The chamber doors hissed open, and in that moment, everyone witnessed a miracle. We saw what the peak of human potential truly looked like. To the people in that room, it seemed out of this world, they remembered exactly what he had looked like just minutes before he entered the chamber. Now, as the doors parted, Steve stood there looking like a man sculpted from clay. For everyone inside the site, the sight was truly beyond belief.
PEGGY Pov
As everyone made their way downstairs, I saw James signal for me to stay behind for a moment until the room upstairs was empty. As the crowd cleared, I noticed someone had left something on a chair, I wondered if this was what James had been signaling me about. As I moved closer to investigate, I kept my eyes on the man who had left it there. That's when I saw it, his other hand was hidden deep inside his pocket.
I saw James approach the man and grip his hand, squeezing so hard that the guy winced in agony. As James forced the man's hand out of his pocket, I saw a small switch. In that moment, I understood, the object left on the chair was a bomb.
The man was fast. He managed to whip out his gun and fire, shooting Doctor Erskine first. It happened so quickly that everyone was paralyzed with shock at the man's sudden, violent decision. As the bullet flew through the air and pierced Doctor Erskine's chest, I heard James scream.
Back to james pov
"NOOOO!"
Shit, shit, shit... I didn't think he would draw that gun so fast, I didn't manage to react in time. I assumed everything dangerous had been left in the lobby upstairs. I miscalculated, and now it has cost me a friend. From the first moment I saw him, I knew we were friends, and I know he felt the same way.
I punched the bastard in the face so hard that his skull caved in. Everyone watched in horror as three deep, jagged indentations appeared where my knuckles connected, he was dead before he even hit the ground. I left his broken body right there and scrambled toward Dr. Erskine. As I reached him, I saw him poke Steve's heart one last time. Then, he looked up at me and smiled.
"Hey, old friend... how are you doing?" I whispered.
"Is that joke still running right now, James? Hahaha..." He managed a weak laugh.
Slowly, he closed his eyes for the last time. I could truly feel his life slipping away. I thought back to my original plan, how many people would have had to die just so I could get my Vibranium injection? I realized then that I couldn't bear the weight of their deaths on my conscience.
While everyone else was paralyzed by what had transpired, Peggy ordered the agents to call in the bomb squad. She made her way downstairs and walked toward the assailant's body. When she looked down, she saw three claw-like indentations deep in his face. It weirded her out; she had never seen anything like it before.
She heard Logan speak up. "Agent Carter, please... look inside his mouth and wiggle the back teeth."
As I forced the assailant's mouth open and wiggled his molars, one tooth popped out easily. Seeing this set Peggy's mind racing. She heard me speak once more: "They are Hydra agents—the ones who used to work with our Dr. Erskine. Johann Schmidt's people."
"Be at peace, old friend... because the world is about to enter a new era."
I stood up and made my way toward the door. My ears had already picked up the sharp ping of a bullet bouncing off the steel plating. As I stepped outside, I saw the grim reality, two more assassins had arrived, and they had already killed the men standing guard.
They opened fire. Peggy arrived right behind me, and seeing them aim, she screamed, "James, look out!"
She watched in disbelief as I just kept walking forward without a care in the world. The two men in front of me began spraying bullets, and that was when the people behind me saw the impossible. Not a single round scratched my skin.
I looked completely unfazed, but to a trained eye, it was clear I was dodging. Using my chi, I predicted the path of every lead slug the moment it left the nozzle, weaving my body through the hail of gunfire with such fluid, minimal movement that it looked like the bullets were simply passing through me.
hydra agent pov
With a submachine gun capable of firing 25 to 30 rounds in a single burst, the laws of probability say at least one should have found its mark. But as the magazines ran dry, the impossible reality set in: not a single bullet had even grazed the man in front of them.
The shooters stood frozen, their weapons clicking on empty chambers. One of them began to tremble, his face pale with terror as he backed away against the sedan.
"You freak..." he stammered, his voice cracking with pure primal fear. "What... what are you?!"
"Your nightmare," I growled.
The words hadn't even finished hanging in the air before I moved. To the bystanders, it was just a flash of movement, a blur of olive drab and shadow. To the assassins, it was the last thing they ever saw. I slammed my fists into them with the weight of a freight train, and they saw nothing but white.
The world went dark for them before their bodies even hit the pavement.
general pov
I stood there in the center, the silence of the dead assassins ringing in my ears. I wasn't proud of the "nightmare" I'd just unleashed. I was vibrating with a cold, jagged fury, not at Hydra, but at myself.
I had been overconfident. I had walked into that lab thinking I was the smartest man in the room, I relied too much on my Chi and my history books, and that arrogance cost me a friend. I watched Abraham die while I was worrying about a chair and a bomb.
The realization hit me harder than any bullet: What good is all the power in the world the healing, the strength, the foresight, if I can't protect the people who actually matter?
I didn't waste words on them. Words are for men who deserve to be heard, and these two had forfeited that right the moment they pulled their triggers in that lab.
I simply raised my hand. To the gunmen, it looked like a slow, deliberate movement, the beginning of a gesture. But their nervous systems couldn't even register the shift in my weight before the strike landed. I moved in the space between heartbeats. To anyone else watching, there was no "punch," just a blur of motion and then the sickening sound of reinforced bone meeting flesh and skull.
They didn't see it coming. They didn't even have time to blink. All they knew in their final microsecond of consciousness was that the "Nightmare" had reached out and touched them.
Peggy walked toward me, her boots crunching on the spent brass casings littering the pavement. She didn't look at the dead men, her eyes were fixed on me, wide with a mix of professional suspicion and genuine shock.
"James... how did you do that?" she asked, her voice breathless. "How can a man dodge bullets point-blank like that? It's... it's physically impossible."
I looked down at my knuckles, then back at her. The anger was still simmering under my skin, making my pulse thrum in my ears.
"I use Chi," I said shortly.
I didn't offer a single word more. I watched the gears turning in her head, but I stayed stone-faced. Right now, the risk was too high. I know how the future plays out, I know how "information" turns into a target on your back once it's filed away in a government cabinet. I wasn't about to let my true nature or the secrets of my Haki end up as a footnote in a SHIELD database before the organization was even born.
I leaned in closer, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl that commanded her attention.
"Keep this for me, Peggy. Never tell a soul about what happened here. If the brass or the Colonel ask... just say I used a steel claw as a weapon. Tell them I had it hidden. Tell them whatever lie you need to but keep the truth between us."
"Chi...? James, are you kidding me? This is not a game!" Peggy's voice rose, her frustration bubbling over. To her, "Chi" sounded like a fairy tale, something to distract from the impossible violence she'd just witnessed.
But I didn't argue. I just looked at her, then back at the brick wall of the alley. I didn't draw a weapon. I didn't even wind up. I simply extended my hand, focusing my intent, my Armament Haki into my fingertips.
I thrust my hand forward. There was no sound of shattering brick, no spray of dust. My hand slid into the solid masonry as if it were water, entering without any friction at all. When I pulled it back, four clean holes remained in the brick, as if the wall had never been solid in the first place.
Peggy turned pale. She stepped back, looking at the wall and then at my hand, which didn't have a single scratch on it.
And steve just arrive where the fight had happen, I kept my gaze on Steve, who was still adjusting to a body that felt twice as heavy and ten times as powerful as the one he had woken up with. Steve had seen what I did to the wall, how I stabbed the stone using only my fingers. His mouth hung open, speechless, he had thought he was the impossible one.
"How, James...? That was impossible," Peggy whispered, her eyes fixed on the clean punctures in the solid brick.
"You just saw the impossible happen right in front of your eyes, and you still can't accept it?" I said, the irony thick in my voice. I gestured toward Steve. "The world changed the second the Doctor flipped that switch, Peggy. 'Impossible' just moved out of the neighborhood."
I inhaled deeply, letting my heightened senses filter through the smell of the city. Beneath the scent of spent MP-40 rounds and the copper tang of blood, there was something else, something sharper.
"Peggy... go to the pier. Now," I commanded, my voice snapping back into the tone of a seasoned operative. "This guy reeks of gunpowder and sea salt. It's heavy, soaked into his clothes. That means he didn't drive here in a sedan, he came by boat, or more likely, a submarine. He's got a ride waiting in the water."
Agent Carter immediately radioed the agents outside, commanding them to head to the pier. She told them to search for a vessel or a submarine small enough for a single occupant. If the assassin planned to get away fast, it meant he would be operating his getaway craft on his own.
Logan was right. They found a strange, single-occupancy submarine, designed with only enough space for one person. The SSR eventually turned the craft over to Howard Stark so he could strip it down and determine how they had managed to engineer such a vessel.
,,,,
I was called to stand before General Phillips for questioning. He looked at me with a mixture of exhaustion and fury.
"James, what happened out there?" he demanded. "We just lost the most brilliant scientist we had, the one man who could have won this war for us."
"I was overconfident, Colonel," I said, meeting his gaze without flinching. "I thought I had him under control, and I was wrong. It cost me a friend."
I had received my wake-up call today. I understood clearly that it happened because I had become arrogant, relying too much on my own abilities and underestimating the stakes.
"How could you have known about him?" Phillips asked, his eyes narrowing. It struck him as suspicious, how could I have known exactly who was responsible for killing Dr. Erskine before anyone else had even processed the attack?
"I have an acute sense of smell, Colonel," I said, offering him a half-truth that was still undeniably the truth. "Let's just say it's a special ability of mine, one that has saved my life more times than I can count."
"An acute sense of smell?" Phillips repeated, his brow furrowing. "Just how acute are we talking?"
He clearly hadn't expected an answer like that, but I had his full attention now. He looked at me as if he were seeing a completely different man, one whose value to the war effort went far beyond just being a 1st Lieutenant.
"You just had fish and fries, sir... about four hours ago," I said calmly.
Phillips went dead silent, staring at me as if I had just read his mind. He had indeed eaten fish and fries exactly four hours ago, prepared by the kitchen staff. What shocked him most was that as a Colonel, he never ate in front of the men, he always took his meals in the privacy of his office or his personal quarters. There was no way I could have seen him eat.
"Well, you've made your point about the smell," Phillips said, leaning forward. "But how do you explain those three marks on the agents' faces?"
As the Colonel asked, I reached up and unbuttoned my sleeve. I pulled the fabric back and showed him the forearm. I had designed a mechanism a clever piece of Houston Family engineering, to act as my cover.
"Custom build, Colonel," I said.
I tensed my arm, and with a sharp, mechanical snick, three steel blades slid forward from the housing on my wrist. I gave him a brief demonstration, showing how the contraption pushed the claws out whenever I bent my hand a certain way. He watched, impressed, as the cold steel caught the light. To him, it was a masterpiece of specialized weaponry, to me, it was the perfect lie to hide the bone and muscle underneath.
James had successfully covered his tracks, ensuring that all his hard work wouldn't go down the drain. He had no intention of letting anyone know the true extent of his power; after all, it wasn't as if he needed to use his full capabilities that often anyway. By giving the General a mechanical explanation for the claws and a biological one for his senses, he had built a perfect cage for the truth.
"As punishment for failing your mission to protect Doctor Abraham Erskine, James, you are to report for duty and assist Agent Carter with her current assignment. You are dismissed."
I didn't say a word I simply followed the General's order. I offered a sharp salute and walked out of his office, leaving the SSR headquarters behind. As I made my way out, I saw Steve sitting on a chair, staring blankly at nothing.
"You okay, kid?" I asked, sitting down on his left.
"I don't know, sir..." Steve said, his voice barely a whisper. "When I started, I was so eager to show that Doctor Erskine hadn't picked the wrong guy for this. But now... I just don't know anymore."
He looked down at his hands, which were now large enough to crush a man's skull, yet they were trembling. The loss of his mentor had stripped away the excitement of his transformation, leaving him feeling like a weapon without a target.
"Well, kid, make that both of us," I said, a rare softness in my voice. "When I first met him, he was like an older brother to me, the kind who would tell a joke with a straight face and never even expect a laugh."
Over the past few months, I had grown closer to Doctor Erskine than I ever intended. I was assigned to be his guard, and he knew it, but he was too cool to let it be awkward. He just made a joke out of it.
"I guess as I get older, I still can't run away from a babysitter, huh?"
That was what he had said to me the day I was assigned to his detail. I just smiled at the memory, the ghost of a grin flickering on my face before the cold reality of the hallway settled back in.
Steve's expression seemed to brighten as he listened to the story. That was exactly how he wanted to remember Doctor Erskine, respecting his legacy not just as a scientist, but as a man. He made a silent promise to himself that he would be the best of the best, a "good man" as long as he lived.
"Thanks for that, Logan," Steve said, his voice regaining its steady resolve. "I want to remember him with that smile. I won't tarnish his legacy."
I could see a better future starting to take shape. Maybe, if things went right, the story would play out the way it was meant to. Perhaps I wouldn't have to face the Weapon X program at all, I could do it myself. When I return after this war, I'll work behind the scenes, looking out for the folks in Houston and protecting their families.
But as I sat there, the weight of the day pressed down on me. I realized I might never be ready to lose any of them. I tell myself I can handle the death of someone I love, but that's the thing I fear most. I thought I was hardened to it, but now, I can feel the true heartache.
I tried to push those thoughts aside; I couldn't dwell on the "what ifs" right now. As I left the SSR office to report for duty to Agent Carter, I saw that Steve had already been ushered away by that senator, what was his name? It didn't matter. I didn't give a damn about remembering the names of politicians.
I approached Agent Carter's office and knocked. I heard her voice through the door, her English accent sharp and refined. It was a pleasant sound, but I didn't have any interest in pursuing her. For one, I don't treat intimacy like a job, and second, it would only make things awkward afterward. I didn't want to deal with the pretense of "nothing happened," and more importantly, I really didn't want people to remember me at all.
"Reporting for duty, ma'am," I said as I entered. "Colonel Phillips has assigned me as your assistant."
That was it no more, no less. Agent Carter nodded and gestured toward a stack of documents on her desk. She asked me to look over the final reports and settle the paperwork regarding Doctor Erskine's file. We needed to ensure every detail was properly categorized as classified information. After all, the SSR division itself was a ghost, a secret that the public wasn't supposed to know existed.
"James, we need to talk," Peggy said, curious about my recent actions.
I know what she want to ask about, i started my narration of explaining thing "Well, to put it simply: chi is a life force. Everyone has it, and it isn't actually that strange once you know how to look for it. I didn't just get this overnight, it took constant training and meditation. Still, not everyone can do it. Out of ten people, maybe only one has what it takes to harness chi as a weapon."
"But it looks like magic." As an SSR agent, Peggy was no stranger to the unusual, but she lived by a simple rule: she would only believe it once she saw it for herself.
"It is, isn't it?" I asked in return. "Well, one day you'll see much stranger things in this world, Peggy." I was already looking forward to the future; once she became the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., she would encounter things far weirder than this.
I've even started talking like my cryptic master now. I really have grown old, haven't I? Especially when I find myself reminiscing about that old monk.
The days bled into one another, and for now, I was buried in office work. It was a strange quiet before the storm. I knew that in about a month, Steve would break rank to save Bucky Barnes, and I needed to be ready for that moment. My time for real action wasn't far off, and honestly, I couldn't wait to finally stretch my muscles again. The paperwork was a cage, and I was just waiting for the door to open.
...
I stood a few paces behind Agent Carter, positioned in the shadows backstage while she and Steve went at it. They were bickering again, the same old argument about what's right, what's wrong, and how they "could be doing more" for the war effort.
I leaned against a equipment crate, suppressed a yawn, and rolled my eyes. Honestly, I just wanted to tell them to go have sex already and get it over with. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife, and frankly, I was bored out of my mind. These past few months of being a glorified bodyguard and paper-pusher had been a slow death. My muscles were screaming for a real fight.
I was absolutely losing it. Standing there in the wings, I watched Steve, the pinnacle of human potential, the man who was supposed to change the tide of the war, hopping around on a stage like a trained animal. He was a prop for the Senator's propaganda machine, and he knew it.
Every time he "punched" the actor playing Hitler while those girls danced behind him, I laughed harder. When Steve caught my eye from the stage, I didn't hide it. I saw the flash of deep shame on his face, the realization that he had traded his dignity for war bonds. A powerhouse of a man, reduced to a song-and-dance routine.
"Nice footwork, 'Captain'!" I muttered under my breath, wiping a tear of genuine amusement from my eye. He was actually good at it, which made the whole thing ten times funnier. The shield, the tights, the choreographed punches, it was the most ridiculous thing I'd seen in a hundred years.
Peggy gave me a look that could have curdled milk. It wasn't pure hate, more like a deep, icy irritation because I had the nerve to laugh at her "golden boy" while he was at his most vulnerable. She looked at me as if I were the most unprofessional soldier in the European Theater, which, to be fair, in that moment I probably was.
But I couldn't help it. Seeing the "Hope of Democracy" in silk tights was the best entertainment I'd had since the turn of the century. I was having a genuinely good time, leaning back against the crates while the drama unfolded.
The afternoon was as gray and depressing as the news we had just received. Steve was deep into a monologue about being a "monkey on a stage" and how he felt like a fraud while men were dying.
I kept my mouth shut this time. I wasn't about to go on another laughing jag. I'd learned my lesson the first time I mocked her "baby", Peggy had buried me in enough paperwork to fill a warehouse. I could feel her eyes on me even now, sharp as daggers; I'm fairly certain she would have happily shot me if it wouldn't have caused an international incident.
The air in the tent was thick with Steve's guilt and Peggy's frustration. But beneath that, I could feel the low-frequency hum of something else: resolve. Steve was done being a mascot.
I didn't really care much about the workload. With my healing factor, my body never truly felt the physical grind, but my brain was a different story. Even "Albert Einstein" needs a rest once in a while.
So, I did what I could. When the mental fog got too thick, I just cleared a spot on the office floor, bundled up a stack of classified reports to use as a pillow, and crashed right there. It wasn't a bad sleep, all things considered. It reminded me of rougher nights in the past. I figured I might just make this a regular habit, nothing like a bed of bureaucracy to keep a man grounded.
I stepped out of the stifling SSR office, the smell of old paper and stale coffee finally becoming too much. The moment I hit the fresh air, I was greeted by the loud, frantic chirping of a dozen birds in the nearby trees.
Suddenly, it clicked. It wasn't that I was hearing literal English words, that would have been insane, but I understood the intent behind the sounds. It was a raw, instinctive communication. Most of it was mundane: there's food over there, this is my branch, who wants to mate? It was a novel feeling, a deepening of my connection to the world that even I hadn't expected. My senses weren't just sharpening, they were expanding into the very fabric of nature.
I walked right up to the tree, the grass crunching softly under my boots. I didn't whisper; I just spoke normally, as if I were greeting an old friend at a bar.
"Where did you all fly in from?" I asked.
The silence that followed lasted only a heartbeat before the tree exploded into a cacophony of frantic chirping. They were losing their minds. The human understands! The two-legs speaks! It was a repetitive, high-pitched loop of pure shock.
I stood there, a slow, devilish grin spreading across my face. I really was "special," wasn't I? First the healing, then the claws, then the chi, and now, I was the literal master of the birds and the beasts. and the tactical advantages were staggering. Every stray dog in a city, every crow in a forest, every horse on a battlefield, they were all potential spies, scouts, and allies.
I spent the better part of the day testing the limits of this "gift." last i check i only able to talk to a wolf, I found a stray tabby slinking around the barracks and a murder of crows perched on the wire. It wasn't just sounds, it was a flood of sensory images and raw emotions. I realized it wasn't a "superpower" in the traditional sense, it was my primal instinct dialed up to eleven.
Becoming someone's champion was a real boon for me, I finally had a strong backer. Right then, I felt someone smack the back of my head. I spun around instantly, only to find no one there. "I can't even joke now?" I asked the empty air, knowing exactly who it was. I heard a faint snort in my ear as I said it.
The day of "research" ended abruptly when a soldier found me crouched behind a dumpster, having an intense silent standoff with a one-eared tomcat.
The soldier's voice cracked slightly as he delivered the message. He was standing a good five feet back, his eyes darting between me and the mangy stray cat I had been staring at for the last ten minutes. To him, I probably looked like a high-ranking officer who had finally snapped under the pressure of the war a 1st Lieutenant having a deep, philosophical discussion with a dumpster cat.
"Sir... Agent Carter calls you into her office, sir," he repeated, his posture stiff with a mix of military discipline and genuine "weirded-out" energy.
I didn't look at him immediately. I gave the cat a final nod, it had just told me that the "shiny-headed man" (Colonel Phillips) had been pacing near the motor pool. I stood up, dusted off my uniform, and finally locked eyes with the young private. He flinched.
"ok", i just utter a simple word, i dont have to explain anything to anyone perk being a higher rank hehehehe.
I walked past the bewildered soldier, my boots echoing with a steady, lethal rhythm against the concrete.