[MIRROR BARGE PROFILE] We are the poisoned youth

[whothehellissteve]

Steve Rogers fell in with Bucky Barnes at a young age, serving as a crony/gopher for the older boy in return for protection (and given that Steve was always getting himself into scrapes, it ended up being a pretty good deal). When Bucky enlisted in the Army at the age of eighteen, Steve felt bitter and left behind - but what could he do? He'd always been small, sickly, and asthmatic. His medical exemption list was a mile long, and the Army would never take him - and he didn't want a desk job.

He stayed in Brooklyn, getting himself into trouble of one kind or another, until the United States declared war in 1941. Looking for ways to enlist, Steve was eventually recruited by Abraham Erskine, a German scientist who had defected to the U.S. and was working with the Strategic Scientific Reserve on a serum that could turn a normal man - or even a sickly one - into a super soldier: Project Rebirth.

After a trial period, Steve Rogers was chosen from a group of candidates as the project's first test subject - not because, Erskine told him, he was physically the best. But because he was smart, resourceful, dedicated, and courageous - all the things America valued most.

And that was why, while Steve was enclosed inside the Rebirth Pod, Dr. Erskine initiated a secret program that no one in the SSR knew existed. A program that, running in sync with exposure to Howard Stark's Vita-Rays, would have a profound effect on the man who emerged. When Steve stepped out of the pod, pandemonium erupted; and when the smoke cleared…

Every American in the room was dead.

You see, Abraham Erskine had never defected to the U.S. - he was a HYDRA agent, working undercover to utilize America's resources to create Germany's greatest weapon of all: the super soldier. During his exposure to the Vita-Rays, Steve Rogers had also been exposed to a short, but insidious, and incredibly powerful mind-control program designed to keep all of the traits that America held so dear intact - but, simply, turn his loyalties to HYDRA.

Unfortunately, Erskine was fatally wounded in the chaos following the procedure - and he took the secret of the super soldier formula to his grave. Steve fled the scene, rendezvousing with a HYDRA agent waiting at the docks, and together they escaped across the Atlantic and were welcomed into the ranks of HYDRA.

Now, Steve Rogers is know simply as The Kapitän. He served directly under the Red Skull during the war, helping to pave the way as HYDRA eliminated everyone and everything that stood in its way - Axis and Allies alike. After all, HYDRA was creating a better world - but it was one Steve Rogers wouldn't see for decades.

Shortly after the war, the HYDRA scientists who had been working to recreate Erskine's serum (unsuccessfully), led by Dr. Arnim Zola, were given a new task - find a way to "store" HYDRA's greatest weapon until he would be needed again. In cold storage, Steve Rogers couldn't age, couldn't deteriorate, and couldn't become bored with the peaceful, regimented new world under HYDRA's control. Nearly 70 years later, that time seemed finally at hand. A rogue organization from inside what had once been America emerged - an organization that called themselves SHIELD. These freedom fighters sought to undermine and eventually overthrow HYDRA, taking back the "free world" that hadn't existed since 1945. To combat this growing threat, HYDRA brought The Kapitän out of storage and gave him a new mission: eliminate SHIELD at all costs. Maintain HYDRA's better way of life.

Steve is a relatively new arrival on the Mirror Barge; he serves as a warden because although his loyalties lie unquestioningly with HYDRA, his core personality remains one that allows him to dedicate himself to a mission completely, whether that mission is eliminating SHIELD or bringing an inmate to graduation. He truly believes that graduating an inmate - and perhaps helping them see how organization is the key to attaining a better, safer life - is a positive thing. However, he's much colder, much quieter, less personable, and has a much darker sense of humor than the Steve Rogers on the "normal" Barge. He's quiet, keeps to himself, doesn't consider socializing or having friends important, and spends most of his time training or working with an inmate to accomplish his goals. When you talk to him, you'll still get that strong sense of dedication, courage, and certainly stubbornness. But ask him about America, about the SSR, or about SHIELD, and he will unwaveringly tell you they are the enemy.

Hail, HYDRA!