Dearest Diary,

I think this is the last of my entries as I am... I'm getting ready for a change today that I can't even begin to imagine.

Project: Rebirth has seemed so unreal for the longest time, but now? Here I am, and I have no idea what I've gotten myself into.

I was woken up this morning earlier than I would have woken up naturally myself, which was rather unanticipated if I'm being honest. The worst of it all was that it was someone I didn't even know. It was like waking up to a world all on my own. He told me to get ready and that 'they' would be here in 20 minutes, at 6:30am, to pick me up.

It's times like that where I forget where I am. The only other times I'd been woken up by someone was back at home in Brooklyn when Bucky would stir in his sleep. Today, I feel, I'll think of him a lot more than I usually do because of how much I wish he was here with me.

Anyway, I got up as soon as the man left and got dressed in the uniform that he had left for me. It was the same color as the dress pants I wore on a daily basis and it, without any surprise whatsoever, got me thinking about old times... about Bucky, all over again.

I brushed my teeth and combed my hair, holding the hat provided in my hand for later. As I walked back to my bed, I made sure all my stuff had been put away. Just then, Agent Carter knocked and walked through the door, telling me that they were ready for me and would be waiting outside... so I followed her.

We got into the backseat of a black sedan, everything about it simply reminding me of all the times Bucky and I went on adventures in his dad's black Buick.

She'd told me it would be a bit of a drive from Camp Lehigh, but hadn't said anything about where we were actually going. From there, conversations between she and I were a little... awkward? I don't know, something just kind of felt off between us. I kept looking at her and tried to figure out what she was feeling or thinking through body language but God knows I'm terrible at reading people. So, I just sat there and looked out the window, minding my own business.

The weirdest of everything was that I expected to feel tired, and understandably so after only having slept for maybe 3-4 hours... though, I surprised myself with this sort of energized feeling.

Maybe that's what a mix of no sleep and nervousness will do to you.

—————

7:00am

As we made our way deeper into New York City, I saw kids playing baseball in the streets. It all felt so familiar to me. I looked around for more things that might bring me back in time to a place where Bucky and I were together.

The driver of the sedan beeped at the kids to move out of the way when I realized where we were. "I know this neighborhood," I said to Peggy. "I got beat up in that alley," I pointed down the street at the place where the man had met me after the movies that one day only a few weeks ago. "And that parking lot," I continued, remembering when a different man had called me a faggot a few years ago as I had been walking with Bucky down the street. "And behind that diner," I added, thinking of when that man had been talking so terribly to some dame about what they were going to do that day. Ah, yes, the good ol' days.

We sat there in silence for a brief moment before, in her beautiful British accent, Ms. Carter asked me a question. "Did you have something against running away?"

I shook my head because she didn't understand. She hadn't been there when my mother had told me to always stand up, no matter what happens. She didn't know what it was like growing up like I had... having to learn almost everything on my own without any friends until Bucky came along only five years ago.

"You start running, they'll never let you stop," I began. "You stand up, you push back... can't say no forever, right?"

"I know a little of what that's like, to have every door shut in your face," she added, trying to level with me.

"I guess I just don't know why you'd wanna join the army if you were a beautiful dame... er, a beautif- a woman. An Agent. Not a dame... you are beautiful, but-" I said, stumbling over my words because, well, I'd never actually tried to hold a conversation with a woman like her... one of such high stature. And it's not like I needed to really talk to women anyway seeing how I... well, I always had Bucky.

Okay, okay. I'm not exactly interested in women, but I'm not exactly blind. She was beautiful, as far as I could tell and there really wasn't any obvious reason for her to have to join the British Army. I know I joined because I felt that I shouldn't give any less than the other men in my country, but her? She didn't have to do anything... she could have just stayed home and sort of let it go.

"You have no idea how to talk to a woman, do you?" She came back, sort of making fun of me in an almost serious kind of way. Well, now I feel like a jackass.

"I think this is the longest conversation I've had with one," I told her, honestly. And, it was true. I mean, I was no Bucky. He was always talking to the dames and charming them... there were times when they were throwing themselves at him. I don't even know how I would begin to deal with that. "Women aren't exactly lining up to dance with the guy they might step on."

"You must've danced," she proposed.

"Well, asking a woman to dance always seemed so terrifying... in the past few years it just didn't seem to matter that much. I figured I'd wait."

"For what?"

I shrugged, looking out the window. "The right partner."

I didn't really look over at her for the rest of the short distance to wherever we were going. I felt the car pull off to the side and come to a stop. I then climbed out of the car and waited for her to do the same.

"This way," she said, walking the opposite way of where I had been facing. I followed her as she walked down the sidewalk a short distance to a small shop called Brooklyn Antiques.

"What're we doing here?" I asked, confused as to why she would have brought me here, of all places. I mean, what were they gonna do for the experiment at an antique shop?

"Follow me," was the only response and clarification I got.

We walk up to the door, passing a few gentlemen in suits on the sidewalk as I put my hat on. She opens the entrance and the door rings, I follow her and close the door behind us. An elderly woman walks out from the back of the shop to welcome us.

"Wonderful weather this morning, isn't it?" she greeted Ms. Carter.

"Yes, but I always carry an umbrella," she responded, confusing me beyond belief. She hadn't brought an umbrella, so what on Earth was she talking about?

Just then, the woman walked over to her desk and did something that I couldn't even see. After that, we walked to the back room where we faced a book shelf. We stood there for only a moment before it clicked and swung open before us.

It had been a secret door of some sort, leading us to a sort of facility. She walked in and I followed her past a sign that read only authorized personnel to proceed past this point. We passed a bunch of men in uniforms and they all looked at me funny, like I was some kind of freak of nature. We approached a pair of metal, double doors that were opened before I could reach out for the handle.

We walked into a room at the top of a stairway. I looked out at the equipment before me and tried to place it with something recognizable in my head but couldn't It all looked so... foreign.

There were so many panels and lights and men in lab coats that I figured it'd be best to let someone explain it all to me rather than try to figure it out on my own. Just then, I realized that everyone had been staring at me and that the room had fallen silent. And when I say everyone, I mean there wasn't a single person in that room who hadn't stopped what they were doing to look up at me.

I looked over at Agent Carter because, hell, maybe she knew what to do seeing as I certainly didn't. She was already looking at me, just like the rest of them. She gestured for us to walk down the stairs and for me to follow her, so I did.

Everyone went on as they were before, but the room seemed to fill with a sort of tension. Like the stakes were high to get this right.

"Good morning," Doctor Erskine said as we approached him, shaking my hand as I stopped before him.

A man took a picture of us from my left side, the bright flash nearly blinding me.

"Please, not now," the Doctor said to him with a concerned look written across his face.

I looked to my right and saw a massive metallic pod, open and on display for everyone to see.

"Are you ready?" he asked me, but I couldn't pull my eyes from the contraption. I nodded reluctantly. "Good. Take off your shirt, your tie and your hat."

I went to go do so, but before I did, I looked at Peggy. No woman had ever seen me undress before and only a handful of men at the army base had. It felt strange to do this now... without Bucky here, too. It reminds me of the first time we swam together at the docks and how reluctant I was... of how embarrassed I had been to take off my shirt in front of him.

I saw her look away as I started, and I tried to focus on other things, like the people up in the glass box watching down at us.

I had taken my shirt and shoes and other articles off and handed them to the assistants there, when I realized something I hadn't noticed in a while. The hickey on my chest. It was faded and yellow-pink at this point... something you'd have to look close up to see and be looking for to find. But it was there and I remember everything about it.

After my little recollection, Doctor Erskine had me step into the pod. I laid down on the metal, which stung like ice against my back and arms as they strapped me in with a material band and metal buckle. I felt myself start to breathe heavily... like I was beginning to realize the gravity of everything all at once.

"Comfortable?" Doctor Erskine asked upon approaching me in the pod.

I chuckled. "It's a little big," I commented, talking about the pod and how small it made me feel just laying inside it. He laughed, too. "You save me any of that Schnapps?" I asked, feeling like I could really use some alcohol right about now.

"Not as much as I should have," he admitted. "Sorry, next time." As he stepped down from the pedestal, he called out to another man. "Mr. Stark, how are your levels?"

Mr. Stark? As in, Howard Stark? The man from the carnival Bucky and I went to on his last night? Well, shit, if he's in charge of this experiment, I just hope it doesn't end up like that flyings car he was working on...

"Levels at one hundred percent," the brown haired man replied.

"Good," Erskine answered.

"We may dim half the lights in Brooklyn, but we are ready," he confirmed, looking right into my eyes. "As we'll ever be," he added, looking away and making me worry.

What the hell did I agree to?

"Agent Carter, don't you think it would be more comfortable in the booth?" The Doctor asked Ms. Carter, pointing up at the wall with all the people hidden behind glass windows on it.

"Ah, yes, of course, sorry," she replied, making her way up there. Though, she looked back at me with this smile on her face. It was all the hope I needed to continue and it felt like she had just given it all back to me.

I then stayed there just waiting for them to do whatever they must. The anticipation was eating me alive, I just hoped I survived whatever it was I signed up for.

I watched Dr. Erskine face the windows with a microphone in hand. He flicked it to get their attention and to make sure it was on, which only resulted in a terrible screeching noise echoing through the room.

"Can you hear me? Is this on?" he asked as he began. "Ladies and Gentlemen, today we take not another step towards annihilation, but the first step on the path to peace." As he went on, the other scientists started prepping me as well as the machine.

"We begin with a series of micro-injections into the subject's major muscle groups. The serum infusion will cause immediate cellular change," he went on as the scientists started moving thin glass tube-like containers with blue liquid inside over to the pod.

"And then, to stimulate growth, the subject will be saturated with Vita-Rays," he finished, walking over to me as the nurse injected me with a rather large needle.

I felt it pinch and then she pulled away. "That wasn't so bad."

"That was penicillin," he corrected me, sending my thoughts spiraling out of control. I looked at him in worry as he smiled and looked away. "Serum infusion beginning in- five... four... three... two... one..." I felt the pads connect with my arms and his hand meet my chest in consolation. I closed my eyes as he reached one, waiting for something to happen.

My eyes shot open as I felt the blue liquid push into my arm. I felt it go through my skin and burn into my muscle... I don't even know how to begin explaining the sensation. I suppose burning is the best way to explain it, but even that doesn't sound as real as I want it to. 

"Now, Mr. Stark," I heard the Doctor call out. With that, I braced myself for the worst. I had no idea what to expect, other than 'the chance of pain' like he had explained to me on an earlier occasion. 

I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Mr. Stark moving a lever. I then felt myself moving up, as the pod was moving and closing. I was vertical, as if I were standing, and the pod had closed in front of me. 

The inside, it was silver and it felt like I was in the future. There were panels and wires and I wasn't exactly sure what to feel or do, so I just sat there.

I heard them attach something to the container, and, directly thereafter, it got cold in there. Very cold. 

Then, I heard a knocking on the metal. "Steven? Can you hear me?" I heard Doctor Erskine ask from the outside.

"It's probably too late to go to the bathroom, right?" I asked jokingly, hoping to get a laugh out of him to lighten the mood. I hate when everything is so serious because then it's just silence  and that's when I start to get nervous.

"We will proceed," I heard him say, obviously not directed at me, as he sounded farther away from me this time.

I tried to stay calm with those words floating through my head, but it seemed nearly impossible. All I could see was his face... er, Bucky's. I couldn't stop thinking about seeing him again... the idea of never seeing him again popped into my head too, but I lost all my thoughts as soon as everything started. 

I heard a low rumbling coming from whatever it was they were doing out there. You see, there was a small window in front of me but I could barely see out of it, nevermind make out what it was they were doing. I was thinking about what would have happened if I had said no from the get go... but I realized that this was an opportunity I feel like I never would have passed up. At this point, too, I would never back down, either. 

"That's ten percent," Mr. Stark started, the rumbling getting slowly louder. "Twenty percent."

From there, I saw my skin almost start to glow and the air inside the pod became luminescent. I had to close my eyes because of how bright it had gotten inside and how quickly. 

"Thirty... that's forty percent," he continued, the light starting to heat up, in a sense. As a matter of fact, the serum in my body was getting colder and burning more as the air around me started to heat up beyond belief.

"Vital signs are normal," I heard a new man say, making me feel a little better about getting into this. 

"That's fifty percent..." Mr. Stark continued. With every increment, the pain seemed to get more intense. "Sixty..." and the burning got stronger and my skin got colder and it felt like it was stretching and, by the light, burning. "Seventy..." I then , started screaming. It was almost involuntary for me, too. Screaming, for me, made the pain less excruciating.

"Steven!" Dr. Erskine yelled. "Steven!... Steven!" I heard his hands hit the pod.

Steven.

"Shut it down!" I heard Peggy shout from a rather far distance. "Shut it down," she repeated.

Dr. Erskine banged on the pod with his fist for a moment before yelling away from me. "Kill the reactor, Mr. Stark. Turn it off! Kill it! Kill the reactor!"

I heard my mother's voice in my head, calling to me. She's the only one that called me Steven, and she wouldn't have wanted me to give up. She would have wanted me to give my everything.

"No!" I shouted. "Don't! I can do this!"

I heard silence out there, yet again. I knew they weren't sure what to think of me or of the situation at this point. The silence was indicative of their unsureness to continue. But I knew I wanted them to because I knew I had to do this... I knew it was possible, too. 

"Eighty," Mr. Stark announced over the roar of the machine. The pain was indescribable at this point... it was like ice under my skin that was so cold, I couldn't feel my own existence, but a heat surrounding me so intensely that I was aware of every hair on my body. "Ninety..." My muscles burned like they were all being torn to shreds all at once, like they were being tugged in all directions and pulling my skin with them, giving a sensation like rug burn... the strap that held me in place snapped as I heard Mr. Stark announce "that's one hundred percent."

After that, I heard everything get loud and crackle, like the machine was breaking down. Sparks flew inside and outside of the pod, as far as I could hear. The machine started whirring and then gradually got quieter... it was powering down and everything stopped glowing and burning.

The room fell silent.

"Mr. Stark?" Dr. Erskine yelled, queuing the pod to open.

I felt myself breathing for the first time since the machine had started. Though, it felt... different. My lungs felt clear and as if they were working in a very real way for the first time, well, ever. 

"Steven," Dr. Erskine said, coming up to the pod with Mr. Stark and helped me down from where I stood. I was out of breath, but it was coming back to me... and rather quickly at that.

"I did it," I said, hearing myself panting.

"Yea... yea... I think we did it," the Doctor added, looking over at Mr. Stark.

"You actually did it," Mr. Stark said, in disbelief back.

I saw Agent Carter push through the crowd that had gathered around me and stop right in front. I watched her look me up and down, taking in everything that I had yet to see myself. 

"How do you feel?" she asked, and rightfully so. That was a good question and no one had even bothered to ask it yet. 

How do I feel? Well, thankful that I survived, does that count?

"Taller," was all I could think to say... and it was true. I had to have been almost a foot taller than I was before, right?

I looked out among the people there and, well, it was strange to me. It had only been a short time since I had been able to experience life as the 'new me' but everything was already so different. Everything was literally clearer - nothing was blurry - and the colors weren't even close to dull, why, they were vivid and bright. I could hear everything perfectly and breathe without any problems... my back and feet and stomach didn't hurt for the first time in my whole rememberable life. Despite the fact that my heart was beating out of my chest, well, at least it finally felt like it was synchronized with itself and wasn't trying to kill me, for once.

She reached out and tapped my chest, right where the hickey was supposed to be, only, it wasn't there anymore. "Uhm... you look taller," she said, bringing me back to reality, handing me a shirt.

As I put it on, the glass windows shattered all over everyone as the result of an explosion. I looked up and saw a man standing there in a suit. He ran up to the pod and took one of the glass tubes with the blue serum in it. I heard people yelling all sorts of things and I felt, honestly, overwhelmed with all the new sensations that I didn't know what to do. 

Then, two gun shots.

I looked over at Dr. Erskine and he was looking away from me. The man had shot him in the chest twice and ran up the stairs to get away.  Agent Carter was shooting at him, and she got him once, but it seemed useless.

I ran over to see if he was alright as he fell to the floor. I kneeled there with him and he looked up at me and it felt like everything was moving in slow motion. 

He pointed up at my chest and touched me at my heart just before he passed before my very eyes, reminding me that I don't need to be a perfect soldier... but a good man.

—————

And, with that, I knew exactly what I needed to do.

~ Steven Grant Rogers