Steve blushed furiously at the term 'peak condition'. When he had first been in the hospital, when they had run all of the tests, he had been poked and prodded, and ooohed and ahhhed over. It had all been overwhelming, and the idea that he was anyone's idea was still entirely foreign.
"They assumed I was injured when I showed up," he admitted.
"They thought that the potions would have some kind of negative effect, but when weeks went by, and then months, well, it never happened."
Even Steve had been expecting something. He'd watched Bucky die on the table, a boy who had always been muscular and fit, someone Steve would have bet could live through anything. There was no way Steve should have been the one to survive.
"You're lucky you came out of it as well as you did," he said to Meru, his tone serious.
"The work of my father's that was published, it was great, but it wasn't even close to the whole of his research. He had notebooks..."
Steve's voice trailed off.
"I probably shouldn't even by telling you this. I don't know if it's safe."
He had no idea how safe it was to talk about any of it. They hadn't caught the men who'd held him. They didn't even have names, as of the last Steve had heard.