Red White and Black

Agent Carter

Mercedes hoped the bus ride to the boot camp was the worst to come: hot, stinking of damp sweat, with jostling, muscled men surrounding her. But she doubted it.

Even once they all stood in their uniforms, in a neat line, in the posture they'd been taught, muttered conversations held over her head were a regular occurrence. Who wanted a stick-framed colored man in their army? Didn't the coloreds have their own units?

But this unit in particular was special. At the end of their training, one of them would be chosen to be part of the experiment Dr. Erskine was running. Something to help them win the war.

"Recruits! Attention!"

Mercedes hastily straightened as though drawn up by a line, as a curling-haired woman approached and walked before them. "Gentlemen, I'm Agent Carter. I supervise all operations for this division."

"What's with the accent, Queen Victoria?" Hodge drawled. "Thought I was signing up for the U.S. Army."

Agent Carter stopped before him. "What's your name, soldier?"

"Gilmore Hodge, Your Majesty." He made no effort to conceal the gum clacking between his molars.

"Step forward, Hodge."

Hodge sent a smirk down the line.

"Put your right foot forward."

The man who had followed Agent Carter handed out clipboards with several sheets attached as he passed each of them by.

"Oo," said Hodge. "We gonna wrassle? Cuz I got a few moves I know you'll like."

Agent Carter's fist snapped out and caught him in the jaw, spinning him sideways, and tripping himself over his own extended leg.

Mercedes suppressed an immediate grin.

"Agent Carter!" a grizzled voice, and Dr. Erskine walking behind it.

She whirled. "Colonel Phillips."

"I see you're breaking in the candidates, that's good!" The two joined her before them, looking down at Hodge, who had yet to pick himself up. "Get your ass up out of that dirt and stand in line at attention until somebody comes and tells you what to do."

Hodges nodded. "Yes sir!"

Colonel Phillips paced down the line. "General Patton has said, that wars are fought with weapons but they are won by men. We are going to win this war because we have the best....men." His gaze had fallen on Mercedes, easy to pick out of a lineup. He cleared his throat. "And because they are going to get better." He paced back the other way. "Much, better."

"Now. The Strategic Scientific Reserve is an Allied effort made up of the best minds in the free world."

Mercedes tried to remember that in the coming weeks.

She sprinted with the rest at a net wall, struggling to climb it with them. But hanging from her hands threw her heart out of balance in only a matter of minutes, and they'd already been running. She lost her grip, blisters forming, and skidded back down to the bottom.

"Rogers!" an officer hollered. "Get over there!"

Hodges grinned, and threw his leg over the top, scurrying down the other side.

"How would you describe your childhood?"