, and thin, dry lips bussing a gentle kiss to his forehead.

For days now, they’ve been on the move. But this time, Erik thinks, it feels different.

This time, he thinks, it feels final.

They’ve crossed over into Europe in a plane, Erik huddled into Mr Rogers’ chest as steel mills, abandoned factories and burning metal constructions passed several kilometres below. Mr Howard Stark awaited them in a secret base in northern Italy, all smiles and gentle hands when he saw Erik again and picked him up to press a kiss to the crown of Erik’s head. After that, they changed onto a convoy of pick-up trucks.

They’ve been trooping silently through enemy land ever since.

Sometimes, they use jeeps. Sometimes, they have to abandon their vehicles and continue on foot, sneaking past enemy fortifications. Erik usually scouts ahead, the smallest and most silent member of their party, even though Mr Rogers is evidently displeased with him putting himself in harm's way. But Erik has managed to not get seen so far.

Today is a jeep day. They’ve bundled Erik onto the backseat early in the morning, sandwiched between Monsieur Dernier and Mr Morita, the former reading to him from a battered copy of Verne’s Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers while the latter polishes his submachine gun to a shine. Erik’s noticed everyone preparing their weapons for battle ever since dawn grazed the mountain peaks in the east. They’ve been on the road far longer.

Sometime over the course of their drive, Erik’s eyes fall closed, and he drifts off. He dreams of dry planes of ice stretching on and on around him, and of breathing underwater.

When he wakes with a start, he’s alone in the jeep. The Howlers must have moved out, leaving Erik safely concealed behind a thick concrete buttress and under a tarpaulin with camouflage print. From afar come the cries of men and the rhythmic thumps of machine-gun fire, and his breath congeals in front of his face when he exhales. They’re in the mountains.

Erik knows Mr Rogers would want him to stay right where he is, to weather the atrocious sounds until the fight is over and the Commandos come back to sweep him into their arms and tell him the tale of their battle. He knows that this is not his Doktor Schmidt they’re going after, not his worst enemy that they're facing.

But something makes him uncurl from under the military-issue blankets they’ve heaped upon him, and he follows the call as he sets foot onto the ground outside and scurries through the shadows towards where he supposed the main entrance to Johann Schmidt’s fortress is.

He passes heaps of dead or unconscious Hydra goons – not a trace of American soldiers, but after all that he’s seen in the camps, he knows that a complete absence of casualties is not necessarily a good sign. There’s smoke in the entrance tunnel, and Erik pulls the fabric of his undershirt out of his collar and over his mouth as he proceeds into the darkness that’s illuminated only by broken lamps flickering overhead.

He avoids the hallways out of which come battle noises, and keeps mostly to the quiet, less crowded ones. When men with the Hydra emblem on their uniform still come hurrying along one of those corridors, he shrinks back into the shadows of an alcove or an adjoining hallway and waits until their steps fade away in the distance.

Quiet like a mouse, he makes it all the way up into the enormous hangar he could sense from the ground - a gigantic cavity drilled into the iron-rich rock of the mountainside.

The first thing he notices is the silence. For now, the battle rages on in the floors below, not up here.

The second thing is the gigantic plane of pure metal standing in the very centre of the hangar, like a giant vulture. Its sleek, streamlined shape sings like a symphony against Erik’s senses, the little impurities and imperfections in its design only making it stand out to him more. In its belly, he can feel a good dozen all-too-familiar oval shapes slumbering – it’s a bomber plane, but a big one, one he hasn’t ever sensed before.

For a few moments that seem to wear on forever, Erik remains silent in his crouch behind a stack of crates.

Nothing moves. He can sense no hearts pumping iron-rich blood in the vicinity, and no weapon is warmed by a human grip. He’s alone.

His heart beating impossibly fast against his ribs, he scurries across the floor and over to the plane’s exposed landing gear where his metal sense can make out an opening in the otherwise impermeable carapace of the looming monster. Grunting, he grabs a hold of one of the enormous caoutchouc wheels and starts to climb, not looking back. If someone wanted to spring an ambush at him right now, it would be the perfect moment – but Erik has to get into that plane, he just knows it.

The first thing he does when he’s inside is to cower behind a metal pillar and catch his breath. All the army medics said that he's recovering fast, but whenever they thought Erik wasn’t listening, they told Mr Rogers and the others that they should send Erik away, that he was still frail and far too young to stay with them. Erik’s glad that every time, Mr Rogers and the Howlers just shook their head and waved away the doctors’ concerns like cigarette smoke. He has a feeling he might have lost himself along the way if they had tried to put him onto a ship or a plane to America.

As soon as he’s sufficiently recovered, Erik gets up and takes a hesitant step on the walkway that leads through a maze of metal stilts and bays where bombs with empty cockpits are stored. He wonders if there will be men sitting in them by the time they get launched, when they drill through the air and explode into a million pieces on the ground.

Shivering, he turns away. He doesn’t want to think about it.

Then, letting his metal sense unfold like the wings of a freshly hatched butterfly, he begins to explore.

Erik only notices that he’s trapped when men in Hydra pilot gear start filing into the plane and push him to shrink back into the shadows, where he knows he won't be seen. They hurry to the bomb cockpits – the gunshots outside are ringing closer now, too, and Erik knows the best he can do is sit still and pray for the Howling Commandos to win the fight before the plane can take off.

He’s not so lucky, it seems. As the gunfire draws nearer, one last solitary figure clambers aboard - the man looks important, like he's the one the plane has been waiting for so it can take off. Just before the hatch slides closed after the late-comer, Erik can glimpse the bodies of Hydra goons tumbling down the ladder, touched by rounds from American artillery. They’ve come close, but not close enough.

Perched on a metal beam right beneath the ceiling, Erik wonders if he could maybe open a hatchway for himself, peeling the metal aside to create a crack in the hull just big enough to let him through.

He’s just splaying his fingers flat against the steel carcass and letting his power bleed out from his palm when the man from before passes by right beneath him. Erik glances down at the exact wrong moment, and his heart begins to palpitate.

Where the man’s face should be, there is a skull, wrapped in a papery sheen of red. Were it not for the bulbous eyes burning with a mad glimmer in their sockets, for the man’s broad shoulders moving with purpose in his stiff black leather uniform, Erik would take him for an emaciated body, like the ones he had to rid of their golden tooth fillings in the KZ in Auschwitz.

As it is, the Red Skull - passing beneath Erik and heading for the cockpit - couldn’t be further from those men and women. If anything, he was the one putting them in those camps.

Erik’s head is spinning, and he has to grip tightly onto the metal beam so his arms don’t give and send him tumbling into the maze of walkways and pillars below. Panting, he presses his forehead against the cool steel, trying in vain to quench down on the memories, those awful, heart-wrenching memories-

He realises that the plane is moving when the engines are already hot and firing streams of burning energy, and he knows there is no way back now. He clings to his hiding place and squeezes his eyes shut, praying to anyone who’s out there and might hear him that if they’re taking him away again, they’ll at least not find and hurt him this time.

The machine moves with purpose, with power, droning onward through the enormous cavern in the mountain for what feels like a small eternity. Erik wills himself to keep breathing. There’s a smaller vehicle following them, its engine glowing, its wheel trims spinning so fast he’s afraid they’ll fly off any moment now. A familiar shape looms up from it, round and about as big in diameter as Erik’s arm is long, but he’s not entirely sure if it is what he thinks it is. Its metallic imprint is close to that of vibranium. 

Then, the car is on them. Something happens – what exactly, Erik can’t discern, but it feels like a transfer. Before he can think more about it, he sees daylight streaming in through a bullseye across from him, feels the plane pull up.

They’ve taken off.

Suddenly, a commotion springs up in the other wing of the plane. There’s the sound of fists on cheekbones, bodies hitting the floor, the feel of a knife’s blade being embedded in warm flesh. Then, silence.

Erik keeps still and listens. Some of the bombs have disappeared, empty spaces in the places where they were lying only minutes ago.

The aircraft’s canons on the roof begin to power up, and Erik jerks away from the sudden assault of artillery fire close by. Whatever the target, the shots miss. A metallic screeching like a knife tearing through foil sounds from the back of the plane, and a bomb slithers through the framework, coming to a halt only metres from one of the aircraft's turbines.

Erik gasps as the perpetrator hurries into view. It’s Mr Rogers!

His tell-tale vibranium shield slung over his shoulder, with eyes only for the front of the plane where the cockpit lies, the Captain passes by Erik’s hiding place and disappears in the hatchway to the commando central. His steps clanging on the metal grille of the walkways fade into the distance.

Erik inhales slowly, shakily. He didn’t even notice that he was holding his breath. Only now, alone with his thoughts and the wailing winds battering the outer hull of the plane, he realises exactly how massive his predicament is. If Mr Rogers is here, then the fate of the world has to be at stake! Everyone knows that where there is somebody to save, Mr Rogers is, too.

So what use could Erik possibly be to the man who can lift tanks and take out half a dozen enemies with one single throw of his shield? Better to stay hidden and out of the way. 

For a few minutes, Erik just clings to the metal beam and strains his ears. He thinks he can hear the faint sounds of a fight carrying over from the plane’s commando central.

Finally, his mind made up, he gets up and quietly lowers himself onto the walkway below, cushioning the drop with his powers. Sneaking like Mr Barnes showed him all those months ago in that abandoned, creaky old farmhouse they passed, he starts picking his way towards where Mr Rogers went. On the way, he has to step over the bodies of fallen Hydra pilots – dead or alive, he does not care.

He slips into the cockpit just in time to see the Red Skull being sucked into a swirling, ever-changing vortex of light. Above him, above Mr Rogers standing there open-mouthed, the universe looms, cut out of the air like a window into space.

Erik’s breath catches in his throat. His knees weaken, and he shrinks into cover behind a row of dashboards.

This is too much. After all that he’s seen, all that he was made to do, all the things he’s lived but shouldn’t have survived, he feels like he can’t take it anymore. He can’t.

He can’t.

There’s a pressure behind his temples threatening to burst, making his head feel too big for his body, so he pulls his knees up to his chest and squeezes his eyes shut and jams his fingers into his ears, hoping it’ll make the hurting stop. It doesn’t, he knows it won’t, but he tries to take deep breaths anyway, in, out, in, and out. A dry sob is building in his throat, but he can’t let it out.

What if Mr Rogers notices he’s here? What if that keeps him from doing what he has to do, for the good of the world?

Erik is stupid, a stupid little boy who should never have been found by Mr Rogers and Mr Barnes and all the other nice Howlers. He’s only ever messed things up for them, even though they seemed so delighted to have him, so happy any time they would lend him their jackets so he’d stop shivering or he showed them the newest additions in his sketchbook-

Mr Rogers agitated voice cuts through his thoughts. “There’s not enough time! This thing’s moving too fast and it’s heading for New York.” A deep breath, static crackling at the end of a com link. “I got to put her in the water.”

He must have been able to contact someone – Ms Peggy? Erik unfurls reluctantly. Put what in the water?

Ms Carter’s voice sounds tinny through a speaker. She sounds strangely calm. “Please, don’t do this. We have time. We can work it out.”

Erik’s heartbeat picks up speed. He can feel the heat of Mr Rogers’ grip on the plane’s control stick – his palm must be slippery from sweat, but he holds on tightly.

“Right now, I’m in the middle of nowhere.” The words seem to spill forth without Mr Rogers even thinking about them. “If I wait any longer, a lot of people are gonna die. Peggy… this is my choice.”

Silence. Erik puts his hand balled into a fist in his mouth and bites down. Does Mr Rogers mean that he’ll let plane… crash?

When Ms Carter’s voice finally crackles through the radio connection, she sounds close to tears.

“No, it’s not. This- Steve, this is not your choice. We can find a way.” Her shuddering breaths unravel over the air waves. “If not for me and the Howlers, then for Erik.”

“Erik.” Mr Rogers sounds like he’s got trouble swallowing. “I- Oh god. How is he?”

A strange nausea washes over Erik – it feels too much like his time in Doktor Schmidt’s care, his dread when he would knock a petri dish over while trying to get away from the man’s probing hands, and would sport a deep blue bruise for it the whole month after. Please, don’t let Ms Carter tell him-

“He’s not here. We haven’t been able to find him, Steve, we searched everywhere.”

Erik feels like his heart will grind to a halt any moment now. Clawing his hand into his knee, he strains his ears.

The slight downwards tilt on the control stick vanishes.

“He’s not with you.” It’s not a question. Erik can imagine just what look Mr Rogers is wearing right now – the kind he wore for days after Mr Barnes didn’t come back from that mission, the understanding dawning only slowly.

Then, Mr Rogers lets go of the control stick, and Erik knows he’s gotten up from the pilot’s seat. He clamps a hand over his mouth and waits.

“Erik? Erik!” Mr Rogers’ steps move closer on the metal grille. “Erik, if you’re in here, please come out. You have to show yourself, or I’m taking this plane down – it’s still time to work something out, kid.”

Erik’s fingernails dig deeper into his kneecap, sure to leave bruises now. Mr Rogers doesn’t sound angry – he was never angry with Erik in the past, even when he did something he shouldn’t have done – but Erik can’t get himself to unfurl from his crouch. The dread freezes him. 

In the end, he doesn’t have to move, doesn't even have to make a sound. Mr Rogers is just about to hurry past him and climb the steps to the hatchway leading into the loading bay when he turns his head, catches a glimpse of Erik from the corners of his eyes, and stops dead in his tracks.

“Erik,” he breathes, “oh gosh. Oh no.”

And then he’s crossing the space between them and hunkering down to gather Erik into his arms. Erik throws his arms around Mr Rogers’ neck when the man gets a hand under the back of his thighs and lifts him up.

“I’m sorry,” Erik whispers, hoping for the wind howling through the hole in the floor to snatch his words away.

“It’s alright, kiddo,” Mr Rogers answers as he strides back to the pilot seat and puts Erik down onto the freezing leather, shrugging out of his jacket to bundle Erik up in it. “I should have known. You like sneaking around after all.”

“Is he with you?” Ms Carter’s voice sounds out of the radio receiver, worried, shaking.

Mr Rogers bends down and confirms with a sigh that - to Erik's surprise - doesn't sound angry, but concerned, “He is. He’s alright and unharmed, but he’s on a fully armed bomber plane with me.” Quickly, he shoots Erik a glance. “What are we gonna do, Peggy?”

For a heartbeat, there’s static silence. Then, “Howard’s on his way right now, he’s trying to work something out. In the meantime-”

“Peggy, we don’t have forever,” Mr Rogers says very loudly into the microphone. “Howard will be too late. I can-”

“What can you do, Steve?”

Again, Mr Rogers’ gaze flickers over to Erik. There is something like sorrow in it.

“I’ll ask Erik if he can bring her down gently,” Mr Rogers says after a breath-snatching eternity and swallows. “He can do it. I’ve seen him do amazing things with his powers. Just- just tell Howard to come find us. Please.”

Then, Erik watches as Mr Rogers flips the switch on the com link and sets his jaw. Ms Carter doesn’t even have the chance to get a last word in before Mr Rogers turns and locks eyes with Erik.

“I can try, sir,” Erik answers the unspoken question. “But I’m weak.”

Mr Rogers shakes his head. “Erik, I just want you to know that I’m sorry. This never should have happened to you.” His palms are warm and certain when he takes Erik’s hands in his, as are his bright blue eyes. “You deserve a good life, Erik. You deserve to go to school, and to get picked up by your parents, and you deserve to have friends and family and people who love you… I’m sorry I can’t give that to you.”

Something in Erik shatters at the same time as it is mended. He knows Mr Rogers means it, means it with his whole heart. It’s in the press of his fingers, the slant of his mouth, the way he smiles whenever he shows Erik how to sketch a face or watches him from the doorjamb of the bathroom to make sure Erik really brushes his teeth.

He cares about Erik. If he could, he would do anything for him.

Erik thinks – no, knows – he feels just the same about Mr Rogers, and about Ms Carter and the Howling Commandos, too, even if maybe a little bit less. He would do anything for them.

So, he gets up from the pilot seat and hands Mr Rogers his jacket, making sure not to put any wrinkles in it before he steps down to the strange contraption that must’ve held the cosmic cube the Red Skull had in his hands when he disappeared. Then, he spreads his arms, closes his eyes, and tries to feel everything.

The rotating propellers at the back of the plane. The metal beams, like the skeleton of an enormous airborne monster, holding the hull in place. The engine, the bombs, the dog tags on the Hydra soldiers’ bodies cooling in the back – even Mr Rogers’ shield, leaning abandoned against the steering console.

“You got this, kiddo,” Mr Rogers’ voice filters through to him like in a haze, and Erik lets the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth run its course.

He can do this. Mr Rogers believes in him, and he can do this.

He feels like he’s falling, or maybe he’s soaring, or maybe both. There’s a strange feeling writhing in his belly, now that he’s sunk his powers into every last part of the plane. It resonates inside him, like the calm before the storm.

One last time, Erik makes sure he’s got a safe grip. Then, he clenches his hands into fists and pulls.

The metal around him screeches in agony, suddenly subjected to a force that goes utterly against its direction of movement, down, not straight ahead. Maybe Erik imagines it, but he thinks he can hear Mr Rogers crying out.

It doesn’t matter. The arctic ice cap, shot through with finest traces of metal, is looming up to meet them – fast, too fast, Erik’s pulled too hard and now they’re coming down too steeply, he has to stop it, push against it, do something now-

Something snaps. Erik can feel something snap in his body, something that’s pulled taut like a string, and a symphony of pain blooms behind his eyelids, worse than he’s ever felt. His temples, hammering. His head feels like bursting, he can’t open his eyes, there’s the iron taste of blood on his tongue.

Erik’s grasp slips, his heart leaps in his throat. He failed. They haven’t made it down yet, the plane’s still in the air-

His knees give in as darkness clouds his vision, and the last thing Erik knows is Mr Rogers shouting his name, and a warm body pulling him close and shielding him from the worst of the impact.

When Erik wakes, the first thing he does is shiver and bury back into the heat of Mr Rogers’ arms around his body. The cold is everywhere – crawling up the skin under his clothes, tugging at the tiny hairs on the nape of his neck, making his heartbeat slow. It’s the wind blowing through the ruined wreck of the airplane.

Erik’s whole body is aching, too. He feels like he’s just had a whole day of school sports after months of doing nothing – every muscle feels strained, he’s hot despite the cold, there’s a thumping in the corner of his eyes. Something warm and wet is sliding down the lower half of his face. Slowly, Erik brings up a hand and brushes his fingers over the skin above his upper lip. They come away sticky with blood.

Behind him, Mr Rogers begins to twitch, his arms around Erik’s slight frame tightening. Then, the man grunts and nearly crushes Erik in his grip as he sits up abruptly.

“Where-?” he starts, but his words trickle away as soon as his ice-blue eyes clear, and he blinks and looks around. “Oh.”

Erik throws his arms around Mr Rogers’ neck and buries his face at the man’s shoulder.

He doesn’t want to see it. He doesn’t want to see the damage he’s left behind – the metal pillars torn to shreds, the hull dented and folded, the bodies of the German pilots crushed to a bloody pulp. He did this, all of it.

He’s just a boy. He shouldn’t have that much power.

Mr Rogers’ hand starts gently smoothing up and down his back, as reassuring as ever.

“You did it, Erik. You did it.” His voice is small and quiet, like he still can’t quite believe it himself. “You saved the world…”

Mr Rogers trails off until only his hot, humid breath on the shell of Erik’s ear and his quick, hammering heartbeat tell of him being alive. Erik digs his fingers deeper into the fabric of Mr Rogers’ suit – his face is starting to hurt in the cold draught, and there’s something else. There’s the metal of the aeroplane in his immediate vicinity, and further out, the traces of metal he sensed in the pack ice just before they went down.

But beyond that, there is nothing. No car, no building’s metal skeleton, not even one single rusty iron nail. It feels like Erik’s metal sense is dulled and magnified both at the same time – dulled because there is nothing to latch onto, and magnified because this is the first time in his life he hasn’t been completely surrounded by metal. Even in the woods near his hometown, he could feel the nearby railway tracks, the factories working relentlessly, or the odd rusty bicycle in the undergrowth.

Here, in the arctic, there is nothing. Nothing beyond the wreckage they are stranded in, and Mr Rogers’ shield buried in a snowbank just outside the shattered glass cockpit.

Something creaks in the howling silence of the wind. Then, the floor gives a few inches.

“Oh, sh-” Mr Rogers cuts off the swear word just in time, but Erik still knows exactly what he means. He lifts his head from Mr Rogers’ shoulder.

“The ice,” he whispers, “the plane. The metal pierced it, made it unstable-”

“We’re getting out of here,” Mr Rogers says and immediately makes true on his words. Erik feels himself gripped by the back of his thighs and propped up on Mr Rogers’ hips, and then Mr Rogers grabs his jacket from the pilot's seat and they’re hurrying across the tilting floor, sliding on shards of broken glass and snow that the wind has already blown in.

A stiff breeze snatches their breaths from their lips the moment they leave the relative shelter of the plane – the warm air from their lungs doesn’t even have the time to congeal before it is wisped away into the endless whiteness of the icy desert.

“Over there,” Mr Rogers wheezes and sets off towards what looks like a rocky crag protruding from the ground, but sings to Erik’s senses like a beacon.

It’s the aeroplane’s right wingtip. Buried at a steep angle in the packed ice, it turns its back to the wind, offering as much shelter as they could possibly get in this no-man’s land. Mr Rogers hunkers down behind it and lets Erik put his feet on the ground, in the place where the air is least disturbed by any eddies. Then, he shrugs on his jacket, curls up in a crouch and pulls Erik into a warm embrace.

Erik tucks his feet close to Mr Rogers’ body and stuffs his bare hands under his arms. He can already feel the blistering cold redden his cheeks and the tip of his nose, and when he glances up, he sees that Mr Rogers’ eyebrows and hair are starting to sport white crusts of ice.

“Good?” asks Mr Rogers, and as soon as Erik gives a shaky nod, he pulls up the jacket’s zipper and seals him away in a bubble of relative warmth. The cold still crawls up Erik’s trouser legs and over his shins and beneath his shirt collar, but it’s not as acute anymore.

Pretending that his lungs aren’t burning with every breath he takes, Erik closes his eyes and rests his head against Mr Rogers’ broad, warm chest. The blood on his upper lip is already starting to flake off, and then Mr Rogers’ thumb is there, wiping the rest from Erik’s skin.

“Get some rest, kid,” he tells Erik, his heartbeat a slow and reassuring metronome right beside Erik’s ear.

Erik doesn’t have to be told twice. His head swimming with exhaustion, he lets his body go limp and succumbs to the black nothingness of sleep.

Erik wakes up three times.

The first time, it’s a sharp resounding crack that tears him from his slumber and makes him jerk awake, a cry perched on his lips. Even without looking, he can feel his grip around his own upper body go white-knuckled.

“Shh.” It’s Mr Rogers warm voice, shushing him as he tightens his arms around Erik. His breath is hot-wet against Erik’s forehead. “It’s just the ice. The plane is slowly sinking in, but we should be safe here.”

Erik nods. Mr Rogers sounds sure of what he’s saying, and even if he wasn’t sure at all, he’s told Erik he would do anything to protect him.

Reassured, Erik goes back to sleep.

The second time he wakes up, Mr Rogers doesn’t notice. Even though it sounds like he’s speaking to Erik – muttering his name over and over again, gently carding his hand through Erik’s hair – Erik senses it’s mainly to quieten his own fears.

Still, he can’t help but overhear.

“So sorry I dragged you into this,” Mr Rogers is murmuring, rocking them both slowly back and forth, “should have had a normal life. Just a boy. Erik, I promise you this – when we make it out of this and the war is over, I’ll send you to school, and I’ll swing around at the end of every day to pick you up, and we’ll live in a nice apartment in Brooklyn. No life for a kid, the war.” A simple exhalation of air, not quite a sigh. “I’ll hang up the mantle of Captain America and get work in a factory until you can stand on your own feet. It’s what Bucky would have wanted for you – for us.”

Erik smiles and tightens his grip around Mr Rogers’ torso – he must have moved while he slept. And maybe Mr Rogers’ breath hitches – maybe his fingers stop their stroking through Erik’s hair for just a heartbeat – but if they do, Erik doesn’t notice. Exhaustion coursing through his every vein, he soon loses every sense of time and consciousness.

The third and final time he wakes, it’s to the sound of chopper blades and the smooth purr of Howard Stark’s hovercraft. There are voices, warm heartbeats pumping warm blood through warm bodies, and cocked metal weapons. Joints stiff and clumsy from crouching in the same position for so long – it must’ve been hours – Mr Rogers grips Erik tightly under his thighs and stumbles to his feet.

Erik is still blinking, bleary-eyed, when they round their makeshift shelter and emerge into a chaos of running soldiers, vehicles and shouted commands. Almost immediately, a small crowd clusters around them, questions about the crash raining down on them.

Erik can feel Mr Rogers’ irritation growing as he elbows his way through the throng of soldiers and bats away any hands that are trying to take Erik from him. “No, I have no idea where that damn shield is,” he groans. “Where is Stark? Do you have any medics? He needs somewhere to warm up, and something to eat, now.”

“Over here! Damnit, soldiers, will you let the man through?” Mr Stark’s voice rings out clear and firm over the relentless chatter of the uniformed men, and when Erik looks up, his first impression is that Mr Stark is levitating in the air. Then, he sees that the man with the funny moustache is leaning out of the open belly of his hovercraft, which is perched in mid-air ready to take off.

“Howard! So glad to see you’re here.” Finally, Mr Rogers manages to stumble out of the crowd of people, quickly making his way over to the hovering aircraft. As he goes, he zips open his jacket, and Erik whines unwittingly as a cold torrent of air hits him full front. Mr Rogers’ smile when he glances down at him is edged with guilt. “Sorry, kid, but we’ll get you somewhere warm and cosy real soon.”

“Yes, Mr Rogers.”

And Mr Rogers keeps his promise. As soon as they’re near enough, he hoists Erik onto his shoulders, then grips him firmly under his armpits and lifts him up towards Mr Stark’s waiting hands. Mr Stark takes Erik and bundles him carefully into the plane.

“Welcome aboard, kiddo,” he grins as he wraps him in a soft, warm army blanket.

Erik has hardly any time before the hovercraft lurches and sways, and Mr Rogers pulls himself up into the cargo hold.

Only now, in the cool light of the sinking sun, does Erik notice just how exhausted Mr Rogers looks. His arms shake as he crawls the last few metres over to Erik, there are little cuts and bruises all over his face and hands, and his hair is streaked with frozen, clumped blood. Still, Erik gladly curls into his embrace when Mr Rogers arrives by his side, slumps against the cargo nets on the side of the plane with a huff and waves Mr Stark over.

“You have anything warm to eat for him? Soup, or something?” But Mr Rogers hasn’t even finished his sentence when Mr Stark, in his leather flight suit, crouches and hands them each a steaming, spill-safe soup container together with a spoon.

“Thank you,” Mr Rogers mutters and watches with a smile as Erik tentatively blows on a few drops of the soup, then tries it. It’s good – maybe a bit too salty, but it tastes like it has no pig in it, and Erik tucks in gladly. Only now does he realise that he’s starving.

“So,” Mr Stark says, still hunkered down in front of them, “how are you?”

Mr Rogers shrugs. “We survived.”

“I see that – no thanks to me, for once. Your mascot here did all the work.” Mr Starks nods approvingly at Erik. “Now, what’s the plan?”

“I’m pulling out,” Mr Rogers answers. “I can’t help more with the war than I’ve already done. I’m going to pull some strings to become Erik’s legal guardian, and then – we’ll see. It’s not retirement, I guess, but it’s something.”

“Good, good.” Mr Stark’s faint smile widens into a grin beneath his pilot’s goggles. “But I was more asking for short-term plans, Cap. Anywhere you would like me to fly you to?”

The hovercraft shudders, then slowly starts to pull away from the ground. Erik can feel the sheer power behind its engine as a low, melodic thrum in his bones, shifting several tons of metal.

Mr Rogers hums like he needs a few seconds to think. Then, he smiles down at Erik – a soft, certain smile that makes Erik feel like he’s finally not so alone in the world anymore.

“Home,” Mr Rogers says and squeezes Erik’s shoulder tighter where he has an arm around him, “Howard, you can take us home.”

17 years later – Dallas, Texas

Erik is starting to sweat in his black coat and fedora. What started out as a cool, rainy day in November is quickly morphing into one of the warmest autumn days Erik has ever lived, with a clear sky and glaring sunlight that beats down hard on all the bystanders that are crowding the sidewalks of the President’s itinerary.

Finally, Erik gives in and shrugs out of his coat, exposing the long-sleeved shirt and foulard he’s wearing beneath. Further down on the grassy knoll where he’s taken up position, a woman with a young boy turns and shoots him an appraising glance. He gives a curt smile back before he looks down at his coat and starts digging through the pockets for his sunglasses.

In the left breast pocket, his fingers brush against a folded paper. He frowns, pulls it out, smooths it open over the arm with which he’s holding the coat.

He recognises the firm and slightly messy handwriting at first glance.

Dearest Erik,

I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry for some of the things I said last Tuesday night – not for all of them, mind you, since I still can’t wrap my head around some of your absurd opinions, but that is something we can discuss another time. I think we both just had a glass or two too many. In the meantime, Kitty misses you and your shared visits to the synagogue. Bobby and the other kids keep asking when you’ll be around again to make latkes for them.

Please come visit again soon. My chessboard misses you, as does my liquor cabinet.

Love,

C.F.X.

At last, Erik’s powers spy out the delicate metal frame of his sunglasses in his right coat pocket, and he reaches in to pull them out with his own hand. No use demasking his mutation when there is no necessity for it.

As he folds the shades open and slides them on, he takes a last look at the note in his grip. He has no idea how it got there, but it’s not for nothing that its author runs a school full of mutant kids – some of whom possess rather useful mutations such as teleportation, or the ability to locate other mutants. 

Smiling despite himself, he folds the slip of paper closed and tucks it into the breast pocket of his shirt, right above his heart. Sooner or later, he will accept the offer.

A commotion to his left makes him lift his eyes towards the road – a clatter of voices, people waving, engines thrumming in a neat formation just out of sight. It must be Kennedy’s motorcade.

Erik slides his hands in his trouser pockets and watches as the first car appears, closely followed by the presidential limousine. It's flanked by two motorcycles, their riders’ faces obscured by their helmets and sunglasses.

As effective as the disguise is, though, Erik can still make out Steve’s excited grin. Raising his hand like he’s waving to the President in the open limousine, Erik gives a subtle sign – Everything okay?

Steve looks over at him and nods, keeping pace with the presidential car. Behind him, Kennedy and his wife keep waving to the bystanders, big smiles on their faces.

Jaqueline Kennedy – first openly mutant First Lady of the USA – wiggles her fingers, and the webbing between them glitters. The gills below her jaw flutter in excitement and the shrill pink of her dress costume harmonises with her gold-shimmering skin. Even her stylist knows how important it is to keep up public appearances. 

The woman from before bends down and says something to her son – maybe telling him that this lady is a national hero, or that she’s a child of the Devil – and that’s the exact moment when Erik knows something is not right.

He follows the metallic pull of a weapon that shouldn’t be there and looks up at the red brick façade of the Texas School Book Depository just as the first shot rings out. The bullet slices through the air, too fast for Erik’s unfocused power to grab a hold of, and enters a warm body, shatters something, maybe bone, maybe tissue.

All around Erik, there’s a lull. The noise of the crowd and the vehicles recedes. The sun dims, the heat turns to cold.

The sniper rifle on the sixth floor sways and aims again – this time pointing straight at the back of Steve’s helmeted head.

Erik drops his coat and pulls a fraction of a second after the second shot is fired, and Governor Connally in the front seat of the presidential limousine cries out. Now, shouts start to go up in the crowd. The woman in front of Erik calls over at her husband, sounding distressed as she grabs her son’s hand. More and more cameras start pointing at the motorcade, the surrounding bystanders, at Erik.

A split second before he flings his coat to the ground and starts running, he sees Jackie Kennedy pull her husband into her arms.

Then, he’s moving, cutting through the crowd with elbows and knees, and by the time the third shot is set loose, he’s already half-way across the grassy knoll, heading for the trees and the Book Depository building beyond. As the bullet streaks by overhead, only just slow enough to be deflected, he realises who it’s heading for this time – not Steve, not him, not the President.

Jackie.

Erik can't let her die. She's fought too hard for this, he has fought too hard for this, for her. 

He flings up a hand and tries to hold on - far too late – all the bullet does is bend and veer slightly off its predestined path. It connects with someone’s skull, shattering bone and the tissue beneath, and Erik flinches, but he can’t look back, has to keep moving. Has to get to that open window on the sixth floor before the assassin can vanish into thin air.

The trees separating the grassy knoll from the Book Depository loom up in front of him – there’s no time to find a way around – he feels for the ripples of magnetism that surround everything, grasps and breathes in as they mould under his touch. Then, he looks up towards the open sixth-floor window and pushes himself off the ground.

All around him, people start screaming, and he has to fight to keep his balance. The trees rush by beneath him, a stretch of asphalt, then the brick façade of the Book Depository looms up to meet him and he hurtles through the open window, feet snagging on the sill.

Suddenly off-balance, he rolls in the last possible second. Still, his shoulder crunches into the floor, and his breath is knocked out of him. His ears ringing as he gets to his feet, he looks up – and straight into the eyes of the assassin.

They move at the same time.

The sniper’s face is obscured by his dark shoulder-length hair and a mask covering his chin, mouth and nose, but Erik knows he’s not wearing a friendly expression. The assassin swings, and Erik blocks the attack, his joints rattling in their sockets as they take the brunt of the blow. There’s only sheer force behind his opponent’s movements, no finesse at all to control it, and that’s what makes him dangerous.

Erik tries to get in a low blow, but the sniper deflects it like it’s nothing and moves into another attack, driving Erik back across the room into a labyrinth of cardboard boxes and towers of stacked schoolbooks. His objective is obvious – corner Erik, then finish him off.

Erik lets it happen. There’s something odd about the assassin’s left arm, and feigning a weak retreat gives him time to focus on it.

Finally, it hits him – the sniper’s arm is pure, hardened metal.

Distracted as he is, Erik only sees the kick coming when it’s already too late. The metal-tipped boot crunches into his side, and Erik feels something snap as pain blooms through his ribcage. He howls, tries to go for a hit to the man’s jaw, but his knees buckle and give.

Moaning, he hits the floor hard, tears of pain springing up in his eyes. For a split second, his vision whites out, and when he can see again, the sniper is towering over him with a knife in his hand. He brings it down so fast Erik only just has time to redirect it into the wooden boards to the left of his head.

While the assassin is still taken aback and struggling to pull the blade out again, Erik grabs hold of his metal arm and pushes.

He flings the man across the room with so much force that the opposite wall creaks ominously upon impact. The sniper doesn’t even try to get up anymore.

One hand pressed over his ribs, Erik scrambles backwards until he’s leaning against something solid, a stack of crates maybe, he doesn’t care. There’s only the pain and the adrenaline surging through his veins as he blinks away his tears in a desperate attempt at bringing the assassin’s face into focus.

When he succeeds, something heavy and cold settles in the pit of his stomach.

The hair is longer, duller than Erik remembers. The body, stocky and encased in black leather, a twisted instrument of death. The face, however, is the biggest difference – a parody of the kind, soft smile Erik missed so much, even though he only knew the man for a few precious months.

Footsteps clattering up a stairwell somewhere, then pounding over a hardwood floor, coming ever closer. Right in front of Erik, they stop. A gasp.

“Erik,” Steve breathes and drops to his knees beside him, his motorcycle helmet gone, his face and front a blood-splattered mess. He reaches out and touches Erik’s side, and Erik hisses in pain even as relief at his guardian’s presence floods his every fibre. “God, I’m sorry. Son, what happened? President Kennedy is dead, and-”

When Steve’s voice stutters and stops in his throat, Erik doesn’t have to look up to know he’s seen it – no, not it.

Him.

“Bucky?” croaks Steve, voice small and uncertain even as his arms gather Erik up in their warm, firm embrace.

The assassin looks up from across the room, his lower lip burst and swollen. His bare face is a mask of indifference.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”