A/N: No Marilyn this chapter; Steve and Bucky though! We should see the three meet next chapter! Hope you enjoy x

Against All Odds: Chapter 3

The Howling Commandos

The Howling Commandos had only officially been a team for a month, but things were going well. Two HYDRA bases had been burnt to the ground in the month they'd been together, and more were surely to follow. Their next target was in France, at a weapons factory around forty miles west of the Maginot Line, but when they'd landed in Paris they'd heard news of German raids in surrounding towns and villages. It admittedly wouldn't have caught their attention (German raids were the expected norm by this point) if it wasn't for Jacques Dernier overhearing one drunk Frenchman who swore he had witnessed strange men dressed in all black shoot down an entire village with guns he'd never seen anything like before. Now that had caught their attention.

And that's how they ended up cramped in the back of an unmarked truck, racing across the French countryside towards the last town on the list they'd managed to pull together with the help of the locals. Timothy 'Dum Dum' Dugan sat in the driver's seat, face pulled into a scowl and a demeanour that screamed 'don't talk to me' as his eyes never once left the dirt path he drove on. His mood hadn't lightened up in the past week they'd been in France. The normally gentle-giant carried the air of a man not to be messed with. Jim Morita sat next to him, equally as sour. Behind them to the left silently sat James Montgomery Falsworth, Gabe Jones and Jacques Dernier, and across from them Bucky Barnes and the infamous Captain America. If the team saw how close the two best friends were sitting, they didn't mention it. In fact, not one of them said a word.

Every town they'd been to so far had been a slaughter zone – bodies riddled the streets and the houses, and the overwhelming stench of rotting flesh had seemingly burned into their clothes and followed them wherever they went. There had been too many bodies to count, and far too many to give any of them a proper burial. They had been forced to leave them there for a clean-up troop to find later. At this point they were in no mood to talk – they just wanted to find someone alive. Anyone.

Steve and Bucky particularly had been in a bad mood for the past several weeks. It had started before they'd even landed in Paris, back in London. They'd been celebrating their latest HYDRA win at a local bar one night, but the two men had slowly soured over the course of the evening. The team pretended not to see the winces Bucky would show every so often, or the concerned looks Steve would throw him each time. They knew the look on Bucky's face – hell, everyone did. It wasn't quite agonizing pain that crossed his features, but something close, as if someone had taken a hot rod and repeatedly prodded him with just the very tip. Everyone knew at least one person who'd been through the same thing. It was the look of someone experiencing pain through an invisible bond tying them to another person, and only one thing was for certain: whoever was Barnes' soulmate was in trouble. It was a somewhat rare phenomenon, to be able to feel the pain of a soulmate you hadn't even met before, but it wasn't unheard of. At one point it may have even been considered a gift, but during times of war it was more of a nightmare.

Bucky knew that the rest of the Commandos knew what was happening, but he couldn't bring himself to care. This was, admittedly, nowhere near the first time it had happened, and probably wouldn't be the last. Even when he was a child, the pain that shot down his back when he was least expecting it had haunted him and Steve. Steve's own words had been etched down his left shoulder blade for as long as he could remember and caused him pain whenever the once scrawny kid would find himself in a fight or sick(often, to say the least), but at least Bucky knew he could always find him and help. With their second soulmate (because they were both convinced that the second set of marks donning both their bodies belonged to the same person), they couldn't help. They could only hope that their soulmate could remain in one piece until they found her (because, again, they were both convinced their soulmate was a woman, despite what the seemingly never-ending pain might suggest).

The sight of the town on the horizon broke them all out of their thoughts, and the men steeled themselves. This was the last town, and the last hope of finding anyone who had survived the HYDRA raids. Imagine their surprise when they were greeted at the town's gates by a hoard of seemingly healthy men, all ready to fight, and their even greater surprise when they got out of the truck and looked passed the blockade of men to see a bustling town behind them – they were alive and thriving. There were bullet holes in the gates and blood had stained the ground they stood on a rusty red, so HYDRA had definitely been here, so how were these people alive?

The men in front of the group raised pitchforks and stakes and seemingly any items they could get their hands on to use as weapons, and they were all pointed towards the Commandos. That was until Steve stepped forward, donning the iconic Captain America suit and shield. When they saw the American flag around his stomach, they slowly lowered their weapons, keeping a firm grasp on them just in case.

"You're American?" It was an older man that spoke the hesitant English, obviously not used to using the language. Grey whiskers sat proudly across his jaw and troubled grey eyes stared back at them.

"Yes sir, I'm Steve Rogers and this is my team. We heard your town was attacked." The man stared hard at the group before nodding slowly, seemingly having decided he would trust them for now. "Sorry sir, but the other towns we've visited have been burnt to the ground. What happened here?" The man didn't answer for a while, instead turning and gesturing for them to follow him. They ended up in a small house – his, obviously – with the rest of the town's men gathered outside. The man turned back to Steve.

"She saved us."

"Who did?" It was Dum Dum who spoke up this time, obviously in disbelief. One person could not save a town.

"She was a nurse, Marilyn. American like you. They took her." He paused. "You've got to save her."

"Cap, we don't have time to –" Steve held his hand up to silence Jim, wanting to hear the man out. He knew that they didn't have time to cut off their mission any more than they already had just to save one nurse, but he also needed to know how one woman could keep an entire town safe from HYDRA. Hell, even the army couldn't do that.

"What's your name?"

"They call me Burk." Bucky by this point stood at the window, scanning outside for any sight of the enemy, just in case. It also helped him ignore the intense throbbing running down his back as the pain his soulmate was going through seemed to intensify by the minute. Steve shot him a worried look as he grimaced, but turned his attention back to Burk. Mission first, and then he could take care of his soulmate; that's what they'd agreed.

"Well, Burk, how'd she save you all? The people who raided you aren't the type of folk to leave people unharmed." Burk shifted, sitting in the armchair next to the fire before going to speak. He was interrupted before he could.

"You are going to save her, yes?" All eyes turned to the doorway, where a young woman stood, eyes flittering nervously across the men before her. She stood half hidden behind the doorway, as if afraid the men would turn and attack at any second – you could never be too careful in a war, after all. "You must."

"Gentlemen, this is my daughter, Emilie."

"She saved my daughter. Please save her!" Emilie looked close to tears, and Steve tried to smile reassuringly as the rest of the Commandos shifted in discomfort behind him. Obviously, they were unused to dealing with crying women. Steve was, too, but he had to try.

"How did she save your daughter?" The woman hesitated, looking towards her father for conformation, and he just nodded.

"She…She had a special… I do not know what it was, but one second my daughter had a broken arm and a fever and the next she was perfectly fine!" Doubt must have crossed the Commando's features, because Burk now spoke up in agreement before Emilie could so something unladylike out of desperation and get in trouble with the gentlemen. The French weren't known for their patience, after all.

"It is true, she had an ability of sorts. One of my men had a bullet blast through him and was sure to pass… Ten minutes with Marilyn and there was no bullet hole and he was walking about." He stopped, sighing. "The men came back to burn the village. She protected us, but they must have took her. They left almost immediately." Steve suddenly felt an obligation to help. This woman had protected an entire town at the cost of her own freedom, and from what they had told him, she would be of special interest to Zola. One look at Bucky's concerned face – because he was the only one truly aware of what Zola could do to a person – had his mind made up. They'd find this woman and they'd save her.

"We're heading to their base. We can look to see if they've taken her there." Burk and Emilie both nodded in gratitude. They owed Marilyn their lives, the least they could do in return was get her help. Steve hesitated, not wanting to say what he knew he had to, and Bucky took notice and decided to take it upon himself to say it. Steve had enough to deal with, he didn't need to be the one to tell these people that their saviour may already be dead. He could save Steve that guilt.

"Sir, Ma'am, we may already be too late to save her, but we'll do everythin' we can do to get her back home."

And, in war time, that was really all they could promise, and that would have to be enough.