64.

London, United Kingdom

February 4th, 1945

When Steve and the other Commandos are still a no show and there's no word from them on the transponder or radio, Howard considers that they've been forced to wait out the blizzard and will make their way to the closest Allied camp with the other soldiers who came to help with the rescue mission. They can't even get through to them on the radio to talk to them, not even for a moment. It's radio silence, just a static on their frequency. They have no idea if it was a success, if they found Bucky, or if they're going to come back empty-handed and dejected.

While they wait for the Commandos to return, those who are at the base decide to work with what they've got. They throw themselves into their work to distract themselves from the loss, particularly Peggy and Isabel. Isabel takes herself into the infirmary and works herself to the bone with any patients before going to Howard's lab and staying there with him at all ungodly hours while he works, anything to not have to sleep, where she dreams over and over the moment she found out she'd lost her brother. She doesn't send a letter to her parents yet, doesn't want to worry them if Bucky has in fact been found alive. It's a slim chance, but there's still a chance.

Meanwhile, Peggy accompanies Colonel Phillips to every meeting, interrogation and interview to distract herself. She bosses around the other agents and sets herself tasks, keeping her mind occupied. But at night, once everyone's gone to bed and she's alone, she comes to find Isabel and just sits in the corner of the laboratory or infirmary without really saying much, just to be around someone. When they both finally trudge off to bed, they only go at the same time so that one person isn't on the room alone for too long by themselves. They fall asleep with the bedside light on because it seems to settle the nightmares by not being able to fall into a deep sleep, one of the radios on the table so that they can hear first-hand when Steve contacts them. If one of them hears the other crying, they agree to not say anything to one another, and they're grateful.

Two days after Armin Zola is taken into the custody of the Allies, Colonel Phillips goes into his cell to interrogate the scientist about the location of the final Hydra base and the Valkyrie.

Zola's only been in the cell two days, and he's living in quite standard conditions. They'd seen his face when he'd taken note of the simply cot, the toilet and basin in the corner, the small blood stain they'd put on the floor just to intimidate him. Already, Zola looks rather dishevelled and unhinged. Presumably, without the protection of Schmidt and Madame Hydra, he is vulnerable, and he knows it. The bruises on his cheek and jaw, which Isabel has now learned were from Peggy rather than Steve as she'd assumed, are as bright and swollen as they had the days before, his eye surrounded by a ring of deep black bruising. Phillips had asked Isabel if she'd be willing to check on his injuries. She'd glared at him before turning to walk away, and Zola had gone without any medical treatment whatsoever.

Isabel and Peggy stand on the other side of the one-way glass and watch as Colonel Phillips walks confidently into the room, carrying with him a tray with a glass of milk, salt and pepper, knife and fork set, the night's vegetables from dinner in the cafeteria, as well as a chunky cut of steak, something Isabel doesn't think she's eaten since the plane ride to Italy all those years ago. Phillips puts the tray on the small table in the room, gesturing to the scientist who watches him carefully.

"Sit down," Phillips says rather invitingly.

Zola slowly comes toward the table and takes a seat, looking suspiciously between the food and Phillips. "What is this?" Zola asks, though Isabel is sure he means to ask about the situation, not the food.

"Steak," Phillips says, raising an eyebrow.

"What is in it?"

"Cow." Phillips takes a seat opposite Zola, clasping his hands together and putting both elbows on the table. "Doctor, do you realise how difficult it is to get a hole of a prime cut like that out here?" Phillips asks.

"I don't eat meat," Zola says simply.

"Why not?"

"It disagrees with me."

"How about cyanide? Does that give you the rumbly tummy, too?" Phillips asks curiously. It earns him a small, slow smirk from the doctor but no response.

Phillips raises his eyebrow higher, giving Zola an unamused look, before turning the tray around, picking up the knife and fork, settling a napkin over his lap, and digging into the meal for himself.

"Every Hydra agent that we've tried to take alive has crunched a little pill before we can stop him. But not you," Phillips says, cutting into the thick steak. "So, here's my brilliant theory..." Phillips eats a mouthful of steak, chewing before continuing around his mouthful. "You wanna live."

Zola pauses, eyeing Colonel Phillips carefully, the corners of his lips turned up in an amused, confused smile. "You're trying to intimidate me, Colonel."

"I brought you dinner," Phillips says easily as a way of dismissing this idea, pointing to the steak with the knife and fork in his hands.

Phillips passes Zola a piece of paper, which he picks up and reads aloud. "Given the variable information he has provided, and in exchange for his full cooperation Doctor Zola is being remanded to Switzerland."

"What?" Isabel cries out, turning to Peggy. "He's going to get away with it?"

"No, he's not," Peggy promises quickly, putting a hand on her arm. "If we're going to get anything out of him, we need him to think we'll put him in protective custody to save him from Schmidt."

"I sent that message to Washington this morning," Phillips tells Zola, drawing the girls' attention again. "Of course, it was encoded. You guys haven't broken those codes, have you? That would be awkward," Phillips remarks sarcastically before putting a potato in his mouth.

"Schmidt will know this is a lie," Zola says immediately, putting the paper down again.

"He's gonna kill you anyway, Doc. You're a liability," Phillips says easily, swallowing his bite. "You know more about Schmidt than anyone. And the last guy you cost us was Captain Rogers' closest friend." Zola huffs out a breathy laugh, and Isabel curls her fists in anger. "There are a lot of people who want your head, some of them listening to this conversation and some that have already tried." Zola's eyes flick to the glass panel beside him, his eyes unknowingly landing right on Isabel on the other side. "I wouldn't count on the very best of protection. There's you or Schmidt. It's just the hand you've been dealt."

Zola sighs, apparently resigning to cooperate. "Schmidt believes he walks in the footsteps of the gods."

"Mmm," Phillips hums encouragingly, through another mouthful.

"Only the world itself will satisfy him."

"You do realise that's nuts, don't you?"

"But the sanity of the plan is of no consequence."

"And why is that?"

"Because he can do it!" Zola argues with conviction, his tone rising loudly.

"What's his target?" Phillips asks.

"His target…" Zola says, sitting forward and leaning his elbows on the table. "Is everywhere."

Phillips stops chewing.

Peggy frowns, her mind ticking over.

Isabel bites her lip, staring hard at the scientist as she thinks. Her arms are folded over her chest as though she were hugging herself. Then, her eyes widen with a realisation. "The Valkyrie."

Steve, Falsworth, Jones and Dugan finally send word through the radios that they're ready to be picked up. It's three o-clock in the afternoon, eight days after the fateful day when Bucky fell from the train.

Isabel and Peggy are sitting in their room on their separate beds in a rare moment when they have nothing to do. Isabel's reading, Peggy's staring ahead, lost deeply in her thoughts. The noise from the radio sitting on the bedside table makes the both of them jump, Isabel with a yelp.

"HQ? This is Captain America. Come in, over."

Peggy hurries to grab the radio receiver and respond, but a male voice beats her to it. Isabel moves a little closer to listen to the radio in Peggy's slim hand.

"Captain Rogers, this is Colonel Phillips. What's your position?"

"The blizzard has passed over and the skies are clear. The unit that aided us in the search have marched back to their base on their own accord. We're in need of a ride back to base."

"Copy that, Captain. Activate your transponder and I'll send Stark right away. And Barnes?"

They hear Steve audibly gulp and suck in a deep breath before answering. "Unfortunately, we were unable to uncover Sergeant Barnes. The blizzard made the conditions unbearable and we had to abort until it passed. I've been back to the site every day since and there's been no sign of him. I believe his… body… may be unrecoverable."

There's a long pause, presumably as Colonel Phillips processes it. "Right. Captain, I apologise for your loss, and I commend your bravery and dedication to your friend in this situation. I'll send Stark right away. ETA three hours. Over."

Peggy puts down the radio, her eyes wide and staring. She slowly lifts her eyes up to Isabel, who's surprisingly staring at Peggy with a worried expression, her brow furrowed.

"I'm sorry, Peg," Isabel says carefully, her own voice quivering slightly. "I was hopin' Steve would find him. You know, to bring him home. Because you said soldiers always find their way home. And I figured Bucky would be no different."

"Not all of them, unfortunately," Peggy says after another moment to collect herself.

The wait for the rest of the Commandos to return back to base seems to stretch on forever. Howard leaves in the plane within thirty minutes of Steve contacting, and they're preparing for a six-hour return trip to collect them.

After three hours, Peggy gets dressed in her Army uniform and goes downstairs to Colonel Phillips to help him prepare for their return. They don't need to debrief about the mission with Steve and the others, as Peggy, Isabel and Morita provided enough information about the mission through their tears and sobs so that Steve wouldn't have to do it himself. They have no doubt, however, that Steve will, or already has, filled out his own report. He'll want to do it to himself, just to relive it once again.

In the meeting, they plan on discussing the information Zola shared in his interrogation. After Zola's original revelation, Phillips had continued to question Zola about the workings of Hydra and had uncovered information regarding the final Hydra base and the location of the Valkyrie, which would play a major role in their quest for domination, just as Isabel suspected. In return, Zola had been told he'd be given protection, though whether Phillips goes through with that promise is another question.

While Peggy is downstairs once more running over the plan for the meeting, Isabel stays on her bed, her book closed beside her. Her stomach rumbles, but she's had a nausea in her stomach for the last eight days that hasn't entirely gone, and she's barely been able to eat. She doubts now will be much different.

Instead, after a few minutes she gets up and goes to the vanity desk, digging through the drawers for a spare piece of paper and a pencil. She takes it back to her bed, curling into a ball in the corner against the wall and using her book as a makeshift desk. She stares at the blank page for a long time, as the clock ticks slowly away beside her, trying to think of how she could possibly tell her parents what's happened.

She wants to send the letter to them before they receive the note in the post telling them Bucky's been killed in action. She thinks it would be much nicer for them to hear it from her first rather than some impersonal card found in their mailbox, or a knock at the door from a poker-faced officer who hands it to them. Phillips had been kind enough to hold off on sending the letter until Steve had returned, so she knows she has time.

She wants that, wants it to come from her, someone who can explain what happened with at least a touch of sympathy. Someone who can promise that it had been without pain, that it had been quick, that Steve had tried so hard to save him and then to find him.

She just doesn't know how to tell them. She can't fathom how she can write the words, not only because it makes it all feel so real and final – there's still a part of her mind that imagines that Bucky's just gone on a mission with the others and she's been left behind again, that they'll all walk through the door together laughing and jovial and maybe a little banged up, but okay, and definitely not buried at the bottom of a ravine – but because she can't understand how she could possibly do that to her parents. She can just imagine the trauma, the turmoil, it will cause them, to open a letter from their daughter that come so sporadically only for it to be telling them that their oldest son has been killed in battle.

She doesn't know if she can do it, can't find the words, so she puts the book and paper down on the bed beside her and growls in frustration and desperation. She lays back down against the pillow, covering her face with her hand and she thinks.

A knock on the door to the room makes her jump. She sits up. A sick feeling settles in her gut, wondering whether it might be Steve on the other side, returned from the mission. She can just see it – his wobbly lip, the apologies flying off like a wave toward her, his wide and solemn eyes, red-rimmed and raw from crying. It'd be enough to break her heart all over again.

She slowly approaches the door, turns the doorknob, and breathes out a breath when it's only Morita and Dernier on the other side of the door, offering her a sympathetic smile.

"Hello, Isabel," Morita says, whilst Dernier waves, almost shyly. Carefully, Isabel realises. They aren't even sure if she wants them around.

"Bonjour, fellas."

"It's, uh, getting late. The mess hall closes in half an hour. We were wondering if you wanted to join us for dinner before we go to the meeting?"

Isabel hesitates, looking back at the blank paper on the bed. "Just let me get changed," she tells them, shutting the door again behind her.

She quickly shrugs off the casual dress she's wearing, one with a few holes in the hem and a paint stain on the arm from where she'd accidentally rubbed against one of Steve's paintings long before the war, and changes into something slightly nicer for the meeting. She throws on a pair of flat shoes, checks her appearance in the mirror, black bags and all, shrugs, and then opens the door again to follow the men downstairs.

The mess hall is practically empty except for two SSR agents dining in the far corner over a few documents. Isabel, Jim and Jacques go to the self-serve counter and load up their own trays with a bit of the food left over – a few vegetables, a bread roll, and some kind of chicken curry – before walking it to one of the tables and sitting down.

They eat in near silence, except for a few sporadic comments. Dernier, who's been attempting to learn some English just as much as the others have tried to learn French, attempts to contribute a few statements of small talk to fill the silence, but other than that, they sit in a comfortable silence. Isabel finds it's nice to not be alone.

Isabel spends nearly the entire time pondering over what to write in her letter to her parents. She thinks of when Bucky had written to them to inform them she'd been injured when they were taken hostage in the Hydra factory after their plane was shot down. It must've been hard for him to write that, even though she'd lived and been fine. She just isn't sure how to tell them this when Bucky isn't just passed out in the infirmary a few rooms over.

"You look like you're thinking about something very important," Morita notes, breaking the silence. Isabel looks up from where she's staring at the untouched meal and her half-eaten bread roll to find Jim staring at her with worry and a questioning eyebrow. "What's going on in that head of yours, Barnes?"

Isabel sighs quietly, looking back to her food. She picks up her bread roll again and pulls it apart, putting a small nibble in her mouth and swallowing before answering. "I was gonna write a letter to my parents, tell them what happened. I wanted it to come from me, not from some officer in a generalised notice. But I wanted to wait and find out what Steve found first. I didn't want to go telling them Buck was dead when he would be found alive the next day."

"Okay…" Morita acknowledges, attempting to push for an answer. "It would be somewhat kinder to hear it from you."

"I just… I don't know how to tell them. I… I don't know if I can be the one to do that to them."

"If you want, I can send the letter?" Morita offers.

"No, no, I couldn't ask you to do that. It's got to be from me," Isabel insists.

Isabel feels a hand on her arm and looks up to Dernier's understanding eyes. He has little idea of what they're saying, but his sympathetic gesture is kind. It's also enough to make Isabel's throat clog up, her eyes stinging. She forces herself not to cry, because she's done enough of that.

"Just tell them the truth," Morita says eventually after taking the time to think about his answer, which Isabel is grateful for. "I think that's what they'd want. They'd just want to know the truth."

"But I can't tell them the whole truth. So much of it is classified."

"Then tell them what you can. Your own feelings, they aren't classified. Tell them how you feel, how we feel, what's happening with you. As much as they'll care about what's happened, they'll care about how you're taking it. Plus, it won't be the big, overarching details that'll matter. It'll be the small things. Like how he died for a good cause, for protecting Steve and for protecting the rest of the world, trying to make a difference. Like how we searched for him. Like how we cried for him, all of us. How we miss him."

Isabel thinks for a moment, before nodding. "I think I can do that."

"Don't think so much about it. Just do it. I think that'll be the best way."

Once Isabel, Morita and Dernier finish their meals and take their trays to the kitchen, they make their way to the assignment room for their meeting. It's the room they always use, with a large conference table in the middle and a projector on the wall behind where Colonel Phillips or Steve usually stand to go through mission information or intel they've gained.

Denier enters the room first, and they're right on time. The doors are loud as they open. Dernier slips inside and gets to his seat beside Jones before Isabel and Morita are even close. Morita follows, holding the door open for Isabel. Nearly every seat is full at the table, and all of the eyes flick up to look at them when they enter. Isabel's eyes gravitate straight toward Steve like he's a planet with his own gravitational pull. Baby blue eyes like the beautiful morning sky meet dark blue-grey like a stormy night for one fleeting moment before Steve looks away, his bottom like quivering as he takes a deep, shaky breath to compose himself.

Steve hasn't said anything to her since he got back, or since the day Bucky fell and he left down the ravine to find him. That thought makes a sick feeling settle in her stomach. He can't even bare to look at her, let alone talk to her.

Isabel moves around the table and takes a seat next to Steve where she always sits, alarmingly aware of the empty space to her right. She reaches across and grabs Steve's hand that's clutching his own knee tightly, threading their fingers together. Steve squeezes her hand, but he doesn't look at her, his eyes trained on Phillips. He nods, and Phillips takes a breath, preparing to start.

"Now that you're all here…" Phillips says, sitting in a seat at the head of the table. "Captain Rogers, while you and the other Commandos were waiting for your return to the base, I conducted an interrogation on Doctor Armin Zola with the supervision of Agent Carter. It was very enlightening and informative."

"What did we find?" Steve asks, his voice quieter and more submissive than usual.

"Zola spilt the beans. All of them. He told us everything that Hydra is planning. He spoke about the use of the Tesseract, about their weaponry, about the bases you have all already destroyed, what they'd been for. He hasn't said anything about their attempts to reproduce the super-soldier serum, though Agent Carter is going in to interrogate him next, and no doubt she can reveal the details."

Isabel looks down at Peggy, who's face is set in a determined frown.

"I think, Stark, you should be rather proud of your prodigy, as Miss Barnes correctly guessed that Hydra would use the Valkyrie as a plane for dropping large explosive shells," Phillips continues. "We're talking nuke-sized bombs that can level entire cities with one bomb. The plane itself is powered by the Tesseract and will only actually fly when the Tesseract is connected to a device used to power the engine. According to Zola, the plane will travel at roughly one thousand miles per hour. It will get around the world within hours. Nothing we have is fast enough to travel at a similar speed. Once it's in the air, we could never catch it."

Most of the Commandos look unsurprised by this piece of information, given that Isabel pitched the idea to them way back in the Hydra factory in Spain. It's been an idea that's played on their minds since. Even though her talk of dimensions and space travel had been far-fetched, though not impossible according to the Norse mythology, her idea that the Valkyrie would be powered by the Tesseract became clearer and more likely the more they discussed it, and now, it was being proven by the scientist who had himself designed it.

"Baby Barnes, how would you like your twenty?" Dugan asks across the table, breaking the silence. Some of the men snort out a laugh, Phillips and Peggy look confused.

Isabel manages a small smirk. "I'll take cash in hand. And every day you're late on your payment, I'll add a ten percent interest charge."

"Well, I'd better pay up quick."

"The bombs are also loaded with Tesseract energy, like their weaponry," Phillips continues, ignoring Isabel and Dugan's banter and speaking with just a bit more emphasis to get their attention again. "I don't even think Zola has any idea how powerful the bombs will be or how much damage they can do."

"So, nukes," Dugan mutters. "They're really going one step above the old US of A, aren't they?"

"I feel like this counts as more than one step," Morita tells Dugan.

"Zola revealed the location of the final Hydra base. It's their headquarters, actually, carved deep within one of the mountains of the Alps. The base has an expansive airfield carved within the mountain from which they'll launch the Valkyrie super-bomber. I'll make some calls and get together a team. We'll need all the firepower we can gather up to take down this final head of Hydra." Phillips turns to Steve then with a certain amount of pride on his features as though he were before his own son, before smiling at the rest of the team. "Congratulations, all. Your hard work all these years is paying off and the end is in sight. The last mission was a major success. We've gotten the intel to take down Hydra once and for all."

"A success?" Steve asks suddenly, his tone cold and effectively cutting off Phillips' speech.

"Yes," Phillips says, frowning in confusion. "We got the intel and we got Zola, the brain of Hydra. That was our first objective, was it not? That's a success in my books."

"How is it a success when you lose a life?"

"It's a war, Rogers. People die every day, every damn second. But they die for a cause–"

Isabel looks worriedly at Steve, at the flood of emotions crossing his features. "No one's life is worth anything, especially not a life like Bucky's,"

Steve stands then, ripping his hand from Isabel's with his fists clenched, his face painted with rage and desperation and utterly loss. Isabel pulls her knees up to her chest and hugs her legs, staring at the table ahead of her as Steve goes through his heartbroken breakdown, his voice echoing through the room.

"He didn't deserve any of the shit he was put through – didn't deserve to have to drop out of school at fifteen to fund everyone else's education, didn't deserve to get packed off to war against his will, didn't deserve to be tortured and experimented on, didn't deserve to be stuck following me around into some of the most dangerous areas of Europe, and he certainly didn't deserve to die being blasted hundreds of feet into some bottomless gorge. How can you even have the nerve to say that?" He asks, pointing an accusing finger at the unprepared Colonel.

Phillips doesn't seem to have a response, looking flabbergasted by Steve's breakdown. All of the Commandos stare at Steve with sympathy and frowned brows. They watch silently as Steve storms out of the conference room with the force of his unstoppable rage. They can just seem him stomp down the hallway, everyone moving out of his way as he heads toward the elevator.

Dugan moves to follow Steve, but Phillips puts an arm out to halt him. He doesn't look upset by the outburst or offended, instead watching after Steve's disappearing figure thoughtfully. "Give him a while."

The meeting practically concludes then. There isn't much else to discuss without Steve there to run through strategies and tactics and plans for taking the base. Everyone is silent, waiting for Phillips to dismiss them.

"Zola. What happens to him now?" Jones asks.

"We aren't sure yet. The expectation is that we hold him in our cells until the war finishes and wait to see what they do with the other generals and officers of the Axis armies. Their fate will likely determine Zola's."

Everyone nods at that.

"All of you have done enough for today," Phillips eventually says into the silence that falls over them all again. He sighs loudly. "You're all free to go."

Isabel's up before anyone else, practically sprinting to the elevator to follow Steve. She rides it up to their floor, tapping her foot with impatience, and steps out, stopping in front of the closed door to Steve's room. She knocks, but there's no answer. When she turns the knob, the door opens as the lock had been busted off the doorframe by someone forcing the door open.

Steve isn't inside or in the bathroom. Isabel walks into the room and turns in a circle, finding it in a mess, as though a hurricane had moved through and trashed it. There's a large fist mark in the wall beside the door, where Steve's clearly burst inside and taken out his anger on the poor plaster. Clothes are everywhere, Steve's sketchbooks thrown on the floor, a few of them open, his pencils lying everywhere. Isabel bends down and picks up the sketchbooks – she knows Steve would regret his outburst later if he knew he'd damaged one of his precious artworks. As she picks up the newest sketchbook, the one Steve had gone down to a corner shop to buy when he filled the two he brought with him to war, she pauses on the page that's open. It's only the beginnings of a sketch, very rough, a body hanging from the side of a train with a ravine below, a look of terror plastered onto his face–

Isabel slams the book shut. She puts it carefully in the trunk at the end of Steve's bed before exiting the room, closing the broken door behind her.

She goes to her own room and slams the door shut behind her, locking it. She just hears the voices of the other Commandos calling out to her as they follow her to make sure she's okay, their voices drowned out once the door closes. Isabel leans against the door a while, even as the others knock on it and ask her to open up.

The tears start to roll down her cheeks once again, and suddenly she feels that wave of nausea roll over her, stronger than before. She hurries to the toilet and deposits the contents of her stomach, only half a bread roll and some bile, into the toilet before flushing it, only feeling slightly better. She's felt nauseous for the better of a week now, and finally letting it out soothes the feeling slightly.

She feels nothing, almost, as she lies down on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, waiting for the world to pass her by. That quick sketch is burned into her memory. Her imagination is wild enough that she can see the scene as Steve had, his hand reaching out to grab Bucky as he falls down into the snow below–

Bucky!

No!

Isabel's never seen Bucky look so terrified before.

Not long passes before the door to the room opens and then footsteps hurry into the bathroom. Isabel feels someone over her and looks up in confusion, squinting against the bright fluorescent lights of the bathroom. Did she fall asleep? How long has she been on the tile?

Her eyes adjust and then Peggy is hovering over her, looking worried. She practically lifts Isabel from the floor into a sitting position against the wall, wiping at her soaked cheeks with a bit of toilet paper and then wiping her mouth as though she were a child. Isabel's left cheek is freezing cold from being pressed against the tile. Her arm has gone numb beneath her.

"Oh, love," Peggy says, running a hand over Isabel's hair.

The touch only makes Isabel cry harder, and Peggy pulls her into a hug, cradling her against her chest.

"How can you be so calm?" Isabel asks through her sobs, pulling back and wiping frantically at her eyes. "Y-you lost him, too."

"It feels like I'm breaking a little on the inside," Peggy admits. "But Isabel, he was your brother. You've known him your entire life. He's been there for you for your whole life. No one ever expected you to take this well."

"I miss him."

"I miss him, too. Terribly. But I learnt a long time ago how to keep it all inside, how to be strong."

"That doesn't sound very healthy," Isabel admits, looking up at Peggy with wide eyes.

"Maybe it isn't, but sometimes it's necessary. Especially when someone else is relying on me."

Isabel pauses. "You don't have to do that."

"I want to. I know you'd do it for me. You have done it for me. I wouldn't have gotten through the last eight days had you not been here," Peggy admits, giving Isabel a small, pained smile.

Isabel is silent for a long time. "I have someone relying on me, too," Isabel says eventually, thinking of Steve, who wasn't anywhere to be seen when she'd gone looking earlier. Steve, who has been out in the freezing cold for days searching. Steve, who witnessed everything...

"Yes, you do."

"I need to go find Steve," Isabel says quietly. "He won't be taking this well. Bucky was just as much his brother as he was mine. Steve watched him fall, watched him die, and then couldn't find him. He won't be able to deal with that."

"Love, I don't think you're in any state to be wandering the streets of London searching for him," Peggy says quickly and carefully, putting a hand on Isabel's shoulder when she tries to stand up from the tiles. "I think it's best that we give him time and he will come back when he's ready-"

"No, I don't want him to be alone," Isabel decides. "I need to go."

"Okay, okay," Peggy says quickly, hands on Isabel's shoulders to stop her. "If you'll be okay by yourself for a while, I'll go and find him myself and bring him back here. I promise."

Isabel pauses again, thinking, before slumping back onto the floor.

"God, I can't. He couldn't even look at me since they got back. It probably hurts to look at me. He's probably blaming himself, probably feels so guilty because he couldn't save my brother. I know Steve, he tries to take the blame for everything, thinks everyone's safety is his responsibility. It's not his fault, Peg, he needs to know–"

"Isabel, breathe," Peggy interrupts, hands on Isabel's shoulders. "I will find him, and I will tell him for you if he will listen. If not, you can tell him yourself. Until we come back, I want you to stay here. It's hard, but try to go to sleep, in a bed this time, okay? You'll feel the slightest bit better when you wake up. If you need anything, go get one of the boys, okay?"

"Okay," Isabel complies.

She takes Peggy's offered hands and lets herself be pulled up from the floor. Peggy leads her to her bed and she lies down under the quilt, head on the pillow, and covers her face with her hands.

Peggy makes sure she's settled before she shrugs on a thick coat and leaves the building, braving the cold and darkness outside in search of the Captain.

Peggy walks to the Stork Club first, working on a hunch. She walks up the familiar street, arms wrapped around herself to keep in the warmth and her emotions. She needs to stay strong now, it isn't the time to break.

She pauses when she sees that the building above the Stork Club has been hit by a shell, the pub burnt out and crumbled to the ground. She slowly walks up to where the doors once used to be, where there is only a massive hole in the wall. She carefully steps over the threshold and onto the rubble-covered floorboards, looking at the rooms to both sides of her.

In the usual room the Commandos sat in at one of the small bar tables sits Steve. The room is dark, lit only by the moonlight coming in through the holes in the roof and walls. The bar is partially intact, the alcohol bottles untouched by the blitz, but the walls of the pub have fallen to the ground, tables and chairs upturned, the floor cracked and broken under their feet.

How ironic that the place they all shared happy memories in for so long be damaged at the same time as their own happiness.

Steve's got a whole bottle of whiskey in one hand and a glass in the other. His eyes are red and swollen, his nose running uncontrollably.

Peggy walks through the doorway where Bucky had once flirted with her about dancing and stops, her heels crunching on the gravel. Steve turns to look at her, turning back to his bottle when he sees who's approaching. He quickly wipes at his nose, sniffing, and blinks his eyes rapidly to clear the tears that have been falling seemingly non-stop for the last eight days.

Peggy walks into the room slowly, removing her leather gloves, as Steve leans forward and grabs the bottle.

"Doctor Erskine told me the serum wouldn't just work on my muscles and reflexes, but also my cells," Steve says, pouring another glass. His voice is thick and quivering as he speaks. Peggy takes a deep breathe. "He said it would create a protective system of healing, of regenerating, which means, um…" He pauses, gesturing to the glass in his hand. "I can't get drunk." After another pause to think, he adds, "Did you know that?"

Peggy bends over and picks up a fallen chair, righting it, before perching carefully on it. "Yes. Your metabolism burns four times faster than average. He thought it might have been one of the side effects," Peggy replies carefully, searching Steve's face thoroughly.

"Probably didn't want anybody stealing his schnapps," Steve attempts to joke, but it falls flat, his face portraying no amusement at all. After a prolonged silence where Peggy thinks of a hundred things to say but voices none of them, Steve sighs loudly. "God, I'm so sorry," he says quietly, frowning sympathetically at Peggy.

"As am I," Peggy replies, her voice wavering slightly no matter how hard she attempts to keep it stable. "It wasn't your fault."

"You read the report?" Steve asks.

"Yes."

Steve nods. "Then you know that's not true," Steve says simply, staring at the glass in his hand.

"You did everything you could–"

"No, I didn't," Steve interrupts sternly. He swallows thickly. "I got in over my head, just like I always do. Worse this time, though, to pair with my new, oversized body. Bucky waded in and pulled me out, just like he always has… did. And the one time he needed me to return the favour, I couldn't."

"I doubt it's that simple," Peggy tries.

"All I had to do was hold on."

Peggy sighs, looking around the pub for a moment, searching for the right words. "Did you believe in your friend? Respect him?" She asks sternly.

Steve looks up at her. His of course goes unspoken but weighs heavily in his eyes. Yes, of course he believed in Bucky, but if anything, he knows that it was always Bucky who believed in him.

"Then stop blaming yourself. Allow Bucky the dignity of his choice. He damn well must have thought you were worth it."

Steve stares at the whiskey bottle, three quarters empty. He hasn't got a reply to that, because he knows it's a request he can never fulfill. "I haven't even spoken to Isabel," Steve whispers. "I'm so goddam selfish. I came here to drink away my feelings and just left her there."

"She's fine," Peggy promises. "She's been back for eight days now, ploughing through, holding it together. But she needs you, now, more than she probably ever has before. She's in her room waiting for you whenever you're ready. She… didn't want to come because she didn't want to make you feel worse."

Steve sighs, running a hand down his face. "It wouldn't have."

"I told her that, but you're both about as stubborn as each other."

Steve looks decided then, stern and final and still heartbroken. "As soon as I finish this, I'm going to her. We're gonna work through this together. When we're both ready, I'm going after Johann Schmidt and I assume she and the others will want in. I'm going to burn out every hole there is for him to hide in. And I'm not going to stop until he and all of Hydra are captured or dead."

Peggy nods. "You won't be alone." She takes Steve's bottle of whiskey and drinks a large helping of it to start him on his way, leaving an eighth in the bottom. Steve sculls the rest. "Let's go."

Steve waits as Peggy puts her gloves back on to go back into the cold, his eyes still red and puffy, the skin on his cheeks smooth and glossy from the tears. They exit the bombed-out pub, and Steve offers Peggy a hand for her to take as they walk over the rubble and broken threshold.

They step out onto the footpath and head back toward the SSR base and their rooms downstairs. Steve subtlety wipes at his cheeks again with his sleeve to dry them. Peggy doesn't say anything. They're silent, just taking in the slight breeze on their face and the chill of the air, the relative quiet of the city at night. Somewhere above them as they walk, a record player turns slowly, Bing Crosby crooning out to the street below.

They reach the end of the block and turn right, and Peggy gets a shock when she sees Isabel walking toward them. She's wrapped up in a thick coat, a maroon beret perched atop of hair to protect it from the falling snow and to keep the warmth in, covering her ears. Her arms are held around herself and she's looking down at the cracks in the pavement as she walks. She pauses when she hears the footsteps approaching and looks up, stopping dead on the footpath as though she'd been caught red-handed doing something she wasn't supposed to.

"I thought I told you to stay in your room," Peggy says with a hint of amusement, smiling sadly at her friend.

"You did but I didn't listen," Isabel replies. "I couldn't just sit there any longer, waiting..."

Her eyes flick to Steve, who's standing silently behind Peggy, his wide eyes trained straight on her and assessing every part of her.

"I'll leave you both be," Peggy says quietly, before hurrying down the path toward the hotel, leaving the two lovebirds on the footpath behind her.

Isabel watches Peggy go, quietly, the light winds caressing her freezing cheeks. Her hair blows around her face below her beret.

She turns back slowly to face Steve, looking at him almost shyly. She takes one step toward him and then another, gaining speed. Once she's in front of him, she looks up at him sadly before linking her arms around his waist, holding on tightly and burying her face in his chest. Steve wraps his arms around her shoulders, tight. He leans back against the brick wall of the building and holds her against him, resting his chin on top of her head. Isabel clutches tighter every second, and then Steve feels her body wrack with a sob and hears her shaky intake of breath. He rubs her back softly and hushes her, whispering into her ear a mush of repeated phrases until she eventually calms down, her sobs petering into silence, only a few tears rolling down her cheeks.

After a moment she pulls away with one arm, wiping at her eyes. She looks up at him again, breathing out a laugh at herself. Then, she leans against him again, tucking her nose into the crook of his neck and nuzzling with her nose. Steve runs a hand through the hair hanging between her shoulder blades, his other hand running up and down her arm to warm her up against the cold.

"God, Steve, I'm so sorry," she whispers against his skin, her breath hot. "I'm so sorry you saw it."

Steve clutches her tighter against his chest. "No, I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologise, Stevie. It wasn't your fault," Isabel insists.

"Belle, I should've–"

"No," Isabel says firmly, pulling away and putting a finger over Steve's mouth to hush him. "Please, don't do that. Please. It wasn't your fault. You don't run Hydra, and you didn't force Bucky to get onto the train. You didn't send him to war in the first place. Bucky chose to be there. He knew the risks of the mission."

Steve gulps, but doesn't nod.

"You're so stubborn," Isabel huffs, frowning him with a mix of exasperation and adoration. She then gets a whiff of his breath, which smells very strongly of alcohol. "Have you been drinking?" She asks quietly, looking worried.

"Yes," Steve says, equally as quiet, as though they were whispering. "I thought I could drink it away. Guess I forgot I couldn't get drunk."

"It would be nice, wouldn't it? To forget for a while?" Isabel agrees.

"I'm sorry I ran from the meeting room," Steve says, and her frown softens slightly. "What Phillips was saying, I just couldn't stand it. I guess I probably overreacted; he's right, the mission was a success. I'll apologise to him later."

"I'm sure he's had worse in his Army career," Isabel reassures.

"I hadn't seen you in over a week and I just left. Phillips was going on about the mission and I couldn't stand to see you so upset. I just couldn't hold it in anymore. Couldn't stop the tears. I feel like I've been breaking down for the last eight days, I just didn't let anyone see it. And I… didn't want you to see me break down."

"But isn't that what I'm here for?" Isabel asks, hiding the twinge of her heart. "Aren't I here to see you in the good times and the bad. To laugh with you and cry with you?" She asks. Steve nods slowly, looking at her shyly. "I love you, Stevie, every part of you. Let me see every part of you."

Steve nods, his frown lessening. "I love you, too, mo shíorghrá. I won't hide from you."

Isabel smiles at the Irish pet name Steve's adopted for her. "What's going on up there?" Isabel asks, tapping Steve on his forehead.

Steve hesitates, but forces the words out. He promised he'd show her every part. "I just keep reliving it, over and over. I just watched him fall, Belle."

"You were in shock. Probably still are. "

"Maybe, but… every time I relive the memory, I do something different to try to save him. And every time, everything I do always works, even if it seems impossible. It's like my brain is telling me that if I'd done anything at all, it would have worked, and I could have saved him."

"Stevie, you know that's not true–"

"I-I thought about jumping after him. When Buck was falling, I was going to jump after him. I could've grabbed him and broken the fall. Maybe I could've thrown him back up onto the train."

"Steve, you can't defy physics," Isabel tries.

But by the time I thought that, it was too late, he was too far for me to have caught him, let alone saved him. But a second after I had that thought, I was thinking, where would that leave you? If I left you alone, if you'd lost both of us at once? I wasn't thinking about anything except saving Bucky."

Isabel's heart clenches at the thought of losing both of them, of doing this alone. "Steve, Bucky wouldn't have wanted you to-"

"Tell me the truth," Steve cuts in, and asks of her: "If I'd have jumped after him, would I have survived?"

"Steve, don't..." Isabel whispers, her stomach flipping. "Don't do that to yourself, please."

"I can jump from a moving plane, without a parachute, and drop through the roof of a building," Steve says quietly.

"Yes, and I'm still mad at you for doing that."

"I've jumped from a crashing, burning plane and fallen halfway down a cliff face and survived." Steve's eyes are glassed over as he stares over Isabel's shoulder. "I've been shot, stabbed, thrown, crushed, bones broken, skin burned, and I'm fine, not even a scar..." Isabel frowns at him, a warning that he won't like the answer he is searching for. "We both know what I can do, if we've even scratched the surface. So, would I have survived the fall?"

Isabel pauses, looking thoughtful. "On the plane coming back, I asked Howard if he thought Bucky would have survived because he has a dupe of the serum. Stark said it was doubtful because of all the complications and variables - the height, rocks, the cold, the time it took to get to him because the ravine was inaccessible... Then, he compared Bucky's abilities to yours. We've spent a lot of time monitoring you, Steve, a really long time." She looks away from him then, to her hands, fiddling her thumbs. "There's not a lot I don't think you could survive..."

"That settles it then," Steve says with a strange tone to his voice.

"Steve..." Isabel begins, and then sighs. Steve stares at her expectantly. "Stark and I always said that we thought the serum excelled you to the peak of human potential. To perfection." Steve nods. "Well, since then, you've displayed feats that Howard and myself feel are outside the limit of the peak human potential. You're more superhuman than human. So, my answer would be yes. I think you could have survived a straight fall. But Steve, there were so many variables, so many things that could have gone wrong. As Stark said, it wasn't just the fall. There's the rocks and the snow, internal bleeding, hypothermia. But even if you survived, Bucky probably wouldn't have. Who's to say that you could have done anything, anyway?"

"Maybe we didn't need to hit the ground. I could have grabbed him, thrown him back up onto the train. I could've saved him," Steve argues, his bottom lip quivering again.

"You may never have caught up to him. And you're aim is good, but I don't know if you could throw a person onto a train moving that fast while you yourself were falling into a ravine. There's no point contemplating the "what if", Steve."

Steve still doesn't look convinced. He looks down at his feet, at the long crack in the sidewalk below his shoe. "How are you not blaming me?"

Isabel frowns. "Because it wasn't your fault," she insists. She puts a hand under Steve's chin and gently tilt his face back up to look at her. "Why would I blame you, honey? I'd never. And Bucky surely wouldn't."

Steve pauses, thinking for a long while, his face pinched into a frown. "I don't even know how to process this," Steve says with a huffed, exasperated laugh, running his hand through his blonde hair. That laugh quickly turns into a wobbling lip and a half-sob that he attempts to hold in, and instead he makes a strangled sort of sob.

Isabel sighs and pulls him down into a hug, cradling his head against her shoulder. Steve wraps his arms around her waist, lets himself be held, and lets himself cry. It's the first time he's cried and been comforted since the fall, the first time he hasn't tried to hide his tears or force them to stop. It feels almost good, like a relief, and he wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Isabel is acutely aware of the wet spot that forms on her shoulder. She rubs Steve's back comfortingly. "Oh, my baby. You carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. I wish I could take some of it from you."

"You've got enough weight yourself," Steve protests, scrunching his eyes closed as his eyes sting with the tears. He honestly thought he'd have ran out of tears to cry by now, but still, they run thick and hot down his stinging cheeks and fall onto the shoulder of her jacket.

Isabel sighs and continues to rub his back, her hand running through the cropped hair at the back of his neck. "This isn't your fault, Stevie. There wasn't anything you or anyone else could have done to change this. You need to realise that before you can ever even think about moving on and accepting what's happened."

Steve nods his head against her shoulder, but he doesn't say anything. He truly doesn't know if that will ever happen.

"Let's go inside," Steve says. "You're frozen."

He takes Isabel by the arm and the two of them walk back to their accommodation in silence. In the elevator, free from the cold night air, Isabel shrugs off her coat and her beret, warming her hands together as they wait the floors. They exit the elevator and walk to Steve's broken bedroom door.

"Are you sure you want to sleep in here?" Isabel asks quietly, aware of the empty bed beside Steve's.

"I'm not sure," Steve eventually replies, his hand clasped around the busted doorknob. "It might be too... empty. There's a spare room down the hall. Maybe I'll just go in there, for now," he decides.

They walk down the hall, and Steve tries the handle. The door opens, not locked waiting for its next occupant, and the two of them step into the empty room. Steve goes to the bed, void of sheets and quilts, and sits down on the edge of it. He looks utterly exhausted and defeated.

"Have a sleep, Steve. You need to rest," Isabel says quietly.

"I know," he agrees. "I haven't slept more than five hours in the last eight days."

Isabel sighs and stands over him, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead and then cupping his cheek. "You may be enhanced, but even you shouldn't be going eight days without sleep," she berates. "Please, sleep."

"But there's still so much left to do. We need to prepare for the next mission, and find a way to honour Bucky properly, and tell-" Suddenly Steve gasps and looks at Isabel with wide eyes. "We need to tell your parents. They can't just find out from a letter from the War Office."

"About that, I've, um… I wrote this, while Peggy was out looking for you," Isabel tells Steve. She pulls a piece of paper from her pocket, folded in her hands, looking hesitant. "I've been trying to write it for the last eight days, but I didn't know how to tell them. Jim told me to just tell them the truth and tell them how I'm feeling, so that's what I did. And, well, you don't have to read what I wrote, but I thought you might want to add something from yourself at the bottom, or anything I've missed? I tried my best."

Steve holds out a hand and Isabel drops the letter into his open palm. He unfolds it gently, as though it were a delicate flower, Isabel's handwriting filling the page. It's nowhere near as elegant and beautiful as it usually is – the writing is scrawled, almost angrily and quickly, trying to get it all out as fast as possible.

Dear Mama and Dad,

Steve and I are afraid this letter doesn't come bearing the good news they usually do. We wish we could say that we were all okay –

Steve doesn't get much further and that before his eyes water up so much he can't see anymore.

"Oh, Steve, I'm sorry–" Isabel tries, reaching down to take the letter from him.

Steve moves it away. "I'm okay," he promises quickly. "Just… come here," he asks, holding out an arm. He grabs her wrist and pulls her into his lap, letting her sit on the edge of his knee. She tucks her head into the crook of his neck, turning so that she can read the letter as well. Isabel rubs a soothing pattern on the back of his hand.

Steve tries again, this time reading from where Isabel's crossed out the first few words and tried again.

Dear Mama and Dad,

Steve and I are afraid this letter doesn't come bearing the good news they usually do. It breaks our hearts to tell you, and we wish we could be writing to tell you something else, anything else, but we can't. We want this news to come from us. We just hope it's better for you to hear it this way.

We wish we could say that we are all okay, but this time, we didn't make it out unscathed. We've had a lot of close calls in the last few years, a lot of times we nearly didn't see another day. We're so sorry, but this time it was Bucky.

Most of its classified and we can't tell you much, and we're not so sure we should go into details anyway. What you should know was that Bucky died a brave and heroic death, and his death has not been in vain. He's always been a hero, especially to Steve and I, but even more so now. He'll be remembered as a hero by the entire world. We're so incredibly proud of him, as we're sure you are. We know we'll never forget all of the things Bucky has done for us and the family his entire life. He was always like that, wasn't he? Loyal and giving and kind and compassionate. We're hoping that that is the way people will remember him. Even though that may not be the last image of him we have in our minds, that's how we're choosing to remember him.

Bucky wasn't alone in his last moments; Steve was there, and Bucky passed knowing that people were trying desperately to help him. It was quick and not painful, for which we are thankful. There was no way we could save him. Steve and a few of the others risked their lives in a blizzard to find him but unfortunately, they couldn't before they were forced to move out. Steve went back for nearly a week and still there was nothing. We're so sorry. If anything, we just wanted to bring him home and we couldn't.

All of us are heartbroken and none of us really know how to deal with it. We're so incredibly sorry. It feels horrible enough to lose a brother and a family member, we can't even imagine how it must feel to learn you've lost a son.

As much as we both would love to come home, there's still a bit more business we need to tend to. We'll be fighting for Bucky and in his honour, and we're hoping we can bring some sort of vengeance to him by finishing the missions we came here to do. He'll always live on in us and what we're still fighting for. We promise you that.

With love,

Isabel and Steve

"God, it's gonna break Winifred's heart," Steve mutters quietly, swallowing down the tears.

"Yeah, Stevie, it is. But I figured it'd be nicer to hear it from us. I… I tried to write it as nice as I could."

"I don't think we need to add anything else," Steve admits. "There's not much more we can say. When we get home, we can give them the explanation they deserve."