buckykingofmemes:

steve has really, really good night vision. 

i do too–i drank the same superjuice, just a little more watered down–but back during the war i didn’t really tell anyone about that. so since steve’s vision was best, he was always the point man on nighttime operations with the Howlies. this worked out pretty well–he could spot terrain problems and walk us around them, and he could see a nazi scout coming well before he saw us. 

but every once in a while, some particularly sneaky bastard would get the drop on him.

on one particular occasion, we were on our way back from an op, and crossing through a disputed area in the evening. we’d been warned that the nazis were trying to send spies through, so we were on the lookout. steve was on point. 

somehow, despite having the eyes of a goddam bald eagle, steve did not see this guy coming. 

the guy–a nazi spy–was hardly invisible. he had a big, bulky backpack, civilian clothes, and a Walther PPK.  he popped out of a shrub with his pistol and steve never saw him coming–but luckily steve’s got the instincts of a tiny angry human target who used to get jumped in dark alleys on a regular basis, and he bopped him with the shield before the nazi could fire. well, i say bopped–it was the sort of wild swing you take with a frypan when someone startles you in the kitchen. 

the spy flew a good three feet through the air and landed on his side–

and exploded into a flock of pigeons. 

after the fact, we realized that the spy’s backpack was actually a wooden cage containing half a dozen homing pigeons, intended to carry back messages from allied territory. when he fell, it split apart, releasing a bunch of terrified birds to fly back, empty handed (empty winged?), to a nazi base. but at the time, it was like a magic trick–one moment there was a nazi spy, the next, a flock of birds! 

the look of shock and surprise on steve’s face was incredible. you could see on his face a split second where he asked himself can i punch people so hard they turn into birds now? did i grow a new superpower? what the hell was in that serum?

he realized the truth moments later, but i could see it–the brief seconds where flashes of a pigeon empire flew through his head.