The sirens are still singing, but let's see if Peggy can change their tune.

Peggy had been alone in the front cavern for several minutes now. Dugan and Jim had finished checking the boxes for curses, and had taken off with Jacques to deliver the first load to Hogwarts. Between apparating to the front gate, hiking up to school with their cargo and checking it in with Phillips, she wasn't expecting them back for at least half an hour. It had been a good idea of Steve's to get started on the transport—they were going to be doing it for a while.

She looked down at her watch. Speaking of which, where was Steve? They'd been gone for some time now. She checked her radio to make sure it was still working, then shrugged. They must still be looking around. Maybe there was more to search through than they'd thought. If she didn't hear from them by the time she got to the bottom of the box she was on, she'd call and check in.

The radio squawked suddenly and loudly at her shoulder, making her drop the knife she was inspecting. It was a little staticky, but she recognized Bucky's voice, as well as the frantic tone with which he shouted, "Peggy, get in here!"

She snatched up her wand and was on her feet and running. "Bucky, what's going on?" she asked. "Where are you?" She received no reply, so she ran faster, lighting her wand as the tunnel darkened. She would just have to keep going until she found them.

She ran past several rooms that were clearly part of the guards' quarters, but they were dark, so she passed them by. Thankfully, the tunnel did not fork, so she never had to wonder if she was going the right way. Ahead, she saw a faint light and heard distant voices, so she picked up speed. The tunnel opened up into a long, low cavern, lanterns on the floor illuminating her friends and a massive black lake at the end of a long slope. She had to slow her pace once she hit the loose stones on the floor, but she continued downwards. Steve, Monty and Gabe seemed to be walking toward the water, and Bucky was…Was he fighting them? She saw him shoot a spell at Gabe that knocked him off his feet and sent him flying several feet back. What the hell was happening?

"Bucky!" she yelled. "What's going on?"

He spun toward the sound of her voice, relief flooding his dirty, bloody face as his eyes met hers. "Sirens!" he called back. "There's sirens in the…in the…" The relief on his face melted into a glassy look of distant focus, and he turned and started walking toward the lake.

He hadn't finished his explanation, but Peggy got the message. She hurried closer to the water, noticing as she did so that Steve had stopped walking and was shaking his head, pressing a hand to his temple. Evidently, there were only three sirens, and they were taking turns calling to the four boys to work them all down to the lake. It was slow, but clearly efficient. Clever little monsters.

"Steve, are you alright?" she asked, pausing briefly as she neared him. Would he be clear-headed long enough to be of any help?

"Peggy?" he asked, bewildered. He looked like he'd just woken up. "What's…What're you doing here?"

"Bucky called me," she replied. "Where are the sirens? Are you good to help me?"

"Sirens…" he mumbled. Clarity blinked back into his eyes. "Keep hiding behind the rocks. Can't get a good shot." He cast his eyes around on the ground, looking for the wand he'd dropped somewhere.

"Right. I'm on it," she said as he bent to pick up his wand. She knew why Bucky had called her—she could get close enough to fight without getting enchanted. "Can you keep this lot back?" she asked.

"Trying," he told her, heading off after Monty, who was closer than any of the others to the dark water. He hit him with a levitating spell, and his aim was a little off but it still dragged him several yards up the embankment. He shot a coil of rope at him that bound him to a boulder, but then dropped his wand again and started following Bucky and Gabe to the lake.

Peggy skidded to a halt where the rocks turned to sand and spotted one of them, glowing yellow eyes just visible between the water and a mat of gnarled hair like black water weeds. "Silencio!" she yelled, jabbing her wand in its direction. Since she couldn't hear its song, she wasn't sure if that spell would work, but Bucky staggered to a halt and pressed his hands to his head with a groan. She smiled. One down.

Her eyes scanned the water for signs of the other two, acutely aware of the crunch of gravel under Steve and Gabe's boots as they got closer. "Bucky!" she shouted, snapping him out of his reverie. "Get them!"

Bucky shook his head and headed back up the slope. Wandless, he threw himself in front of Steve, who was closest to the lake, and Peggy winced as Steve started swinging and she heard something crack as his fists met his friend.

She saw another set of eyes and shot a silencing spell at it, but it ducked back down under the water and she must have missed, since no one stopped behind her. A glance back behind her showed Bucky crashing to the ground as Steve tossed him aside, but he rolled back up to his feet with someone's wand in his hand. "Sorry, Stevie," she heard him mutter before he yelled, "Stupefy!" and Steve flew back to the ground in a flash of red light and did not rise.

Gabe continued marching forward, and Peggy heard Bucky move to engage him as she turned back to the water. A pair of corpse-green hands with long, bony fingers latched onto one of the rocks in the water, and Peggy quickly ran to the left, bringing into view the siren they were attached to. It locked its glowing yellow eyes on her and shrieked, baring long, crooked fangs, and that, she heard. She made a slashing motion with her wand, and it shrieked one more time as its head, neck and one shoulder flew away from the rest of its body in a spray of black blood.

Seeing no more movement in the water, she risked another look behind her. Monty was still tied to the rock up the slope and Steve was still unconscious on the ground. Gabe was lying on his side, wrists tied to his ankles but no longer struggling. The stunned expression on his face told her the siren had just let him go and he was trying to figure out what was going on. There was no time for her to explain it, though, because the last siren, wherever it was, was singing to Bucky again and he was a lot closer to the water—and farther away from her—than she'd thought.

"Bucky, stop!" she yelled, not sure why, because she knew it wouldn't do anything. Predictably, he ignored her, staggering across the wet sand. She tried shooting an immobilizing spell at him, but he either ducked or just tripped, and it went over his head. Picking up speed, she ran faster, eyes anxiously scanning the water, because she knew she wouldn't get to him in time. The last siren appeared several feet out in the water, floating at the end of a rocky outcropping. Bucky stumbled onto the rock, slipped and fell forward, landing on his hands and knees. Peggy was afraid that any spell she tried to stop him with now would knock him into the water.

There was another boulder keeping her from getting a clear shot at the siren, so she kept running, even as Bucky crawled forward, one arm stretched out and reaching for the siren's extended hand.

"Reducto!" she screeched as the siren came fully into view, and the monster exploded in a burst of slime and black ichor that splattered all over the ledge and Bucky and sent the smell of rotting fish rolling through the cavern. She stopped running, panting hard, while Bucky stared down at his outstretched hand in bewildered horror.

For a moment, the only sounds in the cavern were her own labored breathing and the groans of the boys lying on the ground somewhere behind her. Then, with a deafening shriek and a roar of water, the first siren—the one whose song she'd silenced but had not killed—surged up out of the lake, grabbed Bucky's wrist, and yanked him forward into the water.

"Bucky!" Peggy screamed as she rushed forward. She screamed again in surprise as she hit the water—it was bloody freezing!—but she pressed forward, splashing out in the direction he'd disappeared. The water was just up to her shoulders as she passed the rock he'd fallen off of when the ground disappeared abruptly under her feet and she dropped down under the water. She kicked and paddled back until she was standing on the drop-off again. The lake was huge, and got deeper faster than she'd thought, and if she just swam out into it, she'd never find him.

Her eyes searched the surface of the water frantically, looking for any ripple or sign of movement. It was pointless, she knew—sirens lived down in the murky depths, only surfacing to find fresh victims, and now that she had her prize, there was no need for her to reemerge. "Accio Bucky!" Peggy yelled desperately while her brain searched for something, anything that might help.

To her great surprise, Bucky's head and shoulders broke the surface of the water about twenty feet away with a soft splash. That spell wasn't supposed to work on people, but she didn't complain, plunging forward to swim after him. (A little voice in the academic corner of her mind that she admonished to shut up because this really wasn't the time wondered if the fact that Bucky was clearly unconscious meant he counted as an inanimate object for the purposes of the spell.)

He was starting to roll on the current and sink back under the water again as she reached him. Just as her fingers clenched in the folds of his jacket, the siren appeared not three feet away, having swam back up in pursuit of her stolen prey. As soon as Bucky had hit the surface of the water, however, Peggy had expected the siren not to be far behind, and she was ready. She tugged hard on Bucky's jacket, pulling him around and behind her and putting herself between him and the siren. Her other hand pulled her wand up and pointed it at the monster, and she yelled, "Reducto!" as the siren surged forward.

Just like the other one, it exploded in a torrent of foul-smelling slime. Ignoring the ooze that was spattered across her face and hair, Peggy tucked her wand into her shirt, spun in the water, and looped an arm around Bucky's chest, pulling him back up from where he was starting to sink again. She started swimming towards the shore, noting not only the way that Bucky's chest failed to rise and fall with any sort of breath, but also the growing bloodstain on his jacket around his shoulder where the siren appeared to have bitten him. Both were worrying, but neither was something she could do anything about until she was on solid ground.

As she reached the shallower water, she started moving slower—Bucky, being larger than her, was heavy enough already without being weighed down by his water-logged clothes, and without the water buoying him up, he was harder to pull. Steve was back on his feet now, though, and although he still didn't look entirely steady, he was splashing out into the water to meet them, wrapping his arms around both of them and dragging them to shore.

He helped her move Bucky up past the wet sand and lay him out on the ground. Peggy's eyes went wide in alarm as Steve's sleeve caught on the torn fabric of Bucky's jacket, pulling it back and exposing the wound underneath. A large chunk of the meat of his left shoulder was missing entirely, toothmarks still visible in the torn edges of the flesh. Though it should have been bleeding profusely, it wasn't—something in the venom must work as a coagulant, keeping most of the blood inside. Peggy remembered reading that sirens liked to drink the blood out of their prey over a long period of time before eating what was left. His shoulder had turned black, not just around the bite, but all of the surrounding skin as well. The blackness stretched off down his arm and under his sleeve on the one side, and when she ripped away the thin threads that still held the jacket and shirt together at the collar, she could see where it had spread on that side as well, reaching nearly to his neck. It was spreading fast enough that she could actually see it moving under his skin, creeping in thin bluish-black veins up his neck and down his chest and pulling the rest of the darkness along behind.

"What is that?" Steve asked. "What happened? He—" He swallowed hard. "He's not breathing, Peggy, what—"

"I know," she cut him off. "I'll take care of that; go get the medical kit." She knew they'd brought Jim's bag with them, and while she didn't know exactly what siren venom did, it clearly wasn't good. His breathing was the more immediate concern, but once they got that sorted, they would need to do something about that bite very, very, quickly.

"What?" Steve asked—the lights were clearly not all back on yet, but there wasn't time to wait for him to find all the switches.

"Medical kit!" she barked, and he jumped to his feet and scrambled away up the hill.

Peggy grabbed the front of Bucky's jacket and ripped what was left of it open so his chest wouldn't be constricted by the wet material, sending buttons scattering across the sand. She leaned in and placed her head on his chest, and she was able to hear his heart beating, so at least that was something. Placing one hand on his forehead and one under his neck, she tilted his head back, then pinched his nose shut and tugged his mouth open. Taking a deep breath, she leaned down and placed her mouth over his, exhaling and watching his chest rise and fall. She pulled up, drew in another breath, then leaned down and repeated the process. She did it five more times, distantly aware of Steve crashing to his knees beside her as he returned. As she drew in another breath, Bucky twitched and let out a weak, watery cough.

"That's it, Bucky, come on," she breathed. "Help me get him on his side, Steve." Together, they rolled him over as he continued to cough, weakly at first, then more violently, bringing up waves of murky black lake water.

His eyes blinked open as the coughing subsided, and he was breathing normally for about three seconds before he started gasping for air. The blackness from the bite mark had reached his neck, tendrils of it climbing up his face now, and Peggy thought the poison must have reached his throat or his lungs and was keeping him from breathing. She snatched the medical bag out of Steve's lap and started rifling through it.

"Bucky?" Steve called worriedly. Bucky's back arched up as he gasped, then slammed back into the ground. The spasm kept repeating, battering his body against the rocky sand as he fought for air.

"Hold his head," Peggy told him, digging frantically through the bag. Steve pulled Bucky's head up into his lap so that at least he was slamming it into Steve's leg when he convulsed instead of into the ground. "Where is it, where is it, where is it?" she muttered, cursing the seeming unending nature of the bag. She didn't know what specifically one did for a siren bite, but surely there was some sort of anti-venom in here somewhere.

"Peggy," Steve pleaded, sounding far more like a frightened child than he probably intended to, and her heart wrenched at the fear in his voice and the panic rising in her own chest. What if she was too slow? What if she lost him, lost one of her best friends while he struggled for his life right here in front of her?

Her fingers closed around a little wooden box, and as she brought it back up and opened it, hope forced the knot of panic back down towards her stomach. "Oh, bless you, James Morita," she breathed, pulling out a shriveled brown bezoar. She looked down at Bucky, who was seizing less forcefully, gasps for air coming quieter as his eyelids started to drop.

"No, no, no, no, no," Steve was whispering, slapping Bucky's cheek, trying to get him to open his eyes. "Bucky!"

"Hold his head still," Peggy said, reaching forward. She prized Bucky's mouth open and pushed the bezoar in past his teeth. She pulled her hand away and Steve held Bucky's jaw closed, tilting his head back and massaging his throat, trying to get him to swallow.

"Come on, Buck," he whispered. "Don't clock out on me now, come on!" Bucky finally swallowed, giving one final shudder before going completely still. "Bucky?" Steve whispered fearfully.

"It's working, look," Peggy said, pointing to his neck. The tendrils of poison were moving again, not as fast as before, but still visibly retreating back down his neck. He was breathing again too, quietly and evenly, his body relaxing and sinking back against Steve's legs as the strain of fighting for his life drained away. Peggy let out a relieved huff of air, a smile flitting across her face. "He's going to be okay." A bezoar worked as an antidote for most poisons, so Peggy had been sure it would have at least some effect, but she hadn't known how much. It hadn't cured him completely—the black lines of venom had drawn back away from his neck and stopped their crawl toward his internal organs, but the sickly circle of black flesh remained stubbornly encompassing his shoulder. He'd definitely need medical treatment, but at least now he'd stay alive long enough to get it. "He'll be okay," she said again, her smile growing wider.

"He's okay," Steve breathed, running one hand over Bucky's forehead and brushing his hair, soggy with lake water and sticky with siren blood, out of his face. Steve looked back up at Peggy, his eyes watering gratefully. "Thank you." He looked around the cave, back up the incline where Monty was still tied to the rock, one of his hands working to undo the knots binding Gabe's wrists and ankles from where he had rolled over next to him. "You saved us," he said. "What…" He looked around the cave again. "What even happened?"

Even though they were out of the wet sand, it was still cold and they were soaked. Peggy picked up her wand and dried them off—Bucky first, then Steve, then herself—until steam was rising from their clothes and she could feel her feet again. She talked to Steve as she did so, going from Bucky calling her in to what had happened out in the water. He was shaking his head slowly when she finished, staring at her in awe. "Wow," he said. "That was just…You're awesome, you know that?"

"So I've been told," she replied with a smile.

He laughed, then groaned, putting a hand to his side. "Ow. Okay, that's broken."

"That's what you get for running off after other girls," she told him with a mischievous smirk.

He chuckled, still holding onto his side carefully. "I was enchanted," he protested, before giving her one of those smiles that made her stomach do a little flip. "That's the only way I'd run after anyone but you." He shifted a little, keeping one hand on his side, but reaching up with the other to cup her cheek. "Thank you," he said again, leaning over slowly in deference to his broken ribs and kissing her warmly.

"Ugh, get a room," Bucky groaned from below them.

Peggy laughed and Steve jumped, hissing in pain and grabbing at his side but beaming down at his friend. "Bucky!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah," Bucky groaned again, raising his right hand to rub his eyes. He remained on the ground, but looked around the cave as best he could, then smiled up at Peggy. "Knew you'd do it. 'Atta girl."

Peggy smiled. "How are you feeling?"

"Awful," he replied simply. He looked like he was trying to move to sit up, then stopped. "Why can't I move my arm?"

"The siren bit you," Steve said. "There's some kind of poison that…" He swallowed. "Peggy stopped it, and Nurse Rains can fix it up the rest of the way, but…"

"It's venom, actually," Monty said from behind Peggy. He and Gabe had finally gotten themselves free and come down to join them. "Venom is injected, poison is ingested."

"Oh, my gosh, dude, he nearly got eaten by a siren, you think he really cares about semantics right now?" Gabe asked.

"Could not care less," Bucky confirmed.

"Sorry. Habit," Monty replied, looking a little embarrassed. "You alright?"

"I'll live," Bucky groaned. "I think." He extended his good hand to Steve. "Help me up?"

Steve carefully helped Bucky to his feet, keeping an arm around him when he started shaking once he was upright. Gabe extended a hand to pull Peggy to her feet. "I didn't see all of it, but did you seriously take all three of those things out?" he asked.

She smiled, a little embarrassed, but pleased with herself. "I did."

"Whoa," Gabe replied, clearly impressed.

Bucky sneezed then and cried out in pain, doubling over in Steve's grip. "Ow! Ow. Ow." He straightened back up very slowly. "When did I break a rib?"

"Right before you stunned Steve," Peggy told him. "He punched you. I'm surprised it's just the one, as loud as it was."

Steve's eyes went wide. "I broke his rib?"

"And his nose," Monty put in.

"Yeah, you did that too," Bucky agreed.

"Oh, my gosh, Buck, I'm so sorry!" he began.

"Considering how hard we were all whaling on each other," Gabe said, shooting a pointed look at Monty. "Let's not get into all that. Sirens suck, bygones are bygones, let's get the hell out of here."

"Sounds like a plan," Bucky agreed. Monty and Gabe nodded, then trudged up the hill to pick up wands and discarded gear. Peggy collected the scattered contents of the medical bag while Steve adjusted his grip on Bucky and started to move. "Seriously, Stevie, don't do that," Peggy heard him say quietly. She shot a glance up to see him fixing Steve with what she'd always called his worried older brother look. "All bets are off when you're enchanted, man. I'm not holding it against you."

"I hurt you, Bucky," he insisted. "I hurt all of you. I—"

"Yeah, you hurt all of us, and we all hurt you," Bucky interrupted. "You gotta get mad at us too if you're gonna be like that."

"Bucky…"

"That's how it works, Steve. If you're gonna play that game, you gotta play by the rules." Steve didn't reply and Bucky sighed. "You want me to punch you?" he asked sarcastically. "Will that make it even?"

"No, I don't want you to punch me, I—"

"Good. I don't wanna punch you anyway." He smiled warmly at him, the way Peggy had seen him smile at Rebecca when she was having a bad day. "It's okay, Stevie. Really."

"Okay," Steve said softly. He smiled. "I'm glad you're okay."

"Thank Peggy for that," Bucky said, a little more loudly. "Which, by the way," he added, nodding to where she was repacking the bag. "You should be a gentleman and help her with her stuff."

"I've got it," Peggy replied, pulling the zipper on the bag and getting back to her feet. "And I think the rules of chivalry can be bent a bit when the cost would be one's teammate face-planting into the gravel," she added.

Steve smiled at that and Bucky laughed. "Point. So, can we go now?"

It was a very, very long walk back to the mouth of the cave. Everyone was moving slowly and carefully, groaning when they moved wrong or stumbled on loose rocks. Steve and Bucky slowed down as they passed the second to last cavern from the front, and Peggy hung back to check on them. Bucky's color was draining away, and small tremors were traveling the length of his body—everywhere except his left arm, which remained motionless. "Is everything alright?" she asked.

Steve shook his head, and Bucky smiled weakly. "I don't feel so good," he said.

"I think the poison's starting to move again," Steve said, nodding at Bucky's shoulder. There were no signs of movement in the sickly-looking bluish-black under his skin, but the circle of darkened flesh did seem larger than before.

"S'venom," Bucky corrected him.

Steve gave a half-hearted chuckle at that, which Peggy knew was what Bucky had been trying for. She nodded at Steve. "The bezoar was just a holding measure," she reminded him. She raised a hand and rested it on his arm. "It'll hold him until Hogwarts," she assured him. She looked at Bucky. "You're going to be okay," she told him. "We just need to get you to the front so we can apparate you home."

Bucky nodded. "I know." His breath hitched and he grimaced. "You should probably not stand there in case I throw up on you."

"Do you want something for the pain?" she asked, not moving aside. If he did throw up, well, it would hardly be the most disgusting thing she'd've gotten on her today. She pulled Jim's bag around in front of her. "Apparating is not going to be pleasant in the state you're in."

Bucky considered, and she knew his initial reaction was to refuse, but he swallowed hard and nodded minutely. "Might not be a bad idea," he conceded. He looked up at Steve. "Don't wanna throw up on you either."

Steve smiled. "I appreciate that." He lowered Bucky to sit down on a boulder while Peggy knelt and rummaged through the bag. She hadn't put anything back where it was supposed to go, but she remembered seeing what she was looking for when she'd been repacking. Hesitating a moment, her hand hovered over a vial of something bright green before she plucked out a vial of cool blue liquid instead and handed it to Steve, who uncorked it.

"It'll take a minute to kick in," she said, taking back the empty vial after Bucky drank it down.

He nodded. "Thanks." He smiled at her. "And thanks for saving our skins. I didn't tell you that yet, did I?"

"You're welcome," she replied, patting him on the knee. He smiled wider, then his eyes slid out of focus and fluttered shut, his head lolling back onto Steve's shoulder. "I gave him a sedative," she told Steve, before he could worry. She winced apologetically. "I thought it would make the trip easier on him."

Steve nodded. "Probably a good idea." He got back to his feet with a groan, lifting Bucky up into his arms to carry him. Peggy tucked his injured arm up so it wasn't dangling free, and they started walking again. (It wasn't until they were back in the infirmary later that Peggy remembered Steve's broken ribs. It must have hurt something awful, carrying Bucky that last bit, but of course, he wouldn't have said anything. Still, she should have remembered.)

They arrived at the mouth of the cave just after Jim, Jacques and Dugan had returned from dropping off cargo. Monty and Gabe were in the middle of explaining. "I'll explain," Peggy said, moving forward to lay a hand on Gabe's arm. "You four get on home and get to the infirmary."

"You need to get out of here too," Steve cut in.

"I haven't finished with the boxes yet," she pointed out. "I wasn't hurt."

"You're going to get checked out at the infirmary with the rest of us, and then you're going to change into something warm and not covered in siren guts," Steve said in his 'Captain voice' that brooked no argument. "I'm scrubbing the mission—we're all getting out of here. Phillips can send somebody back for this stuff, and then he can send someone in later to figure out how to cross the lake and find the Cask of Elders." He paused thoughtfully. "Preferably an all-female team."

Peggy could've stayed and finished her job, but after all that had happened, she was more than happy to go home and have a bath and go to bed. They made their way back out onto the beach and into the freezing wind, apparating back to what felt, at this point, like the tropical weather of Scotland in November. Bucky was given an antidote straight away and cleaned up and given a bed, and Peggy did wonder why exactly Nurse Rains had siren anti-venom so ready at hand. The black color had vanished entirely from his shoulder by the time the rest of them were checked over and treated, though the bite wound itself would take longer to heal. Steve, Gabe and Monty were ordered to bed so they could be monitored for the rest of the day before being released, and it was a sign of how worn down they were that there was very little complaining.

Peggy was given a clean bill of health, so she went back to her dorm to have a nice hot bath and get changed, explaining to the other three what they had missed as they walked. She went back to the infirmary afterwards, feeling much better, and found Rebecca sitting in a chair next to Bucky while he slept, stroking his hand. Steve was watching them from his bed with a sleepy smile.

"Told you he'd be alright," she said, sitting down on the mattress next to Steve and leaning back against the wall.

Steve turned to look up at her. "Yeah. Thanks for taking care of us."

She leaned down and kissed his forehead. "You're welcome," she said again. "Get some rest."

"Yes, Ma'am," he replied with a smile, and he nuzzled his head against her hip as he closed his eyes. She smiled and carded her fingers back through his hair, stroking his head and not thinking about how close she'd come to losing some of the most important people in her life today.

"Peggy?"

She looked up and saw Rebecca standing next to her with a shy smile. "Hello, Rebecca."

"Hi. Jim told me about what happened today. Did you really save Steve and Jay from getting eaten by sirens?" she asked, sounding a little bit awed. Peggy nodded, and Rebecca smiled and flung her arms around her in a hug, surprising her. "Thanks," she whispered huskily in her ear.

Peggy smiled and pulled an arm up to hug her back. "You're welcome," she said warmly, one sister to another.

What these boys would do without Peggy, I don't know. Hope you have a good weekend! I'd love to hear what you're thinking in the meantime.

Oh, and 'Tacet' is a musical term that means 'do not sing'.