Mm

​

Sometimes I wonder if I'm someone's entertainment. If one asked why I would think that, the first thing I would point to would be the fact that I seemed to attract younger versions of individuals fated to play pivotal roles in the future. Case in point, I'd ended up training an alternative version of the notorious Team 7 of Naruto fame. That had, in hindsight, been entirely my fault. Knowing what they'd go through and how much they'd need help to survive what destiny would throw at them, my conscience had dragged me kicking and screaming into doing... if not the right thing, then at least something.

Now, I'd managed to stumble across and rescue Erik Lehnsherr.

The child who would one day become Magneto, the Master of Magnetism.

Realistically, what were my options? As much as the idea rankled, it had occurred to me that I could simply kill him. Magneto was a complicated man who soared to great heights and fell to abysmal lows. At his best, he was a crusader against genocidal regimes who targeted people for what they were, fighting against bigotry and hatred, even sinking to 'their level' when it was necessary to defend innocent lives. At his worst, though...

At his worst, Magneto became what he hated most. His fight against discrimination, racism, and prejudice became a war of annihilation against an entire species with his very existence used to justify the fear and anger he'd worked so hard to stamp out.

So here's the question... Do you kill baby Hitler or do you make sure he gets into art school?

"Hello Erik, you finish your breakfast?" I asked in somewhat stilted German as I sat down by the boy. He was thin, still and his cheeks were sallow. There were obvious signs of malnutrition, but thankfully his body hadn't gotten too far in cannibalizing its own muscle mass.

"I... am fine," Erik replied slowly, his English coming slowly as he picked at what remained of his meal. "Thank you, Ray."

I caught a glimpse of blue eyes before they ducked back to contemplate his half-finished meal. "Don't eat until you're sick. If you're full, you're full. Your body will need time to work up a proper appetite."

The boy frowned, then nodded, pushing away his tray while I began to quickly chew through my own meal. "More English." Erik frowned, then added, "Please."

I sighed between bites, wondering if Erik's aversion to speaking German was out of a desire to more quickly adapt to the language of his rescuers, or... more likely, a rejection of the language of his captors. Either way, it resulted in a practical impulse to do something productive, so I humored him. Waving a fork around, I swallowed and ordered him, "Colors. Point and speak."

A moment's hesitation, then Erik nodded and began the process of identifying the various shades around him. I corrected him a few times as we continued, making a bit of a game out of it before Steve and Bucky dropped into place next to us.

"Well, if this is what they're going to be feeding us, I guess this transfer ain't so bad," Bucky commented, cutting into pieces of sausage.

Steve nodded, looking around the small mess hall. "SSR looks like it gets more funding than the camps in Italy and North Africa I visited." He swallowed some of his juice, then looked at the twelve-year-old eating with us. "Doing better, Erik?"

The boy frowned, but nodded. "Bad dreams... little better." He blinked heavily, an obvious tell that they weren't much better, even more than the dark bags under his eyes.

Bucky grimaced and speared a stack of flapjacks in a particularly vicious way. "You need to talk, you can come to me, right?"

Erik's brow furrowed and I repeated the offer in German, elaborating a bit further. The question made him look away from Bucky, but nod once. I caught Steve's eyes as he opened his mouth to make the same offer, but gave him a discreet head shake. The helplessness in his eyes as they flicked back to Erik stung, but... insisting too much would just make him close off.

"Offer to show him your sketches later," I stated, throwing the boy scout an alternative track to take. "Help him learn the language by telling him the names of things. It'll distract him."

Steve perked up, smiling as he nodded. Honestly, I would have told him to do that earlier, but we'd all been extremely busy over the past two weeks since arriving at the American base with the refugees and rescued POWs. Erik had spent most of the time convalescing after the initial withdrawal from whatever sedatives they'd had him on had passed. Captain Carter had been passed the duty of watching over him between medical checks while she did paperwork... for a reason that definitely wasn't sexist or discriminatory.

"So... what have they got you doing, Ray?" Steve probed instead, even as Erik sent suspicious glances between him and myself, likely sensing we'd been discussing him. If only because Steve had no poker face.

"Answering more questions," I tapped the packet next to my breakfast tray. "Honestly, I'd find the questions annoying if I wasn't getting the runaround from the OSS for talking shit about John and Allen Dulles. Also being accused of being a communist, because the internet isn't a thing yet and you have to do that in-person these days."

Forum culture had to come from somewhere, after all.

I snorted and shook my head as Bucky and Steve stared at me blankly. The latter recovered as he swallowed his food, "you know it's really irritating when you make jokes about future crap you know we won't get, right?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Why do you think I do it?"

Steve smirked, nearly choking on his bite of food. "What's up with these, uh... Dulles guys?"

I sighed. "John Foster Dulles wa-isn't that bad. He's a skilled diplomat and politician, even if he didn't do his best work when he was assigned to the Versailles Peace Conference. He also tends to favor an overreaching and overly moralistic view with appeals to religious leanings that can come across as, pardon the pun, preachy. I don't actually have much of a gripe with him in a professional capacity, it's just that both he and his brother, Allen... who is in Switzerland right now, if I recall, working for the OSS, can't differentiate their personal financial interests from their political views."

"You should probably keep OSS deployments under your hat," Bucky advised with a tip of his head. "But... gonna' need more than that to see where you're coming from."

I hummed in thought. "Basically, he and his brother have vested interests in the United Fruit Company." I saw sparks of recognition in both Bucky and Steve's eyes at the name. "The countries that United Fruit has major plantations in, coincidentally, have dictatorial regimes that serve their corporate interests, and whenever someone tries to overthrow those regimes, the Dulles brothers make sure that the president hears about someone 'doing a communism' in the United States' backyard. Then we have that person replaced with someone who's willing to play ball with American companies."

Steve frowned. "I think I've heard about that. Banana Republics, right? Wasn't that just anti-American propaganda, though?"

I shook my head. "It's a mess, but right now in Guatemala, there's this guy named General Ubico who, no joke, is calling himself the Guatemalan Hitler and he's a close American ally. Next year, he's going to be ousted by someone who, at least, won't call themselves a fascist. However, that guy gets removed by popular support for a guy who tries to buy back all of the land United Fruit isn't using as a part of an agricultural reform. UF is using that land as a tax dodge, so they get angry when he tries to take it away. After that, there's another coup and the people there get so sick of that shit that there's a thirty-six year civil war and the country just collapses."

Both men's expressions shifted to angry disbelief.

"Jesus," Bucky commented quietly. "You really know how to bring down the mood, kid."

"Bucky," Steve stated, rebuke in his tone as he frowned.

"The irony, or at least black comedy here, is that, after all the effort United Fruit went to in order to keep a friendly regime in place, they couldn't run day to day business in a place where the society had completely collapsed. They ended up going bankrupt and having to completely reorganize in the sixties. Will have to, if nothing changes, at least." I shook my head and drained my glass.

"We'll have to do something, after the war I mean," Steve nodded firmly.

"So why were they calling you a commie?" Bucky asked with a jerk of his head.

"Because senior staff and those with the connections to rise through the ranks are inherently a political breed," Margaret 'Peggy' Carter stated as she sat down on Steve's other side. "You've caused quite the stir, Mr. Winston, leveling the accusations you have against the nephews of a former American Secretary of State."

"If they didn't want the truth, they shouldn't have asked the questions they did," I replied bluntly.

"Is what he's saying really causing that much trouble, Peggy?" Steve asked, concern lacing his voice as he looked between us.

Peggy sighed and swept a few errant hairs out of her face as she leveled a half-hearted glare my way. "He could have been more diplomatic, it's true, but the fact that there are far more immediate concerns and Mr. Winston provides accurate intelligence regarding current enemy movements he should have no way of obtaining is silencing many of his detractors for the moment."

"That's a very polite way of saying I should be prepared when the people I've pissed off eventually come after me," I translated.

"Ray, we're in mixed company," Steve interjected.

I blinked at him owlishly for a long moment before Peggy laughed at my confusion. "I suppose I should find it heartening that men of your time period don't watch their language as closely around women. It implies good things for the equality of the sexes in coming decades, if nothing else."

Steve blinked, some of his irritation fading to surprise and then contemplation.

I huffed a laugh and shook my head. "My apologies for my French. I'd ask you to pardon all the French, but I don't think even you're that generous, Captain Carter."

The woman outright chuckled at that. "You do have a gift for interesting turns of phrase, Mr. Winston."

"Oh, right," I snapped my fingers. "It's not mister anymore. You're looking at a newly-minted Technical Sergeant."

Steve's eyes and smile widened even as Peggy offered her congratulations, though Bucky just groaned aloud. "Great! Now you outrank me too!"

Steve rolled his eyes. "Didn't you get a promotion, Staff Sergeant Barnes? And a purple heart, as well as a silver star for those people you rescued?"

"Pfft," Bucky blew a stream of air between his lips mockingly, now smirking. "I don't want to hear that from you, Mr. Medal of Honor."

Peggy sent me a fondly exasperated look at Steve flushed. "I-uh, I mean, I don't actually have it yet." He frowned. "And we're going to need to ship out in a week or two anyway, so I'll probably have to miss the ceremony."

I cleared my throat, my eyebrows rising. "Ah, excuse me? Miss the ceremony?"

Steve looked at me in surprise at the disbelief I was expressing. "Ah, yeah. We need to stop the Red Skull. Blowing up Hydra bases is more important than shaking hands and getting a shiny piece of metal on my chest."

This time, I mirrored the exasperated look from Carter, who merely nodded tiredly. "I've tried to explain things to him, but he's very intent on getting right down to business."

"Steve." I looked him dead in the eye after drawing his attention. "You're going to the medal ceremony."

Steve sighed, "Ray look, we need to-"

"You're going, because I'm going," I explained pointedly, stopping him cold. "I've got a personal summons from FDR to meet with him and Truman after the ceremony, which they will be attending."

The Captain's argument, already on his lips, stalled as that sank in. "But..."

"You know how you were just talking about doing something for Guatemala or Nicaragua or any of the other Banana Republics?" I prodded him, and he nodded. "That's politics, Steve. Big politics with lots of money and important people. Whom you will snub if you do not go to the ceremony."

The supersoldier quieted, looking down at his empty food tray and idly tapping his fork.

"They will remember that slight, Steve. It's what they do." I explained patiently. "I got called a communist because I criticized the motivations of two men in the American government with friends in high places. That was with complimenting how good they are at their jobs. They're very effective at overthrowing governments when they decide it needs to be done, and I emphasized that, but they only heard the 'corrupt' part of what came out of my mouth. I made enemies because I ran my mouth, Steve. If you don't end up an icicle at the end of the war, you're going to want to help people and that's going to mean playing nice with politicians."

Steve rubbed at his chin and leaned back while Bucky simply looked amused and Erik watched on curiously. Peggy, though, seemed to seize upon my momentum.

"It will take time to organize the soldiers, and many of them are still on leave to recover from their time in the POW camp," she interjected. "Howard is still putting together some of the gear you'll be using and a number of our plans for the war effort are undergoing revision with the information that Ray has provided. It will give us time to contact resistance forces on the ground and verify the location of many of the bases."

"And weren't you the one who had to convince me that the Red Skull's arm being blown off meant we had time to regroup after everything?" I nudged pointedly.

Steve still looked torn as his eyes moved from Peggy to me, then came to rest on his oldest friend. "What do you think, Bucky?"

Staff Sgt. Barnes remained amused as he replied. "I think your girl-" Both Steve and Peggy blushed slightly. "-and Future Boy here have a point." He drained his juice and breathed out in satisfaction. "Besides, I wouldn't mind a little leave in DC and it's my ceremony, too. In case you've forgotten."

Steve immediately looked guilty, then nodded decisively, if unhappily. "Alright. I'll get Logan, Victor, and Nick to tell the boys they've got at least two more weeks leave." His face brightened. "At least we won't be deployed over Christmas."

As we turned in our trays and began to drift apart, Peggy strode up to me and cleared her throat. "Thank you for that. Steve is still new to all of this and will need some help navigating the politics of his new station."

"It's not a problem," I replied with a shrug, tucking my paperwork under one arm as I extended the other to Erik... who took it after hesitating only a moment. "Steve's a good man. A good person, really. People like that need someone watching out for them."

Peggy smiled at my answer, then paused and sighed. "You're a good friend, Ray Winston. Which makes it all the harder for me to ask you for the favor I'm going to. Given that you're an enlisted United States soldier and they have very much denied British Intelligence direct access to you... I've been asked to arrange a meeting between you and... certain interested parties."

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, Erik looking to me in concern as we stepped into an offshoot of a hall to continue discussing things. "I'd really rather not, if there's any way to avoid it."

Carter frowned and looked away surreptitiously, scanning for observers. "My superiors... and their superiors, and so on, have been... rather insistent. Is there anything that would make such a meeting possible?"

Instead of answering her directly, I swept a hand through my hair and made a mental note to pick up my new uniform from the quartermaster. I hadn't quite managed it yet, given the paperwork had only been finalized yesterday and I was still wearing a set of civilian clothing. "Look, I have a strong suspicion what questions your superiors are going to ask and practically none of the answers are going to be things they want to hear, because the sun always sets, eventually. If you know what I mean."

Peggy grimaced this time. "I was afraid you'd say something like that, though I'd hoped it would sting a bit less. Still, it would make my life a great deal easier if I could get you to agree to that meeting."

Which meant she wanted me to tell them and not have to do it herself and potentially ruin her career. Ugh... and she was Steve's future girlfriend, too. Which would make my life difficult by proxy if I got on her shitlist with this. Although… perhaps there was something they had that I wanted, I considered as an errant thought struck me. Even if American money spent as well as the king's, the British Empire had been around for quite a while.

And in that time, they'd stolen a lot of stuff.

In this world, though, the tribal totems, ancient artifacts, and other things might actually have a grain of truth to their legends. I strongly suspected there was at least a vibranium ax to be claimed. Or something else Wakandan that had slipped their net. If nothing else, I'd get a few interesting conversation pieces out of the deal.

I dragged a hand over my face. "First, it happens after I get back from the ceremony. Second, I can't be gone too long so you're looking at a maximum of five, maybe six, hours. Third, I want unfettered access to the British Museum and the ability to pick out one thing for each hour you keep me. That's my price for future meetings, too."

Peggy's face displayed something close to physical pain at the demand, but she gave a jerky nod. "I'll tell them what you want, good day Mr-ah, Technical Sergeant Winston."

I snapped off a salute to the woman. "I wish you the same, Captain Carter."

Hopefully, I can convince FDR to let me follow through on the deal. Besides, it'll be interesting to see if I can grab anything magical from the looted stores of dozens of countries.