The next day
At 4 a.m.. I was already dressed and waiting for Steve to arrive. Right on time, he appeared. For me, his dedication and moral compass were so centered on being good that I sometimes felt ashamed to teach him dirty tricks and how to fight foul. But that was a pipe dream, Steve understood the reality, and so did I. That was why I was willing to taint the pure Steve Rogers, ust so he could survive tomorrow.
"Morning, James. What training are we doing today?"
Steve was clearly excited. After all, I had been learning how to fight with extra power, chi, so to speak, far longer than he had. I could see why he was so eager to start.
"You're on time, Steve. Follow me."
I led him into the forest, toward the back of the mountain where there was nothing but rock, massive, towering rock.
"Lift the biggest one you can, Steve," I told him.
"The biggest rock, James?" Steve had an incredulous look on his face. He clearly hadn't expected that his first task in 'extra training' would be as simple, or as heavy, as lifting a boulder.
"Yes, Steve. Our training is never going to be conventional, because 'conventional' has already left you and me behind. You can't train like a normal human anymore. Your body has been altered, you've become stronger, you've become faster, and your brain can process information a lot faster than any normal human."
"Remember when you told Colonel Phillips about the Hydra bases all over Europe?" I asked him. "Did you stare at that map for a long time, or was it just a brief glance, no more than four or five seconds?"
I wanted him to see the truth. This serum hadn't just made him stronger; it had allowed him to become smarter.
"I glanced at it for roughly seven or eight seconds before I brought Bucky out of the room," Steve said.
That was enough. I didn't need to overthink it or explain further. I only needed him to realize that he was already different, that the man he used to be couldn't have done that.
"Steve, This Super Soldier Serum made you a better man, a stronger-than-normal human. It fundamentally changed your genetic code to make you superior. Like Dr. Erskine said: 'The serum amplifies everything that is inside, so good becomes great, bad becomes worse.'
"You need to understand the truth of what 'amplified' really means. In your case, it means 1+1=2. The harder you train, the stronger you become. Every drop of sweat, every muscle tear, every spasm, your genetics amplify it a hundredfold. That's why normal training became useless to you the moment you left that lab."
While I explained all this, I didn't stop. "The way you train your body has to change because you can exert so much more power than a normal person. That's why your training needs to be twice as hard. If a normal man trains with a weight of ten, you need twenty just to feel the strain. That is what the Super Soldier Serum did to you, it raised the bar."
"Go lift the biggest one you can and do sit-ups. I want you to understand exactly how much your body can exert so you can control your strength. Controlled strength is sharper than a flailing one."
Steve had that "thinking face" plastered on. He seemed to be realizing that what I'd said had fundamentally changed his worldview. Up until now, he saw normal training as the only way. It wasn't that he didn't know he was "super" he just hadn't realized that the training had to be "super," too. My words had directly contradicted everything he thought he knew about getting stronger.
I watched as he searched for his stone. Even though he was already a Super Soldier, his mentality was still that of the boy who got his ass kicked in the alley. Yeah, I knew the story, Peggy had told me that Steve told her about all those times he'd been beaten up.
I watched him lift a stone slightly smaller than the one next to it. For a second, I thought he would just make do, but I was wrong. He set the smaller one down and stepped toward the bigger one. My worldview flipped in that moment. For someone who sees the world with as much innocence as Steve does, his actions are remarkably honest. He knew he could have gotten away with the smaller stone, but he chose the heavier burden anyway. To say I was impressed would be an understatement.
Now, I realized that if I didn't teach him to the absolute best of my ability, I would be the one feeling ashamed. I followed him and walked toward the largest stone there. I didn't want to just "tell" anymore, I wanted to show him. I had intended to just sit back and wait, but now I felt the pull to be right there alongside him.
As Steve watched me lift the massive stone and begin my sit-ups, He couldn't help but think: I'm really going to be eating through a straw today, isn't he?
we do 10 set from sit up, pump in. only this two for today, and steve already sprwling the ground tired
"Can you feel the healing, Steve? That's the serum doing its job. And when you feel that heat, that means your training is right. The serum makes your body become even more adaptable the more you push it."
"Yeah... I feel it," Steve said. He was starting to see the results. This was why a teacher who understands you is better than a teacher who just expects you to understand them.
"I can feel myself getting hotter the more I push," Steve said. His body heat was already several degrees higher than a normal human's. He felt his muscles start to spasm as the Super Soldier Serum went to work. With every second, he was becoming more attuned to his own power, finally understanding the true scale of what he was capable of.
"Yes. This training is what I did to myself through trial and error so that I could become stronger. Now, I'm going to teach you everything I learned. I'll show you one thing," I told him, walking toward the largest stone on the mountain.
I started punching. I didn't stop for ten minutes. Steve watched, gawking, as I hammered the stone until indentations began to appear in the rock. Finally, I stopped and turned to him. I held up my hands, raw and bloodied from the impact. Horror washed over his face when he realized my hands weren't healing. The blood just kept flowing, dripping steadily onto the frozen ground.
"James, your hand..."
Steve thought I would just heal myself as I punched, but I didn't. I let the blood flow, keeping my hand raw until the droplets hit the ground.
"Steve, I've been training for so long that I can stop my own body from healing my wounds. That is what training gives you: absolute control and an understanding of your own body. I'm showing you this because I want you to realize that while your serum came from a bottle, the training to control that strength doesn't come from a guidebook. It comes from understanding what you can do, and who you can be, if you focus."
I let the healing do its thing until my hand looked as good as new. "I want you to remember this lesson, Steve," I said, looking him dead in the eyes. "What gives you strength doesn't define who you are. What you make of that strength defines you. You're either a protector or a mass murderer."
Steve understood. He had seen what the serum did to Johann Schmidt, and he was starting to realize exactly why Dr. Erskine had chosen him. It was a fundamental realization. All this time, while he was being paraded across stages in those skits, he felt he had downplayed Erskine's efforts so much that he'd begun to feel like a failure. It stayed that way until he finally took a stand, changed his path, and went out to save Bucky.
At this moment, he truly understood the words Dr. Erskine had told him: "The serum amplifies everything that is inside, so good becomes great, bad becomes worse." While it was true the serum gave him the strength to do extraordinary things, that didn't mean the effort to control that strength was a fallacy or a wild goose chase. He still needed to train. He still needed to refine, to control, and to strategize.
"I understand, James. I'll make this routine a part of my daily life," Steve promised. He could see now that his effort in this war wasn't just for others, it was for himself, too. He would be a better man for the world, and a greater man for himself.
"Good. Now, come on, we train more."
Inside, I was fanboying. Even though I was technically a hundred and thirty years old if you combined both my lives, you still can't help being a fan of Steve Rogers. His ideology is what people strive for in the comics of the future. Hell, even Frank Castle respects him. That tells you everything you need to know about what Captain America means to the world as a symbol of justice and freedom.
For the next three days leading up to the mission, the entire camp heard a thunderous thud echoing from the back of the mountain. At first, the men were weirded out, but when Peggy told them it was just Steve Rogers training, horror etched itself onto their faces.
Later, when we had finished and returned to our tents, the soldiers went to the mountain to see the traces of our work. In a hundred years, this story will never leave their minds, or the minds of their descendants. They wanted to remember this, they wanted to remember the effort Captain America took just to stand on the front lines alongside them.
****
On the first day of our training, Peggy came looking for Steve, after all, she hadn't seen him from morning until late afternoon. She was horrified by what she saw. There we were, Steve and I, punching stone until our knuckles bled and the blood dripped to the ground. She was terrified of course she was because in her eyes, she was watching a priceless military asset getting himself injured.
"Steve, what are you doing?!" she yelled, horrified by what she saw. "Stop this now and follow me to the infirmary!" She didn't give Steve any way out of it, her tone was final.
I stopped her. "Peggy, don't."
I wasn't exactly looking forward to this confrontation. Her worldview differed so much from where Steve and I were at that moment. To her, she saw nothing more than a priceless asset being damaged, she didn't see a soldier training to survive.
"What are you doing, James? What did you teach him?! Punching stone until he's bloodied like this? You are damaging a crucial SSR asset!" She was truly furious. I could see it in her eyes, to the SSR, Steve was the only one of his kind, and they couldn't afford to have him broken before he even reached the front lines.
"Stop, Peggy. I know what you see, an asset. You spent millions, yet he's the only one who made it out, not the army you wanted. I understand that. But right now, you aren't seeing Steve as a person, you're looking at him as property. I don't see him that way. I see a soldier who needs tempering, not someone who needs coddling in a lab," I said, my voice calm and reasoned. I didn't want to escalate the situation, but the truth had to be said.
"He needs this, Peggy. He needs to understand his body and what the serum did to him. You can't just package him up, stick him in a room, and expect him to understand pain," I said.
"Well, not by punching a damn stone until you're bloodied, James! This is madness!"
Peggy was still seeing Steve as that fragile boy she had picked up from nowhere, the one who told her he used to get pummeled in alleys. She couldn't reconcile the hero he was becoming with the boy she wanted to protect.
"Steve, show her," I said.
I knew she needed to see it for herself. She needed to understand exactly what we were doing out here, that this wasn't just mindless violence, but the refinement of a weapon.
"Peggy," Steve called out, holding up his hand for her to see. "Peggy, I need this. I need to understand my body, how the serum actually works. I can't train like normal people anymore, Peggy."
Peggy watched in shock as Steve's hand began to heal right in front of her. Only minutes ago, his knuckles had been dripping with blood, but now the bleeding had stopped, and the skin was closing at a visible rate.
It finally dawned on her: Steve Rogers was a Super Soldier, and that meant he healed at a Super Soldier's pace. She began to theorize, if a cut like this could vanish in minutes, a gunshot wound that would take a normal human months to recover from might heal in a matter of days. Peggy was starting to understand what I was doing. She didn't have to like it, but she couldn't deny the reality of it.
As a high-ranking officer in the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR), Peggy was one of the few people privy to Dr. Erskine's research.
Peggy was briefed on the serum's core function: cellular regeneration and metabolic enhancement. She knew the serum was designed to create the "perfect" human specimen, which logically included rapid recovery.
She had been briefed on the possibility that his healing would be accelerated, but in that moment, she hadn't been looking at it from a scientific perspective. She had seen it through the eyes of an agent watching government property being damaged.
It was a significant deviation from her duties, both as an agent and as someone who cared deeply for Steve Rogers. She thought control and a stable environment were best for him now that he was a Super Soldier. She treated him like a glass sculpture that might shatter at any moment, which was why her reaction had been so intense.
"Peggy," Steve said, his voice steady. "Nobody here can teach me about this except James. He understands my physique better than even I do right now. He's been a super-soldier far longer than me, he understands how our physiology works. That's why the training is more intense than what you're used to seeing. I'm tired, yes, but I don't feel the pain like I used to. I recover faster than a normal human, Peggy. James's training is working because he actually understands what I am."
I decided I'd just be a nuisance between them at this point, so I figured I'd better shut up. Honestly, I felt like I might throw up. Blegh. I hate it when they rekindle their flame and get all lovey-dovey right in front of me. It felt like I'd caught a virus in my bloodstream—the jealousy virus.
"But Steve, you're hurting yourself! Training until your blood drips to the ground... if you break your hand and need surgery, they will lock you away and never let you see the world again!" Peggy was serious, she knew the government's patience had limits. They didn't care if he was human or not. Because he had been experimented on, he was now officially American property.
"That's why I need this training even more, Peggy. I can't afford to make a mistake in the field. One wrong move from me might endanger the people around me more than anyone else could," Steve said.
He was a pragmatic man at heart. If he could prevent a tragedy, he would. No one left behind, that was his code, no matter the cost. If you sacrifice one person today, you'll end up sacrificing two tomorrow.
"This chance to learn from someone more experienced than you doesn't just come to anyone," Steve said. "Hell, if I hadn't become a Super Soldier myself, I wouldn't have even known Logan was that strong."
The bigger picture for Steve was clear: he had been injected with the serum because someone needed him. It gave him a sense of purpose he had never felt before. He knew that if the day ever came where he wasn't fighting for what was right, he wouldn't know what to do with himself.
"Fine. I'm agreeing to this not because I like it, but because you need a mentor, and I understand that only James can provide that. That is the only reason I'm standing here reasoning with you instead of dragging you back to camp."
Peggy wouldn't admit that James was right. To her, this all looked so primitive, like the training of a caveman. She couldn't wrap her head around the idea that someone who came out of a billion-dollar lab was now measuring his progress by lifting heavy stones in the wilderness. It felt repulsive, a regression of everything they had worked for.
Peggy turned and left, afraid that if she stayed any longer, she wouldn't be able to control herself and would drag Steve back to camp by force. Despite her frustration, she couldn't deny it, Steve looked incredible today. With the intensity of the training and the sweat on his brow, he looked more like a man than he ever had before. He looked handsome, powerful, and utterly transformed.
"Well, that's that. Now, let's continue," I said, flashing my most devilishly charming smile. Steve felt his whole body tremble when he saw it. He knew exactly what that look meant: the real work was just beginning.
Steve swallowed hard, a single thought crossing his mind: Today, I'm eating through a straw.
****
Codename: The Howling Commandos. Mission: Imminent. Steve was the Captain, but I was the one wearing the Colonel's birds. I didn't ask for the promotion, and I certainly didn't want the headache of leading the team, but Steve was adamant. He knew the truth: I only had this rank because General Phillips newly promoted himself had kept his mouth shut about the time Steve and I broke every rule in the book to rescue the 107th Infantry.
We survived the fallout because Phillips played the politician. He buried our insubordination under the guise of a 'covert operation, He polished the story of our little stunt until it looked like a sanctioned op. If he hadn't reported it as a covert mission, Steve and I would've been stripped of our ranks and kicked to the curb. Instead, I'm wearing Colonel's eagles, all because the General knew how to lie to the brass.
I told him straight: leading the team was a hassle I didn't want. "Steve, you're the one they look to," I said. "You've been paraded in front of half the country; people know your face. They need a symbol at the forefront, and that's you. Nobody knows me, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. Let them see the Captain, I'll handle the paperwork."
****
We began our campaign against Hydra, a relentless blur of smoke and steel. With Steve as the Captain and me as the highest-ranking officer, we moved from one stronghold to the next.
Until the day the pivotal moment of our timeline arrived: the day Bucky, as we had all come to call him, died. He fell during a mission fighting Hydra on a high-speed train alongside Steve. I was waiting at the extraction point to bring them home, but when Steve finally appeared, Bucky wasn't with him. The only thing they brought back was Arnim Zola.
The only thing between Zola and me was the barrel of my rifle, held just an inch from his face. I desperately wanted to pull the trigger, everything in me demanded justice for Bucky. But just as my finger began to tension against the trigger, Steve stopped me.
While Bucky and I weren't exceptionally close at first, you can't spend a year and three months in the trenches together without forming a bond. Over that time, we had truly gotten to know each other. He wasn't just Steve's friend anymore, he was one of my men, and he was my friend, too.
When we finally returned to base, we handed Arnim Zola over to General Phillips and walked away. We didn't wait for a debriefing or a pat on the back. We just needed a moment to ourselves, a moment to finally grieve the man we had left behind.
Everyone was angry. One of our own had been killed, and the men were hungry for revenge. During the briefing a week later, General Phillips pointed us toward the final coordinates we needed. He warned us that Hydra had developed a weapon of mass destruction, but we weren't afraid. If anything, the threat only made us more determined to finish this.
We reached the Alps to finally confront the Red Skull. Steve took point on his motorcycle, acting as both a distraction and a beacon to pinpoint the exact location of Hydra's main command center. He volunteered as the decoy, a living smokescreen to draw their fire while the rest of us waited on the high mountain ridges, ready to infiltrate the base the moment they were distracted.
Once Steve reached the Hydra command center, he pressed the signal button hidden in his sleeve. We acted instantly, firing grappling hooks into the fortified walls and swinging into the heart of the action.
As we fought our way through the interior, the sound of heavy artillery echoed from the valley below. Outside, the main Army began its march into enemy territory with General Phillips at the helm. We were the spark, but they were the fire, tearing into the Hydra fortifications to ensure no one escaped.
I knew this was a pivotal moment in history. I really wanted to save Steve, but I couldn't. I couldn't be selfish now, because in the future, not just me but many people will feel safe knowing that Captain America will protect them.
As we, the Howling Commandos, were fighting, we saw a giant plane already taking off outside. It looked like a car was chasing the plane.
"It all came down to this". I monolgue, We watched as the plane took off, but then we saw the car turning back toward the base. General Phillips and Agent Carter stepped out of the vehicle.
We, the Howling Commandos, watched as General Phillips climbed out of the car. I stepped forward and asked, "Where is Steve, General?"
"He's on that plane," the General replied, looking toward the horizon. "We need to establish contact with Captain Rogers immediately."
"Right away, sir," I said, snapping a salute.
As we were making our way to the control room, I went straight to the radio system.
""Steve, Steve, come in Steve," I called out.
I heard a burst of harsh static, then a faint, crackling reply.
"This is Steve... crackle... is that you, James?" Steve's voice replied through the radio static.
"Where are you, Steve?" I asked, my voice tight. "Can you turn the plane back?"
Through the speakers, the sound of the engines roared, nearly drowning out his voice.
"I'm in the cockpit... crackle... Heading for the coast," Steve's voice was strained, punctuated by more static. "I can't turn it... hiss... The controls are locked on New York. If I don't put this plane in the water, a lot of people are going to die."
I gripped the headset until my knuckles turned white. "Steve, there has to be another way! We can find a solution!"
"Static... There's no more time, James. I have to do this."
I knew I couldn't change his mind. I turned to Peggy and handed her the headset, letting her talk to Steve one last time.
"Steve, you still there?" Peggy's voice trembled as she took the headset from me.
"Static... I'm here, Peggy. I'm putting her in the water. I'm sorry."
"Steve, wait. We have time. We can figure this out," she whispered, her eyes meeting mine for a split second. I could see the heartbreak in them, but I also saw her strength.
"I need a rain check on that dance," Steve said, his voice clearer for just a moment, sounding almost like the boy from Brooklyn again.
Peggy choked back a sob. "All right. A week from Saturday at the Stork Club. Eight o'clock sharp. Don't you dare be late."
"You got it," Steve replied. "Crackle... Peggy... I..."
The radio erupted into a long, sharp burst of static. The signal went flat. I stood there, the silence of the control room feeling heavier than the battle we had just fought. Steve was gone.
The silence in the room was deafening. I looked at Peggy, who was still holding the headset, frozen as the static hummed in the air. Slowly, the rest of the Howling Commandos filed into the control room. Their faces were covered in soot and blood, but their expressions were hollow.
They didn't need to ask, they could see it in our eyes.
Dugan took off his bowler hat, clutching it against his chest. One by one, the others followed suit, bowing their heads. I stood tall, though my chest felt like it was caving in. As their Colonel, I had to be their anchor, even if I felt like I was sinking myself.
"He did it," I said, my voice low but steady. "He saved the world."
Gabe Jones looked toward the empty radio console and whispered, "To Captain Rogers."
"To Steve," I corrected him softly.
We stood there in a circle of silence—a final salute to the man who had become the heart of our team. We had won the war, but the cost was a hole in our lives that no medal could ever fill.
****
We returned to the wreckage of the base as the fires began to die down. The Allied forces were moving in, but for us, the victory felt hollow.
We took one last look at the smoking ruins of the Hydra base, the cold wind of the Alps biting at our faces. There was no more cheering, no more gunfire, just the heavy weight of a victory that felt like a loss. I looked at the Commandos, then at Peggy, and finally signaled the men.
"Let's move out," I said quietly.
We turned our backs on the wreckage and began the long journey home. The war was ending, but the world we were returning to would never be the same without him.
A few days later, the news broke: the Allied forces had officially won the war. Across the world, people were dancing in the streets, but for us, the Howling Commandos, there was only silence. The celebration felt like it belonged to someone else.
With the mission over, the time came for us to go our separate ways. We packed our gear, traded quiet nods of respect, and walked off into a world that was finally at peace, a peace bought and paid for by the friend we left behind.
Who knew? This might be the last time we ever saw each other. Even for me, as I watched them walk away, I realized our time together had ended with the war. We were ghosts of a battle that was finally over, drifting apart into a future that Steve had guaranteed for us.
****
The base was nearly empty, the sound of packing crates and distant engines filling the halls. I found Peggy standing by the window, her silhouette sharp against the fading light.
"He's not coming back, Peggy," I said, my voice rougher than usual.
She didn't turn around. "I know that, James. But knowing it and accepting it are two different things."
I stepped up beside her, looking out at the cold horizon. "I've seen a lot of good men fall. Steve... he was different. But he made his choice so we could have ours. If we spend the rest of our lives looking at the ice, we're wasting the gift he gave us."
Peggy finally looked at me, her eyes red but her gaze steady. "And what do we do now? Just go back to how things were?"
"No," I replied, shaking my head. "We can't go back. We have to move on. We live our lives, for him. We build something worth his sacrifice. That's the only way this makes sense."
She took a shaky breath and nodded slowly. "A life worth his sacrifice. I suppose that's a mission of its own."
"The most important one we've got left," I said.
"Well, I think I'll be tendering my resignation as a Colonel," I said, the weight of the title finally feeling like too much. I looked at her, my expression softening. "And Peggy... between you and me, I'd like you to leave me out of the official reports. Can you do that for me?"
She looked at me, surprised for a moment, before realizing the gravity of my request. I was asking as more than just an officer, I was asking as a friend.
"You want to disappear, James?" she asked softly.
"I've done my part," I replied. "Let the world remember the Captain. I'd rather just be a memory."
Peggy stayed silent for a long beat, then nodded slowly. "Consider it done. As far as the history books are concerned, the Howling Commandos were led by the Captain alone. Your name will stay between us."
"Thank you, Peggy," I said, offering a small, tired smile. "For everything."
"And if you need anything, anything at all, you know where to find me," I said to her one last time.
I gave her a final, lingering nod before turning away and making my way out of Camp Lehigh. The gates of the base felt different behind me, less like a fortress and more like a chapter closing.
to be continued -
next chapter 13/2