Alice woke up exhausted. It wasn't even the kind of exhaustion that sleep could cure – it was bone deep, throbbing in her feet and her back and her heart. She'd been allowed to take first watch after arguing with Steve and Bucky for close to half an hour, so had only gotten to sleep past one in the morning after sitting alert and silent a few yards away from the campsite. She now permanently wore Dugan's spare coat, and even in that she'd shivered and chattered her teeth in the deepening cold.
She didn't speak much as she crawled out of the tent, wincing at her stiff and smelly clothes, and rolled up the tent (she'd slept in Dernier's tent tonight, as he'd taken second shift). Once more they started hiking straight away, eating their rations as they went.
Minutes later, it began to snow. Alice flinched at the first cold flake against her face, then glanced up to see flurries drifting down from the slate grey clouds.
"Damn," Steve muttered from ahead. "I hope this doesn't slow us down."
On hearing his voice Alice had a sudden, visceral reaction to tell him to go inside, and then almost laughed aloud. Since middle school she'd been working alongside Bucky to ferry Steve away from danger, particularly from catching colds in winter. She'd told him countless times before: It's snowing, Steve, let's go inside.
Eyeing the back of his broad frame and thinking about everything he'd said about Erskine's serum, she supposed he'd never catch a cold again.
They trudged on through the falling snow, their boots kicking through collecting drifts. Alice wrinkled her nose at the feeling of the stuff melting on her face and her cap, turning her head damp. Snow collected on the bare tree branches as they found an old dirt road cutting through the forest and followed it northeast.
"Y'know," Bucky said to Falsworth, running a hand along the sleeve of his navy double-breasted coat. "I've gotta give it to Stark, these things are well and truly waterproof."
"It's just a shame he's such an arrogant knobhead," Alice remarked, damp and cranky.
Bucky glanced over. "You know Stark?"
"Barely. We met once, when I went to visit Erskine in Brooklyn."
That piqued Steve's interest, and as they strode through the snow Alice told them about her training in Brooklyn. They seemed startled by the rigors of her training ("She abandoned you in the middle of nowhere?" Steve asked, aghast), but most of the men smiled in recognition as she told them about the drills and annoying commands.
She also told them about her sole visit to Doctor Erskine at the SSR facility. "Now I think about it, they must have been working on Project Rebirth there," she said thoughtfully, and her eyes fell on Steve again. She'd been getting used to his larger frame, but at that moment she had a startling double-vision – she saw him as he was now, but she also saw the small, frail young man she'd known. "I never thought to find out more about it all."
"It seems like you and Erskine got along," Steve noted. The other men began to break off into their own conversations – none of them had known Erskine.
"We did," Alice recalled. "We… understood each other, I think. When we first met we were both prisoners in our own way, and when we met again in Brooklyn we'd found our own forms of freedom. He mentioned his family to me once, which was a rather large display of trust on his part, I think." Her head bowed. "He worried about me. Before I came back to Germany, he told me to remember that I had a choice."
Steve let out a long, slow breath. "I'm glad you had someone who… who understood at least some of what you were up to. Who was looking out for your safety."
Alice touched his arm. "And I'm glad you had someone who saw you for everything you could be, and trusted you with his legacy. Erskine couldn't have chosen anyone more worthy."
Steve's ears went red.
They kept hiking down the narrow dirt road with bare branches laden with snow to either side of them. The snow had fallen thick and fast, coating the ground and erasing their footprints behind them. Alice tried not to shiver too violently.
As she let her thoughts drift, something occurred to her. She sidled back to Steve's side.
"I have something… a little strange to apologize for."
His eyes softened. "I said you don't need to apologize to me any more. I understand why-"
"No, it's not about that. Not really. You know I've been writing and performing songs for the Nazis, but… I don't know what possessed me to do it, but there's this song called Der Flug des Adlers – the Eagle's Flight – and in it I used the word Ulysses." Steve's eyebrows flew up his forehead, and Alice continued on rapidly: "I'm sorry I did it, I wrote it while we were still writing letters to each other and I guess I wanted to resist in some way but the minute it was done I realized you would never have wanted-"
"It's okay," Steve said, and he had a smile on his face. "I like it."
Alice stared.
He shrugged. "I don't know, it makes it feel like… like the song isn't for them."
"It's not a good song," Alice said quickly. "Well, I mean, it is good, but the lyrics are…" she almost shuddered. "Awful."
"All except one of them," Steve said, still smiling. Alice returned the smile, tentatively, and they walked on.
Excerpt from 'Reviewing Propaganda' by Mila Neumann (1950), p. 44:
As we come to understand the power of propaganda in the Nazi's rise to power, one can not discount music. It is noted that the Nazi party introduced music into their radio programs, increasingly so during the war: Goebbels claimed that this was to "make the radio a good companion to the people", though in a private journal admitted that this was done to prevent civilians tuning in to enemy broadcasts. But aside from a blanket distraction, the Nazi propaganda machined used popular music with Aryan subtext to entice the public toward nazi ideals and goals.
... for example the Siren, who produced undeniably catchy and beautiful music, with language sanitised just enough that the average person could listen to it on the radio and not see it for the blatant propaganda it was. Her songs used popular characters such as figures from German folklore, Roman and Greek heroes such as Hercules and Ulysses, and of course prominent Nazi leaders. Her songs made Aryan Germans feel invincible, superior: exactly the mindset that the Nazis wanted to engender.
"Christ," Dugan said an hour later. "They never tell you when you sign up for the army how boring it'll be." He kicked a snowdrift, sending the white powder flying. "I thought things'd get a bit more exciting around you, Rogers, but look where you've brought us!"
"Careful what you wish for," Steve replied wryly. He seemed more vivid than ever with the white and grey backdrop – his uniform was a pop of startling blue, and his shield attracted the eye from a mile away. It made Alice nervous.
Soon the snow began to clear up, leaving the clouds still ominous but the air clear and cold.
The terrain had evened out, much to the relief of Alice and her burning thighs. The road they followed was narrow and seemingly unused, winding through the thick forest on its way north.
According to Morita's map they were close to their extraction point. They might reach it by the evening, but with the snow Morita changed his estimate to tomorrow morning. Alice warred with the opposing feelings of relief that she'd get to spend more time with Steve, Bucky, and their men, and annoyance that she'd be out in this cold for even longer.
She was just contemplating this, her hands stuffed deep in the pockets of Dugan's coat and her chin tucked into the lapel to avoid the cold, when they rounded a bend in the road and she sensed the men come to an abrupt halt. She looked up, frowning, and her stomach plummeted so fast that she almost dropped to her knees.
They'd practically collided with another group of soldiers. Only this group had about twenty men and a truck, and were very obviously German.
The soldiers wore grey-green uniforms, helmets, black boots and had dark belts cinched around their waists. Even from a hundred yards away Alice could see the black Nazi crosses at their lapels and the silver Reichsadler on their breasts. Each man had an MP40 submachine gun strapped to his back, and a look of utter confusion and surprise on his face.
Alice went cold. The rational part of her mind told her that this was a light infantry Jäger unit, likely on patrol in the backwoods. Her eyes flicked to the truck, where she could just make out the driver – another infantry soldier – and a man with a longer coat and a cap that identified him as a mid-level commander.
The non-rational part of Alice's mind whited out with panic.
All this passed in the space of a second: both forces stopped in their tracks, staring at the other as if they couldn't quite comprehend what they found themselves looking at. The snowy road fell silent.
In the next instant, the silence fell apart. At the same time as Steve whipped his shield off his back and shouted in a tone of pure panic: "Get Al out of the way!" the German soldiers let out a cry of alarm and reached for their weapons all at once. Their movements were hurried and unsure; this was occupied territory miles away from the front, they can't have been expecting a fight.
Alice had a moment of pure disassociation: bombing raids and engaging with a single enemy in the dark she understood. If she'd run across this troop by herself she might've been able to talk her way out of it. But this was battle.
Gunfire erupted, shattering the air with deafening noise, and the 107th Tactical Team scattered; most of them dashed forward at a breakneck pace, already firing and some of them hollering at the top of their lungs, while others darted into the trees.
Alice started forward, her first instinct being, bizarrely, to pull Steve out of trouble. That was always her gut instinct in a fight. But he ducked behind his shield as the volley of gunfire erupted and at the same time someone grabbed Alice's arm and tugged, sending her stumbling into the trees. A hand planted itself on the back of her head, pushing her into the shockingly cold snow, and someone shouted get down and hide.
Alice obeyed. She lay for a second, stunned, her mouth, nose and eyelashes full of snow and her ears ringing with gunfire. She choked on snow as she tried to breathe, and then jerked her head up, anxiously looking out for Steve. She shifted forward a little, still lying on her front, and saw that what had once been a silent stand off on the road had become an explosive mess.
Soldiers shouted and swung their weapons around, firing bullet sprays into the forest. A tree trunk near Alice tore apart under the bullets. She thought for a moment that they were firing at nothing, but then she saw Dugan dart out from behind a tree and blast a soldier with his shotgun, his mouth open in a snarl. The soldier fell to the ground and stained the snow red. Dugan dove back into the cover of the trees.
Her gaze shifted and she found Steve. He hadn't darted into the trees like the others but had barreled right into the midst of the soldiers. Alice opened her mouth, as if to call him back, but then she saw him roll into a ball, using his shield to deflect a spray of bullets, then spring up to punch a man across the jaw. The man dropped like a stack of bricks.
Steve whirled away, using the momentum to hurl his shield into the windshield of the truck (which had fired up its engines as if to screech away). The speed and power of it combined with the bright blast of shattering glass made Alice flinch. Steve leaped up onto the hood of the truck and plunged his fist through what remained of the glass, seizing the troop commander and tossing him out onto the road.
Steve's got this.
Alice inched forward as the fight continued, army crawling through the snow like Peggy had taught her. She was slightly hidden at the bottom of an incline. The battle had spilled off the road and into the trees, with people wearing all kinds of uniforms darting everywhere, but she noticed that the fighting was mostly on the other side of the road: Steve's men had drawn the fight away from her.
The Germans had rallied together, all their weapons out and firing now, forcing Steve behind the truck for cover. In the forest on the other side of the road Alice saw Dernier toss something toward the soldiers, which a few seconds later exploded in a violent bang that brought one soldier screaming to his knees.
Seconds later Falsworth and Morita rolled out from behind cover simultaneously, firing at the Germans. Most of the soldiers found cover behind trees or the truck, but another two fell. The Germans fired back, making Alice's heart leap, but both Falsworth and Morita rolled out of sight apparently unharmed. She caught a glimpse of Gabe darting through the trees, but then a flurry of movement in front of her made her jerk back into a kneeling position, arms up.
A German had fallen down the incline right in front of her. Alice's hand darted for her belt and her knife, but then she saw his glassy eyes and the sudden scarlet stain in the snow, and instead shifted forward so she was hidden from the road by a sturdy tree. She stared down at the dead man and realized that her heart was pounding so hard against her chest that her very ribs seemed to hurt.
The man had a light mustache and freckles. His eyes were blue.
Alice couldn't think for the deafening, unceasing rattle of gunfire, and each new blast or crash made her flinch. Sweat poured down her face and the snow under her palms melted away as if she were on fire.
With her back pressed firmly against the rigid bark of the tree, Alice turned her head to peek back at the road. The battle was fierce – Steve's men had been divided, and were picking off all the soldiers they could from behind slim cover. They hadn't had any time to form a battle plan, but they were doing remarkably well despite their severe outnumbering. As she watched, Dernier dove behind a tree just as the snow where he'd been crouching erupted into bursts of powder as bullets struck it.
Her gaze flicked back to Steve, who ducked behind his shield, advancing slowly toward a knot of German soldiers unloading their weapons at him. What Steve could not see were the three other soldiers creeping around the back of the truck toward him. They were about to come up on his undefended side.
Without thinking, Alice stretched toward the dead German and unclipped his weapon – a Luger P08, standard Wehrmacht handgun, the same kind Peggy had trained her in. The man jostled sickly as she took the gun from his belt. She surged unsteadily to her feet, darted out onto the road, cocked the gun, aimed, then fired four times.
The gunshots resounded in her eardrums. She'd forgotten how loud it could be.
She'd gone for double taps to be sure of her target, as per her training. Steve flinched and turned just as two of the men creeping up behind him crumpled to the ground. He slammed his shield into the third, then glanced over his shoulder and looked right at Alice. His eyes widened. But then the knot of soldiers he'd originally been heading for began firing on Morita, and he had to dive to protect him.
Alice swung her aim, watching for another target or for someone targeting her. The main knot of soldiers had scattered. As she looked around she saw a German soldier on her side of the road in the trees, firing out from behind cover. He and Dugan were exchanging fire, but neither of them had a good angle on the other. Alice had an excellent angle.
She ducked back into the foliage, her footsteps soft in the snow, and crept forward until she saw the soldier kneeling behind a tree, peering out. Alice raised her stolen weapon, sighted, and fired twice more. She was much closer this time so she saw the holes open up in his chest. He had just long enough to raise a hand to the bullethole over his heart before he slumped backwards, landing with a puff of snow. He went still.
When Alice looked up and around, she found herself staring down the barrel of Dugan's shotgun. Slowly, she raised her hands. Dugan stood in the middle of the road now, staring back at her with wide eyes, and Alice realized that the fight was over. No more gunshots tore the air. No one shouted. The only German left standing with a weapon was her.
A moment later, as if waking up from a dream, Dugan dropped his aim. Alice trudged up out of the snow and onto the now muddy, bloody road, her ears burning with the cold and her front soaking wet. She realized that she still held the dead man's gun, so she dismantled it and dropped it in the mud. Cold numbness spread through her from her fingertips.
Dead Germans lay on the road, sprawled and tangled amongst each other. Bullet casings and shattered glass from the truck littered the ground. The 107th Tactical Team still had all members – seven men against twenty, Alice reflected with something like awe. Well. Seven men and one woman.
Steve appeared in front of her. He didn't touch her – she felt dimly glad for it – but he'd ducked his head to look into her eyes. He never had to do that before. Vivid blue and warm and his chest heaving, he eyed her searchingly. "Alice."
She looked up.
"Are you hurt?"
She shook her head. "Are you?"
"It's harder to hurt me now than it used to be," he reminded her gently. He still had his shield on his forearm. He smelt like gunpowder. His eyes moved away from her, across the warzone the road had become, and she knew he was looking at the soldiers she had killed. He'd seen her.
Alice came back to herself a little and looked up to find them all staring at her. Each man was busily engaged with something: looting ammunition, or checking bodies, but each of them had his eyes on her.
It made her skin crawl. Why was it different? They'd all just killed far more men than her, but they were looking at her like she'd slaughtered the whole troop by herself.
She swallowed and looked back to Steve. "We need to hide the bodies."
"No point," Gabe said from the truck, where he held up a field radio. "They already got word back to their commanders that they encountered resistance, they'll already be hunting us."
"We need to get out of dodge," Bucky called. He came over, prickling with urgent energy, and squeezed Alice's shoulder. "You did good, Al."
It didn't feel good. But she knew what he meant.
The exhaustion she'd felt when she woke that morning began to creep over her again, numbing her adrenaline and enhancing the aches blooming across her body, but then Steve called: "Let's go!" and all the men stopped rifling through the battlefield and set off at a jog into the trees.
Alice found herself jogging too, though she stumbled at first, trying to keep pace with them. Steve kept close by her side, each long lope of his legs matching two of hers. She felt his anxious eyes on the side of her face.
They ran for what felt like miles. Steve and Morita consulted the map as they ran, swiftly changing directions. The snow was melting in the midday sun but they didn't want to risk their footprints being followed, so they veered east until they hit a river and ran up the shallow banks for a while.
They all watched the sky. After about half an hour they heard the angry buzz of Luftwaffe planes, and dashed from the riverbank back into the cover of the trees.
Chest heaving, her feet soaking and her hands shaking, Alice dug her spine against a tree trunk, squeezed her eyes shut and tried to catch her breath. She didn't dare peek out through the branches to spot the planes she could hear buzzing overhead.
She sensed Steve settle beside her, surprisingly quiet despite his large frame.
"So," he murmured. "Agent Carter taught you how to shoot as well, I see."
She opened her eyes to see him offering her a small, concerned smile.
Alice nodded. A plane rumbled so close overhead that she flinched. "Plus I remember Father Rickard teaching us when we were kids."
Steve smiled, as if they weren't hiding from enemy aircraft with nothing but trees for cover. The men around them were similarly pressed up against trees, their hands on their weapons and their faces grim.
Alice turned back to Steve with a serious gaze. "This war is changing us, Steve."
"It might be," he agreed. He reached for her hand and squeezed it. "But not in the ways that count."
The plane engines had faded, and after another moment Steve peeled away from the tree and Alice.
"Let's get going," he urged.
With a groan, Alice heaved herself onto her own two legs and tried to slow her breaths.
Excerpt from HYDRA Intelligence Report ZX56F4#66 - Marked 'Direct to Red Skull', (December 1943) [Translated] SSR Archives:
URGENT: FOREIGN SOLDIERS HAVE BEEN SIGHTED BEHIND THE FRONT LINES IN ITALY, EAST OF L'AQUILA. WEHRMACHT TROOP REPORTED SLAUGHTERED. NO WORD YET IF IT IS THE AMERICAN. WILL REPORT SOON.
They kept running in a weaving, unpredictable route away from the battle zone. Steve seemed to have a plan, and though he didn't stop to explain it to the others Alice knew that everyone trusted him. She certainly did. She didn't think she had the energy to question anyone at the moment, anyway.
But when they came to a halt in the forest outside what looked like a small, definitely occupied town, Alice frowned. Steve murmured something into Dernier's ear, and with a nod the Frenchman crept out of the forest and toward the town.
"What are we doing?" Alice asked breathlessly. She rubbed at the stitch in her side.
Steve crouched beside a tree with one hand on the bark and his eyes on the town. "The Germans know we left on foot," he murmured. "They'll be looking for us within running distance. So we need a boost of speed."
Bucky appeared by Alice's side. He put his hand over hers on her side, where her stitch felt like it was stabbing her, and gently pushed. "Breath deeply, all the way to your diaphragm, and hold your breath," he muttered. His eyes weren't on her but flicked all around.
Alice did as he said, though she couldn't hold her breath for very long, and was surprised to find that her stitch ebbed and gradually faded.
By the time her sweat started to cool on her forehead and a sickening mixture of dread and remembrance swirled in her stomach, another rumbling engine had them all sinking down into the foliage and watching the road.
A flatbed farming truck rolled up on the narrow dirt path they'd hidden beside. The driver's side window rolled down and three low whistled notes reverberated into the trees.
Without a word Steve stood, ushering the others toward the truck. Alice limped out after them and saw Dernier in the driver's seat, grinning.
"Ils ne remarqueront pas que celui-ci manque pendant un petit moment," [They won't notice this one missing for a little while] he whispered. "Tout le monde à bord!" [All aboard!]
Steve yanked up the tarpaulin on the back of the truck, revealing a few stacks of timber, and with a flap of his hand the 107th Tactical Team began piling aboard, crouching or lying beside the timber. Steve turned to look at Alice, but she shook her head.
"I'll go in the front. I'm the only one with enough Italian to get by, and I'm not in uniform."
Steve's eyes creased with concern, but he nodded. "Dernier knows where we're heading. Just – here." He leaned forward, and before Alice could question him, he'd swiped the thumb of his burgundy gauntlet over the corner of her jaw. She winced – she must have cut herself. "You had some blood," he said quietly, then set one knee on the flatbed, holding the tarp up over his head. Falsworth shifted his legs to give Steve more room. Steve's eyes flicked over her. "Okay?"
"Okay," she echoed, then jogged up to the cabin of the truck and hoisted herself into the passenger seat.
Dernier stuck his head out the driver's side window to check the back, waiting until Steve had tied down the tarpaulin. The truck looked like it had a lumpy, uneven load, but it didn't necessarily look like there were six men hiding under the tarp.
"Allons-y!" Dernier exclaimed with entirely too much glee, and stomped on the gas.
Alice spent the drive clutching the door for support as Dernier rattled them over the snowy, perilous backroads of the countryside. She winced at each pothole they hit, knowing that as much as it rattled her, it had to be exceedingly painful for the men shoved together in the flatbed behind her.
Alice kept part of her mind on their heading – she was pretty sure they were still heading north, though it was difficult to tell since the sun was indistinct in the grey sky, and Dernier didn't seem to need help reading the map that lay spread open on his lap.
The other part of her mind worked on excuses and explanations. Hello, Mr Gestapo Officer, I wouldn't actually recommend checking the back since we've just cleared out our pigsty and- no, our herd have actually all died and we didn't find them for a week, so we're taking them – no, never mind the back! I saw a whole lot of foreign-looking soldiers running through here a few miles back. Seemed like they were on the run. Yes, that way!
As fast as she churned out ideas, she knew that if the slightest thing went wrong they would find themselves plunged into a firefight again.
But after some time Dernier pulled over in the middle of a tiny trail through the dark forest (she wasn't sure the trail was actually designed for automobiles at all), and turned off the engine. Alice let out a breath of relief that they hadn't come across any roadblocks. They were lucky they weren't near the front, and in a relatively uninhabited area.
Alice climbed out of the cabin to hear Dugan's voice swearing a blue streak from somewhere under the tarpaulin.
"What's wrong with you, Dernier, you like finding each and every hole in the road and plowing through it?" he growled. "Don't they teach you how to drive in France?"
Alice grabbed the edge of the tarpaulin to help Steve push it back, and stood back as they all piled off, groaning and stretching. Each of them scowled at Dernier, who just smiled in return.
"Where are we?" Steve asked, looking a little rumpled.
Dernier explained that he had followed instructions, then pulled out the map and pointed to the middle of a green, blank-looking area.
Alice craned her neck and nodded. "We passed that crossroads ten minutes ago, and that lake," she confirmed.
Steve cast her a thankful glance and clapped Dernier on the shoulder. "Good job. Let's find somewhere to camp for the night. We're within range of the extraction point but we ought to wait until tomorrow."
"Won't they still be looking for us?" Alice asked.
"Yes, but not here."
"And anyway," said Bucky, as Dugan and Falsworth pushed the truck further into the trees and began draping it with broken off branches. "Those soldiers recognized us. And their leaders are used to us coming in, striking, and getting out. They won't expect us to stay."
"They know that if they can't catch us within the hour then they won't catch us," Gabe chimed in.
Morita had climbed up a nearby tree without Alice noticing, and she glanced up in surprise when he called down to them: "There's a structure a mile west. Reckon it might be worth a shot."
He dropped out of the tree, dusting off his hands, and Steve gestured. "Lead the way."
Morita had spotted a barn with no farmhouse or fields around it. As they approached, crouched in cold silence, it became apparent that this barn had not seen habitation in some time: weeds crept up against the stone walls, one of the upper windows lay open and gaping, the glass long gone, and the dirt road leading up to the barn was so overgrown that it was barely visible.
Steve and Bucky went to check the barn and clear it out while the others waited inside the treeline. When Bucky returned through the front door and waved at them, they moved as a pack towards the building.
"Empty," Bucky explained once they approached. "For a while. But it's still standing, and seems waterproof enough."
Alice was first through the door, and once her eyes adjusted to the darkness she looked around to see a wide, empty structure with thick wooden support beams, some ancient rusted farming equipment in the corner, and not much else. The place smelled like mold and rat droppings.
"Home sweet home," muttered Dugan as he passed her.
"Alright," came Steve's voice, and they all looked up to see him standing in an upper loft space. He moved away from the gaping window, and the wooden beams under him creaked ominously. "Anyone injured?"
Everyone shook their heads.
"Good," Steve said with genuine relief in his voice, then leaped from the loft. Alice nearly let out a yelp and just barely managed to swallow the sound, because Steve landed neatly, knees bent, and strolled toward them as if he'd hopped down a ledge instead of a drop of more than ten feet.
Then he started giving orders, and they all burst into movement once more. Gabe and Falsworth went out on patrol right away while Morita, Dugan, and Dernier began laying their tent canvasses on the slightly damp barn floor and arranging another coal pit. Then it turned out that Morita actually had a badly skinned arm, so they tended to that as well. Steve and Bucky were talking about whether or not to attempt waterproofing the barn.
Alice hadn't received any orders, so she waited just long enough to reassure herself that everyone was safe and alive, then slipped out the rotting back door of the barn and into the dim sunlight. She found a rusted metal bucket, turned it upside down and sat, eyeing the melting snow.
She couldn't see much from here apart from the rocky incline up to yet another mountain, and the grey sky. But she hadn't come out here to sightsee.
Alice tried, as she had after the night she'd killed Albrecht, to feel something. She'd had to shut down her instant reactions of horror and fear once again to be useful, and it was hard to dredge back something resembling human feeling. She sat, breathing evenly, stretching out the aches in her legs and prodding at the various bruises and cuts she'd accumulated in their mad dash.
After about ten minutes she heard two pairs of footsteps coming around the side of the barn.
She listened to the footsteps, heard them falter. She dug her toe into the muddy ground.
"Those weren't the first men I've killed," she murmured. She looked up.
Steve and Bucky stood a few feet away, side by side, identical expressions of concern on their faces. They were rumpled and covered in mud like her.
"Nor us," Bucky said softly. "But I'm sorry you had to do that, Alice. It's not… it's never easy."
Steve let out a heavy breath.
Alice leaned back on her bucket so her shoulders rested against the side of the barn. "I'm sorry that this war's made killers of us all."
Bucky paced closer to lean beside her. "Maybe one day there'll be day when none of us have to kill again."
"Hear, hear." Steve hadn't moved.
"But until then," Alice sighed, "We have to be strong enough for each other to keep the war from killing us, too."
Bucky's hand landed on her shoulder, but he didn't say anything. Steve watched them from a few feet away, heaviness in his gaze. His gauntlets hung loose by his side and his shield gleamed on his back.
Alice eyed the large bulk of him with his familiar face and felt, for the first time in a long time, that she might make it through this war.
After a few moments of silence, Bucky squeezed Alice's shoulder.
"So I'm a marksman, and Steve's a walking magnet for trouble, but how much danger do you get put in that you have to be killing people?" His tone was light, but she heard the undercurrent of worry.
Alice shrugged. "There've been… assassinations. I can't tell you the details." But then she frowned. "Well I suppose it doesn't really matter, it's easy enough to figure out if you know who I am." She laced her fingers together. "There was Captain Sauer, an ally of HYDRA. He was in hiding but we drew him out to my concert, and one of our allies in the Polish resistance shot him."
She sensed Bucky and Steve exchange a glance, but she wasn't looking at them now.
"We provided intelligence to assist with other assassinations – including Reinhard Heydrich's. And at a party in Berlin at Heinrich Himmler's house, I broke into Himmler's office to find some documents" – she felt mounting anxiety and shock in the air around her – "and… a man walked in."
She left it there, her lips clamped shut, thinking of the way Albrecht's face had shifted from surprise, to confusion, to suspicion.
But then she looked up and saw Steve's round eyes. "He didn't hurt me," she reassured. "You needn't look so worried. I didn't give him much time to realize what I was up to, let alone for him to hurt me. I just… killed him."
The look in Steve's eyes shifted to devastation, and she looked away hurriedly.
"Alice," he murmured. "I'm so sorry."
She frowned and looked back. Ah – she'd misunderstood the devastation. She'd thought it was horror at how much Alice had changed and the awful things she'd had to do. But he felt it for her. In that moment she realized that he would not suddenly change his mind and decide she was a monster. He understood.
She smiled weakly. "I don't regret it. I wish I hadn't had to do it, but if you put me back in that room right now I'd do it again. I didn't only save my life that night, but also everyone who had helped to put me in that office. I also…" she swallowed. Trust, suspicion, how much to give away? "That mission was an important one. Very significant people would probably have died without the information I found."
Steve raised an eyebrow, but did not ask her to elaborate.
Alice tapped her fingers on her knee. "I met Hitler," she said abruptly.
"We know," replied Bucky evenly.
Right. The article.
"I wanted to kill him too."
Steve shifted, but when she looked up at him his expression was one of careful attention.
"I knew I could do it, but Otto talked me out of it." Her teeth gritted. "I don't often lose sleep, but I've lost a few nights thinking about that." Her voice lowered. "Thinking about whether things would be different today, if I'd done it."
Steve had horror in his voice when he said: "They'd have killed you."
She looked up at the tone in his voice, feeling instantly guilty. "Steve…" She put herself in his shoes for a moment. If she'd heard Steve describing the same situation, she'd have been terrified.
If Bucky had noticed Steve's sudden horrorstruck expression, he didn't comment on it. He'd been frowning, clearly thinking hard. "It wouldn't have changed anything," he eventually said decisively. "Hitler'd be dead, and so would you, and we'd all still be killing each other."
Alice smiled, but there was nothing happy in the expression.
"Alice…" Steve's voice tripped. "Please-"
She stood up, unable to bear the fear in his eyes, and walked over to take his hand. She made sure he was looking into her eyes. "It's not often that I consider throwing my life away, Steve, I promise. But for something that worth it-"
"Nothing's worth it," he insisted.
"Steve," she said a little crossly. "You are out here risking your life every day to protect people because you think it's worth it. You can't tell me there's a difference." He looked argumentative now, so she softened her tone. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I just… if you had the chance, Steve, if you thought you could stop all this death and suffering…" she pressed her lips shut, because she suddenly didn't want to finish the question.
"He'd do it," Bucky said lowly. They both looked over. He'd taken Alice's seat on the bucket, and he was glowering at Steve. "The idiot."
Steve looked mutinous.
"This is just making us mad at each other," Alice sighed. "We're all very brave and noble, let's agree to that and move on."
"Not me," Bucky shot back. "No way would I die just to kill that prick Hitler."
Alice and Steve both smiled in surprise, still holding hands. Alice suspected that Bucky was trying to make her feel better.
"Can you imagine it?" Bucky said with a flippant wave of his hand. "Sergeant Bucky Barnes, handsomest man in Brooklyn, gives his life to get rid of a sweaty, angry man who never figured out that his mustache looked godawful."
Alice doubled over laughing, clutching Steve's hand like a lifeline, and Steve shook his head ruefully at Bucky as he chuckled.
"Nope," Bucky enunciated. "If I'm dying it's going to be for something worthwhile."
Excerpt from article '20 Years On: Remembering the life of a Howling Commando' by Michael Milton (1965):
... speaking with Barnes' sister Rebecca, his charismatic character becomes clear. "Bucky was the heart of our family," says a now-married Rebecca, who has a photograph of her brother on her mantlepiece. "He was the heart of any group he found himself a part of - the Howling Commandos included, from what I've heard. He had a way of making you feel listened to, important. When he looked at you, were the whole world. And he noticed more than you thought, too. Hid it with idle talk, but he was always watching. I suppose that's what made him such a good marksman."
"I think the thing I'll miss most about him is just... the way he made us all feel. I know I'll never get that feeling again, not with anyone else. I only ever had one brother. But we feel selfish even missing him, sometimes. Because we're so proud of him, what he did over there. We know he wouldn't have missed coming home for anything less worthy."
When I ask about Sergeant Barnes's famous friend, Rebecca gives me a wry smile. "It still startles me to see how the world sees them. To so many people, Bucky was Captain America's right hand man. But when he and Steve went out in the world, they were nothing more than equals."
They entered the barn laughing, and as if they were infectious the rest of the evening was spent in good spirits. They and the rest of the 107th Tactical Team traded watch duty and shared the last of their rations, sharing jokes and stories in the musty dimness of the barn.
Alice felt sleepy and safe, despite the harrowing events of the day, and the way Dugan, Morita and the others easily accepted her into the fold made her smile when they weren't looking. She'd seen today that they were capable, determined men with a thorough understanding of war, and their respect meant a great deal to her. They didn't treat her differently after seeing her gun down soldiers with ice in her eyes.
As if the battle had newly opened her eyes, Alice found herself looking at Steve more often. He'd explained the way Project Rebirth had worked, more or less, but she had been more caught up in the change in his appearance. Today, though, she'd seen him do things that no other human could be capable of.
In a lull in the conversation, Steve looked over and caught her peering at him. "What?" he asked, half-smiling.
"So…" she began, not sure how to put it. "You're… strong."
The soldiers snorted.
"Um, yes," Steve replied.
Alice narrowed her eyes. "How strong?"
He opened his mouth. "I… we've never really measured it?"
"It's not just strength, though, is it?" said Bucky, who leaned back on his elbows.
Steve sighed. "The way it was explained to me, the serum didn't give me anything. It just enhanced what I already had."
"So enhanced strength," Alice surmised, frowning.
"He's fast, too," chimed in Dugan. "He runs rings around us."
"And he can go on longer than any of us. I bet you haven't felt tired this whole mission," Morita added, raising his eyebrows at Steve.
"I feel tired," protested Steve. They rolled their eyes at him.
"He heals quicker," Bucky noted.
"His senses also exceed ours," said Falsworth consideringly. "The Captain often sees and hears things long before we can."
Gabe nodded. "Agent Carter said the serum was 'sposed to have enhanced his intelligence and memory as well."
"Right, he's real good with plans and tactics," agreed Dugan.
"He was good at that before," Alice said numbly.
Steve's cheeks were tinged pink and he couldn't meet anyone's eye. "Well, anyway. The scientists were very excited about it all."
"You just heard 'get big, fight war', didn't you?" Bucky sighed.
Alice shook her head slowly, trying to process it all. Steve hadn't struck her as particularly different at heart, so she'd neglected to notice his new abilities. "Well. Can you…" she cast around and her eyes landed on a large metal agricultural pump rusting in the corner. It was the size of a refrigerator. "Can you lift that?"
Steve sighed. "Probably."
"Prove it."
The others were laughing now, and seeing that none of them would stop until he obeyed, Steve got to his feet with another sigh and walked over the pump. With very little fanfare he gripped it by its least-rusty parts and hoisted it up over his head without an ounce of effort.
Alice's laughter cut off abruptly as her eyes widened.
"Happy?" Steve said with the ghost of a smile, then set down the pump again. He dusted off his hands and returned to the fire.
"You oughta be a strongman at a fair," laughed Dugan.
"Believe it or not, Dum-Dum, I've got better things to do with my time."
"Could you lift me?" Alice asked. She knew it was a silly question the moment it left her mouth because of course he could, but the Steve Rogers she'd once known would never have had a chance at even getting her off the ground. She had to abruptly reconceive her whole perception of him once again.
Steve cocked an eyebrow. "Want me to prove it?"
Alice grinned. There was that daring charm he'd hidden throughout their childhood. He was just more confident expressing it now. "What if I do?"
A few long moments of silence passed as they watched each other and the fire crackled. But then Bucky snorted, breaking the silence, and informed Dugan that his boots were about to catch on fire. Dugan yanked his feet away from the coals, cursing profusely. Conversation rumbled back to life and after a few long, electric moments, Alice was able to tear her eyes away from Steve.
When the coals were well and truly dimming, and most of the men had lain out on top of their tent canvasses with their heads pillowed on their packs, Alice and Steve climbed up the rotting wooden ladder to the damp loft. Once up there they sat side by side with their feet dangling off the edge, looking down on the dozing men. Bucky had relieved Dernier on watch.
Neither of them said it, but they both knew: this was their last night together.
Steve yawned and slumped toward Alice, not leaning on her but resting his arm against hers. He'd taken his cowl and gauntlets off, and he'd left his shield down on the barn floor. She could see it gleaming next to his tent canvas.
"Steve," Alice murmured. She was pretty sure her voice wouldn't carry down to the sleeping men. "I… I truthfully don't know what the end of the war will mean for us. And that's if we even make it there."
She felt his attention sharpen and settle on her.
"I want you to consider…" she struggled to get the words out. She'd been thinking this for days. "We said a lot of things to each other in Brooklyn, and that was… it was wonderful, but you don't have to… to wait for me. I'm not an easy person to" – she choked on the word love – "know, and I've lied to you, hid things from you, and I'm going right back into the heart of Germany to lie and conceal even more."
She couldn't look at him directly but she saw him patiently listening to her, eyes inscrutable.
"I mean… we've only just met again, and I'm about to leave." Her voice shook. "I'm always leaving you. Maybe Peggy isn't such a–"
"Alice," he finally cut her off. "When we were in Brooklyn everything was different. Since then I've joined the army, become a hundred pounds bigger, performed in my own USO show, blown up a HYDRA base, and now I'm running around the front lines with a red, white and blue shield." He paused, mouth quirked, to let the absurdity sink in. "The world is crazy right now. I don't know what's going to happen either. But this feels like a chance."
He paused to take a deep breath and Alice watched him, fascinated.
"Wherever we end up, whatever happens – if you'll have me – then… why make this even more complicated?" His mouth turned up.
Alice huffed a laugh. "Of course I'll have you. My whole life, it was always going to be you. Everything else just keeps…" she flapped a hand. "Getting in the way."
That made him soften, and the way he looked at her made her shiver. She ached from head to toe, covered in mud and dried sweat and the grime of three days hard travel, but he looked at her like… like she was the best thing he'd ever seen.
"Well then," she said, almost lamely, just for the sake of saying something. She had known since the first night, in the back of her mind, that they needed to have this conversation, and it had gone far better than she could have hoped for. But she should have known: things were never really that complicated between she and Steve, when it was just the two of them.
Steve leaned in a little closer, edged his arm behind her, and suddenly they were in each other's arms. Alice looped her left arm around his significantly-broader middle and thunked her head down a little harder than she meant to on his shoulder as his right arm wrapped around her. They pressed together hip to hip and knee-to-knee, and Alice smiled as they drew in one deep, long breath together.
"We can't talk details," Alice said, closing her eyes to better hear his heartbeat. "Neither of us have any clue what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone further in the future."
"That's okay." Steve tucked his face against the top of her head, and he let out another breath. "We've got the important part figured out."
After a fitful, though slightly warmer night's sleep, things moved very quickly. They packed up and cleared out of the barn, moving quickly north over hills that offered thinner and thinner cover.
As usual Alice was in the middle of the pack, though this morning she paid much closer attention to their bearings. They'd discussed extraction plans early on. The 107th Tactical Team were to report to an empty field near a small Italian town, and make contact with an ally who had flown in a night ago and hidden the plane in the forest.
According to their orders, following the extraction of the tactical team, 'the asset' would have a short walk back into the small town where she could catch a train to Rome.
Alice had gone to the effort of making herself presentable that morning so she wouldn't seem out of place when she arrived back in public: she'd washed her face in a bucket of melted snow, and tidied her clothes as best as she could. Her hair was stuffed tightly under the cap without a single flyaway.
The men were just as wary and watchful as ever, but there was also a looseness about the way they moved: their mission was almost over. They were full of talk about extraction procedures and flight times.
Alice stared desperately at them all, especially Steve and Bucky, trying to imprint them on her mind. Instead of the prospect of the end of a mission, Alice looked into her future and only saw more missions. She thought about going back to Rome, to Berlin, with a tired feeling. These past few days in the mountains had been cold and hard, and her body positively throbbed with pain, but the time had been inordinately precious to her.
The last time she said goodbye to Bucky and Steve she'd thought she'd never see them again. And now she was faced with the same prospect.
Far too soon, the trees thinned and Alice found herself following the commandos onto the edge of a wide, dry field. Her heartrate spiked, and then almost stopped when she heard a low whistle from the other side. She and the others looked up to see a man on the other treeline waving to them.
"There's our ride," murmured Dugan, and they circled around to the man. He was a young RAF pilot, dashingly handsome with windswept chestnut hair and a brilliant smile, and Alice barely looked at him. She heard him, though – he exchanged jokes of camaraderie with Steve and the tactical team, gave 'Al' directions to the town (she nodded numbly), then asked for help getting his plane ready.
Alice helped pull the camouflaged netting off the small troop carrier, and added her meagre strength to the others as they rolled the plane out from under the trees. The pilot hopped into the cockpit, the rear loading ramp opened, and Alice looked up to find the 107th Tactical Team all watching her.
A cold breeze rustled the dry grass on the field.
Alice glanced over her shoulder to make sure the pilot couldn't overhear them, then cleared her throat. "Remember – Agent Argus, at Dover Castle next Saturday at 1500." The men nodded. "This is our only shot at finding out who the agent is, so one or all of you had better be there. Believe it or not, I don't get all that many leads about HYDRA spies."
"We'll be there," said Steve seriously. She met his eyes and her heart jumped at the determination and endearment there. Until this moment she hadn't realized that she'd been avoiding meeting his eyes all morning.
"Well." Alice swept her eyes over the rest of them. Bucky was quiet, standing back a little, and her heart throbbed. He never used to be like this. The others seemed to have quietened down too, their joviality at the end of the mission ebbing as they realized this was farewell. Alice's heart ached a moment longer before she let out a slow sigh and quirked her mouth.
She jerked her head at the plane just as the engines kicked into gear with a guttural whir. "Better get on board, or you'll miss your flight!" she called over the noise.
The uncertain tension broke.
"Good luck out there, young fella," Dugan said with a wink, then jogged up the short ramp onto the plane after dropping a heavy-handed pat on her shoulder.
The others filed up after Dugan, shouting words of encouragement and farewell over the droning plane engines before taking their seats on the long metal benches inside.
Bucky was second last. Alice had looked over her shoulder to watch Dernier and Gabe board the plane, so when she turned around to see him standing before her she almost jumped.
Bucky stood stiff, his face carefully blank. He opened his mouth, meeting her eyes, then looked away again.
Sensing that Bucky wasn't ready for words, Alice just leaned in and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. She felt the stiffness bleed out of him, and after a moment he hugged her back, gripping tightly.
"Don't you dare do anything stupid," he murmured just loud enough to be heard over the now roaring plane engines.
"I have never done anything stupid in my life."
"Heaven help me," he laughed. He squeezed her once more, then let go and took a stiff step back. His eyes were on her forehead when he snapped a quick salute, then he marched past her onto the plane. He didn't look back.
It stung a little, but Alice understood that this was what Bucky needed right now. For her to be a fellow soldier, and not the girl he used to go to school with.
She turned, and it was just her and Steve alone now. He'd taken his cowl off, but other than that it was all Captain America: scuffed blue uniform, broad shoulders, gun holsters, and a strange metal shield on his arm. Alice didn't feel like she really knew Captain America, not yet, but then she looked into his face and saw everything she needed to know.
Steve reached out to take her hand and opened his mouth to speak, but then Alice pressed her other hand over his and said:
"Don't ask me to come with you."
Steve's eyes closed, as if he were in pain.
"Don't ask me to come with you," she repeated, "And I won't ask you to go home." His eyes opened. His expression was wrenched. "We… we might not like it, but we are both where we need to be."
Steve nodded slowly. The plane engines growled, waiting for takeoff, and they could feel the eyes of every man inside the plane watching them.
Alice's heart thudded. You have to let him go.
She made to pull her hand out of Steve's and step away, but as she made the move his fingers tightened on hers and his eyes widened.
"Wait!" he exclaimed. "I can't believe I haven't said it already, but…" he took a heavy breath. "I love you, Alice."
Alice beamed at the warmth in his eyes. "One of these days we'll get to say that when we're not saying goodbye."
With a last, searing look, she withdrew, backpacing away so she didn't have to take her eyes off the plane, and the men in it, and Steve as he strode up the ramp.
But then he paused. Slowly, making the men waiting for him frown, Steve turned again.
Alice grinned.
With speed that he'd never have been capable before Steve ran back down the ramp, across the field, and swept Alice into his arms. Alice just had time to throw her arms around his neck before he leaned into her and they were kissing again, kissing like they were going to combust.
This didn't feel like that last helpless, tragic kiss back in his apartment in Brooklyn before she left last time. This kiss felt like life. Steve's left arm wrapped around her lower back and his right rose to cradle the back of her head and the sensation of it all surged into Alice's veins and set her head spinning. This was a kiss with a future.
Over the rumble of the engines Alice heard a piercing wolfwhistle, and she and Steve broke apart laughing. Alice peeked over his shoulder to see Bucky and a few of the other men hanging out the back of the plane, grinning.
"I'll see you later," murmured Steve. His hands had settled on her waist, his thumbs brushing over where her chest bandages were bound.
Alice met his eyes. "You'd better." With a deep inhale, she stepped away. She checked that none of her hair had escaped her cap and adjusted her posture, becoming Al once more. Steve blinked at the difference in her attitude. "Until next time," she said, eyes on him, before she turned and walked back into the treeline.
On the field, Steve watched her go with his fingernails pressed into his palms. All he wanted was to go with her.
But with one last fleeting glance back she disappeared into the forest, and he was left standing alone on the grass with a plane full of tired soldiers waiting for him. Drawing himself up, he turned and walked back to the plane.
Alice's journey back to Rome was largely uneventful. She got a few dirty looks on the train since there was no disguising the smell and general scruffiness of four days of unwashed travel, but in Rome she barely got a second glance. She thought numbly over the past few days, which already felt like a fever dream, as she stole a valet's uniform and broke into her own hotel room.
The room was empty, so she took a quick bath and changed back into her own clothes again. Soft, loose-fitted fabric felt like heaven after being stuck in coarse clothes and her chest bindings for days. She threw all of her traveling clothes, save the boots, in the fire.
Then she sat on the chintz chaise lounge by the hotel windows, not sure what to do. The sun was warm today, for winter, and she closed her eyes at the sensation of sunlight on her clean face. Her muscles ached. She was clean and warm for the first time in days. Behind her closed eyes, she saw Steve's grinning face as he kissed her in the airfield.
She hadn't realized that she'd fallen asleep until she jerked awake to the sound of the door opening. She tensed, preparing to hide, but then she heard Heidi and Otto's murmuring voices.
When they walked into the main room and saw Alice sitting on the chaise in a loose linen dress with her damp hair drying around her shoulders, they stopped dead in their tracks.
"Hello," she said simply. Otto's face loosened with relief, and Heidi smiled. "How was the Parthenon?"
Hope you're all safe and healthy ❤️
Reviews
Guest: Thank you so much! It is sad that their time together has come to an end, but hopefully you enjoyed the parting this chapter :) I'm excited to get to the "future" chapters too!
Guest: You're too kind! Once I finish the Siren I'm going to work on my Wyvern AU, which should be lots of fun. Stay tuned!
CaptainLoki: Vive la résistance française!
Sprout: Hello and welcome, thank you for the wonderful review! No spoilers ;) And how great to hear from a fellow Australian! Hello from Canberra :)