Disclaimer: I don't own Captain America, Agent Carter or Marvel.
Author's Note: A little look into the lads that became known as the Howling Commandos, and The Dame that worked alongside them. Peggy/Steve with a good helping of Bucky and the other lads.
Hope you guys like this. Let me know what you think - love it or hate it.
A Group of Lads and The Dame
Bucky had, of course, heard of Agent Carter long before he'd met her. He'd heard of her in different ways – he'd heard of Agent Carter, spoken with respect and, occasionally, a touch of fear by his superiors. It hadn't occurred to Bucky that this Agent Carter was the same as Miss Peggy Carter, spoken of lewdly and sometimes with disturbingly graphic description by the junior-most cohorts. And then there was Peggy that Stevie spoke of, dreamy eyes and soppy expression all over his face. He'd clearly not just fallen, but fallen hard for this dame and she seemed fine, she did. Bucky was worldly enough to disregard most of the animadversions cast her way after the first time he met her. But that didn't mean he respected or liked her.
The respect came pretty damn quickly. Agent Carter was sent in on an intelligence recon mission. Bucky only knew because Steve had loitered outside normal hearing distance with his well beyond normal hearing. Bucky had, very carefully, not looked at Steve because they all knew what female officers did to gather information. It wasn't nice. It wasn't pretty. Bucky was even fair enough to accept that most of the women didn't do it out of enjoyment, it was patriotism. But still, he didn't like the thought of Agent Carter sleeping with some man to gain intelligence.
The men who were soon to become the Howling Commandos were gathered around, plying Steve with drinks in the hopes that he might at least get distracted, though it had looked increasingly unlikely that he'd get drunk.
She'd walked into the bar, knee grazed, bruises here and there, one particular blue beauty blooming on her left cheek and a slight limp in her still arresting walk.
'Gentlemen,' she'd nodded at them (at Steve) and sat on a table by herself.
Bucky and the rest of the men had followed Steve automatically as he'd wondered over.
'How was intelligence gathering?' He'd said as a conversation opener and, Christ, this was braver than going in single-handedly behind enemy lines.
'It was more of a 'stealing back what was stolen from us' mission, really,' she'd said with complete sang-froid. 'One of our men got a little bit besotted and had a bad case of loose lips.'
'Did you run into any trouble?' Steve continued in the same polite vein, amusement starting to crinkle the corners of his eyes.
'Well, she'd managed to give it to one of the soldiers. Fortunately, there were only five of them when I'd caught up to them. Not very well trained, I'm afraid. It might just have been a bad tendency to underestimate me.' She had given a shrug, casual as you please. 'It didn't take more than five minutes. At most.'
'You disabled five soldiers in five minutes?' An incredulous voice had drifted over to them, a kid who couldn't have seen much action yet, sneering at her and openly ogling her (admittedly very distracting) bosom.
'No,' she had retorted. 'In under five minutes,' and then she'd taken a sip of her whiskey, and yeah, after that, none of the soon to be Howling Commandos had any trouble with giving her respect.
It still didn't mean that Bucky liked her.
This was why, just before their first mission since being saved, they were drinking drinks at the same bar, waiting.
Sure enough, Agent Carter entered with the usual sway in her hips, and her eyes soon found Steve's and, as last time, he eventually, oh so casually, went over and joined her at her table.
It was years of protecting Steve, of looking after him and having his back, years of protecting him from bullies and creeps, from the depression and not-enough-food, from hurt both physical and emotional, that was prompting him to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Because everyone knew that you weren't allowed to look Agent Carter up and down more than once, not if you wanted your man-bits pain free and fully functional. So in the name of protecting Steve, Bucky was going to accept the possibility of horribly painful and maybe malfunctioning man-bits and have a chat with Agent Carter, The Chat where he assessed what her intentions truly were and whether she was good enough for Steve.
His chance came when Steve had to pop to the Gents' Room. Seeing his chance, Bucky sauntered over, as if he wasn't shitting himself right now.
'Sergeant Barnes,' Agent Carter's voice drifted over before he'd reached the table, though she had her back to him.
'Agent Carter, mind if I sit here?' He could've kicked himself for asking. Should have just sat down, because what if she says no? He did his best to keep his face entirely neutral – he'd been taken Prisoner of War and experimented on by Hydra bastards. Why was he, then, so scared of this lady?
'Be my guest,' she'd said after a second during which her eyes had searched his.
'So Captain America, helluva guy,' Bucky wanted to kick himself all over again.
'Yes, Captain Rogers certainly is.'
It could've been his imagination but he thought she was looking rather amused.
'Yeah, the ladies seem to love his bravery,' he tried again, fighting the embarrassed red flush that was threatening his face.
'Yes, they certainly do,' she snapped back instantly, and this was good. This was very good. She sounded just short of jealous, which meant that she cared enough to be jealous.
'He's a very brave guy, women love brave guys,' he said, trying to twist his lips into a smile that felt more like a sleazy smirk and shit, that was not what he was aiming for. Without thought, he drew his knees in together, just a little.
'Indeed,' she said, both eyebrows raised and how could she look so knowing when her face was remarkably blank? She took a long, slow sip of her whiskey, drew the silence longer while she watched him. At last, she spoke (because Bucky had damn near no idea about what to say next).
'My favourite moment was when he jumped onto a grenade to try and protect those around him.'
'What,' the yelp escaped Bucky, his eyes suddenly frantically searching for Stevie because Stevie would be that god damned noble and stupid.
'Relax, Sergeant, it was clearly a dummy grenade and he's obviously fine.' This time, she did openly smirk at him.
'It's what finally convinced Phillips that Erskine and I were right about Steve,' she nodded into her glass.
'Right about..?' Oh. 'Oh…'
'Right about choosing Steve for the serum,' Agent Carter explained unnecessarily.
'I like you, ma'am,' Bucky decided to tell her bluntly, because she liked Steve, not Captain fucking America, squeezing his knees all the more tightly together just as a precaution.
She returned his smile with one of her own. 'I think I might like you too, Sergeant, which is why I'll do you a favour.' She leaned in closer to him. 'I won't tell Steve about this terribly awkward conversation.'
'Thank you, ma'am,' eyes a little wide, he glanced briefly at the Gents' room before scuttling back to his comrades, grateful to have his man-parts pain free and in working condition.