Somewhere in the heart of Berlin…
Hitler paused the video feed on an image of Diana poised to strike the camera with her sword. He slammed the book-sized remote control down on the table.
"Zis vas ze last image ze cameras recorded before ze Invaders destroyed zem." He pulled a package of photographs out of his inside jacket pocket, and slammed them up onto a board one by one.
Gabriel Jones, Jacques Dernier, Jim Morita, James Montgomery Falsworth, James Logan, Bucky Barnes, and Steve Rogers.
Hitler turned to his assembled senior officers.
"Do you see somesing missing?" The dictator asked, rhetorically.
The men shared a few nervous glances, but not a word was spoken between them.
Hitler slammed his hands on the table.
"Who is she?!" The dictator roared, pointing at the TV screen. "Von day, I vake up und find zat, not only has my plan to capture Captain America und kill ze Howling Commandos has failed, not only have ze allies obtained ze intended power supply for MY wunderweapon, but zat ze allies have ANOZER super soldier!" He paused, to pant in rage.
"Und following zat," he continued, placing his hands behind his back, and pacing down the length of the table. "I find zat our most important labor camp, vere ve do ze experiments zat vill secure ze sousand year reich, vas captured by ze allies VITH ZE HELP OF ZIS VOMAN!" He roared as he returned to the head of the table, pointing to the screen.
"Und not only zat!" He shouted. "BUT YOUR MEN!" He said, stabbing a finger in Goering's direction. "Your men vere packed into ze plane zo tightly zey could not move! Zey panicked, und failed to follow orders vonce ze Invaders began zeir attack, und tried to kill ze Captain! Ze only casualty ze Invaders suffered vas because of TURBULENCE!" He screamed as he punched the table in front of him. The dictator allowed his features to calm, tugged his jacket back into place, and wiped his brow.
"Tread carefully. Or ve vill do sings my vay."
Howard Stark knocked on the entrance to Steve's quarters.
"Cap?" Came the inventor's call.
"Enter." Steve said.
"Hey Cap, we were taking apart the crate you guys recovered from the plane..." Stark trailed off.
Steve raised an eyebrow in inquiry.
Howard pulled a yellowed letter from his vest pocket. "We found this. I don't know if I'm supposed to give this to you, but I am. Thought you'd like to read it."
Steve took the envelope. It was inscribed "From: Joseph. To: Sarah and Steve."
His father's name. His father's handwriting. He stared into the writing for a seeming eternity until Stark interrupted his lack of thought.
"Aaaanyways, I'll leave you with it." Stark said. He gave Steve an awkward wave and left.
Steve snapped out of his trance. He couldn't bring himself to open it just yet. He wanted to know what was inside. If there was any reason his father's letter wound up in the box he'd just recovered, but he almost didn't want to. So he stowed it in the bottom of his footlocker, to be read later.
"Our next mission is Budapest." Steve said to the group. "Last month, German super-tanks broke through the Soviet barricade through the Hàrs Hill forest to resupply the German and Hungarian forces inside. Our job is to cut off the supply road."
"I'm guessin' there's a catch." Logan said, gruffly.
Steve nodded, and flipped the projector to a surveillance slide. "The Germans are using HYDRA-designed APCs to carry the supplies," he said as he pointed to them on the projection screen. "And, they have a tank for every two APCs in the convoy."
"So what kind of sneak attack are we planning?" Jones asked.
Steve grinned. "Who said we were?"
Just outside of Budapest, March Thirtieth, Nineteen Forty-five.
Dernier pushed a button, and the lead tank and following APC shot into the air on a jet of flame in a roar of deafening explosion.
Steve burst from the forest and threw his shield into the front window of the second APC. The vibranium disc cut through the inch-thick glass like butter, and embedded itself more than a third of the way through. The soldiers in the front two seats jumped back in shock as the shield hit. Steve put one foot on the brush bar and jumped up onto the hood, yanked his shield from the windscreen and pulled himself onto the roof.
Diana dashed into action down the line with a scream of fury and her sword drawn. She slashed through one of the vehicle's steel-reinforced tires with one deafening pop after another. Meanwhile, Logan yanked the broken windshield out of the APC. The men inside attempted to fire their guns at him, but Dugan dropped one with a shotgun blast, and Logan yanked the other out of the vehicle, face-first into the wreckage of the first two vehicles.
Logan hopped inside the vehicle, and threw it into reverse as Steve jumped off the roof onto the main cannon of the second tank. Steve ran up the pipe and drove his shield into the lock of the hatch, wrenched it open, pulled a grenade off of his belt and threw it inside, then slammed the door shut. He jumped from the roof of the tank as the grenade exploded and Logan rammed his commandeered APC into the front of the tank.
The back of one of the APCs opened up, and a platoon of German soldiers poured out. Bang! Bang! Bang! Falsworth dropped a quarter of them with rifle shots from the back mere seconds after they left the vehicle. The rest went scrambling for cover.
They fought down the line and piled up bodies and destroyed vehicles one by one. Diana and Steve jumped on top of one of the tanks and pushed its cannon away from a group of the one-hundred and seventh to blast it's payload into the city. The blast struck and detonated a gun emplacement with a mighty fireball. Then, the remaining siege cannons near the edge of the German line of the city whirred to life, and poured blue fire into the convoy.
"GET TO COVER!" Steve shouted as he dove off the roof of the tank, toward the charred wreckage of one of the APCs, but Diana jumped up and forward, performed a pirouette in the air, and landed opposite to how she started, fist-first on the front hood of the tank. The back end of the tank flipped into the air, and Diana caught it as it dropped toward her. The rest of the team barely had time to gawk at the sight before she turned toward the barricade and hurled the tank into the air. It soared across the sky, landed squarely on the line of siege guns and exploded.
Dugan's mouth hung open in shock. "Hey, Cap, did you know she could do that?" He asked in shock.
"I uh..." Steve stammered, as the image of Hercules deadlifting a five-hundred ton stone disc flashed before his eyes. "I kind of figured she could."
Logan just stood up and dusted himself off. "Eh." He said, dismissively. "I've seen stranger."