Alright, the team is getting back to work. Time for some black market intrigue on the streets of Paris. Also, Peggy tries a bit of match-making.
The first few weeks back at school passed fairly normally for a January term. Classes continued to increase in difficulty, and Peggy, like she knew several of her classmates were, was starting to think about what she wanted to do after school. While it was true they had over a year to go, once people started talking about it, it was hard to keep your mind off of it.
"I think you should carry on with this S.S.R. business," Kelly told her one night.
"You do?" Peggy had been thinking the same, but she wouldn't have thought Kelly would encourage her to pursue it. Especially when, hopefully someday soon, the war was over.
Kelly looked away from setting the curlers in her hair and her reflection gave Peggy a pointed look in the mirror. "Of course. The way you rave about it, I wouldn't have thought you'd want to do anything else."
"The way she complains about it is more like," Martha said from her side of the room.
"I don't complain about it," Peggy protested.
Her roommates all looked at each other with knowing glances. "Of course, you do," Martha told her. She set down the skirt she was mending. "It's quite fun trying to figure out who or what it is you're moaning about when you're being all classified about it. But that's why we know you've got to go on with it after school. You wouldn't complain so much if you didn't care."
Peggy supposed she had a point.
"I think it's brilliant," Rose told her, coming out of the bathroom. Rose had been one of the few girls aside from Peggy who'd wanted to sign up for service. She'd been denied, like all the other girls had, and, given that her physical stature was not unlike that of a pre-serum Steve, the S.S.R. had been reluctant to take her, even in one of the clerical roles they'd been offering. She begged for as many unclassified details as she could get from Peggy and lived vicariously through her missions. "So many people would be happy to just be there, but you got in and you're trying to make it so the rest of us are allowed too. Just like you did with Quidditch," she said with a grateful smile. Unlike pre-serum Steve, Rose was a fair flyer and had been one of the Gryffindor Chasers.
"Well, I…" Peggy started, feeling her face going hot.
"Ooh, you've embarrassed her, Rose!" Louise teased.
"See, this is why you and Steve are so perfect for each other," Kelly said, spinning around in her chair to face her with a grin. "You've both got this champion of the underdog thing going on."
"And whenever anyone tries to compliment either of you on it, you both turn as red as Rose's hair!" Martha declared with a giggle.
Peggy threw a pillow at Martha and caught her square in the face, which only made her laugh harder.
"Oh, let her be," Louise said, chuckling. "She's not near as fun to tease about Steve since they're actually together now. Although, speaking of Steve and his boys, perhaps you two would know," she continued, catching both Peggy and Kelly's eyes. "Is it true that Bucky and Vicki split again?"
"Did they?" Peggy asked.
"Gabe said something about that a couple of days ago," Kelly said. "I think they did. It wasn't a fight or anything, Vicki just didn't have time for a relationship with her studies, so they parted ways."
"Why do you ask?" Peggy wondered, one corner of her mouth curving up in a smile. Louise was one of the few girls at Hogwarts who had always seemed impervious to Bucky's charms. (Even Peggy couldn't say she was totally immune.) "Do you fancy him?"
Louise rolled her eyes. "Not me. So not my type. But rumor has it someone does…" she said, rolling her head with a smirk in Rose's direction.
"Really?" Peggy asked with a smile as all other heads in the rooms turned to Rose.
Rose, though the shade of red of her face very nearly matched her hair, was smiling shyly. "Yeah, maybe. I mean, he is gorgeous, isn't he?" This was met with nods of agreement from the rest of the room. "And he's really sweet. Last week in Herbology when I dropped that tray of pot plants, he stayed after and helped me tidy up, and he was so nice."
"I could talk to him for you, if you like," Peggy offered.
Rose looked simultaneously thrilled and appalled at the offer. "Oh, well, I…"
"Oh, give me some credit," Peggy chuckled. "It's not like I'm going to walk up and say, 'Rose told me she fancies you.' I'd just feel him out a little."
"She is a secret agent, you know," Martha pointed out. "The very essence of discreet."
"Well, I…maybe," Rose said. "I mean, only if you want to."
"I would be happy to," Peggy told her. "Now," she continued, in an effort to draw attention off Rose. "Weren't we talking about jobs when all this started?"
They went back to their original discussion, which had not made it much farther than the general consensus that Peggy should remain in the S.S.R. Martha wanted to do something with animals, and Kelly had been learning a lot about radio equipment from Gabe and thought she might like to take some non-magical college courses in electronics. Rose wanted to go into Herbology, and Louise's ideas for the future seemed to change on the half hour. She was contemplating the after-school coursework involved in wandmaking when she looked down at her watch, snapped out a curse and ran out of the room, because she was the prefect and she should have turned off lights for the First-Years half an hour ago.
The next morning, Peggy met with Steve and Bucky, Donovan and Colin, and Ethan and Michael to get their reports on the factory they'd gone to destroy last night. Professor Phillips was not present—he trusted her to get the necessary information and pass it along to him. She was proud of her boys—when they'd first started these joint missions, she'd agonized over the inclusion of the 89th because of their history with Ethan, but after their initial grumbling, they'd set that aside and worked together really well. They even had good things to say about how he led his team. They were sometimes said begrudgingly—especially if Bucky was saying them—but they were said. Peggy was somewhat amused, though not surprised, that, though it was Steve who had borne the brunt of Ethan's bullying in their earlier years, it was Bucky who held the deepest resentment. It was, in its own way, rather sweet.
"Are you finally warming up to him?" Peggy asked as the meeting broke up.
"What?" Bucky replied.
"Ethan," she answered. "You can't tell me you weren't laughing at that joke he made just now. I saw you."
Bucky let out a longsuffering sigh. "I don't know, warming up is an awfully strong word. He's not…He's not the devil. How's that?"
"About as good as I could ask for," Peggy said with a smile. She slipped her hand into Steve's and pulled him away from the papers he was straightening. "Lunch?"
They went to the Great Hall and Peggy headed for the Gryffindor table, picking a seat across from Rose. Prior to their meeting, she'd asked Bucky about Vicki and gathered that while he wasn't in any rush to start a new relationship, he wasn't opposed to it either. Since Steve sat next to her, Bucky sat next to Rose, greeting her with a smile. Peggy tugged Steve away for a walk after they finished, knowing that Bucky, ever the gentleman, would not get up and leave Rose to finish eating alone. Her work was done. Whether anything happened from here was up to Rose.
"What's the rush?" Steve asked her.
"No rush," she replied. "I just fancied a walk. It's nice out."
Steve looked down at her, arching a curious eyebrow. "Peggy, it's freezing."
"I know," she said, tugging his arm over her shoulder and snuggling against his side. "And you're so nice and warm."
He smiled and pulled her in a little more comfortably. "I guess it's not that bad out here."
Later that afternoon, she was organizing her folders before a new mission briefing while the team gathered around the table. "Alright, boys," she said. "I know you just got back, but we've got another mission."
"We?" Bucky asked. "Are you coming?"
"I am."
"Yes!" Jim exclaimed, raising both hands straight up over his head. He turned and high-fived Gabe.
"You know, you could have a decent meal without me along if you'd bother to pack your own spices," Peggy pointed out.
"What? No, that's not why we're excited," Gabe protested. "Not totally, anyway."
"What's the mission?" Steve asked.
"There's some black market chatter that's got us nervous," she told them, passing out the contents of her folder. "Some stuff on the non-magical market that sounds a lot like Hydra's blend of magic and technology."
"You're serious?" Dugan asked, running his eyes down Peggy's report. "How did something like that get out?"
"They keep such a tight hold on their stuff," Monty said. "Not to mention, don't they think the Nazis are beneath them?"
"Usually, yes," Peggy agreed. "So, if they are sharing, it can't be for any good reason. And if it's stolen, the fact that Nazis can steal from Hydra is hardly good news either."
"You said it sounds like Hydra's stuff," Bucky said. "Do we know for sure?"
"It's not been confirmed," Peggy replied. "That's what we're going to investigate. If it's not Hydra, well, we can raise a bit of hell for the Nazis on our way out."
"Yes!" Dugan crowed, exchanging gleeful high-fives with Jacques.
"And if it is Hydra, we figure out where they're getting it from and follow it from there," she finished.
"Where are we going?" Steve asked.
"Paris," Peggy replied. Steve groaned. "What?"
"I hate France," Steve sighed.
Jacques sputtered, offended, and Steve hurried on to explain. "No, no, it—every time we have a mission in France, things go really, really badly."
Jacques opened his mouth to protest, then reconsidered and nodded with a little grunt of agreement.
"Well, we'll just have to be careful," Peggy said. Steve had a point, but what were they going to do? Not go?
"Yeah, we say that every time," Steve said, but he gestured for the report she was holding and started reading over it.
The morning of the mission dawned cold and clear. They wanted to get an early start, as it was going to take them the better part of the day to get to Paris. Grindelwald's hold on France seemed to fluctuate, but the Nazis' did not—and with such a strong Nazi presence in Paris, the city had a heavy Grindelwald-loyal contingent as well. Without proper authorization from the ruling Grindelwald party, magical transportation into the city was out, which left trekking through the countryside and hoping they didn't run into any Nazis. Peggy had provided them all with forged papers, just in case. Well, everyone except for Jim and Gabe—they would be spending the journey under invisibility cloaks to avoid unwanted attention. The rest of them were coming in posing as students, farm hands coming in to market or merchants' apprentices. (Since they were going incognito, they wouldn't be wearing their uniforms, and Steve would have to leave his shield behind, since there was nowhere to hide it.)
They were also all going to be entering Paris in separate groups to draw less attention. Bucky and Jacques would be coming in from one direction with Jim and Gabe, most likely in a farmer's truck or wagon. Dugan and Monty had the shortest distance to cover and would be walking in from the East, while Steve and Peggy came in from the North side. Steve had warmed up to the mission a little when Bucky had pointed out this would be a perfect opportunity for him to get to use his motorcycle, which is how Peggy found herself zooming through the French countryside on the back of an ungodly loud machine with her arms wrapped around Steve's chest.
"Not exactly built for stealth, is it?" Peggy shouted. Steve grinned and revved the engine before moving out to pull around a vegetable truck. Peggy shook her head. What her mother would think if she could see her now. Riding something as unseemly as a motorcycle—in trousers, no less!—out in public with her arms wrapped around a young hooligan from the Lower Class. It would be quite the scandal back home. Peggy grinned and rested her head on Steve's shoulder so she could see the road better. It was perfectly exhilarating was what it was. When they got back, Steve would be teaching her how to ride this thing.
The morning portion of the ride was uneventful. They stopped for lunch at a little roadside café, and if not for the fact that they were headed into the heart of Nazi-occupied France to track down magical deadly weapons, it would have felt almost like a date. Peggy thought it was funny that this was the closest to a real date they'd ever actually been on, and Steve agreed and promised to take her somewhere nice once the war was over.
"I might be able to pull off Hogsmeade before that," he told her with a smile. "But anything fancy is going to have to wait."
"What do you mean, wait?" she replied. "You're taking me to Paris. How much more posh can it get?"
Steve laughed. "Oh, sure. The Eiffel Tower, lights on the Seine, Nazis and black market arms dealers…It's all very romantic."
They checked in with the rest of the team, and once everyone had confirmed things were alright, they got back on the road. Traffic was slower as they got closer to the city, and they came to a halt half a mile out at a Nazi checkpoint.
"Here we go," Steve said quietly, taking a deep breath. "You got those papers?"
"Ici," she said, pulling them from her shoulder bag. "Nous sommes Français maintenant, tu te souviens?"
"Yeah, I know," he replied, reaching back to take them from her. The soldier checking papers approached and demanded them, and Steve handed them over with a smile. They were just two students, coming into the city for a lecture. The soldier questioned them as he rifled through the papers, and Steve answered politely. Peggy just sat there and smiled and tried to look innocent. Her French was better than Steve's, but his was more than passable after five and a half years with Jacques, and, given the Nazis' view of women, they'd thought it would be wiser for him to do all the talking.
They were waved through, and Steve handed the papers back to Peggy and she tucked them back in the bag. "We're going to a lecture on Dutch genre paintings and Johannes Vermeer?" she asked curiously.
Steve shrugged. "He wanted to know what lecture we were going to, so I picked something he wouldn't worry was political and that I would actually know about if he decided to keep asking questions. And the Nazis like Vermeer, so I figure he's safe."
"I didn't know that," Peggy said, impressed.
"You know, if we actually were here on a date, I'd take you to see some of his stuff. He uses light like it's just another color on his palette, and that's a lot harder to do than it sounds. And his attention to detail is amazing. There's some really gorgeous stuff."
"I'd like that," she told him, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek. "Maybe if there's time after we interrogate some Nazis."
They arrived in town right on schedule and met up with Dugan and Monty, who were lounging against a wall looking disreputable. "I thought we were not supposed to be looking suspicious," Peggy said.
"Turns out Dugan's not very good at looking innocent," Monty said.
"We figure if you can't look innocent, look scary, and people will still leave you alone," Dugan added.
"Mm-hmm," Steve replied. "Tell me you at least found the entrance?"
"Over there," Monty said, nodding at the sewer grate. "Bucky and the others have already gone in. We're spacing it out."
"Good thinking."
One by one, they lifted the grate and slipped into the hole when there were breaks in pedestrian traffic. Bucky was waiting at the bottom when Peggy hit the floor, though there was no sign of the other three. "Hey, Peggy," he greeted, extending a hand to help her off the ladder. "How was the motorcycle?"
"Quite a ride," she replied with a smile. "You four have a good trip?"
Bucky shrugged. "Back of a milk truck's not super-exciting, but it got us here without any Nazi trouble. It's a fair walk down to the market, so the other three went ahead. We didn't think all eight of us should walk in at once."
"Good thinking," Steve said, joining them. "Let's us three go on, and Dugan and Monty can bring up our six."
Bucky hadn't been kidding when he'd said it was a good walk down—they must have gone on for at least half a mile, walking carefully on the ledges above the sewage water. Thankfully, one did get used to the smell after a while. The ledge ended in a wall and another ladder, and they emerged above ground in a dark and dingy alley that had been magically enlarged to the size of a Quidditch pitch. Though the ends of the alley appeared to open back up into the city—and did indeed lead to safer streets if you were leaving—they knew that magical barriers prevented anyone from entering the market any way other than the sewer.
The market itself, though magically hidden, still sold non-magical goods that were harder to come by because of the war, in addition to magical goods of…questionable legality. The shops were all enclosed booths and stalls, with nothing displayed out in the open. Large, visibly armed guards patrolled the spaces between the stalls, occasionally stopping to grab someone who looked out of place and question them.
"Alright," Peggy said. "Let's start shopping."
Since they had an idea of what they were looking for, but not where to find it, the best course of action seemed to be to just browse the shops and see what there was to be found. This wasn't the sort of place one wanted to wait around in too long, so they'd decided to split up, keeping within visual range of at least one other team member at all times. The shops selling magical wares had subtle little star designs etched above the doorframes, so that helped narrow things down a little.
A man with a graying beard stood behind the table in the first shop Peggy entered. She met his icy stare with one of her own. "Can I help you, Miss?" he asked in French, drawing out the designation derisively.
"What have you got in the way of portable curses?" she asked, also in French, deciding letting him know that she meant business was best. "I need something more effective than Bronchiaia but less lethal than Asphyxia and it needs to be more portable than what's coming out of Bavaria these days," she said shortly.
He arched an eyebrow, looking somewhat less skeptical. "Of course, Miss," he said, still studying her intently. "I've some lovely cursed necklaces here with the Pneumata curse inside. Very portable, and safe to wear until the activation word is said."
Peggy snorted. "If all you've got to offer is jewelry, I'm clearly wasting my time here. Gemstones are the least effective way of storing curses short of poisoned fruit. You expect me to buy something worthless just because it's pretty?"
"Alright, then," he said, and she allowed herself a small smirk at having passed his test. "Perhaps you'd be more interested in these…" He showed her some of his more dangerous wares, and before too long she was able to get a clear picture of what he sold, and blended magic and science was not it.
She changed her approach in the next shop, where an elderly woman sat behind a table of silver instruments. "Can I help you, dear?" the old woman asked.
"I do hope so," Peggy said, leaning her elbows on the table with a sigh. "My, some of these look dangerous, don't they?" she commented, looking over the silver tools. "Have you got anything for self-defense that's easily concealed?"
The woman smiled. "Depends where you're concealing it, love."
Peggy smiled back. "Somewhere easy to reach in close quarters."
The woman gave her a knowing nod. "Troublesome young man?"
Peggy sighed dramatically. "Only a whole city full of them! Nazi soldiers tramping about like it's their right to grab me anywhere they please!" She ran little risk of getting in trouble for anti-Nazi rhetoric here—if the vendors here fell in line with Nazi law, they'd be in a legitimate market. "And filthy Muggles, the lot of them," she added with a disgusted shudder, catching sight of the tiny Grindelwald emblem pinned to the woman's shawl. "I'm sick to the teeth of it!"
"Oh, right you are, my dear," the woman said sympathetically. "Disgraceful is what it is. Why, my own granddaughter…" She broke off here into a rather lengthy rant about Nazis and men and Muggles, and Peggy nodded in all the right places until she was done.
"Exactly," Peggy agreed. "So, you understand my problem?"
"Of course, dear. Now, for easy concealment, I've got some very lovely blades," she said, pulling out a tray of what were actually very nice knives.
"Well," Peggy hemmed. "Knives I have. What I want is something with a bit more…" She rotated her hand as if searching for a word. "I've really had it with all of this, and I want something that will do some damage. Magical damage. Make them think twice about where they put their hands."
The old woman pulled out a few more trays and showed Peggy more of what she had, and helpfully named some other places in the market she might check as well. Before she left, Peggy was tempted to buy an intricate-looking hairclip the woman was offering with several small blades concealed in the way it folded, but she didn't like the idea of giving money to anyone who supported Grindelwald. Howard could probably work her up something like it when she got back.
She tried a few more shops, having to size up the owner and affect the appropriate demeanor each time. She supposed a 'little girl' (like the last shop owner called her) like herself did seem somewhat out of place here, but it was an awful lot of work convincing them otherwise. In some shops, it was enough that she show them she knew what she was talking about; in others, it took a bit more. She wondered if the boys were having this much trouble. She snorted. She bet none of them had to flirt with slimy dark wizards who used the cramped space of their shops to 'accidentally' brush up against her several times. She shuddered. She wanted a shower.
It was coming up on the end of her second hour there when Peggy finally got something. The shop owner in question was being rather cagey, but he seemed to suggest that he had some guns capable of firing more than just bullets. Peggy tried everything short of beating a straight answer out of him, but he hemmed and hawed and still seemed reluctant to show her his merchandise. She smiled at him sweetly, then turned and left muttering curses under her breath and went to find Steve.
"I think I've got something," she told him, slipping up beside him as he exited another shop. "But he's being a bit difficult. Come use your masculine manliness to get him to talk to me."
He laughed and blushed a little and followed her back to the shop. They picked up Dugan on the way—the boy did know his curses, and if the shop owner wasn't going to cooperate with Peggy, maybe the two giant men she brought back with her would convince him.
Once Steve and Dugan were able to prove they knew what they were after, the merchant was much more forthcoming with his wares. He sort-of-not-really apologized for not showing them to Peggy with some comment about wanting to make sure of things and you know what women are like anyway. Peggy would have understood if Steve had laughed it off and agreed in an attempt to play along, but he just sort of glared at him instead, and she felt something warm expand in her chest and squeezed his hand and watched the merchant try to find his feet again.
Once he got around to showing them what he had, Peggy knew she'd been right. This was exactly what they were looking for. There were no guns that shot the blue lightning leeched from the Tesseract, but there were plenty that caused magical damage. Some shot fire, some shot curses or sprayed potions. Others had bullets that reacted magically once inside the body to maximize damage—burning, or splintering into sharp pieces, or releasing acid that liquified everything it touched. The list went on.
"This is our guy," Dugan said softly as they left the shop.
"I don't think he's Hydra, though," Steve said. "He didn't have any of those Tesseract-energy guns, for one thing, and he just didn't talk like a Hydra agent."
Dugan sighed. "That means we don't get to blow his shop up, do we? We're gonna have to follow him, aren't we?" he huffed.
Steve and Peggy chuckled at how disappointed he sounded. "We couldn't blow the shop up anyway," Peggy pointed out. "Not in a crowded place like this. But we can follow him and see where he gets his stuff and who else he works with."
"Even if he's not Hydra, he needs to be stopped," Steve said. He clapped Dugan on the shoulder. "We'll still get you a fight before the day's out."
The day was almost over, so, rather than risk a confrontation in a crowded hostile market, they decided to set Jacques to tail him. Gabe had taken his invisibility cloak off to explore the market, but he put it back on now to stay behind and back Jacques up. The rest of them moved out through the magical barriers into the streets so that they wouldn't look suspicious hanging around the market for too long.
It wasn't too much later that Gabe announced they were on the move, and they made their way through the streets of Paris, avoiding crowds and trying to act natural. Which Peggy found hard to do with Jim humming Bing Crosby's 'Only Forever' behind her and Steve as they walked.
"Jim, if I could see you right now, I would thump you," Steve growled.
"Why do you think I'm staying under the invisibility cloak?" came Jim's voice from somewhere to their left.
Once they got out of the crowded part of town (Peggy was surprised to see just how much normal life seemed to carry on despite the Nazi occupation), Jim did stop humming. Everyone got much more serious as they made their way through quieter streets into dingier areas of town. Gabe appeared from out of the darkness to lead them the last few streets into the neighborhood.
"Jacques is watching the house," he told them quietly. "Our guy went in fifteen minutes ago. So far, he seems to be alone. The setup looks a little janky to be Hydra, but we picked up a couple of alarm spells on the house."
"Let's see what we've got, huh?" Jim said, pulling his cloak off and moving forward with Dugan to check out the alarm spells.
"So, what's the plan, Captain?" Monty asked.
Steve pondered the house. "We need to know what this guy knows—who he is and how he got all this stuff. Once we get around the alarms, half of us will go in the front and half in the back, we'll get him and we'll question him. Peggy, you can do the questioning. Jacques and Monty, you two watch the entrances, and Bucky and Gabe—take a look around and see what else he's got tucked away."
The alarm spells were a little more sophisticated than they'd been expecting, but they were eventually able to get through them without setting anything off. Peggy went in through the front along with Bucky, Steve and Gabe. The house was dark on the lower floors, dusty, and had the air of a place that had not been lived in for a while. The furniture was minimal and there was no sign of any sort of personal touch—no photographs, or shoes by the door, or half-finished cups of coffee on an end table. Either their merchant friend had just moved in, or this was some sort of waystation and not his residence—and if that was the case, haste might be prudent. Who knew who else might stop in?
The man was very surprised to see them, but quick enough on his feet that he was able to put up a bit of a fight. There were eight of them, however, and only one of him, so it was over soon enough. As Monty and Jacques tied him up, Jim was examining a burned-looking spot on the wall where Peggy had ducked out of the way of a curse the man had fired.
"Good thing your reflexes are on point," Jim told her, letting out a low whistle. The spot on the wall was still glowing a little bit. "Dude, that is…" He shook his head, shooting a look of disgust at the guy tied to the chair. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
The man glared back. "You attack me and expect me not to defend myself?" he asked in an unexpectedly American accent.
"What is it?" Steve asked.
"I haven't seen it before, but it makes that melty potion you used at Mueller's place look like a spa treatment," Jim replied.
Steve looked like there were several things he wanted to say to that, but Peggy put a hand on his arm. "He missed. I'm fine," she said softly. "We're about to start interrogating him; don't let him push your buttons and start off with the advantage."
Steve drew in a deep breath and nodded. "Right." He turned back to the rest of the team. "Alright, we've got work to do." They nodded and Jacques and Monty took off for guard duty, and Gabe and Bucky left to search the house. Dugan went to help Monty and Jacques, but Jim stayed behind. Steve looked at Peggy and gestured graciously at the man in the chair. "He's all yours."
"You break into my house, tie me up, and hand me over to a little girl to interrogate? Who the hell even are you people?" the man asked.
"Peggy Carter, S.S.R.," Peggy told him. She nodded at Steve. "That's Captain America. Howling Commando," she added, with another nod at Jim. Jim waved cheerfully.
She was pleased to note a look of apprehension appear on the man's face. "Whoa," he said. "Just a minute. S.S.R.?"
"Mm-hmm."
"And…" His eyes flicked to Steve and then back to Peggy. "Wow, they actually sent Captain America after me. Guess I'm a bigger deal than I thought."
"Don't flatter yourself," Peggy said. "Let's start with the basics, shall we? What's your name?"
"You letting your secretary play with the big boys?" he asked Steve. "That's cute."
"Listen, she shot the last guy who didn't want to answer her questions, so I'd play nice if I was you," Steve replied.
"I'm afraid I didn't bring a gun with me, though," Peggy said with an exaggerated sigh. "Lucky you've got such a nice selection of creative weaponry. Jim, would you be a dear and fetch me one?"
"Happily," Jim replied, taking a step towards the door.
"Whoa, whoa, okay," the guy said. "Just…fine. Coleman, alright? Eric Coleman."
"And what brings you to France, Mr. Coleman?"
"Business."
"Oh, well, that's very informative. Let me rephrase: What is a low-life black market arms dealer like yourself doing in one of the most dangerous cities in Europe with a shop's worth of blended magic and technology that's not available at any legitimate market in the world?"
Coleman smiled. "You recognized it, huh? You're smarter than you look, sweetheart."
"Wish I could say the same about you. Are you going to answer the question?"
Coleman shrugged. "Like you said, sugar, most dangerous city in Europe. A man's got some powerful weapons to sell, easiest place to do it."
Peggy considered Coleman. She looked over at the spot on the wall where the curse was still glowing faintly. A curse Jim hadn't seen before. "These weapons of yours," she said, looking back at Coleman. "You made them yourself, didn't you?" The precise blends of magic and tech they'd seen in the shop were different than what Howard put together, and they didn't fall in line with Hydra's style either. If he was clever enough to invent curses, he was clever enough to experiment with magic and tech. If only he had some sort of moral compass that allowed him to discriminate who he sold it to.
Coleman smiled. "You got yourself a smart little cookie there, Captain," he said. "I'd hang on to her."
"You know what?" Steve started, taking a step forward, but Peggy raised a hand. She appreciated his ire on her behalf, but if she hadn't been able to handle a condescending misogynist without getting her feathers ruffled, she wouldn't have made it to sixteen.
"He's not worth it, Steve," she said. "All Eric here is is one of those pathetic sorts of wizards who was never able to amount to anything useful, and so had to resort to quick cons and cheap spells to make a fast Galleon. He's the sort you'd find in any old market selling water mixed with toilet cleaner and calling it wart-removal potion. While he may be clever enough to figure out how to blend a bit of magic and technology, he's, sadly, not clever enough to do anything important with that knowledge. He sells his weapons, along with his principles, to whoever has the money—Allies, Nazis, Aurors, dark wizards…" she shrugged. "He's worth less to the world than the trouble it's going to take to clean up the mess he's made." Okay, so maybe she was a little ruffled.
Coleman wasn't smiling anymore. "Think you're awfully smart, don't you, you little bi—"
Coleman got cut off mid-insult because Steve punched him in the jaw so hard he knocked his chair over. He started shrieking as soon as he hit the floor, somewhat to Steve and Peggy's surprise, until they looked behind them and saw Jim leaning against the doorframe and twirling his wand in his fingers. "Oops," he said, sounding exactly the opposite of concerned. "Wand must have slipped." Peggy smiled. She did love her boys.
"Looks like the interrogation is going well," Bucky said, walking back into the room.
"Very informative," Peggy replied. "What did you find?"
"All kinds of stuff," Bucky answered. "This guy is loaded. Without apparating, I don't know how we're supposed to get it all out of here."
"Well, Dugan did want to blow stuff up," Steve said. "I say we take it all off the market."
Bucky nodded. Peggy knew Phillips would love to have some of what Coleman was selling, but she also knew Steve's distaste of magically enhanced weaponry. She was inclined to agree. There was enough of this out there that Coleman had sold already—it would be better for everyone if his stash was decommissioned.
"We'd better do it quick, though," Bucky said. "Based on some of the stuff we found, Gabe thinks more people will be here before too long."
"You didn't think I was in this all on my lonesome, did you?" Coleman laughed hoarsely from the floor. He coughed and sputtered and shut up as Steve shot a silencing charm at him.
"In case the fist to the jaw wasn't clear enough, shut up," Steve told him. "Did he say how much time we have?" he asked, turning back to Bucky.
Bucky looked like he really wanted to ask what Coleman had done to make Steve so angry, but he shook his head. "He was guessing ten minutes, tops. And no idea how many," he added, preempting Steve's next question.
Steve nodded thoughtfully. "Alright, let's pack it up. We'll get out and keep an eye on the place, see how many people show up. Then we can plan another strike, get back in and take out the inventory."
"We taking this kusogaki with us?" Jim asked, nodding at Coleman.
"Probably should," Steve sighed.
"Got him," Jim said, shooting a coil of rope out of his wand and tying Coleman up, then levitating him towards the door. "Oops," he said when Coleman's head knocked into the doorframe.
"Anything in here you think we need?" Steve asked Peggy.
"Not if we're coming back later," she said. Coleman's belongings would definitely bear looking through—especially if there were designs for the weapons he made—but there wasn't time to sort it all out before the company Gabe was predicting showed up.
Steve nodded. "Let's go, then." He leaned in and lowered his voice as they moved towards the door. "You okay?"
She smiled and twined her fingers through his, giving his hand a squeeze. "Mm-hmm. I've got a thicker skin than that." She nudged his arm. "Though it was very satisfying seeing you knock him over."
Steve huffed a semi-amused laugh. "Only been wanting to do it since he opened his mouth."
They met up with the others downstairs, but their luck ran out as they made for the back door. While they were crossing the living room, the fireplace roared to life with green flames and Coleman's partners came shooting out of it one by one. Like Coleman, they were remarkably quick on their feet—the boys and Peggy didn't have time to do any more than get into a defensible position before they started taking fire.
Peggy counted at least seven of them before she ducked down behind the sofa to miss a spell flying her way. She sent a spell of her own under the couch and into the feet of one of the newcomers, hearing him shriek with pain as it connected.
An explosion sounded behind her, showering her with bits of wood and debris as the wall behind her collapsed. Jacques leapt forward into the fray, howling, and Steve jumped back, ducking down with a shield spell to cover Gabe, who'd been brought down to the floor in the pile of rubble, and Monty, who was frantically pulling him out. Peggy rolled out from behind the couch and started shooting spell after spell, joining Jacques in drawing their fire away from them.
She was distantly aware of Gabe groaning and Monty saying he had him, but the knot of attacking wizards split and Peggy ran after the nearest one. Fighting with wands was bad enough, but somewhere in the house was their store of magical weapons, and it would only get worse if they got to those. Dugan and Bucky clearly had the same idea, running after two more that headed in opposite directions. Jacques remained dueling in the living room. She couldn't see Jim.
She darted into a narrow hallway and came out in the kitchen. The wizard she was chasing waved his wand and the contents of the knife block in the corner came hurtling through the air at her. With a quick motion, she lashed out with her wand and caught the flying wall of cutlery in midair, then spun it and sent it rushing back in the direction it came from. Most of the knives embedded themselves in the far wall, but her opponent hit the floor with a choked gurgling sound as the rest found purchase between his shoulders. He was very still when she passed him, but she stomped down on his wand, snapping it in half as she passed. Just in case.
She came out of the kitchen into another hallway, this one empty, though the sounds of combat echoed on all sides. Before she could decide which way to go, Dugan and Bucky appeared on the landing above, dueling one of the merchants. He pulled a handgun from his belt and fired it, a wave of energy that Peggy could feel downstairs blasting out of it and catching Dugan full in the chest. Dugan flew through the railing and crashed into the floor a few feet in front of Peggy, cracking the floorboards and dropping part of the way through them. Upstairs, Bucky was thrown in the opposite direction, colliding with the wall with an audible thud.
"Expelliarmus!" Peggy yelled, sending the gun flying from the wizard's hand, then rolling to the side to avoid a fireball that burst out of his wand and burned a hole in the wall behind her. He fired another one, and this time he ducked when Peggy's shield spell sent it ricocheting back at him.
Bucky, meanwhile, had found his feet, and sent a spell at the wizard while he was ducking that sent him flying through the hole Dugan had made in the bannister. He hit the ground and Dugan, still laying in his hole in the floor, twitched his wand and brought a bookshelf down on top of him. He shot a pained grin at Peggy. "Teamwork," he croaked.
Peggy smiled, but didn't have time for more than that, because Jim and Steve appeared in the doorway coming from the entryway with three more men right behind them. Steve jumped up to avoid a spell being shot at him and flipped around in the air, catching his attacker's head with his feet before he landed.
"Showoff," Dugan rasped, clambering out of the hole in the floor.
Bucky was halfway down the stairs, firing curses at the two remaining wizards who were attacking Steve and Jim, and Peggy spun around at the sound of someone else coming in from the kitchen. Coleman seemed to have gotten loose during the chaos, and a shield spell saved her from that nasty curse he had tried to hit her with upstairs. She ducked and rolled forward, keeping her shield up with her wand and pulling a knife from her boot with her other hand. She slashed at the back of Coleman's legs as she rolled, and she was not above admitting that that was a very satisfying noise he made.
She sprang to her feet and slashed at him with the same spell she'd used on the sirens a couple of months ago. Blood sprayed from his shoulder and he roared, sending a series of curses at her with such ferocity that she had to duck back into the kitchen and behind the counter. She slashed at the air again and again as he came after her, scrabbling back across the tile as gashes ripped open across his chest and face and rolling under the table as he finally collapsed in front of her.
She sprang up, refusing to think about the blood she nearly slipped in as she ran back to where the boys were still fighting. Three more of the black market wizards had joined the fight, and there must have been more than seven of them coming out of that fireplace. There was a gunshot and Bucky cried out, dropping to the ground clutching at his leg and tumbling the rest of the way down the stairs. Peggy was closest and she rushed over, shielding them both as she dropped down next to him. "Bucky?"
He was biting his lip, looking like he was trying very hard not to scream. "Burns. It burns," he hissed, involuntary tears pooling in his eyes. At first Peggy thought he just meant it was burning with the pain of being shot, but she touched his calf gingerly and pulled her hand away with a yelp of surprise—his skin felt like it was on fire. It was one of Coleman's magically enhanced guns.
"Gelida," she said, dropping her shield and waving her wand over his leg. She could feel the burst of cool air coming out of her wand, and the blood on the leg of his trousers started to crystalize, but he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "Sine Sensu," she tried.
Bucky opened his eyes, breathing a little more slowly. "I can't feel my leg," he said.
"I couldn't think of anything else," she replied.
He nodded. "That'll work." He grabbed his wand from where it had fallen next to him. "I can shield myself," he told her. "Go."
"Are you sure you're alright?"
He nodded. "Get back in there."
She nodded and got to her feet. The fight was moving back toward the living room. She followed, noting that only three of the merchant wizards remained in the fight and they did not appear to be getting any more reinforcements. In the living room, Steve, Dugan and Jim were still fighting. Gabe had been moved out of the line of fire, and Jacques was alternatively shielding him and firing curses into the melee. Monty was nowhere to be seen. Dugan was moving slower than usual, as though every bone in his body ached, and Peggy supposed being thrown down a flight of stairs would do that. Jim was fighting alongside him, covering his weak side, and Steve was on his own on the other side of the room, clearly missing his shield but more than holding his own.
Peggy fired a couple of curses at the two who were battling Steve. One of them grunted in pain and doubled over as her spell connected, but Peggy didn't see what happened after that, staggering backward at a loud noise and the sudden accompanying punch of pain in her gut. She clutched her hand to her stomach and looked down, surprised to see blood covering her hand and oozing out between her fingers. What…Oh. She'd been shot.
Her legs shook and buckled of their own accord, and she found herself connecting with the dusty carpet with a painful thump. That actually hurt more than getting shot had, and she…she could get up, she could still—well, she could if her arms would move, anyway, why weren't they moving? Oh, wait, they were moving, just slowly and heavily, like they were made of lead. The more she tried to move them, the harder it got to do. And Jim was next to her now, trying to stop her moving, and he looked like he was saying something, but there was this loud sort of rushing noise in her ears and she couldn't really hear him. This wasn't at all what she had thought getting shot would feel like. She would have thought it would hurt more. Unless…Wait, she was probably going into shock, wasn't she? That was, that was bad. She knew that. But she wasn't sure how to…
"Aa-aa-ah!" she cried as Jim pushed down hard on her stomach, and that was one way to shake the shock, she supposed. Bloody hell, that hurt!
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Jim was saying. "I've got to stop the bleeding. Steve! Put your hands right here…" She felt the pressure increase as another set of hands joined Jim's, then lessen as Jim pulled his hands away. "No, Steve, I know it's hurting her, but you've got to push harder and keep pressure on it." The pressure increased again and a little whimper escaped Peggy's lips. She was vaguely aware of Jim waving his wand over her midsection, muttering to himself about bullets before spitting out several Japanese words that she didn't know but his tone made more than clear.
"What?" Steve demanded.
"It's one of those magic bullets!" Jim spat. "It splintered into, like, eighteen pieces and I can't get 'em all. We need to get her out of here."
"Is it safe to move her?"
"Safer than staying here. She's got shrapnel in her lungs, and one of those splinters tore through her kidney. I can slow the bleeding down, but, even so, she's got fifteen minutes."
Peggy felt Steve's hands on her stomach falter.
Jacques was saying something in French that her brain didn't seem to want to translate, but it was probably good because Steve's hands steadied a little bit. They were all still talking, but it was getting harder to listen. She wondered if Bucky was alright. She hoped she hadn't messed up his leg when she numbed it. And Gabe had looked like he was breathing, and that was good…breathing was good. It was getting a little harder to do, though. It felt sort of wet and thick. That probably wasn't good.
Pain shot through her abdomen again and eyes she hadn't realized she had closed snapped open. She was moving, and it was tugging on the hole in her stomach and that really hurt. Oh, but it was Steve moving her. Steve was picking her up and cradling her against his chest, and that was nice, he was so nice and warm. It was starting to get cold.
"Hey, hey, no, Peggy," Steve said. Something jostled her shoulder. Her eyes blinked open again. "Peggy, I need you to stay awake," he said, looking down at her and trying to smile, but, oh, he looked so scared! "Stay with me, okay?"
"You're bleeding," she said, finally figuring out what the line of bright red above the blue of his eyes was.
He huffed a laugh that sort of sounded like a sob, but nodded. "Yeah. I'm okay, though."
"Did we get them?" she asked.
"We got 'em," he told her.
"Good." That was good. That was…Yeah, that was good.
"No, no, no, Peggy, open your eyes!"
She did. She didn't want to, but she had to do something to make his voice stop sounding like that. "Sorry," she said. "I'm really tired."
"I know." He pulled her more closely against him. "But you hang with me a little bit longer, okay?" He leaned his head down to rest his forehead on hers. "Please?"
"Alright," she said. She couldn't do anything else when he sounded so worried.
"Okay, here we go," he told her. She heard someone shout and felt a rush of magic in the air. Steve pulled her closer to him and stepped forward, and then they were spinning and that hurt more and it was easier to stay awake then. They stepped forward into suddenly cooler air and brighter light and she shut her eyes against the glare. "Help!" Steve shouted, and she could feel him rushing forward. "We need some help!" He said more after that, but it was too fast for her to process, and she didn't think he was talking to her anyway. He still sounded worried, though.
"S'okay," she told him, patting his chest. Her eyes may or may not be open—she wasn't sure—but he'd asked her to stay awake, so she was. " 'm still awake."
He laughed a little shakily and kissed her on the forehead. "That's my girl," he whispered.
"Sir, you need to step away," a new voice said.
"No, but—" she heard Steve protest.
"We can help her, but you need to get out of the way."
She felt herself being laid down on something soft, and there were more hands and new voices and she couldn't stop another little whimper as Steve let go of her. "Ssh, it's okay." A familiar hand grabbed hers and squeezed it. Steve's fingers were sticky with blood, but they were warm and steady. "You're gonna be alright now, Peggy. Everything's gonna be okay."
It seemed like all she did was blink her eyes, but the next thing Peggy knew, she was lying in a bed in an unfamiliar, softly lit room. She felt warm and pleasantly sleepy, and she knew she should probably be in a lot of pain, but she wasn't. She was still trying to figure out where she was when Steve's face leaned into view.
"Peggy?"
She smiled. "Hello, Steve."
Relief spread across his face with a grin like sunshine. "You're awake! How are you feeling?" His thumb started rubbing gentle lines on the back of her hand that she just realized he was holding.
She considered. "Sort of heavy," she decided. She felt like she was sinking down into the mattress.
Steve huffed a soft laugh. "That's the medicine they gave you. Does anything hurt?" he asked, leaning in and resting a gentle hand on her arm.
She shook her head. "No. Is everyone alright?" The weight pressing her into the mattress was starting to tug on her eyelids too, but she needed to know. Steve had a bandage taped to his forehead above his right eye, but looked otherwise alright.
Steve nodded, getting up from his seat to sit on the mattress beside her. "Gabe and Dugan are downstairs and should be fine in another couple of hours. Bucky's over there," he continued, twisting a bit to point to the side. Peggy imagined that if she could sit up, she would see Bucky in the next bed over. "Doc says he'll be walking again tomorrow. Everyone else is fine." He looped an arm over her shoulders and started rubbing his hand up and down her arm. She sighed contentedly and shifted a bit so she could rest her head against his leg. That felt really nice.
"And the mission?" she asked with a yawn.
"Over. Jim and Jacques and Monty destroyed Coleman's stash, and they went through all his stuff before they torched the place." He huffed a quick laugh. "Jacques even got my motorcycle back somehow—through the fireplace and everything." He smiled, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "And they got a nice big pile of intel for you to look through when you're feeling better. So stop worrying, okay?" He rested one large hand on her forehead, and she sighed happily as her eyes closed. "Get some sleep, huh?" He brushed her hair back off of her forehead, and she fell asleep to the gentle motion of his fingers carding through her hair and the soft sound of him humming something slow and sweet.
When she woke up again, she was feeling much more clear-headed. The light in the room suggested it was nearly the end of the day. "Hey, there she is," came a voice that wasn't Steve's from where Steve had been sitting. She turned her head and saw Bucky sitting in a wheelchair next to her bed and smiling at her. "How you feeling?"
"Much better," she said. She pushed herself up carefully to sit against her pillows, noting only a dull ache as her muscles moved instead of a stabbing pain. "What about you?"
"Oh, I'm great," he said, patting his bandaged leg. "Should be up and at 'em the same time you are."
"Where are we?" she asked, looking around. She hadn't thought this was the infirmary at Hogwarts, and now that she was more coherent and could actually look around, she was right.
"St. Mungo's," Bucky replied. At her puzzled look, he continued. "We couldn't apparate out of the house, but Jacques pointed out that we could go out the fireplace same as the other guys came in. I guess it was easier to come through the fireplace in the emergency room here than someone's office at school." He shrugged. "I wasn't in the room for that part."
Peggy nodded. "Steve said something about being here overnight?"
Bucky nodded. "Well, last night and tonight, but, yeah. Dugan and Gabe were cleared to go home this afternoon, but you and me got the magical bullet wounds, so it takes a little longer."
"Have I been asleep all day?"
"I think so. I mean, I was out for most of the morning, so I couldn't tell you," Bucky replied. The smile fell from his face, and he looked at her with a softness she'd only ever seen him use on Steve and Rebecca. "It was kind of close there for a while," he told her quietly. "You scared us, Pegs."
Warmth flooded through her chest and she reached over and grabbed his hand. "I'm sorry. But I'm alright now. I trust my boys to take good care of me."
Bucky smiled warmly and squeezed her hand. "I'm glad you're okay."
"I'm glad you are too. And speaking of my boys," Peggy said with a smile. "Where are the rest of them?"
Bucky smiled. "Dugan and Gabe did stop in before they headed back to school, but Phillips wanted everyone in, so they're all waiting for us back there. Well, except for Steve," he added, hooking his thumb back in the direction of his bed. Peggy leaned forward carefully to look around him and bit back a laugh. Steve was sprawled very ungracefully across the top of Bucky's bed, dead asleep and snoring softly. Bucky grinned. "Apparently, he sat up worrying about you and me all night last night, which should come as a surprise to no one, but the Healer was adamant that he didn't want another one of us to have to fix up, so he had the nurse slip him something when she brought him dinner." Bucky paused and smirked. "I might have helped her a little."
Peggy did laugh then. "He's not going to be happy when he wakes up."
"Oh, no," Bucky agreed. "He's going to be pissed. But he'll only have missed one night of sleep instead of two. So…" He shrugged and smiled. "Speaking of dinner, you hungry? The nurse told me to call her when you woke up so you could eat."
"Starving, actually," Peggy realized. She supposed it had been a full day since she'd eaten anything. Bucky rang for the nurse, and she arrived and shooed Bucky off to the side, pulling the curtain around Peggy's bed so she could examine her and change her bandages before she ate. Peggy held her shirt up out of the way and watched as the nurse peeled off the old bandages and cleaned the wound. The skin around the bullet hole was red, swollen and sensitive to the touch, but all back in one piece, while the hole itself was covered with a knot of pink, tender scar tissue. The nurse thought it might leave a bit of a mark, but she rubbed some dittany and murtlap on it before covering it up again to help the skin heal.
"Should be right as rain tomorrow, love," she declared, evidently pleased with Peggy's progress. "How about some dinner, then?" She brought her a tray of food and a vial of potion for her to drink when she was done.
Peggy sat and talked with Bucky while she ate, looking over at Steve and laughing whenever he let out a particularly loud snore. "He do that often?" she wondered.
"Sometimes," Bucky replied. "It was this loud when he was little, too, so that's one thing the serum didn't change."
She felt herself growing tired again after she took the potion. Bucky took her tray and set it on the table, then made sure she didn't need anything before wheeling himself around to the bed on the other side of hers and maneuvering himself into it. "Little punk took my bed," he said, nodding with a smile at Steve. "Real nice to make the guy with leg wound have to move over."
Peggy laughed. "I suppose that's what you get for drugging him."
"Fair enough," Bucky agreed. He finally seemed to get comfortable and quit shifting around. "G'night, Peggy," he told her with a smile.
"Good night, Bucky."
"Night, Stevie," he called across Peggy's bed. Steve snored and shifted and hummed a little, and Peggy smiled and shut her eyes.
So, France is still not being good to the team, but everyone made it out alright. I mean, more or less. A little more recovery time, and they'll all be okay. Hope you all have a good weekend! I'd love it if you'd drop a note and let me know what you're thinking of the story so far.