When the puppy walked into camp, no one took much note of it. It was so ragged that no one could work up the will to so much as kick at it, let alone glare in it's direction. Sure it ate the scraps of the soldier's meals, but they wouldn't begrudge another survivor of the cold, hellish country they were in a free meal.
And when a good chunk of the men went missing behind enemy lines, well, it was the dog most ignored that brought their spirits up to keep going.
It was the dog's imperious manner and the way he made soldiers who were still grieving over the loss of their friends get up in the morning (usually by putting his freezing cold nose to their backs, or stealing their blankets, to their superiors and friend's amusement) that eventually earned him the name Sergeant, or Sarge for short.
The big black dog with deep green eyes that seemed like evergreen would bark at them and get their mood up.
So when the call came to move on, the decision was unanimous.
Sarge rode on the truck between some of the younger soldiers, just wagging his tail a mile a minute and enjoying the ride. He made the suicide rate drop, he kept the spirits of the soldiers up...and he was quiet when he smelled trouble.
Considering they were hunting HYDRA, and losing badly, this was the main reason the officers kept their mouth shut about a dog in the camp.
Sarge didn't even raise his head when the famous Captain America came to do a show. Considering they lost a good chunk of the 107th a week earlier, they needed something other than some idiot prancing around in spandex to cheer the men up.
"Hey Sarge, come over here for a sec," called Derek, an American soldier who was a deft hand at sewing for some reason he refused to explain. Sarge got up and padded over to the teen, barely even a man really and sat without a command.
Derek took out some old cloth that he had saved from the scraps used for makeshift bandages when they ran out of proper ones. On it was the bars marking the owner as a 'Staff Sergeant' among most military men.
It had started out as a joke that the company mascot did more to maintain order than the actual men in charge of such things, but it had stuck. So the officers agreed it was alright to jokingly give the dog the rank, if only to lighten the mood. Derek had been given the task of making sure Sarge had something around his neck to make it official...and so he wouldn't be mistaken for some random stray.
It had almost happened once when some new hardass had come in from the special division, but the soldiers had rallied to keep the dog.
Considering they had very little to keep their spirits up, it had never been brought up again.
Sarge allowed Derek to firmly tie the bandanna around his neck, and then thanked the teen with a firm and very slobbery lick to the face.
"Ew, gross! Why don't you go give that pretty boy a kiss to the face instead of me!" laughed Derek.
Sarge barked, before going off to torment the newcomer.
Several soldiers snickered when Sarge snuck up behind the pretty boy with the shield...and barked so loudly he dropped his shield.
Seeing a massive dog with a bandanna on his neck wagging his tail, Steve Rogers made sure to keep his hands in full view as he bent down to scratch the dog behind the ears.
Which was why he wasn't prepared for Sarge's next "attack". Something he was embarrassed to say his crush Peggy was there to witness.
Sarge took one step forward...and gave Steve the biggest, wettest "kiss" of his life. It was so bad that his hair literally stuck to his head from how wet it was.
"Way to go Sarge!" shouted one of the soldiers, which sparked a whole slew of laughter. It wasn't full of amusement, but it wasn't forced either.
"Who's dog is this?" he asked Peggy, wiping most of the slobber off his face.
"You're looking at the unofficial mascot of the 107th."
Sarge barked.
"I thought soldiers weren't allowed to have pets, except for canine units?"
"Sarge is a special case. He wandered into camp one morning and since then the moral has gone through the roof. So long as he's not a disruptive influence on the men, the officers look the other way."
"Too bad Bucky's not here. Sarge is practically his dog," said one of the soldiers.
That had Steve's complete and undivided attention.
"Did you just say Bucky? As in Bucky Barnes from New York?" said Steve.
The soldier blinked.
"You didn't hear?"
Sarge the 'mascot' was doing the patrolling around the camp, a few miles away from it. Bucky had been taking him outside, mostly because they didn't want to deal with having to pick up after the dog, even if he was discreet about where he took a dump. It had been several days since Bucky went missing, and Sarge was becoming depressed...until a familiar and welcome scent came to his nose.
He tore off in the underbrush, using his long limbs to follow the scent in the air.
Bucky wasn't the only one surprised to see him...though it took them a few minutes before they started laughing at the fact Sarge had more or less bowled over the boy scout in an effort to get to Bucky...who was now being soaked courtesy of Sarge's tongue.
"Sarge, off!" said Bucky, trying and failing to push the dog off him.
Sarge whined, until the boy scout managed to pull him off...after picking his ass off the ground.
Bucky clearly had an evil idea.
"What do you say we give the guys a wake-up call to announce our arrival?" asked Bucky.
"What do you have in mind?" asked Steve.
Bucky's great idea, as it turned out, was to have Sarge start howling like the damned to wake everyone up.
Sarge was still barking when the came into the camp, and shut up once he passed the perimeter.
"Hey, let's give three cheers to Captain America!" said Bucky loudly.
Sarge's barking was a bit more sedate than the announcement of their return, but still loud enough to be heard.
"So you're keeping the dog?"
"Officially Sarge is my partner. He's had all his shots and they registered him as an canine member, even though he was a stray before. Since he took to me the most, he became my dog," said Bucky with a shrug.
"What is he anyway?"
"You find out, you tell me. We've got an ongoing bet on his breed," said Bucky.
As a service dog, he was allowed into the bar. He mostly laid under the table ignoring the noise.
"Are you sure it's smart, bringing a dog with us?"
"He's smart, he's trained, and I've seen him take down a deer in under a minute flat without any warning of his presence."
The main reason they kept Sarge wasn't because of his effect on the soldiers...it was because he was scarily good at taking down the local animals and getting his own food. Any dog that good, with the proper training and the right handler, could be an effective force in the war.
"So boys, any idea what we should call ourselves?"
"How about the Howling Commandos, after Sarge's welcome back," joked one.
Sarge lifted his head and barked once. His tail wagged ninety miles a minute.
One of the men snuck the peanut bowl under the table and filled it half full with beer. The sound of a massive tongue lapping up the drink was heard.
"So how are we going to outfit our furry mascot?"
Steve walked up to the table, after Agent Carter's impressive entrance.
"I'm going to be heading in to get a proper weapon. I could take Sarge with me to get fitted out," he offered.
"So this is the infamous Howling hound of the 107th," said Howard.
"Howling hound?" repeated Steve.
"You haven't heard? That dog's howl was heard for clear over thirty miles. Hell I heard it and it woke me out of a sound sleep."
"Well we were thinking Sarge could use some armor."
"An official mascot of the unit? Sounds like fun," said Howard.
Sarge was surprisingly patient as they measured him for armor. It had to be light and easy for him to move in, but at the same time identify him as part of the group.
His bandanna was kept, since it had been a gift, but he was given a proper collar along with the official markings of a canine unit.
The armor would attached to the collar. It had taken some doing, but eventually one of the British came up with a simple, if old fashioned solution.
Chain mail. It was metal, but it was flexible enough that Sarge wouldn't have any trouble moving around in it. Combined with the leather, which was dyed red, white and blue with a few metal stars dotted across the leather, he was as protected as they could make him.
He was like a furry black knight.
Sarge barked, a deep booming sound that they took as his sign of approval.
Sarge turned out to be a major part in their efforts of taking out HYDRA. His nose was so attuned to whatever it was they were using in their weapons that he alerted them to anyone even remotely trying to hide. Their stash of the things was growing with each weapon or bolt hole he sniffed out.
They were celebrating yet another victory when they heard the sound of a thump, a yelp and loud cursing in German while deep in enemy territory. It was quickly followed by the sound of screeching tires and the rumbling sound of an engine.
By the time they got there, Sarge was missing and there was a dead HYDRA soldier...and a semi-conscious Bucky who had been taking Sarge out for his nightly walks.
It would take three long months before they found Sarge...and when they did, it came with a few...surprises.
Sarge had always been a smart dog. But now it was like they had overclocked his brain. He was almost human. More than that, his fur seemed to have red tints. Tints that quickly proved to be a warning that he had undergone more than the usual experiments.
Sarge could breath fire.
It really begged the question of why they were able to give a dog fire breath, but couldn't do the same to their soldiers. Maybe it was a species thing, perhaps it was a fluke. Either way, they chalked it and several other oddities up to the fact that he had been missing for three months under HYDRA.
And when Bucky went missing, the only creature Steve allowed near him was Sarge. He looked as depressed as Steve himself was. He didn't question where Sarge got the bottle of liquor, just that it was apparently enough to even override the Serum enough that he could get properly drunk.
Steve was nice enough to share the bottle, glad that he could feel a proper buzz.
Sarge kept his head on Steve's leg, in a show of solidarity whenever he wasn't lapping up the alcohol.
"You know the brass gave that dog the rank of Master Sergeant after the last cache he found," said Peggy, trying to lighten the mood.
The higher ups had jokingly given the dog a higher rank, to try and humor the soldiers. It did quite a bit for moral for those who knew of the dog in question. They had even sent a new bandanna to wrap around the dog's neck. The original one would be kept safe until the end of the war, to be displayed with the other Howling Commandos.
To be fair, Sarge worked as hard, if not harder, combating HYDRA, and if not for him, several hidden caches of weapons to research and use against the men who created them would never have been found.
He was very, very good at warning the soldiers about bombs before they stepped on them. And his coat was so dark that he could sneak up against any HYDRA agents and blow their cover while slipping back into the night.
Sarge woofed, before leaving the humans to enjoy some alone time. Steve didn't take any offense to the act. Everyone knew he had a thing for Peggy Carter.
Unseen by the Super Soldier and the spy, a black shape went into the shadows before shifting into a human man, about twenty years old with the same green eyes as the dog and hair just as black.
He cracked his back, feeling relief to being able to walk around as a human again.
Yes, it was easier to slip into obscurity since the accident that dumped him well over sixty years in the past, but dammit that didn't mean he enjoyed being stuck in his canine form for days on end!
Besides, it was less hassle to hide as a dog under the Ministry's nose than explain where a new battle hardened wizard came from, considering the war was a two-front fight against Hitler and Grindlewald.
Hadrian "Hades" Potter still couldn't believe he ended up stuck sixty years in the past. At least he had been able to slip into a place where he could actually do some good and not get caught.