First they threw the Frenchman into their cage and now an asshole from England. Timothy Aloysius Cadwallader Dugan squinted at the Brit and decided that this wasn't just any old asshole from England. This was the one that had told him to hide the sick people. Which was a handy little bit of information to give somebody. The kind of information that could be used to trace a mole. Because someone had to have tipped off the guards about that map. Dugan had only been in the camp a week, but he and the boys had quickly come up to speed on the resistance network.

"Must be a deliberate violation," Gabe said.

Dugan turned around to face him and Sarge, who were sat close together on the side of the cage that was furthest from the door. Dugan himself had stood and put himself between his companions and the Brit when he'd been ushered in by a guard.

An eyebrow twitched on the Brit's face. "Mixing up the prisoners, you mean? Of course it is."

Dugan kept his defenses up and didn't forget to check on what the Frenchman was doing every so often.

"Someone ratted about the map," Dugan said.

"Indeed," said the Brit.

"Who woulda done a thing like that?"

"Relax, Dum Dum," Gabe said.

Dugan did not.

The Brit heaved a sigh and sat down beside the hinges of the door. "They've done it to stir up tension between the prisoners. Make everyone suspicious of each other and erode trust." He gestured at Dugan and continued with a note of condescension in his tone, "And it's obviously working."

"Wouldn't it be to our advantage to make the guards think that?" Barnes said.

Everyone in the cell turned to him and stared. When Dugan caught his eye, his sergeant started to smirk at him.

"Hey, Gabe," Dugan said loudly. "How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris?"

He could see Gabe fighting to keep the mischief off of his face. "Dunno, Dum Dum. How many?"

"I don't know either. You see, they never tried."

The Frenchman launched himself to his feet and was shouting in rapid French. He was nearly nose-to-nose with Dugan, spittle landing on his face. It was a good thing that Dugan was a fan of theatre. Otherwise, it was just disgusting and he would have had to walk away laughing. So he drew in a breath and shouted over the spitfire French.

The Brit got up next and shoved at his shoulder, saying something about brash Americans that didn't know when to hold their tongue. Then Gabe and Barnes got up and started in on the Brit. All the excitement must have gotten to Dugan, because he didn't remember consciously deciding to ball up his right hand into a fist and throw it at the Brit's face. He only just managed to pull up on the power before it made pretty solid contact with his jaw.

"Woah!" Barnes shouted. "Jesus, Dum Dum!"

Gabe jumped to pin Dugan's arms behind his back while Barnes got between him and the Brit, who was coming at him for a retaliatory blow. Dugan half-heartedly struggled in Gabe's grip as he watched Barnes and the Brit have a barely-convincing spar. He was distracted by the Frenchman still shouting and shoving and even more distracted when Gabe exploded in an equally angry-sounding French tirade. Even the Frenchman looked taken aback, his moustache shivering from a held back smile.

Prisoners in nearby cages were both perplexed and riled up.

The struggle went on for a few minutes before the guards finally came by and banged their batons on the bars of the cages. They broke apart and retreated to different sections of the cage, as far apart as they could get. Spent a few good minutes glowering at each other while the guards wandered away. Dugan pretended not to feel the heat radiating off of his sergeant that was sandwiched between himself and Gabe.

"Hey," Sarge said while jerking his chin at the Brit, "how bad did he get ya?"

He rubbed at his jaw. "Quite solid, actually."

"Sorry. He gets excited."

Dugan barked a laugh. "Yeah. Must have gotten carried away. I love a fight."

"Oh, I'm sure you meant it a little bit. I don't blame you."

Barnes tried to stop a cough. Said, "What's your name, Tommy?"

"James Montgomery Falsworth. I was a major with His Majesty's Third Independent Parachute Brigade."

Was?

"That's a mouthful," said Gabe.

"We can just call 'em Jimmy," Barnes said.

Dugan was already shaking his head. "No can-do. You've already got rights to Jimmy, Sarge. No take-backs. Monty'll do."

"Excuse me?" said the Brit.

Gabe said to the Brit, "What? You can't pick your own nickname. That's not how nicknames work."

"Right," said Dugan. "So you jumped out of planes, Monty?"

The Brit nodded. "That was the idea."

Barnes pointed to himself. "Sergeant James Barnes. Call me anything but Jimmy. Dum Dum Dugan – only a corporal even though he acts like a five-star general. Both from 107th Infantry. That's Gabe Jones, private from the 92nd."

"Pleasure," said the Brit.

"What about you?" Gabe said to the Frenchman.

"Jacques Dernier. French Resistance."

Dugan said, "So you can speak English!"

"French Resistance?" said Barnes. "How'd you get all the way out here?"

"Walked. The same as you, I assume."

There was a lull that Dugan didn't struggle to fill. "So what do we do now? I'm not going to be spending my days building weapons for these nutjobs to drop on our guys."

"Unfortunately, the man who was just taken away was the highest-ranking officer among us," said the Brit. "He was the heart of the resistance efforts. His loss will be quite the hit to morale. And then, of course, the men will be wary to work with each other now that they know there's an informant among us."

"No backups for the layout?" said Barnes.

"No," said Monty. "But…"

"But what?"

"I may recall some of it."

Dugan perked up. "Anyone got pencil and paper?"

No one made any moves until the Frenchman slowly reached into his shirt and produced a sheaf of papers and a stub of a pencil.

"Whatcha got there?" said Gabe.

"A few odds and ends," Frenchie said slyly. He passed it off to the Brit, who inspected the writing on one side.

"Is this someone's letter home? A guard's?" he asked.

"No." Frenchie shook his head and smiled. "It's my paper that I've given to you."

Monty made and face and then began to sketch a grid.

"Think this copy should stay between us," Barnes said.

Monty looked up briefly and nodded his assent.

"Are any of you on missile assembly?" said Frenchie. Dugan had to concentrate to make out the words through his accent, but he thought he got the gist of it. (Hell, it was better English than he'd ever be able to speak French.)

Dugan and Monty indicated themselves.

Frenchie smiled. "I can show you how to make the warheads inert."

So working out on the production lines the next day was pretty interesting. Dugan, Gabe, and Barnes spread the word down the line to the guys who had come in with them about how to sabotage the missiles. Since they had Barnes on material handling duty, he was perfectly placed to spread information among the men on different assignments. (They didn't talk to the men on cleaning detail in officers' quarters since they figured those were the guys most likely to be turned HYDRA and betray them.)

Gabe was working as a mechanic on some of the smaller armoured trucks HYDRA was building here. His dexterity was incredible. He was able to install O-rings and hoses in a way that would surely make them fail once the vehicle operated at anything slightly over idle. Frenchie worked on welding and engine cowling assembly for planes and bombers HYDRA was building. He was in the most danger of being called out for doing subpar work on purpose since an officer called Lohmer usually inspected the work at the end of the day. Must have been some type of engineer, because he knew what he was looking at.

Lohmer caught on within a few days. He called out the entire welding team to stand in front of the rest of the prisoners and be punished (no one would admit who was doing the shoddy work). The officer was really trying to play on emotions; he pulled the youngest private from the welding team to go first. But before Lohmer could make first contact to the back of the private's head with the butt of his weapon, Barnes shoved the cart of rubber sheets he was pushing into the guard. He went down hard and was covered by a few of the unsecured sheets on top of the cart.

"Oops," said Barnes. "Must've tripped."

The guard looked like he was seeing red. Dugan stepped away from the assembly line and walked purposefully toward Barnes and Lohmer. But then the anger faded from the guard's face. Dugan followed his gaze up to the catwalk above the main factory floor. Two high-ranking officers were up there watching. Dugan could tell from the fit and number of decorations on the one's uniform that he probably ran the show here.

The two of them moved on down the catwalk.

"Back to work!" Lohmer shouted, furious.

And they were at it again the next day, too.

Dugan was sure he didn't put out one missile that was functional. Besides the damage it would cause hitting the ground, they were useless. There'd be no detonation. Frenchie was absolutely certain about it. Between that, the sabotaged trucks, and compromised welds, HYDRA was going to be in bad shape. Dugan hoped these small acts of revolt were enough to help some guys out on the field survive those blue-light guns.

Lohmer never really forgot about Barnes humiliating him in front of the factory leaders. He watched Barnes like a hawk, which was hard to do seeing how Barnes's assignment had him walking all over the factory floor all day. Made it hard to spread information to the other prisoners, and all of his sabotages were almost immediately detected. Leaving parts in heat treatment too long, spilling some chemical onto rubber seals, dropping and denting metal sheets for the engine cowlings – Lohmer noticed Barnes doing that shit immediately and dealt his retaliation swiftly. Didn't help anything that Barnes was perfectly placed to take credit for any of the other prisoners' mistakes, too, sparing them from the beatings. Dugan was giving himself headaches trying to listen for that damned guard's voice shouting over the rest of the factory noise. His back was getting tight from being on high alert all day, ready to back up his sergeant whenever he might need it.

(The dumb kids Sarge kept covering for could take their own licks for once, Dugan thought several times a day.)

"Maybe you ought to give it a rest for a while," Gabe said to Barnes one night.

"What do you mean?" Barnes said with a wheeze.

Gabe and Dugan shared a look.

Dugan said, "Jimmy, you aren't fooling anyone anymore. You're on your feet all day, barely eating our already-reduced rations, and getting smacked around by Lohmer constantly."

"We won't be able to hide it if you're not fit for work," Monty said.

Barnes said dismissively, "It'll go away on its own." And he proceeded to fold over on himself with wet, hacking coughs.

"It hasn't been getting better," Gabe said gently.

"It will. Always does."

"Jimmy."

"Don't call me that."

"C'mon, Sarge, be reasonable."

But Barnes just shook his head. "Been around sick people all the time—"

"Not another Steve story," Dugan muttered and rolled his eyes.

"—and it never lasts, even when I catch it from him." He barely got the words out before he began hacking again.

Barnes knocked over an entire pallet of missile casings again the next day. The metallic clang of the housings hitting the factory floor echoed through the whole plant. Dugan was walking away from his work without even thinking about it; he already knew what was coming. He started running when he heard Lohmer's voice shouting and more unnatural clanging. Like the housings were being deliberately smashed. On his peripheral, he saw Gabe and Monty appear beside him.

They were close enough to see Lohmer smash a missile housing around the curve of Barnes's spine while he was on his knees. They weren't close enough to do anything but shout.

"Hey!" The word was ripped from Dugan's throat.

Other HYDRA guards were there and interrupting Lohmer's attack. The herded their leader away while Dugan and Gabe converged on Barnes.

"Jesus, is he alive?" said Gabe.

"M'fine," Barnes gasped. "Gimme a minute."

He went glassy-eyed and mostly unresponsive when he coughed up a gob of blood. Dugan looked at the body-shaped dents in the housings around them. Blood started to boil in his veins.

"Up and at 'em, Jimmy," Dugan said. He and Gabe strung their sergeant between them and left the floor. Monty didn't follow.

Frenchie sat close to Barnes as he slept that night to check that he kept breathing. Dugan sat up and stared at the narrow strip of moonlight that reached their cage. Monty was sitting up, too, on the opposite side of the cage. Someone a few cells away was trying to stifle sobs, and Dugan did his best to ignore it.

Gabe said lowly, "He's not going to last another shift. Coupla those ribs are definitely broken. Gotta be agony when he coughs."

"Where do they go?" Dugan said in a low voice. He looked from the moonlight to Monty. "The sick."

He shook his head. "An isolation ward. They never come back."

Dugan nodded.

"What are you going to do?" Monty asked.

"Whatever I have to."

Then Monty said, "I have an idea that can help."