"I don't feel like I'm any kind of hero.

I was asked to do it. So I did.... Don't brag that you're anything more than you are."

- Private Joe Lesniewski

media:

Any Bonds Today?

by the Andrews Sisters

New York City; July 3, 1941

Life on the U.S.S. Repulse was as close to heaven as you could get. Unfortunately for Steve, his boots were fixed firmly on the ground.

It satisfied him enough to watch the mighty battlecruiser inflate her ballonets, swelling in the autumn sunrise. Rays of light angled off of her smooth, cow-skin bladder, amber light that seared Steve's eyes. He didn't mind, though, leaning forward over the fence until the metal cut into his armpits. He was careful to keep his toeholds in the shallow indents of the fence – last time a group of kids had wandered by and kicked at a loose board, sending him to his rear in seconds.

"When's the wedding?" A voice drawled behind Steve, and he pivoted to see a young man standing behind him, hands held casually in pockets. Steve felt the need to snap to attention – Bucky looked mighty sharp with his knee-high boots and spiffy overcoat. A black tie wound its way about his neck, and a blue armband depicted his rank for all to see: Airman Basic, assigned to the Repulse. Burning pride and envy twisted Steve's stomach as he watched Bucky preen over his new digs.

"Ah, don't look so down. You'll nail the next test, that's for sure." Bucky slugged Steve slightly in the shoulder, a beaming grin splitting his face. "Tell you what – we'll take a walk down the street and you can have dibs on half the girls that throw themselves at me. Deal?"

"No way." Steve shoved Bucky's hand away. "I have to get home and study."

The excitement in Bucky's eyes seemed to darken as he surveyed Steve. "Look, Rogers, why don't you give it a rest? Have some fun before this big blimp pulls out of New York. I hear there's a fair or something in Central Park. Let's go see a ball game!"

Ducking his head, Steve laughed bitterly to his shoes. He knew his best friend didn't mean to be hurtful, but the words still stung. Bucky was always turning the conversation away from enlistment, away from the war that he was getting dragged into himself. "You don't think I can make it."

"No," Bucky replied emphatically. "It's just that this will be the what, fifth time now? You're going to get caught with those forged ID's, and you'll be out of the service for sure. I don't want to see that."

Fiery anger seared at Steve's stomach – why did Bucky have to be so pretentious all the time? That uniform had made his a snobbish git. "Maybe you like the fact you're finally better at something than me. Why don't you go shine your buttons or something? Whatever you army troops do in your free time."

Bucky recoiled, eyes narrowing. "You don't mean that."

Turning on his heel, Steve narrowed his eyes and refused to look back. "See you around, Airman Barnes."

To his credit, Bucky didn't call after him. But frankly Steve didn't care either way.

The apartment was small and cramped, with a rather unfortunate patch of mildew creeping up the far wall, but to Steve it was home.

Sheaths of paper rustled on the wall when he opened the door, letting in the brisk August draft. The door sprung back behind him, pulled by an elaborate system of springs and gears Steve had finagled together a few summers ago. A sharp whine hummed from the contraption – he would have to give it a good oiling soon.

The papers on the wall were his sketches, anything and everything he could translate into graphite. Central Park spread over a large patch of the wall, with bits of the lake and a few fountains fluttering here and there with the wind. From the corner peeked his portraits, the rough outlines of faces. Bucky scowled down at him, but his eyes sparkled with mirth. A few hasty sketches of a girl he had caught sight of on Wall Street were pinned up over his desk. She had been wearing the uniform of a British officer, but he didn't catch her insignia. Sharp eyes and high cheekbones drilled down at him as he watched.

Steve's desk was a clutter of old machine parts, half-finished drawings, and Force manuals. He had drilled himself until he saw magazines and disassembled firearms in his sleep. Gas masks, carbine rifles, even the fundamentals of Army Basic practice planes – he had covered all of his bases. There was no way the Force could turn him down. He had presented his impeccable grades and citizenship to the enlistment center, eyes wide and hopeful...

And had it returned to him with a sorry smile and an apology. Steve knew why, of course. He still hadn't had his growth spurt yet, even though he was well past the age, and he had no muscle mass to speak of. A few of the other soldiers enlisting had commented on his diminutive stature, saying they could use him as a lockpick to work their way into the German bases.

Steve ignored them. Partly because his saying that German bases would have more defenses than a simple lock would earn him a fist to the nose, and partly because he was praying to escape another side-alley brawl. Less of a lockpick, more of a punching bag.

Absentmindedly he fiddled with one of the engines he had constructed, fingers flying over the little parts. In seconds he had primed the wires and checked every piston, each smaller than the nail on his little finger. Carefully he pressed the mechanism into the body of a miniature B-17 Flying Fortress. The metal was sleek beneath his fingers, the lithe form of the plane shaped intentionally under his hands. The propellers and walnut-sized engines sputtered to a start when he flipped the switch above the blue and red painted star, and the Fortress started a lazy course down the length of his desk.

Steve waited expectantly as the Fortress made its way to the end of his desk, then fell to the floorboards. At the last second, before the delicate metal shattered from the steep fall, the plane's nose jolted upright. The propellers spun faster with a low whirr as the Fortress took to the air, flying a few loops around the room before drifting back down to the threadbare rug. Steve grinned as he pocketed the small machine, already running over plans in his head to keep it in the air longer. He had a mind for that sort of thing, taking the plane apart in his head and piecing it back together with his hands.

But the Air Force couldn't measure his brain as well as they could measure his stature, so he was turned away every time.

Snatching a pair of apples from his cupboard, Steve unlocked the door and hurried back to the streets again. He already felt guilty for lashing out at Bucky, and he knew just where his friend would be.

The cable car wasn't the most pleasant way to get around New York, but it was faster than walking any day. Besides, the drivers would usually take pity on Steve and let him ride without a fare, which he appreciated. Ever since his parents had passed in the war money had been tighter than a hyperfine spring coil, and cable fares started to add up pretty quickly.

He was crushed between a rather voluptuous woman with a thick Russian accent and a harried-looking businessman hunched over a newspaper. Steve peered over the man's shoulder to get a look at the day's news, the headlines screaming at him from every angle.

SOMETHING MUST CHANGE NOW! The Post declared, and underneath the too-large letters was a grainy photograph of a mass of soldiers, hunched over the French countryside. Steve knew it was one of the German's war tactics that had gained fame with journalists and the imagination of the American public. Blitzkrieg, lightning war. Storming across the countries lying in the Germans' way, tanks punching through the boundaries of countries. A tide of red and black washed over Europe, declared the type of the newspaper. Looking at the pictures plastered across the pages, a sickening feeling curdled in Steve's stomach.

No wonder France had fallen so quickly.

Steve despised the Germans as much as the next man, but he felt a rogue spark of admiration for their creations. The planes and tanks depicted in every paper in the States were of incredible workmanship, compared to the blundering armament designs Steve had managed to dig up from the library. He caught the businessman staring at him and directed his eyes to the ceiling, feigning nonchalance. The cable car lurched to a lethargic start, the Russian woman fell backward against Steve's elbows, and a particularly unpleasant ride began.

He hopped off at the Battery, showing a hard-faced military man his papers before entering the small park. It was less of a park now and more of a war zone, with sandbags piled high and a massive anti-aircraft gun scanning the overcast skies. Allied tech might be inferior to the Germans with regards to their tanks, but the massive gun barrels would plug any of the Krauts out of the air. The sight should have been comforting, but his mind drifted to Bucky again. Would he have to face this sort of defenses in Germany as well?

He circled Battery Park, then wandered back out into their neighborhood. The lapping waves of the Atlantic Ocean sent a chilled wind over New York City, and the bleak light cast a dismal gloom over the day. Steve leaned against the railing to the sea, taking a bit out of his apple as he watched ships pull back and forth across the steel-gray water. Every so often a lesser airship would drift upwards, tossed slightly by the breeze, and fade into the distance. If Steve strained his eyes enough he could make out the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. The torch appeared to hang at an odd angle from Steve's vantage point, angled towards the ocean that stretched out for hundreds of miles. Pointing to Europe, pointing to war. War wasn't here yet, but Steve could practically taste it.

He was about to head out and search for Bucky again when a sharp cry echoed from a nearby alley. Immediately Steve whirled around, expecting the onslaught of fists from some newly made soldier with a grudge, but no one came. The cry sounded again, followed by a gibbering language – was that German?

Steve darted across the street, dodging a young woman with a bicycle and narrowly leaping out of the way of a trundling street car, and glanced into the alley. The sound of a thumping blow reached Steve's ears and he hurried into the darkening shadows of the narrow way, feet slapping against the puddling water that trickled down the slope to the harbor.

Behind a pile of bins a teenager in a service uniform stood, one bloodied fist raised over his head preparation for another strike. At his feet knelt a middle-aged man, with a patchy beard and wispy white hair. He looked positively terrified, one hand held up to stay the young man's blows, the other clutching a broken nose. Steve leaped forward and dragged back the arm of the young man, pulling him back a few feet before the soldier recovered his balance.

"What do you want?" The kid spat. Steve noticed he was rather ugly, with an unpleasant sneer plastered across his young features. "This German scumbag was asking for trouble." He gave Steve a short up-and-down, his sneer deepening to a scowl. "One of the army rejects, aren' you?"

Fighting to maintain his composure, Steve straightened and glowered at the soldier. "I fail to see how this is any business of yours. What did this man do to provoke you?"

The soldier's face flushed a blotchy scarlet and he fumbled for a response. "Well – er – what's he doin' here in New York, a lousy Kraut like him? I bet he's got plans for atom weapons and the lot in his pockets right now. I was protectin' the peace, I was!"

Ignoring the soldier, Steve knelt and helped the shaken man to his feet. He offered him a handkerchief, slightly stained with grease but otherwise clean, and turned back to the young man. "Leave him alone and I won't report this to your superior. I'm sure this isn't your first conduct disorder, hm?" Blushing to eggplant purple, the boy fixed his stony gaze on his shoes. "Now that that's settled, why don't you run along?"

The soldier needed no more prompting, darting back onto the streets and out of sight as fast as his oversized feet could carry him. Steve turned back to the German man, who looked bewildered at what had just occurred. "Pleasure to meet you, sir. I'm Steve Rogers. What do you say we find somewhere else to chat before that buffoon realizes I don't know who on earth his superior is?"

A tentative smile spread across the man's lips, his voice thick with his accent and newly acquired broken nose. "I'd like that very much."

They stopped at the shipyard, pausing on a bench while the ribs of mammoth ships stretched above their heads. The completed models belched columns of smoke into the air, and the entire harbor thundered with a thousand sounds of metal knocking against metal, the hiss of steam, the squeak of a loose gear. To Steve it sounded like home, and he relaxed on the bench while the German man sat next to him. He looked anxious, and less worse for wear now that the blood had been mopped off of his face.

"I am Doctor Abraham Erskine. A pleasure." He dipped his head in Steve's direction. "I must thank you for rescuing me. I have only just arrived to this country..."

"How'd you come?" Steve interrupted, suddenly ramrod-straight and at attention. "Did you take a zeppelin? Or perhaps a ship? I'm quite familiar with the German models of planes – was it an Albatros?"

"You are very eager to learn," Erskine chuckled, holding up a hand. "Slow down! If you must know, it was a Spitfire. Are you familiar with them?"

"Familiar?" Steve gawked. "I've built miniatures of it with my own hands! The engine was the hardest to compress, of course, I had to improvise a bit with my own parts. Still haven't worked out all the bugs, sometimes the poor thing will go into a dive in the middle of flying. Scared the neighbor's cats silly. Are you a doctor of engineering?"

Erskine shook his head slowly, a faint smile tweaking his lips. "My field of study is biology, my boy. I find out what makes you and I tick. And now a question for you, my inquisitive friend – you don't seem to possess a strident hatred for Germans like that fellow back in the alley did. Why so?"

Steve certainly hadn't been expecting that question. He trained his gaze on an elaborate pulley system as it winched up a set of parts onto the skeleton of a ship, allowing his mind to tear the machine apart, exploding into parts before his eyes. "I'm not quite sure, sir. It would make sense that I would, what with the war and all. You may be just the example – sure, loads of Germans are horrible, and forgive my quick assumption, but you seem to be a rather fine fellow. I don't think the rest of us see it that way, though."

Erskine patted Steve's shoulder in a fatherly sort of way. "You seem wise beyond your years, young man. Forgive my quick assumption, but the American forces would appreciate having a man of your caliber in their ranks, would they not?"

Steve knew Erskine wasn't trying to snub him, but the comment stung all the same. "I guess they don't see it that way." He muttered darkly. "All they see is a laundry list of reasons why I'm unfit for service."

The doctor released a sharp, German-sounding laugh, all bark. "Is that what they look for in soldiers? Just brawn? Then I fear my plan may very well be all in vain."

His eyes angled up, examining the skies behind thin spectacles. Steve followed his eyes and his jaw dropped when he saw a shadow emerging from the clouds, a twisting mantle stretching from the front of the zeppelin like a saber. Blue fabric clashed starkly with the drab colors of the sky, and the insignia of the British was visible from Steve's vantage point far below. The airship was positively massive, with a jutting scramble of machinery cramped beneath its ballooning bulk. Trails of steam drifted in the wind as it passed over the harbor, headed for the Empire State Building. Another Lend-Lease transaction, he assumed.

"War is coming, Steven." Erskine murmured, running a hand over his balding head. "We teeter at the brink of it, and it may come faster than you think."

A single thought drilled through Steve's mind as the airship dropped its riggings to the ESB crew: And I won't be part of it.

Lend-Lease: The sale, lease, transfer of exchange of arms and supplies to 'any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.'