[center][img]https://th.bing.com/th/id/Rdbfc0efd20d633a366727bdfd2f69435?rik=DmIcbvHTD8qd5g&riu=http%3a%2f%2fwww.firstcomicsnews.com%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2016%2f09%2fCaptain-America-Logo-600x253.png&ehk=WrwiqdIpJ5461H1brIvsQKW3w5v9qles56yKksUkH0E%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw[/img][/center] [center][img]https://static3.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_medium/0/5344/1168194-dum_dum_dugan_01.jpg[/img][/center] [h3]San Francisco, California 10:24 PM, December 31st 1967 [/h3][hr] Dum Dum and I, we went way back. We fought together through some of the most substantial battles of that war, recorded, not recorded, and top secret. Two Irish boys, me from Brooklyn and him from Boston, going through horrors no man should have to face. Horrors that never should have been. We know each other's stories well. We are bonded in sweat and blood, triumph and tribulation. Nick Fury, Howling Commandos, French Resistance, the Red Skull. He was my brother and I was his. In my hubris I believed I knew his story. What more could he tell me. I was there for so much. The years we had spent together, the adventures we had had. I imagined the day that changed his life was the day he met me. "You probably figure the day I met you was the day for me, the one day." He was right, I sure had. "Sure Rogers, that was a big day for me but I was already on a course long before then. Already knew Fury, already Second in Command of the Howling Commandos. Already fought with the Dirty Dozen, before you ever did. Our meeting, it wasn't some grand revelation for me. It didn't change the way I viewed the world. I was already riding hard, but man when you came into the equation I turned it up to eleven. We turned it up to eleven, all through the war. Now shaddap Rogers, this is my story." We had. We sure had. And I did, I sure did. "For a long time I thought that that would be the day for me Rogers. I was fine with it. We pushed each other to be better men, pushed each other to the very limit. We set a hard pace and we held it steady. So yeah, that was an important day. The day we lost you Steve, that was another day that changed my life, but it still wasn't THE day. Not my day." After I was gone he had stayed in the fight. Having faced the horrors of World War Two he took up the mantle once more when his country asked. Went to Korea. Fought a whole war there while I was frozen in the North Atlantic. Reunited the Howling Commandos with Nick Fury. Led them all through it. That took up most of the 1950s, then in '59 he formed a team. Pulled them from all over the world. Madripoor, Paris, the Emerald Coast, and right back in his backyard, in Boston. They were a team of superhumans, he said. They weren't all exactly what we might call heroes today. Dangerous men, but they answered the call and they were led by the super-est human I know. "We fought Red Skull again and we killed him. One of my men, Victor Creed, wasn't exactly the most put together but they were difficult times, Creed cut his head off and as evil as he was that really ought to do it. Red Skull, he was trying to remake you. Was trying to make an army of Super Soldiers. He had a sample of the Serum, but we picked it up off his corpse." He and his team protected General Hill from an assassination attempt. They rescued Black Panther from a resurgent group of Nazis who still hadn't accepted their defeat. In the beginning of this decade he and Fury had taken steps to forging a lasting peace. The real dream. They had called it The Great Wheel. It had broken, but what a beautiful dream. He had helped Fury form S.H.I.E.L.D. and continued to work with them as an operative. A year after the formation of S.H.I.E.L.D. he had been grievously wounded by a ricocheted bullet. "I should have died Rogers. I was dying. My body wasn't strong enough to pull me through my injuries or keep me kicking after the surgery." I had a hard time believing that. When was Dum Dum ever not strong enough. "That was my one day Rogers. The day I wasn't strong enough. They pulled the bullet out, had the best doctors available working on me and my heart gave out. Doctors said it was a miracle I'd lived that long. That I hadn't had a massive coronary getting up one morning or walking up some stairs. They told me my odds and they weren't good. Last rites. Whole nine yards. Fury came to visit, so did a few of the Commandos. Our old pal Liberty Belle, she came by to represent the All-Star Squadron. Hell T'Chaka came by to send me off. Good to see him again, never thought I would." I sat there, probably slack jawed. He didn't look like I remembered him. He'd lost a lot of weight and gained some wrinkles, I could believe 20 years had passed easily enough, but this was hard to believe. Maybe I just didn't want to. He had always been one of the strongest men I ever served with. A tough, brave, bear of a man. It was hard to hear I had almost missed seeing him again. I tapped my finger on the bar, couldn't think of what to say to that. "Fury gave me something called the Infinity Formula that's supposed to help it. Slows aging, helps me stick around. I'm not going anywhere just yet but it's not going to undo the damage. I nearly killed myself trying to keep with you all those years Rogers. Nearly killed myself trying to keep that same pace after you were gone. I didn't want to sully our Legacy." I never had much of a poker face, not with my men at least. I guess he saw what I was thinking straight away. "Don't get me wrong now, those were the best days of my life. I'm proud of what we did. I'm damn proud. I don't regret those days with you and I never will but I found a new way. You're already a leader Rogers, you can't not be, it's not in you, but I want you to embrace it. There are new wars, we were soldiers and we were damn good at it, but it's time for us to transition." I didn't quite protest. Dum Dum was a brother and it was clear he felt passionately about this. But I wasn't ready to hear it either. "I didn't tell you about my day and expect you to make a decision today. There is still so much you don't know. We have twenty years of history to catch up on. We have wars, Presidents, movements, government operations, a lot has happened since we lost you. A lot of stuff that will be hard to hear. The end of the war was complicated. The years since haven't gotten any more simple. You and I will have to talk about a lot in the coming days, certainly about that ship that found you. The Ishii, that might be some serious trouble Steve." He reached under his desk and pulled out a box then pushed it across the bar toward me. "I wanted to hear your story and I wanted you to hear mine. It's been amazing to see you again. 1968 is going to be a hell of a year. With all that's ahead I wanted to give you something to help keep you rooted to the past. Fury helped me out, they cleared out your place after you disappeared, but we held on to some of it. Open the box." He poured me another drink and pointed toward the box. I shook my head, drank it down and opened the box up. It was a lot to take in. His story, his state, and the box. "I know there isn't much in it. They took most of your stuff for museums. Everyone wanted a piece. Captain America memorabilia, hell there is still a big market for it. I tried to grab the most important stuff. The most Steve Rogers-y stuff. They didn't want to let me take the baseball but I don't think they had the stones to tell me no." "No," I said in response, "This is great Dum Dum. This is amazing." It wouldn't look like much to much of anyone else. An old baseball. An old picture. An old sketchbook. If you were a baseball fan you would probably recognize my ball and you might just take off with it. Made sense it would be what folks tried to keep. Signed by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Babe Ruth, The Great Bambino, the Sultan of Swat. Yankee. Over 700 home runs. .690 batting slugging average. 1.164 on-base plus slugging. The greatest that ever lived. I would come to find out later he no longer did. Lou Gehrig, The Iron Horse, renowned for his durability. Yankee. All-Star seven consecutive times, Triple Crown winner, American League MVP twice, a member of six World Series Championship teams. Passed away at just thirty seven from a disease they would name after him. First player to have his uniform number retired by a team. It was just an old baseball but it was my old baseball. A picture with me, out of my Captain America uniform, and Bucky. Just two soldiers in World War Two posing beside a plane. Me being me, Bucky being him, no airs, standing next to the plane he was in when he disappeared from the world forever. It had been the last time I ever saw him. Through all the war we had come together and parted and come together again. I never thought that cycle was going to change until it did. My sketchpad and some art supplies. It was a fresh pad, just one drawing on the first page and not even finished. A recreation. Taped to the page was an old picture of a smiling woman. My mother. The drawing wasn't even halfway finished, I had been taking my time. "I got one more thing for you. Technically it's still in deep storage somewhere. Officially it's still in deep storage somewhere." My shield. My old original shield, triangular. Three stars horizontal across the top and nine stripes vertical down it's length. Had barely seen this thing since T'Chaka gave me the circular one I always carried. "It's almost New Years Steve, I want you to enjoy it. I've got one more thing I want to say to you and then I want you to mix in. We've all seen a lot, we've all got stories." It was a lot to take in, but I was going to try. "You're more than just a fighter Rogers. I've led men who wanted nothing but a battle, I've known men who were nothing more than fighters, that isn't you. You're a defender, you're a leader. The world didn't love you just because you killed Nazis. Killing something repugnant, even the Nazis, that alone isn't enough to generate love, not real love. They loved you because you defended their brothers, their husbands and their sons. You're a defender, a beacon, a leader, like it or not. You're a symbol of America Steven, it's up to you what that symbol means." We shared a drink after that. It was kind of hard to pick up a conversation after something like that and he really did want me to talk with the others. Dum Dum had given me a lot to think about and he gave me a little more to get me moving. He gave me a smile and a nod and a light push on the shoulder to spin my stool around, urging me to get out there and talk to the others. I guess that was it, that was my christening. World War Two was over and had been for decades. New wars had been fought, newer wars were being fought. Dugan was right, I was a Leftover now, we all were. Couldn't ask for better company.