"Let me get this straight." Bucky drawled. "You want us to saunter into the biggest Nazi base we know of, 20 miles behind enemy lines, isolate the secret Hydra faction hidden from the Krauts inside it, extract both the Nazi plans for attack and the Hydra's weapon designs, and get out without getting caught, in 74 hours?"
"Not only that," General yawled, his lined face grim with exasperation, "I also expect you to get out alive."
"Just checking." Bucky said, leaning back in his chair and tilting his head to meet Steve's eyes. "The plan?"
Steve's grin was almost devious. "You're probably not going to like it."
"What the bloody hell, Steve!?"
Steve eyed the scattered bullets, knives and gun implements that had scattered from Bucky's cot upon the event of that personage leaping up in consternation.
"What do you think?" he asked, holding his arms out slightly and stepping back.
Bucky looked him up and down. "You look like one of those beaten up Poles I saw in the Hydra factory. Heck, you look like me when I got out of that place. Is this your plan? Because you're right, I don't even know what it means, but I don't like it. Tell me it's not permanent."
Steve was in worn, torn, grease-stained civvies, a thread-bare coat shrugged over his shoulders and flat, broken-in work boots on his feet. His skin was at least 3 tones darker, stubble covered his cheeks, and under his dirty flat cap his disheveled hair was now a definite dark brown. There were distinct bruises on his face and his hands were marred with stains and cuts.
"I'm going in. There are plenty of forced workers in the base. I can access the plans fairly easy that way."
"Steve Rogers, you plan on marching into the enemy's playground trussed up in some dirty clothes and dye, with the Captain's wanted poster plastered on every wall from here to Berlin, and you expect to NOT get recognized? This plan was obviously your idea."
"In my defense, the Captain wears a mask. I won't be. Improves my chances actually, if you think about it."
"Is that so? Then, why the heck are you wearing these?" Bucky snapped, his fingers hooking under Steve's collar and yanking free his dog-tags, which he flapped under Steve's nose. "With your freaking I.D. number and NAME stamped on them? For crying out loud, you think no one over there doesn't already know these?"
"I can't leave them behind, Buck." Steve said, sliding them back into place. "You know why."
Buck groaned, his face in his hand. "No, you can't. Where did you get done up? I had better go get ready."
"What?"
"You didn't think I was gonna let you march your sorry hide into certain death by yourself, did you?"
Steve grinned impulsively. "Not really."
Bucky shot him a glare as he shrugged on his coat. "Good." he snapped, and kicked open the tent flap. He ducked out, and then a second later stuck his head back in. "What does Peggy think of this scatter-brained scheme?"
Steve blushed as red as he possibly could under the dye. "She doesn't have to know until it's over."
Bucky barked a laugh.
"What?" Steve asked.
"I'm going to enjoy THAT conversation." He chuckled, ducking out again.
"How long till the drop off?" Steve murmured.
Gabe twisted several nobs on his machine and marked a place on his map with his pencil. "You've got three minutes."
Steve nodded and moved back to the corner, where Bucky was swaying back and forth to the movement of the train. The blue eyes, the only thing recognizable in the unfamiliar face, glinted with pre-mission energy and cool, experienced calm.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Ready as I'll ever be." Buck said, double checking the belt under his shirt that concealed a revolver, an all-purpose tool, a Morse code transponder and a high-frequency radio. Steve could feel the awkward bump of his own tool belt under his clothes. Bucky buttoned his ragged blue coat up again and looked up, smirking at Steve.
His skin was lighter than usual, his hair dyed a light brown and cut short. His stubble, which a week ago had threatened to become an actual beard, was now clipped and thinned until it was ragged and uneven, giving him a look that seemed several year younger than he actually was. His clothes, like Steve's, were dirty, mended, and three sizes too big, increasing the look of an adolescent shoved into a man's outfit. Steve couldn't help grinning at the sight.
Buck caught him at it and kicked his shin. "If you do that in front of a Hydra, he'll be onto us both like a kraut on Borscht."
"1 minute!" Gabe called out. Jim was already pulling open the car door a few feet, just wide enough for a full grown man to squeeze out. Steve and Bucky exchanged a look.
Bucky sighed and slid his sniper rifle from his shoulder. "Wish I could bring Ethy along. You take good care of her, ya hear me, Dum?"
Dum nodded and accepted the rifle as carefully as if she had been a newborn baby.
Bucky moved to stand behind Steve and shrugged his shoulders awkwardly.
"I'm gonna miss her." He muttered. It felt wrong to go into battle without his weapon. Suicidal, almost.
Steve pulled his own gaze from where his shield lay quietly in the corner. "We'll be back before you know It." he said.
"Go!" Gabe shouted.
One final glance and the two men leapt out of the train into the snowy white of a plunging hillside.
"This was not how this was supposed to go." Bucky snarled, his back slamming into the wall besides Steve's.
"What do you mean?" Steve panted, casting a wary glance around the corner.
"We were supposed to run for our lives after we found the plans, not before we even figured out where they were!" Bucky huffed.
"I guess today's gonna be a fun day." Steve muttered, before turning around. "Give me a boost."
"Where?" Bucky asked.
"Ceiling panel. That one's loose."
Bucky grunted in annoyance and boosted Steve into the ceiling. Steve's boots scrabbled for purchase in the wall as he hauled himself up a pipe and swung onto a support beam. Sudden shouts in German caught Bucky's attention and he flattened himself against the wall. Heavy footfalls were pounding down the corridor behind the door to his right.
"'Fun day', by golly." Bucky growled, shrugging the rifle he had taken from the first set of guards behind his shoulder and leaping up for Steve's outstretched hand.
"They are undeniably in the building, Herr Sendler."
Bucky and Steve's eyes met quietly in the dim dark.
"I want them here, before me, alive in the next hour!"
"Sir, they have already resisted strenuously. Our casualties are at least 20, and the prisoners are in riot. Despite our measures, at least 50 have escaped into the surrounding hillside."
"Never mind the prisoners. Either the cold or our planes will have destroyed them by nightfall. I want the two Americans alive. I have it on good authority that that they are members of the Howling Commando squad, and that one may be Captain America."
Steve winced and Bucky raised his eyebrow. Already? That was quick.
"Would not Herr Hitler be grateful then if we killed them?"
"Members of the Squad know much of the Allies' information. Their precious Captain is an icon to their people. He would be a valuable bargaining piece."
Bucky's grip on the metal pipes turned white.
"Procure for me the Captain in the next hour."
"The other, sir?"
"Put him with the prisoners. We will extract what information we can and, disperse with him accordingly."
Steve's eyes sparked like electric wires.
Bucky caught his gaze in the dim light and carefully, quietly pointed down. Steve followed his finger and noticed the double locked safe that stood behind the general's desk. The plans were most likely going to be hidden there. He nodded to show he understood. His fingers flicked up in the soldier's sign language they had taught each other.
Too dangerous here. Let's move to safety.
Bucky nodded, and they continued their careful climb through the duct, pipes and beams of the Nazi base.
"Buck…" Steve groaned, dirty snow smearing his face. "Go…get out of here…"
"No. Not without you." Bucky grunted huskily. Gunfire cracked closer. He ducked instinctively as a bullet chipped sparks from the wall. Keeping his head down, he flung himself against the wall, listened, then leapt up and fired three silencing shots. Ducking down again, he turned back to Steve.
"Come on, pal. You're gonna be fine." he leaned closer, his fingers finding the welling of blood on Steve's head from where the falling rubble from the grenade had hit him. Blue eyes glittered dazedly up at him. He can't go anywhere right now.
Bucky made his decision.
"Not without you." he murmured again, gripping Steve's shoulder as he fumbled with the collar of Steve's jacket.
"What…?" Steve murmured confusedly.
"Good thing we both look nothing like those blasted newsreels." Bucky grumbled as he drew his own dog tags from under his shirt. They tangled with his scapular, but he got them free.
He weighed them in his hand a second, looking at the scraped dirt and sweat stained, fire scorched metal bars. He leaned forward and gripped Steve's, lying exposed at his throat. In one swift move he had slid Steve's free and had deposited his own in their place. Quickly he tucked them out of sight, then hung Steve's around his neck, letting them hang free, their muted glint just enough to attract attention.
"Stay alive, pal." He murmured, gripping his gun with one hand and Steve's shoulder with the other. "Get free and get to the others."
"Bucky, no!" Steve's eyes widened he began to push himself up on one elbow, face twisted in pain.
Bucky leapt to his feet. They had maybe a minute before they were overrun. His rifle click-chacked in preparation. He looked back and met Steve's eyes as Steve barely managed to get to his knees before collapsing against the side of the wall. His grim face softened.
"It's gonna be alright, pal." He whispered.
German shouts rang out behind him and with a last, lopsided smile, he brought the gun to his shoulder and started firing.