cw: some swears, and also an academic discussion of PTSD.
~ With song, we welcomed fallen heroes into what lay beyond. But all is different now. ~
Captain America's eyebrows flew up.
Everyone in the campsite froze.
Alice stared open mouthed at Captain America – Steve – as her mind reeled. The moment she'd said his name she felt instantly foolish because this couldn't be him, not this massive, towering man… but his reaction and the reactions of all the other men confirmed it.
Her ears ringing louder than when the RAF had dropped a bomb on her, Alice reached up and tugged off her cap, releasing her hair across her face and shoulders.
The men at the firepit swore and did double-takes, but Alice had eyes only for the giant in front of her. She realized a second too late that she hadn't even considered not blowing her cover, but she'd already used her undisguised voice and she didn't care because it was Steve.
At the sound of her voice, and with her hair and face suddenly exposed to the light, Steve took a stumbling step back. His face bloomed with shock and his mouth fell open.
"Alice?"
That was his voice, alright.
By the fire, Alice heard Bucky's voice: "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what the fuck."
Alice stared at Steve so hard her eyes burned. "What the hell, what… what happened to you? What are you doing here?"
Falsworth, who'd frozen in the process of sitting down, straightened at hearing her undisguised voice. "She's German." In a flurry the other men (save for Bucky) reached for their weapons, confused.
Steve took a few steps toward Alice until he was within arm's reach. "What am I doing here? What are you doing here? You're the… you're the informant?" His eyes darted, wild and utterly confused.
"You're Captain America?" she shot back. The words sounded so bizarre that she wanted to laugh. Or cry. He wore a dark blue uniform with straps and gun holsters and a white and red band around his middle. Alice reached out with a shaking finger and prodded the star on his chest. He didn't try to stop her, though she distantly heard the clicks of gun safeties being removed. Steve's chest was solid, and utterly broad.
Her eyes tracked up, up, to his helmet with the white A on it. "What happened?" she breathed. Her gaze landed on his face.
Steve looked down at her (for the first time ever), with amazement and shock and a tinge of horror.
The moment hung long and wrought with wild confusion between them.
"So I guess you two know each other," Dugan said wryly, the first of them all to recover.
Alice and Steve both glanced over to see him and the other men with their weapons raised, then looked back at each other. Steve's chest rose and fell like… like it used to after he had a coughing fit in the middle of winter. But she doubted a cold would wear him out so easily now. He was staring at her more intensely than he ever had before, as if by simply staring he could peer into her very soul. She could see his thoughts whirling behind his eyes.
Alice slowly shook her head and said, faintly: "I think we need to have a chat."
Steve swallowed. "Yeah. I think we do." He hesitated, then gestured toward the firepit. Alice turned, and instantly her gaze locked with Bucky's.
He looked different too, though not as different as Steve. He wore a navy double-breasted coat, hardly military standard, and he had shadows in his face that she didn't recognize. His face was blank with shock, and her throat closed up when she realized his eyes were gleaming.
Alice opened her mouth. Closed it. I thought I'd never see them again.
"Captain," Falsworth said with his hand on his gun, "Are you sure you trust her? She's German."
"Austrian."
Alice blinked. She and Steve had both spoken at the same time – her in irritation, him almost distantly, as if he hadn't realized he'd said anything at all.
"So's Hitler," Dugan muttered.
Alice's eyes narrowed, but then she realized that every man around the firepit was looking to Steve – not in suspicion, but waiting for his OK. With a leap of her heart, she realized that he was their leader.
Alice turned to see Steve staring at her still, and she sensed him weighing her up. She thought of the last letter he'd sent her. Of the months of silence that had followed. She knew that none of their childhood years would matter if he thought she was a Nazi.
Normally that might have scared Alice, but instead of the rigid spike of panic, she felt the tension drain out of her. She didn't understand how she'd gotten here, with Steve, but he was looking at her and measuring her worth and whatever he decided, she knew she'd accept it.
After what felt like an age, Steve nodded. "I trust her."
Alice let out an embarrassingly loud breath of surprise. Tears sprang to her eyes and she fought them down, but Steve noticed.
"Sit down," came Bucky's voice.
Everyone glanced back at him. He eyed the men. "You lot, put your weapons down and sit." They obeyed instantly, if reluctantly. "Steve, sit. Alice…" his gaze softened, and Alice felt the tears return with a vengeance. There was so much hurt in his eyes. "Sit."
They all perched on rocks around the coals like kids at camp, eyeing each other with mixtures of suspicion, shock, and confusion. Dugan turned to Falsworth and mouthed: Alice? Steve tugged off his cowl, making the back of his hair stick up.
Steve opened his mouth, staring at Alice, then closed it again. He stared at her as if he couldn't decide how to look at her: his gaze shifted from wide-eyed staring, to softness, to wariness, to hurt. She knew all those expressions so intimately, but he looked so much like a stranger – even the familiar shape of his face was broader, firmer, and his proportions were all wrong. And yet she noticed familiar habits: the way his finger tapped on the outside of his knee, the rigid set to his jaw.
The black man sitting to Bucky's left spoke first. "How in the hell do you guys know each other?"
"Gabe," muttered Bucky frustratedly, but the other men around the fire had muttered assent at the question. "She's… we…" Bucky's eyes landed on Alice's face. "We knew her in Brooklyn."
Alice knew she didn't have the right to feel the sharp spike of hurt that plunged through her, but she felt it all the same.
An awkward moment passed. Steve opened and closed his mouth once more.
"Explain," Bucky translated.
Alice hesitated. "I… but you're enormous now, Steve, how did that happen?"
Steve blinked and glanced down at himself, as if he'd forgotten, but then looked up with a complicated twist in his expression. "Alice… we thought you were…" his eyes hardened. "You need to tell us how you're here. Like… that."
Echoing his look of surprise, Alice glanced down at herself. Right. Bound chest, filthy clothes, greasepaint on her chin. Her hair was a wild tangle of pins. Self-consciously, she scrubbed her sleeve across her chin even as her stomach twisted. Neither Bucky or Steve had said it aloud, but it was plain in their voices: we think you're a Nazi. Explain.
The other men around the coals watched her every move, narrow-eyed.
There was really no explanation for this. Well, save for the truth.
Alice ducked her head. "I've never told-" she snapped her mouth shut again.
Alice had never told anyone what she was, save for maybe Peggy and Otto. She'd never expected to, certainly not so soon. She wasn't supposed to. And yet with Bucky and Steve's desperate, hurt eyes on her, she knew she'd tell them everything, damn the consequences. Even though it might turn them against her.
But theirs weren't the only eyes.
She met Steve's gaze. "Steve, you trust these men?"
The men around the coals bristled, but Steve just nodded. "Whatever this is, if I say so, they won't tell anyone. Right?" he looked around at his men, and one by one they nodded.
"If you say so," Dugan grumbled.
Alice chewed on the inside of her lip. That didn't make her feel entirely comfortable, but it was as good as she was going to get.
Perhaps she had better start at the start. "It… began slowly, at first. There wasn't a plan really. Living in Vienna-"
"Wait, Vienna?" cut in Morita. "Thought you lived in Brooklyn."
Alice grit her teeth. "People move." She ran a hand through her hair and let out a hiss of frustration. She didn't know how to do this, she'd grown so used to deception and facades that this kind of confession felt alien. It overwhelmed her. She didn't know where to begin, since she couldn't pinpoint the moment she'd begun lying to Bucky and Steve. When she'd returned to Brooklyn? But no, she'd been hiding her activities long before that. When Jilí had gone missing? Even then, she'd been keeping things from Bucky and Steve for months. Maybe she'd never been entirely open with them. The half a dozen eyes on her felt like spotlights.
"Alice," Steve said with a hint of frustration in his voice, and that did it.
Alice jerked her head up, set her shoulders and said: "Well to put it very simply, I'm a spy."
Steve and Bucky sat back, wide-eyed (though not in complete shock – it appeared as if they'd guessed part of the truth), but the other men just looked more suspicious. Maybe not the best way to put it.
She went on. "I shouldn't be telling you any of this. But while I lived in Vienna, with Jilí, I realized that I could help people. It started off as giving people food, and then it turned into information gathering and spreading. Our work got bigger and bigger when the war started, and there was always more to do. I realized I could help in other countries, so I did. And then I realized that I could do even more. So I went back to America and I-" she cut herself off, thinking. She barely noticed the still-suspicious glances of most of the men.
Strudel.
"Hang on, are you guys with the SSR?"
Steve blinked and Bucky's eyebrows rose.
Alice's jaw worked. "You are. You know Peggy too, don't you? She sent you?"
"You know Agent Carter?" Bucky shot back, the picture of confusion.
"She trained me. I came back to Brooklyn to connect with the SSR, and they took me on as an agent." Steve's face shuttered. She knew what he was thinking: all that time in Brooklyn, she'd lied to them. Alice pressed her lips together. "She mustn't know that I know you."
"She would've warned us," Steve muttered.
Alice let out a breath. "Anyway… something happened, and I had to come back to Europe. Since then I've been working with the SSR, providing them with intelligence and assisting with missions."
Bucky shook his head. "All this time, you've been…?"
Alice swallowed. "Yes. No one ever suspects Die Sirene is fishing for intelligence. Parties, offices, the front line – I get a free pass."
The man to Bucky's left, Gabe, piped up: "Wait, you're the Siren?"
"That singer?" Falsworth frowned.
Gabe's eyes were wide. "My mom used to listen to your records! At least she did before…" his face fell.
"Before I became a Nazi sympathiser?" Alice finished, half-smirking to hide her melancholy. "Yeah."
Steve looked like he had been struck by lightning. He ran a hand over his face. "Alice. I had no idea…"
"I didn't tell you," she breathed, before he or Bucky could ask the question she couldn't bear: how could you not tell us? She closed her eyes. "I'm… I can't tell you how sorry I am. What you must have thought of me… I couldn't exactly write you a letter to say 'don't worry, I'm not actually evil!'" She sighed and opened her eyes again, watching the red glow of the coals. "Though at this point I'm not sure."
"But you're not evil," Bucky said with a tone of wonder. "You've been working with the Allies this whole time?"
She shrugged. She thought confession was supposed to feel good. She felt miserable. "I mean… more or less, yes."
She heard a few exhales from around the firepit, and felt the weight of appraising eyes on her.
"Why the disguise?" Dugan asked gruffly. Alice looked up and met his gaze. He waved a hand at her. "Why pretend to be some… some Italian boy?"
"Believe it or not, the Siren can't exactly go traipsing through the countryside. I dress like this with most of my resistance work, even with the SSR."
Dugan let out a hmph.
Alice wasn't finished. "And I find that soldiers tend to trust a man more easily than a woman," she said pointedly. Dugan sat back on his rock, still eyeing her closely.
Steve sat up straight, eyes alight. "Hang on. That information we got about the troop movements in the south of Italy – the Germans had no idea how it could have leaked, but if they've been going to your performances…" his eyes darted, "and those HYDRA blueprints Peggy brought back." His gaze jerked up, meeting Alice's. "You're Agent Homer, aren't you?"
Despite herself, Alice smiled. Because Steve was here, and he saw through her just as clearly as ever, and it had taken him barely minutes to unravel her secret identity.
Steve's men must have taken her smile as a cocky smirk, because a few of them laughed. Steve looked dumbstruck.
"Holy shit, Al," Bucky said with the face of a man who'd just been hit with a very heavy weight, "but you're literally in the lion's den. Are you safe? Does anyone suspect?"
"It's not exactly a safe job, Bucky," she replied softly. "But it's what I can do, so I'm going to do it. I think you guys might know something about that." She met their eyes.
For a few long moments, no one made a sound. The coals in the fire hissed and popped.
Then Steve said: "Alice." He didn't say it with any intent – it was as if the word had simply fallen from his lips, as if he couldn't hold it back a second longer. Alice's heart pounded.
Bucky gripped his knees with white knuckles. "Alice," he echoed, "You'd better get over here right now."
She practically flew across the coals.
Steve and Bucky launched to their feet and caught her in a tangle of too-big limbs and bulky uniforms. Alice banged her chin on Steve's chest and almost punched Bucky in the head trying to get her arms around them both, but then they were holding her, and it was warm, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd been held, and she practically dissolved into them.
Alice finally allowed a few of the tears that had been itching at her eyes to squeeze out, hidden in the press of the hug.
"We missed you, troublemaker," Bucky murmured.
Steve didn't say anything, and neither did Alice, but she felt his arms tighten around her and his unsteady breath begin to even out.
She could hear Steve's heart pounding, and beyond that, the sounds of the men around the firepit chuckling softly.
"Wait," Alice said, drawing her head back slightly. "I am still… very confused."
Bucky let them go and stepped back, and a second later Steve reluctantly let her go as well.
Alice frowned and gestured at Steve, encompassing the extra two feet he'd grown and how he'd somehow doubled in mass. "How."
More chuckles from the peanut gallery. Bucky turned and arched an eyebrow at Steve, as if to say well?
Steve scratched the back of his neck, looking from the smirking men around the firepit, to Bucky, to Alice again.
"Well, it's… maybe you'd better sit down again."
Delphi online forum titled "Project Rebirth: Discussion Space", c. 1996
melmoth: So as far as I can figure, the only people who'd known pre-serum Rogers and who also saw him after Project Rebirth were Sergeant Barnes, and the various SSR employees involved with the project (Colonel Phillips and Director Carter, for example). Everyone else he worked with, like the Howling Commandos (I know, not the historically accurate title, get off my back) only met him as Captain America. I wonder what that must've been like. We get the before and after pictures (see above post for reference), but what must it have been like to see that in the flesh? Especially given his enhanced abilities.
katrings: It's a shame we don't have more record about this, really. Most Rebirth files are so classified that we don't get much detail about the before/after changes, and most of the people who knew him at the time are dead or keeping quiet. Though you can clearly tell it's the same guy (looking at you, Project Rebirth conspiracy theorists). Just look at that face. It must have been strangest for Sergeant Barnes, as most historians agree that he mustn't have known about Project Rebirth until Rogers rescued him in Austria.
baggaloo: Imagine that. It's like the weedy kid at your school getting really buff over the summer, but like... a hundredfold. And now the kid can hold a car over his head.
They all returned to their seats, save for Dugan and Morita who went to their tent (which was more a sheet of canvas draped over a rope between two trees) to get some dinner, and Steve began to tell a ridiculous story.
Alice had to stop him almost immediately. "Doctor Erskine? Abraham Erskine?" As if they could possibly be talking about different people. She eyed Steve's massive frame. "He did this?"
Steve's eyes widened before he gave her an exasperated look. "Of course you knew him, too."
"I was there when Agent Carter rescued him from Bavaria."
"Didn't she rescue him from the Red Skull?" piped up Falsworth, frowning. The young man, Gabe, murmured indistinctly to the older civilian fellow.
Alice nodded. "I was a guest at his castle, though he was just Obergruppenführer Schmidt then. I've met hima few times." She saw Steve blanch, and leaned over to touch his arm. "Don't worry. I know just how dangerous he is, but he's never… well, he hasn't hurt me. He has scared the shit out of me. Him and Zola."
Bucky flinched. Alice frowned, but he quickly assumed a neutral expression again.
"So yes, Doctor Erskine and I knew each other," she said, her voice softening. "We met again in Brooklyn, and I… I later found out that he died."
Steve bowed his head. "I couldn't save him."
Alice's heart dropped. "It's not your fault," she reassured him, though she knew precisely nothing about the circumstances. She sighed. "Perhaps you'd better tell me everything."
Steve lifted his head and began his story again.
Alice listened, mostly in silence, as Steve told her how he'd been recruited into the SSR, chosen for a program called Project Rebirth, grown to the size of Hercules, lost Erskine, chased down a HYDRA assassin, had his own USO show for a few months (Alice couldn't even imagine), before coming to Europe, busting Bucky and these other men out of the Austrian HYDRA base and becoming Captain America in earnest.
"You are the reason that base went quiet?" Alice exclaimed. "I'd given Peggy the base location, but I thought the Germans got to them-"
"- you're the reason the SSR knew where it was?" Steve exclaimed right back.
But Alice had already moved on. "You've… you've been fighting HYDRA since then? You're Peggy's heavy hitter!" She leaned back, running her hands through her hair before getting tangled in the pins and wincing. "This is too much." She could hardly believe that Steve going through an insane physical transformation wasn't the craziest part of what he'd told her.
"This is too much?" he echoed, gesturing back at her.
Alice turned to Bucky, suddenly alarmed. "You were in that HYDRA base?" her stomach dropped as her mind flashed back to the glimpse she'd caught of a large factory with towering smokestacks and high, razor-sharp fences. "What-"
"Later," Bucky said grimly. "I'll tell you later."
Morita, who'd been spooning beans out of a can, cleared his throat. "I know this is weird for you guys and all, but since no one seems to be bothering to ask, why did Agent Carter tell us to come out here to meet you?"
Alice and Steve stopped talking over each other and fell still. Alice blinked. Right. The moment she'd seen Steve's face the mission had flown right out of her head. But now she sat in a clearing in occupied Italy with Steve, Bucky, and five other soldiers, under the night sky, with a German military encampment a few miles away, and a mission to complete.
"Yeah," Dugan added, "How do we know you aren't just saying all this?"
Alice narrowly resisted shooting him a glare, but she did see Bucky and Steve share an exasperated glance. She supposed Dugan had a right not to take her at her word.
"Right," Alice said. She shrugged off her jacket, shivering at the cold and making the men around the fire raise their eyebrows. "I'm officially here because Ot– a fellow agent and I uncovered these Wehrmacht plans." She slid her knife out of her pocket (Morita, Dugan, and Falsworth shifted uncomfortably) and began carefully cutting through the stitches in the inside seams she'd made that morning.
Steve, Bucky, and the others watched as she peeled back the fabric to reveal a few pages of German typescript. She pulled them out and handed them to Steve, whose eyebrows had nearly hit his hairline. He flipped through the pages, taking in the German reports which he couldn't read, and then the maps with handwritten arrows and lines.
"Are these… troop movements?" he questioned. Bucky and the civilian man (who had barely spoken) peered over his shoulders.
"Yes. For the Wehrmacht, effective at the start of next month." Alice tugged her jacket back on, loose fabric and all.
"How did you get this?" Bucky asked.
"I can't really tell you-"
"You said officially," Steve murmured, looking up from the plans.
Alice swallowed. "Yes, I did." This night had gone so far from what she'd expected. She'd been expecting to meet Peggy for a few minutes, pass on her and Otto's suspicions, and then vanish back into the night. She trusted Steve and Bucky and they trusted their men, but the idea of revealing this to so many people she didn't know made her skin crawl.
"Well?" asked Gabe.
Alice gritted her teeth. "Unofficially I'm here because… there's a HYDRA spy in the SSR."
She hadn't quite been expecting the uproar that sentence would produce. All the men exclaimed loudly, leaning forward and demanding Who? How do you know? Where?
Alice made a quelling gesture. "I don't know much, this is just what I've gathered from some overheard conversations and captured communications. I know their codename is Argus, and I know they'll be at Dover Castle next Saturday at 3pm. I need you to take this information back to Agent Carter as soon as you can and catch the spy when they meet with their handler."
Silence fell.
Alice gave them all a steely glance. "Can you do that?"
She'd sensed that these were the kind of men who rose to the challenge, and she was right. One by one they nodded, firm, and Steve answered for all of them:
"Yeah," he said. "We can do that."
"If we can get back on time," Falsworth added grimly. He met Alice's eyes. "Like I told you, we have orders to escort you eighty miles north of here. That'll take us about four days. That gives us another four days to get back to London and catch the spy. It'll be tight."
"Then you should forget about escorting me," Alice said. "Head back behind Allied lines and go get the spy, I'll find a way out."
"No," every single person around Alice exclaimed, surprising her.
Bucky looked frustrated. "There's no way we're leaving you, for one thing, and we're also not going to go against orders. Also, it's far more dangerous for us to try and cut back the way we came thanks to that military encampment. Our best way out is going with the plan."
Alice nodded and set her palms on her knees, coming to terms with the fact that she'd be with them for four whole days. Before, the prospect had been exhausting. Now, she was a little ashamed to admit that she was relieved.
She glanced up and found Steve still looking at her, no longer in surprise but with something deeper. Alice's heart stuttered. She still couldn't believe he was really here. And every time she looked at him she did a double take, because he was just so different.
"So," began Dugan, "if we're sticking to the original plan, we'll be clearing out of here before dawn. We should probably get some sleep," he suggested.
"Right," Bucky said, shaking his head. "Uh… Steve, I think you were next on watch. Then I'll relieve you in a few hours, and the rest of you lot can get some sleep."
"All due respect Sarge, you and Cap look like you're about to keel over."
Alice watched with fascination. She'd never met this Bucky and Steve: Sarge and Cap.
Steve and Bucky turned to managing their men, convincing them they were fine to keep watch, and then making sure they were all fed and ready to march the next morning. As they worked, Alice heard a snatch of unexpected conversation.
The slightly older civilian man, who had a bristly mustache and beady dark eyes under a cap, leaned in toward Gabe and murmured "Eh bien, c'était intéressant". [Well, that was interesting]
"Vous êtes français?" [You're French?] Alice asked, perking up. Both men glanced over at her in surprise. "Je pensais que vous étiez juste timide!" [I thought you were just shy!]
The older man smiled at her. "Un homme peut être les deux, madame." [A man can be both, ma'am] He leaned across the coals and offered her his hand. "Jacques Dernier, La Résistance, à votre service." [French Resistance, at your service]
Alice shook his hand and beamed. "Vive la résistance. Merci pour votre travail." [Long live the resistance. Thank you for your work]
He squeezed her hand and his eyes went serious. "Non. Merci pour la vôtre." [No. Thank you for yours]
Gabe smiled when they pulled apart. "He'll charm you if you're not careful."
"I'm careful," Alice replied with a smile.
Gabe adjusted his helmet. "Dernier here understands English well enough to listen to it, but he's more comfortable in French. This lot" – he jerked his head at the others milling around the clearing – "are trying to learn. I'm the French and German translator for now, though."
"And an excellent one at that," Bucky confirmed as he walked past.
Alice looked up, searching, and her heart dropped when she couldn't see a tall, blue-clad figure. Dugan, Morita, and Falsworth were arranging the tents, while Gabe and Dernier heaved up from their rocks and went to assemble the packs. But no Steve. "Where's-"
"He went out to patrol the surroundings," Bucky cut her off. At the look on her face, he came to stand by her. "He just needs a minute, Al. This is… a lot."
"I know," Alice breathed. She scanned the treeline, once, then met Bucky's eyes. "I'm sorry, Bucky."
He dropped the bedroll he'd been carrying and scooped her into his arms. "I know why you did it, and you're forgiven."
Alice melted.
Bucky chuckled into her shoulder. "Though I think you shaved a good ten years off my lifespan, showing up like that. Troublemaker."
Alice laughed wetly. "Imagine how I felt, seeing you at the fire!" She pulled away, taking in the sight of him in his strange blue uniform and the seriousness in his eyes. "All this time I've been wondering about you all – if you're safe, if you're fighting. And here you and Steve are. Right in the thick of it."
"So are you," Bucky pointed out. He let out a breath.
Alice chewed her lip before asking: "Is… is Tom…?"
Bucky's eyes widened. "He's fine! Sorry, should have said that first. We don't get a whole lot of letters from home anymore since we're so mobile, but last I heard he was doing fine at school. He was looking into jobs at factories 'round Brooklyn."
Alice let out a heavy breath of relief. She wiped her hands over her face, using the jolt of her cold skin to calm herself. Her limbs were stiff from her journey and the night air. When she looked up again, she could see Bucky's thoughts churning.
She gripped his arm. "You can't tell him about me, Bucky. That's too large a burden for a fifteen year old to bear."
His eyes darkened. "And thinking his sister is a Nazi isn't?"
Alice flinched, but held firm. "I shouldn't even be telling you about my work. My secrets can put so many people in danger, not just me. Do not tell anyone."
She stared fiercely into his eyes until he relented.
"Thank you." Alice allowed herself a brief, stabbing moment of pain for what Tom must think of her, then breathed out. She softened her hand on Bucky's arm. "Now, you. Are you alright?"
He quirked a brow. "Me?"
She leveled a look at him. "I know better than most that HYDRA is no joke, Bucky. How long were you in that base?"
His face shadowed. "About a month."
She let out a heavy breath. "I'm so sorry, Bucky. I… I knew that the 107th had been taken captive and I wanted to help, but there wasn't – I didn't know-"
He shook his head. "We knew damn well there was nothing anyone could do. Except, it turns out, Steve."
"He really got you all out by himself?"
Bucky ran a hand down his face. "Christ, Alice, you should've seen him. Now that he's gone and grown to the size of a tank he thinks he's invincible."
Alice laughed. "He's always thought that. Super serum, huh?" She'd seen the changes in Steve's appearance, but from some hints of what he and Bucky had mentioned… Steve was definitely not a normal man any longer, in more than appearance.
"Super serum," Bucky agreed with a sigh. "Your Erskine pal really knew how to pick his test subjects."
Alice smiled, even as she eyed Bucky out of the corner of his eye. He'd brushed her off about his HYDRA imprisonment, but something weighed heavily on him – his eyes didn't gleam the way they used to. She'd dig further later.
Dernier appeared at Bucky's elbow. "Sarge, où veux-tu que la dame dorme?" [Where do you want the lady to sleep?]
Bucky scratched his head as he eyed the clearing. "She'll take Steve's tent."
Alice hesitated. "Oh, I don't-"
"He's on watch," Bucky explained, "and when I relieve him he can sleep in my tent. Unless-?"
Alice's cheeks flushed despite herself. "James Buchanan-"
"Ooh, Sarge is in trouble," crowed Dugan. He strode up to Alice and passed her a handful of dry, hard biscuits. At her confused look, he said: "We collected up some rations. Thought you might be hungry."
"Thank you," Alice said, touched. "And I'm… sorry." She gestured to her appearance. "For the ruse."
Dugan shrugged, making his hat wobble. "Gotta admit you made a convincing boy. I don't mean anything by that, mind you, just… good job."
Falsworth looked over. "Were you really planning to keep up the disguise for four days?"
Alice nodded. "I've never gone that long as Al before, but I could've."
"Huh," Morita said as he tugged off his boots and wriggled into his tent. "Well, I hope you like hiking."
Alice glanced down at her already aching feet and sighed.
Excerpt from 'PTSD and America's Heroes,' by Harry Toll (1982), p. 132:
... as we've shown, it's difficult to get an accurate picture of a serving soldier's mental health, particularly extrapolating from historical records. The problem is compounded if the soldier in question served within a covert unit. But there are several records that survive in the public domain regarding Sergeant Barnes: progress reports by commanding officers, debrief reports, and some archival film reel recorded for propaganda purposes. Each of these has the potential for bias, for multiple reasons...
... Barnes' success as a soldier increased following his capture in Austria, as documented in his recorded kills and his reports. This may be due to his position in an elite tactical team, but it could also very well be a sign of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (officially recognized by the APA in 1980): symptoms include increased aggression and hyper-vigilance, and we don't know how these manifest in a combat situation due to lack of research.
Evidence from Barnes' commanding officers' notes indicate that the Sergeant had become more withdrawn, less sociable, and prone to isolation. These are extrapolations from his progress of course. Barnes' debriefs to superiors were perfectly 'normal' for a soldier, though void of any emotional or personal connection. Perhaps this is the sign of an experience and professional marksman, but when these debriefs are compared with letters written by Barnes in his early years, the comparison is stark.
Though it appears that of the Howling Commandos, Barnes may not have been the only sufferer of combat-related mental illness. At the risk of being accused of overdiagnosis, when one looks at the Howling Commandos' 'fearless leader'...
Steve sat on the rocky face of a ridge thirty yards up from the campsite. He had an excellent view of the moonlit valley below, but his silhouette was obscured by a thorny bush.
He'd gone through the motions of a patrol, alert and yet a thousand miles away, before coming to rest here. The whole night felt like a dream.
Steve pressed his face into his hands and took deep, slow breaths. His heart, which had been racing for what felt like hours, began to slow. It almost made him smile – he used to calm himself like this when he had asthma attacks.
In the darkness of his own hands, Steve let out a sigh.
This mission was supposed to be a simple escort. Get in, get the informant to safety and collect their intelligence, get out. But as she had a habit of doing, Alice turned Steve's world on its head.
He'd known the minute he recognized her that everything he'd thought before was wrong. The article, her silence, it had not meant what he thought it did. That was why, when Falsworth had asked if he trusted her, Steve had been able to answer honestly. Because he'd known that if Alice was here, dressed like that, then she wasn't what he'd thought she'd become.
And throughout it all, even when she'd hesitated to tell the truth, Steve had only one clear thought in his mind: I thought I would never see her again. His heart throbbed again at the thought. It might make him the most selfish person in the world, but he'd only cared about how relieved he was that she was in front of him again.
Alice had given them barely any details, in true Alice fashion, but Steve sensed that she'd told them more tonight than she had told anybody else before.
For months now he'd been under the impression that he'd never really known her. He'd had the same feeling tonight for a moment as he listened to her talk about missions and intelligence and watched her slit open her own jacket to reveal stolen documents. She'd had such a hard focus in her eyes. She'd been nearly unrecognizable in men's clothing, her usual figure obscured, grime on her face and her pale hair pointy with pins. Alice normally looked so well-kept, even back in Brooklyn. This Alice felt like a creature who'd been hiding just below the surface.
But he felt like he knew her all the same.
Steve pressed his fingers into his eyes, trying to focus. He'd slipped away from the campsite for a reason. Now that he had some distance, a whole new host of questions came to the forefront of his mind.
How long had she been doing this? Is this what caused Jilí to disappear? How exactly was Alice managing to get all her information? And why hadn't Peggy realized that Alice and Steve knew each other?
He thought back to how she'd been in Brooklyn. The disappearing at odd hours. That time she'd missed their dinner date and hadn't been at her hotel. The strange bruises that she thought he couldn't see.
Steve had had all kinds of wild guesses at the time, but not this.
I'm a spy.
He imagined Alice and Erskine talking. She'd spoken of the doctor with fondness, and Steve could see how they would get along. They were both profoundly idealistic while also driven by a determined directness. He imagined Alice and Peggy talking, and chuckled wetly into his hands.
Then, his breath catching, Steve thought of the New York Times article. The photos of Alice performing in Nazi uniforms, the interviews, the poster of the movie she'd starred in, the handshake with Hitler, that officer she'd been on a date with. She'd done all that to help people.
A surge of guilt crashed through Steve's gut. He should have known. He knew Alice, and he should have known that she would never turn so dramatically. But… how could he have known the extent of this?
He pulled one hand away to rub at his chest, feeling again the lance of pure elation and horror he'd felt when the young, grubby informant had slipped into the clearing, tugged off his cap and become Alice.
With an artist's eye he pictured the determined look in her eye when she'd told them all to head back to friendly lines and leave her to fend for herself.
At some point, without his noticing, Alice had become a soldier.
Steve might have been hunched over beside a bush having an emotional crisis, but he was still on watch. So when he heard light footsteps approaching he drew his hands away from his face and hunkered down, hiding himself in the deep darkness.
A silhouette emerged over the rise. Slight, pausing uncertainly, a glint of pale hair turned silver in the moonlight –
Steve sat up. "Alice."
She flinched and jumped back. "Scheiße, Steve, you scared the life out of me."
"Sorry. What are you doing up here?"
"Oh you know, I wanted to see the view," she said lightly as she picked her way across the craggy ridgeline toward him. "Bucky said you'd be up here."
He didn't move as she approached and sat down beside him in the shadow of the bush. They both looked out over the valley. He could just feel the radiant warmth of her beside him. He let out a long, slow breath.
"You're sneakier than you used to be," Alice murmured after a moment. "I'd have thought it would be the opposite since you're enormous now."
"It took some getting used to."
They hadn't spoken much about his physical change, but he sensed her eyeing him now: the different shape of him, how his face was higher up than it used to be when he looked at her. Alice shifted and wrapped her hands around her knees.
"Did it hurt?" she asked, gesturing to the sheer bulk of him.
Steve shrugged slightly. "Yeah. But not for long." He turned to face her more directly. The moonlight etched out the details of her face – the point of her nose, pale brows and eyelashes, the curve of her cheekbone. "I'm mostly used to the difference now. Bucky too, though he was just as confused as you at first."
Alice shook her head slowly. "The world has changed so much." She smiled sadly. "And so have we. Only you've just changed on the outside."
"You have too," he said softly. Before he realized what he was doing he'd reached out to touch the fading scar he'd noticed beside her left eye. He sensed her stop breathing as the pad of his finger brushed her skin. He retracted his hand hastily and gave her a questioning look.
She pressed her lips together. "Shrapnel."
"I thought you were a spy, not a soldier."
"It seems the skills converge sometimes."
He could tell she didn't want to give any more details, but he couldn't stand not knowing any longer. "Alice."
She saw the conflict in his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry. Secrecy is a habit now. This…" she touched the scar, "happened in Berlin. I was out on the streets – after getting those HYDRA blueprints – when the RAF started their bombing raids. I almost ran right into the bomb that did this." Her hand dropped. "I made it back in one piece, though. Many didn't."
Steve closed his eyes. When he opened them again, she'd turned her head to look out over the forested valley.
"I don't think you've changed, though," he added. She faced him once more, brow quirked. "Not really. Everything around you might've changed but you're still you. The Alice Moser I knew kept secrets and stuck up for those who couldn't stick up for themselves in school, and she'd be doing exactly what you're doing now. I knew that when you came back to Brooklyn, and I know it now."
She turned her face away, and for a moment he felt a flare of panic – did I say something wrong? – but then he saw a gleaming tear spill down her cheek.
His shoulders slumped. There she is. The last of his fear drained out of him, because this was Alice, and he knew her. He knew the hard shell of ice which she drew back only with the people she trusted most, to reveal the warm, kind soul within.
He shook his head as he stared at her. "This makes… so much sense."
She faced him with tears in her eyes and her hands twisting in her lap. "Steve, I don't know how to apologize to you for this. You all must have been… so confused. And angry. I can't imagine what you thought of me. And Tom…"
"Tom didn't believe it. I still don't think he does, not really."
"And you?"
Steve's face fell. "I… I didn't want to believe it. I was mostly just confused, and hurt, I…" he could see every word breaking her heart. He shook his head. "But it doesn't matter."
"It does," she disagreed. "I did that to you. I let you think-"
"I forgive you," he cut her off. "Of course I do."
Alice's eyes seared him. She swallowed, glanced down to collect herself, then met his eyes. "Maybe you're right. You know everything now, for better or for worse, and…" her lip quirked. "I'm trying to pretend I'm not uproariously happy about it."
A grin split Steve's face. "You're really here," he murmured. "You're you, and you're here."
"I am." Her eyes flickered nervously, gauging his expression. "And so are you."
Steve swayed toward her as if she were magnetic and he were a great lump of metal. Her eyes widened and her breath caught. Watching her, Steve felt the familiar roil of fear and longing and doubt and excitement that he remembered from that long-ago morning on his living room floor when they'd talked about kissing, and again more recently when they'd sat on his couch and he'd set his small, frail hand to her cheek and asked is this alright?
He wondered how many more first kisses they were going to have, and if he'd always be so terrified beforehand.
Alice's chest heaved. "If you're going to kiss me you'd better do it right now, or I'll-"
Steve laughed and leaned in the rest of the way, crashing their noses together awkwardly before she tilted her face up to his and their lips met. She gasped against his mouth, and Steve wanted to say I know, but he was too busy sliding his fingers into her hair, his other hand on the side of her neck. Her lips tasted like tears so he kissed them away.
Alice surged forward, arms winding around his neck and Steve, who'd been cross legged and stretching forward to kiss her, leaned back and landed a hand on her side to steady her as she rose above him on her knees. His heart raced, speeding up as she slid her hands to cup his face. If he'd been his old self he'd have been gasping for breath by now. He felt pretty breathless all the same, serum be damned. Maybe his lungs had never been the problem.
As Alice's lips moved against his and her hands cradled his face, Steve's ears rang and his body thrummed, as if she were a livewire he couldn't break away from. He pulled her, unconsciously, and she sank awkwardly into his lap, accidentally kneeing him in the stomach. He didn't bother pretending that it had winded him since he was too busy making her sigh against his lips. He remembered how to do this even if the serum had changed him.
The rest of the world didn't feel real.
Steve slid his hand around to the small of her back, her coat rough under his palm, and Alice pulled back a little, drawing in a shuddering breath as she leaned her forehead against his. Steve peppered her lips with light kisses, making her smile.
She had her foreleg pressed against his stomach and her other leg draped over his hip, half-sitting in his lap and supporting herself with her arms around his neck.
She opened her eyes lazily, meeting his gaze. "This wasn't how I imagined us meeting again," she murmured.
"How did you imagine it?" He smoothed her hair back. He'd made even more of a mess of it.
"Well, you were smaller-" He laughed at that, and she traced her fingers down his cheek. "And we were safe. In Brooklyn, the war over, and I'd come back like I always said I would."
"We'll still have that," he murmured. "Only we'll go back together this time."
Alice's eyes pressed shut and he saw tears glimmering in her eyelashes. "You finally know all my secrets," she breathed. He felt her chest shudder under his hand.
Steve shifted, tugging her into a closer, more comfortable position. He had long arms now and he used them to wrap her up close to him, so close that he felt her heart beating against his chest. "That's what was holding you back, in Brooklyn."
She nodded against his chest. "There was so much I couldn't tell you. So much you didn't know about me, and I…" she swallowed. "I thought you wouldn't…"
"You thought I wouldn't want you, if I knew," he finished. She lifted her head to meet his eyes, fearful, and he laid his hand against the side of her face (covering so much more skin that it used to). "Alice," he breathed. "Alice Moser."
He couldn't quite seem to get the words out, but from the sudden shift in Alice's eyes he knew that she saw it in his expression, in every fiber of his being: that he knew every part of her dark, twisted path and every part of her complicated soul and he loved her.
Alice closed her eyes, but not to suppress tears this time. She seemed to be basking in whatever feeling had just washed over her. "I missed you so much," she whispered.
He tugged a stray pin out of her hair. "I missed you from time to time," he said teasingly, and she pinched his side. He barely felt it through his uniform.
Alice sank against him, boneless, and he reveled in the feeling of being able to support her weight with his own. It must have been a new feeling for her too, because he heard her slight huff of bemusement.
Steve kissed the top of her head. She smelled green and dark like the forest, and she felt so small compared to him now. "You should get some sleep."
"So should you," she retorted instinctively.
Steve rolled his eyes. "Bucky'll relieve me in a few hours and I'll get some sleep then. But you've been… wait, where did you even come from?"
Despite herself, Alice yawned. "Had a performance at the front, and then I jumped out of the train back to Rome and walked here."
He pressed his eyes shut. "You jumped off a train."
"You jumped out of a plane and broke into a HYDRA base alone," she shot back, anticipating his complaint.
He laughed under his breath. "I think we're going to have to adjust to the fact that we're both doing insane things now."
"Hmm," Alice said. She yawned again.
Against his more selfish instincts Steve prodded her, making her shift and mutter complaints. "Go get some sleep," he said again. She resisted him a moment longer until he added: "I'll see you in the morning."
She swooped up to kiss him again, her hand cool and yet somehow burning at the back of his head and her lips making him chase after her as she drew away.
"Goodnight Steve," she murmured, a smile on her face as she stood, before she padded away down the ridge back to the camp.
Steve sat there a moment, watching after her, before he turned his face to the starlit sky and closed his eyes. He drew in a long, deep breath that felt like relief. He couldn't help the grin that split his face.
THE END
Ha, you wish.
Reviews
Guest: Thank you so so much, that means a lot! I hope I'll continue to amaze you ;)
Guest: Hello! It really warms my heart to see my former Wyvern readers enjoying the Siren too, I'm really enjoying sharing Alice's story with you guys. And it means you understand my love for cliffhangers ;) Hope you enjoyed this chapter!
jul (from chapter 28): Thanks so much lovely, I really appreciate the kind words. I'm doing fine now, a little bored in quarantine but surviving. I'm glad you liked the chapter!
(from chapter 29): Yes I'm back safe! The quarantine is weird, like I'm living the five star life but then I'll get a welfare call from a nurse and my groceries delivered by soldiers. Sorry for betraying you with the cliffhanger lol, hopefully you feel better after having read this chapter! Thanks so much lovely x
(From chapter 1): sorry I didn't update early! My safety net of chapters was depleted haha. What's your bf's paper about? I'm curious now! I had a look back over chapter 1 as well and my goodness it's been a while since I wrote it, how nice to look back! Baby Steve and Alice are adorable. Let me know what you think as you reread! (Also PS: yeah I was a bit shook at how many reviews last chapter got! But that's what a cliffhanger gets ya)
guest: I laughed so hard at "the flavor is immaculate", so thank you for that lol. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Guest: I am indeed guilty of sheer audacity. I'm so glad you're enjoying this story like you enjoyed the Wyvern! Thank you, I really appreciate the review :)
Guest: Here's your update, I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you think :)
Guest: Steve and Alice have finally met again, and everything's on the table now :) Sorry for the cliffhanger, but hopefully this chapter has made up for it!
spanieluver1973: Sorry to betray you with a cliffhanger, but I'm glad you liked the chapter and hopefully you liked this one too! You're right that 2020 has gone crazy, but I'm just glad I've landed somewhere safe. After quarantine, I don't really know what I'm going to do. Thank you x
The1975Love: You know I had to do a cliffhanger! I love them too much. Hope you liked this chapter!
Guest: Here's your update, hope you enjoyed it! And I hope you liked Steve's reaction ;)