"December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy -

the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked

by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt

media:

"Remember Pearl Habor"

by Sammy Kaye

December 7, 1941; Casablanca, Morocco

Agent Carter had volunteered herself to escort Steve back to the States. Steve tried in vain to explain to the sailors that she had collected the intelligence reports on the British position in Africa and had to return to military headquarters in Washington, but they seemed too preoccupied that Steve and Carter would be on an airplane together. In hours Steve's wedding and future as a married man had been planned out in excruciating detail.

A large body of sailors had assembled on deck to see him off, far more than Steve had expected. He shook hands until his fingers grew numb, listened to and delivered dozens of farewells, and accepted a few trinkets as going-away presents from the men. By the time he had reached the last of the group he had collected a bullet casing (one man's lucky charm), a rusty Purple Heart, a few spare bills, and many photographs to remember the sailors by.

Instead of going in for a handshake, Farley jumped forward and embraced Steve with a rib-snapping intensity. His head hardly reached Steve's chest. When he pulled away be brushed a few tears from his eyes, laughing in an embarrassed manner and glancing around to make sure his dignity was still preserved.

"Don't tell the guys I cried, will ya? I won't hear the end of it!" He admitted, and Steve shook his head.

"I won't. You'll probably be an officer by the next time I see you!" Steve grinned, and Farley's wide eyes shone. He jumped into a salute, and the rest of the sailors followed suit.

"Keep out of trouble, huh?" Clint pumped his hand vigorously. "Maybe you'll get to fight a Kraut for me. Haven't seen any action in this whole goddamned war!" As Steve started to reach for Sabin's hand, Clint pulled him back and lowered his voice. "You're a good commander, Steve. That's why these guys turned up. We'll miss you around here, so write us scurvy sailors every once in a while, yeah?"

Carter stood to the side throughout the exchange of goodbyes. There was something in her eyes that Steve had never noticed before – a sort of knowingness hung in her gaze, the weight of some hidden truth stooping her shoulders. She didn't speak, but Steve knew from her look that something urgent was drawing them away. He pulled himself away from the sailors and started toward the gangplank, painfully, if he were truly honest. The sailors on the Reuben James had been his family for the last weeks, months, and it would be hard to sever that connection.

"Right, then. Said all your goodbyes, then?" she asked, all business as always.

"Apologies, Agent Carter. Should we be going?"

She turned on her heel and started down the gangplank, leaving Steve to follow after her. Clutching his sea bag in one hand and his assortment of trinkets in the other, he started after her brisk pace. He had made it a few steps before he turned back and waved at the sailors, who shouted after him and waved in response. And although it hurt him to do so, he turned to walk down the gangplank and forced himself not to look back.

That was two months ago, and Steve hadn't seen any of the action he had been promised. Instead he was caught up in a mess of military and bureaucratic machinery that kept him stuck in Casablanca, watching the planes take off and wishing with all of his heart he could be on one of them. The British soldiers didn't know what to do with him, so Steve became an honorary mess officer, developing a particular skill in washing dishes. He returned to the barracks every night smelling of soap and utterly miserable.

Maybe he had been wrong to assume that after Erskine's formula turned him into a weapon of mass destruction that he might be able to use his newfound power for good. Now all the work he did was shining pots and pans. Steve was frustrated to the edge of sanity, but he accepted his role and threw himself into every task. If he was going to be a mess officer, he would be the best mess officer ever seen.

Try as he might, he couldn't stamp the question of why from his mind. Why wasn't he on the front lines and tank battles in Tunisia? Why wasn't he training with the British enlistees to go into battle? Why was he continually forced away from his purpose?

Respite from the cycle of boredom and uselessness finally came when Agent Carter arrived in the middle of officer's mess. Steve was elbow-deep in a massive pot of limp spaghetti, prying the stringy pasta from the sides of the metal container with the end of a soup ladle. He must have looked like a complete fool when she approached, with watery marinara sauce staining his apron and hair wild from the steamy kitchen. One look in Carter's eyes meant she was serious. A heavy determination settled on his shoulders, her mouth drawn in a thin line and eyes flashing.

"Change into your dress uniform, Rogers. We're flying out."

The words were music to Steve's ears, and he had to fight from skipping to the barracks as his heart leaped into his throat. He was leaving, he was going to be doing his part at long last, he would be in service again... Two months as mess officer had given Steve some perspective, along with newfound cooking skills, but it had shown him humility most of all. He was glad to be a mess officer, but Carter's promise of really serving his country was finally coming true. Everything was falling into place.

A nondescript car had pulled up to the battalion HQ, with an equally shabby-looking man standing beside the open door. He took Steve's bag and slung it over his shoulder, tossing his belongings in the trunk and ushering Agent Carter in. They were crammed together in the narrow backseat which reeked of cigar smoke and grease, so close their shoulders touched.

"Forgive the travel arrangements. Our exit has to be... Under the radar," Carter explained, releasing a heavy sigh.

Steve's brows furrowed with confusion. Carter's strange expression when she told him to gather his things, and now this? Something is wrong. "Permission to speak, ma'am?"

"Granted."

"It's just that you seem very upset. I was wondering if it has anything to do with me." Steve's gaze dropped to his shoes. If he had done something to upset a British officer, he was certainly in hot water. With a crunch of gravel the car ambled away from the building, too-flat tires loping across the patchy paved roads. Potholes sent Steve and Carter bobbing like corks inside of the carriage.

"It has everything to do with you, Rogers. You haven't done anything personally," she smiled a wan half-smile as Steve's shoulders relaxed. "I'll explain more once we get to the airport."

"Right." Steve wasn't fully satisfied, but he let the conversation drop. The prospect of leaving Casablanca and beginning his life still thrilled him, but it had been tainted by suspicion. What is going on?

The autogyro was a standard passenger craft, a low-bellied carriage hanging down near the sandy pavement, with one propeller capping the nose of the machine and another larger one on the top. Slender plane wings extended from the sides of the craft below the doors, balancing the fragile frame. Surrounded by sandbags and other military craft, Steve could almost imagine he was in a war zone. The nearby docks were within earshot, the salty stink of the sea mingling with the trampling of boots as soldiers were ferried into the port. They were British, young and full of enthusiasm as they marched by. The ones coming in marched – the ones leaving hobbled.

Agent Carter exited the car before it had come to a full stop, double-timing up to a man in a rumpled suit and leaping into animated conversation. He glanced left and right, touching her elbow to pull her away from a nearby cluster of soldiers. The man stood slightly stooped, with a bit of a paunch and rapidly thinning hair drifting across his scalp in the humid desert breeze. Agent Carter must have known him well, because she seemed quite comfortable chewing him out in front of military personnel. The man backed away slightly, raising his hands in an attempt to placate her.

Steve chose this opportunity to approach them, and the man's round face sagged with relief as Steve joined the group. Huffing softly, Agent Carter gestured towards him. "Steve Rogers, this is Brendan Bracken. I assume you're familiar with him?"

"Familiar?" Bracken scoffed, but not unkindly. "This man's a legend! All over the Times, you are! I reckon there's not a soul under the Queen's land who hasn't heard your name!"

"Bracken is leader of the Ministry of Information. He's managing the propaganda effort on the home front."

They shook hands, leaving Steve confused as to why he was meeting such an important figure. "Pardon, Mr. Bracken. It's an honor to make your acquaintance, but may I ask why I'm being taken away from the Reuben James?"

"A polite one, isn't he?" Bracken smiled at Carter, who nodded with a blank expression. "You see, Mr. Rogers, my occupation is precisely why you're here. We've spoken with the Army, and a colonel's dispatched you into joint MOI and Office of War Information care. Frankly, we want you to be the face of resistance against fascism that cripples Europe and abroad."

The man sounded a little like Colonel Philips, who had surely been the one to shoo Steve off into Bracken's care. "I understand, sir. But what exactly will I be doing?" He imagined what the newsreel might say about him – the super-soldier from America, here to fight for the common man and thrust the Allies into victory. Would they drop him in Berlin with a film crew and have him fight waves of Nazi officers? Or maybe he would invade the Pacific and reclaim American territory with the Navy... The opportunities were endless.

Steve didn't look forward to killing necessarily, but Bracken's proposition was shaking the feeling of uselessness that had clung onto him for so long since he had been transformed into a weapon of mass destruction – if he was honest, the uselessness he had felt since the first time he tried to enlist. Shooting down a few planes meant little compared to the lives being laid down on the front lines. His duty was the same as theirs, and now that he was as capable as any soldier to step up and fight, what was keeping him from it? A feeling of elation rose in his stomach, and he felt a smile spreading across his face.

"Yes, well, given the circumstances..." Bracken cleared his throat and looked down, the mood of the conversation sobering in an instant. "To the plane, then?"

He and Agent Carter ascended the short series of steps into the area of the autogyro for passengers, empty save a few boxes marked with black paint in rough numbers. Seats folded down from the side of the carriage, and the walls of the cabin were so thin Steve thought he could puncture them with his thumbs. He elected not to test this theory as Bracken and Carter seated themselves, whispering together while Steve took a seat across the row.

"He doesn't know?"

"I was going to wait. It'd motivate him."

Steve straightened in his seat, leaning forward toward the man and woman attempting to be surreptitious right in front of his nose. "Agent Carter, I hope you don't mind my asking, but is there something I should know?"

Carter sighed, pulling back her hair with both hands until it stretched at her temples. "Yes, there is. Have you heard any news today?"

"No, I work morning and officer's mess for a full shift. What's going on?" Steve had never seen Agent Carter in any way but perfectly poised. Her facade had cracked in this very moment, stress and shock mounting in her eyes until they shone like black diamonds. There was no doubt about it. Carter was afraid, and that was enough to scare Steve as well.

"At about eight in the morning, Hawaiian time, the Naval base at Pearl Harbor was attacked by two waves of Japanese bombers. Nearly two and a half thousand Americans died and half as many were wounded." Carter's words dropped like stones against Steve's chest, and the world seemed to cartwheel beneath his feet. She continued to speak, but her words droned monotonously in Steve' ears that pounded with his rising heartbeat, the shock overwhelming him in a wave of panic.

The United States had been attacked. Soldier had been killed. And Steve had done nothing to stop it.

In a moment his excursion on the Reuben James disgusted him, his stint in the mess hall even more so. He had done nothing but exercise a minute group of sailors, feed a batch of British soldiers, no real contribution to the war effort. After everything that Erskine and Philips had poured into him, this was what he paid them back with? Apathy? Uselessness? He had been waiting in Casablanca for two months, waiting for his superiors to call him to serve, and they hadn't.

I had the power to do something, to stop this, to fight back, and I didn't. What kind of soldier does that make me?

Steve's heart throbbed against his rib cage, but he took in a deep breath and pushed back the anger that slowly collected at the back of his mind. No, he would keep his calm. He would stay collected. Carter's words leaped back into focus, and he was drawn back to their conversation.

"...asked the colonel to dispatch you, of course. The British have been egging me on about getting you on their propaganda posters, but some folks in War Information had a better idea. Are you listening to me?"

"Yes, of course," Steve choked out, and Carter's eyes softened ever so slightly. The facts seemed to drill into Steve's skull like the blade of a saw. Two and a half thousand killed. Japanese bombers. Pearl Harbor. "I guess this means America will join the war, won't it?"

"They had damn well better!" Carter spat, then noticed the sideways look Bracken was giving her and dropped her head.

"What can I do? Please, Agent Carter, let me do something besides sitting around on a ship. I'll go back to the states and work the factories, I'll do anything! Anything!" Steve pleaded, clasping his hands together. No longer would he stand on the sidelines while Americans gave their lives for his uselessness. He would take up a rifle and walk into the heart of Berlin if they ordered him to.

"That's the spirit I like to see," Bracken muttered thoughtfully, pulling out a notebook from his breast pocket and jotting something down, studying Steve's expression all the while.

"I'm not joking sir. I've never been so serious about anything in my life. I enlisted, and I expect to fulfill the duties that go along with that deal. Tell me what to do and I'll do it." His fingers clenched into fists and he rocked on the edge of his seat. Steve meant every word that he said, and his conviction matched those statements. The frustration of failing the sailors at Pearl Harbor – everything seemed to culminate in one grand call for action.

Steve knew he was made for a purpose; he was a soldier for a reason other than shooting down the occasional plane and teaching calisthenics. It was about time that purpose was fulfilled. Could Agent Carter understand that?

Apparently she could, because when she raised her head her dark eyes blazed with a fury Steve knew was mirrored in his own. Bracken stole the words from her mouth as he responded with a short chuckle. "Don't you worry, son. You'll get your fair share of contribution to the war effort. Don't you worry..."

As the engine of the autogyro rumbled to life and its propellers whirled to life, Steve could only hope his fair share would be good enough. Good enough for the Navy boys in coffins tonight, he thought as the runway peeled away beneath the rumbling tires of the aircraft, and for everyone else that has fallen in the war's wake.