kaasknot:

lol, I have many things, but very few I’m certain about. I’ve been reading all the mob history novels so when I get to the outlining stage I’ll have something to sink my teeth into.

Things I know:

Bucky’s the numbers man. He can calculate odds in an eyeblink. Those who know him as Rogers’s shadow think he’s hired muscle, pretty but dumb; those who know him as a gambler and fixer, they’re entranced by his charm and his wit. When they learn his father goes to shul every Saturday they ask if he’s Kosher. He smiles a lopsided grin and says, “I’m a Yid, but I’m not their Yid.” He’s Arnold Rothstein without the ego.

Steve knows people. Steve owns people. You need something fenced? He can get you in contact with just the right person. For a fee, of course. You need someone murdered? Step this way. He keeps to the shadows; more often than not Bucky is the face of the organization, but Steve is the tactics, and he knows the streets of Brooklyn better than the men who built her. Guys who don’t know him will say, “Outta my way, kid, go on home back to mama,” and Steve will remember their faces, and he will remember their names. He has protection down to a fine art—and it’s not all rackets. You need to hide from the cops? Don’t matter who you are, Steve Rogers’ll help you out. He’s Lucky Luciano’s little brother.

It started when Bucky’sdad took a little bootlegging on the side to help pay bills. He owned a
grocery store; it wasn’t hard to hide a few cases of booze in with the
rest of the shipments. Then Prohibition ended, and it got a little more…
severe. He wasn’t running alcohol anymore, it was drugs and guns. Money’s still
money, though, and he takes out a loan to remodel the grocery, take it into
better days. Only, he gets caught in a shootout and killed in the crossfire. Bucky
didn’t know any of this, just that all of a sudden his dad’s dead and he owes
a lot of money to a lot of nasty people. Most of their money is tied up in the
grocery; they don’t have access to that kind of cash.

Enter Steve.
Steve’s feeling a bit reckless since his mom died, and Bucky’s scared for him,
to be perfectly honest. Well, one day Steve’s come by right when the goons from
the local boss do, and he gets all righteous when they threaten to put Bucky’s
hand through the deli counter meat slicer. Things escalate, until there’s a
knife, and Steve’s bleeding, and Bucky grabs the bat behind the counter and
just hits. Doesn’t let himself think until both those goons are dead on the
floor. He’s panicking, he knows he’s in shock, but he checks over Steve,
and—he’s fine, thank God, he’s fine. Still breathing, the stubborn pissant, and
Bucky sort of scoops him close, right there on the floor next to the mooks he killed and works through his
feelings until Steve starts squirming to get free.

“We gotta hide the bodies, Bucky,” he says,
flipping the OPEN sign over to CLOSED. And Bucky, He’s got a lot of bricks in
the back courtyard from when his dad bricked up the alley, and a few bolts of
leftover cloth from the awning. They sew the bodies up in canvas shrouds
weighed with bricks, and load them in the delivery van, and haul them to an
abandoned dock.

It grows from there. ”We gotta stay safe, Bucky,” Steve says in the shadows where no one can see or hear. “We gotta get to the top, where no one can touch us.”

By the time WWII comes around Steve owns half of Brooklyn, and almost all of the waterfront. Does Steve “The Captain” Rogers know about a German plot to infiltrate the docks? He might, Agent Ma’am. What are you gonna pay him to tell you?