To Love Is To Destroy

Stefan Roosevelt had never met his soul mate. Not that he considered it a big loss; he'd always been too busy, or his mother had been ill. Something had always gotten in the way. He pushed through life, working and being the man his mother expected. Then the war had started, and his life had changed. Patricia Carhold had walked into his life, and she'd turned his world upside down. She was smart and capable, handling herself with an ease that he could only wish for at times. Now, Stefan was in Doctor Erskine's program, and he could only hope he'd be chosen. "Grenade!" Stefan looked and saw his squad mates scattering like rats. He caught sight of the lump of metal on the ground, and without considering, tossed his thin body over it. He heard footsteps next to him, and waved his arm. "Get away!" he shouted. "Stefan." "Patricia, get away, I'm serious." The silence around him became almost deafening, and he looked up, opening his eyes where he'd screwed them shut to see everyone looking at him. Doctor Erskine seemed pleased; Colonel Phillips looked a little disgusted. With him or with the fact that Stefan was the only one to make the sacrifice, he couldn't tell. He rose slowly, dusting himself off. "Is -- is this some kind of test?" he asked. "It was," Patricia said, and he turned to find her closer than he'd expected. His heart gave a thump, and he tried to get it under control, because in his condition, that was a bad sign. Still, she was looking at him funny and he couldn't help but want it to continue. Later, working out the soreness of his muscles in the barracks after the first day of basic training, he caught sight of her walking past the window. He scrambled back into his t-shirt and clattered out of the Quonset hut after her. "Agent Carhold!" he called. She turned, and maybe it was dusk settling in, but he couldn't help but notice that she seemed pleased to see him. "Private Roosevelt," she said, tilting her head at him. She topped him by a couple inches, but Stefan found he didn't mind. She was beautiful, he'd thought so when he'd met her, with nary a hair out of place in her sleek curls as she strolled along with her files under one arm. "I, uh..." Stefan felt himself go red. He'd never figured out what to say to dames. Bucky had tried to teach him, but his mouth always caught up with him and embarrassed him. "Yes?" she asked. "Sorry," he said, feeling himself go red. His whole face warmed, and she seemed to think it was funny, because she smiled at him. He couldn't help but give her a shy smile back, his hand coming up to cup the back of his neck and rub. "Actually, I'm glad you stopped me. I wanted to tell you that was a very brave thing you did out there today," she said. "You think so?" he asked. "I just...didn't think." "Your instincts were good," she said, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "You'll make a good soldier yet." Stefan's grin went a little lopsided, and she stepped a little closer. He could smell her perfume, something light and airy, and he suddenly knew why Bucky liked courting dames. This one was interested in him, and he didn't quite know what to do. "Would you -- I mean..." "I don't date subordinates," she said with a smile. "Besides, you're in boot camp. You've signed up for the long haul." She reached up and poked him in his thin chest, but gently, and he surprised her by grabbing her hand. "Didn't ask you on a date," he said, his grin wide. "Wanted to ask you to go dancing. But since I don't get leave..." "You're stuck here. And so am I," she said, though she didn't take her fingers back. She could have done so, quite easily, and Stefan was surprised his flirting had worked. "Well, maybe we'll have to see about it after," he said, and her lips kicked up in response. "Maybe," she said. Bucky had never had a soul mate, either, Stefan mused. He lay in his bunk, trying to keep his mind off of what Doctor Erskine had told him. Project Rebirth. It was a lot to take in. A procedure. Something that would make him...stronger. Better, somehow. Stefan knew that he would relish the idea if he were a bully, but more than anything, he worried he'd abuse it. Something like this, if it worked on him, could bring about changes that were terrifying to even consider. So, as usual when he wanted to distract himself, his thoughts turned to his bare wrists. Thin and bony, like a bird's leg, his wrists were his legacy of sickness and poor nutrition. Artist's hands, his mother had called them. Once, when he was a boy, the subject of soul mates had come up. All little boys and girls had them, his mother had explained. But they weren't set in stone. They had to be sought, fought for. He'd resolved then to find his own. Now, considering his thin wrists, Stefan wondered if they were just too thin for the soul mark. Or if he had missed it that summer he'd been down with scarlet fever. His soul mate could have come and gone while he tossed and turned under heavy blankets, delirious with fever. He rubbed the skin of his wrist absently and bit his lip. Really, after all they'd put him through, he should be sleeping like a log. He had been, since he'd gotten here, too tired to do much else after training than eat and sleep. He'd lost count of the times he'd nodded off into his tin plate in the chow tent, but he'd stuck with it. Sarah Roosevelt hadn't raised a quitter. Now, though, he was full of nervous energy, because something was happening. His thumb rubbed over the bright blue vein, the tendon that went taut whenever he clenched his fists. Poised on the brink of great change, and Stefan wondered whether or not his soul mate would recognize him when it was all through. It was cold in the room. To be fair, it was the middle of winter in New York City, and the basement where the experiment was to take place wasn't heated. The hum of the machines did warm the place as they were powered on, Stefan found. He removed his shirt, standing in his tiny a-shirt and facing the crowd as Doctor Erskine spoke. All of these official looking people, coming to see a little guy like him. It sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with the cold, rainy streets outside. He climbed up on the pod, wincing as they strapped him in. To prevent him from seizing, Doctor Erskine had said. The nurses were hard faced, like the nuns in the orphanage of his youth, and he was oddly comforted by that. Some things, it seemed, never changed. He wondered if Bucky would recognize him after. "That wasn't so bad," Stefan said, as the needle left him. Nothing like the injections he'd taken as a boy. He wasn't a stranger to pain, but needles still made him a bit jumpy. "That was penicillin." Doctor Erskine set the syringe aside. The nurses levered six ampules of blue serum into the tank, and Stefan closed his eyes. He could feel the doctor's warm hand on his shoulder for just a moment. "Beginning serum injection in three, two, one..." It was a little bit like someone had poured ice water into his veins. He would have sworn his breath misted the air before him, but it might have also been his swimming vision. Whatever it was, it was enough to make the room sway and expand, the observers in the top deck of the room looking tiny and far away. Stefan's bleary blue eyes caught sight of Patricia, and he wanted to give her a little wave, but he was strapped in. Everything slowed down. "Mister Stark," Erskine nodded to him. Stefan rolled his eyes that way, but it was like he was swimming in a thick stew, a fog covering his eyes. Howard pushed the lever down, and Stefan was lifted, the pod closing around him like a coffin. He would have panicked if he could have. Instead, he peered through, or tried to peer through, the tiny glass window of the pod. "Stefann..." Erskine tapped on the metal of the pod. "Can you hear me?" "I suppose it's too late to go to the bathroom now," Stefan quipped, and he could see the doctor's tiny smile before he turned away. "And now, we begin the Vita-Ray infusion," Erskine said. His voice was being drowned out by an odd humming, something about it rising in intensity and making Stefan's ears ring. He shook his head, but it wouldn't clear, and he couldn't drown it out, because his arms were strapped to his sides. Something was coming, and Stefan wasn't sure he was going to like it. He could hear the crank of a lever outside and then there was pain like he had never known, searing him with a white hot intensity. Thousands of needles of fire shot through him, and he wasn't sure who was screaming, but it was drowning out the humming. He realized, in an abstract sort of way as his body bowed upward high enough to touch the doors of the pod, that it was him. He couldn't stop it, any more than he could stop the jerking of his straining muscles. He'd seen a seizure once. His mother had been at his bedside in the hospital, and his neighbor in the next bed over had jerked up as though someone had stuck a rod up his spine. He'd twitched so hard he'd fallen out of bed, and a nurse almost lost a finger as she tried to keep him from swallowing his tongue. "Stop the experiment!" He could hear Patricia, see her as she looked through the glass at him. He had no doubt his face was a horrifying rictus, but he managed to unclench his jaw long enough to speak. "No!" He bore down, forcing the words out. "Keep going, I can take it!" Patricia disappeared, and Erskine peered in, nodding once. "Full power!" Stefan's world flashed white, and then he knew no more. His last thought was for his soul mate, and if she'd still know who he was. He might have been hoping for a pretty brunette that was wringing her hands outside his pod. 12 November, 1943 Dear Patricia, It's been a while since I've had a chance to take a break and write you. The Commandos and I have pushed farther north. We're working our way further into France, but with the occupation and how small of a force we are, even with me here, we couldn't retake a place as big as Paris. We liberated a camp today. Bucky got real quiet, but he seemed to snap out of it right around supper time. He's always been real big on food. I remember his letters he wrote me when he first enlisted. Pages spent talking about the chow hut. I know that we haven't seen much of each other, but it doesn't mean I don't think about you. Listen, I know you're busy. But I just want you to know, I'd really like to have a drink with you when I'm on leave next. We'll be close to Orleans soon. Maybe make it a point to wait for me there? You can't say no this time -- I'm a Captain. Yours, Captain Stefan Roosevelt