Much like standing on the deck of a SHIELD helicarrier, preparing for an assault on an enemy base felt familiar to Steve. This time, though, it wasn't Hydra that was the enemy but Ten Rings, and the base wasn't in Nazi Germany but in post-Soviet Ukraine.

Bucky at his side was also familiar, even though this team, SHIELD agents and Avengers, wasn't the Howling Commandos. It was a good team, regardless, and with any luck this mission would be over almost as soon as it began.

With no luck, though ….

With no luck, Rumlow was luring them all, even his soulmate, into a deathtrap.

Steve knew that scenario was unlikely - few people would willingly risk their soulmate's lives; to do so was to risk their own if they'd bonded and to ensure agonizing pain if they hadn't - but still the specter of it haunted him as he strode toward the Ten Rings base, Bucky at his left, Natasha at his right, and the rest of the team arrayed behind them.

He glanced down at Natasha, hoping for some reassurance, but blinked in surprise at the expression she wore. It could only be described as vicious, and he hadn't seen her wear it before, not even in their most desperate fights.

"What is it?" he asked quietly.

"Did you know?" Her tone was as deadly as her expression, but that didn't mean Steve understood her. He never had and probably never would, even if they worked together until she was his age.

So he asked for clarification. "Did I know what?"

"That he," her head nodded almost imperceptibly behind them, and Steve marveled that even when she was so angry she was still so in control, "was still alive?"

"I heard rumors. Nothing specific. But given what happened to me, Bucky, Dr. Banner, even your soulmate - it's not that surprising, is it?"

She didn't answer, and Steve didn't know what else to say.

Then whoever was on watch saw them, and he had no time to say anything else.

#

As much as she understood the need for a rear guard, Skye couldn't listen to the chatter in her earpiece without wanting to be in the middle of the action or, more accurately, fighting side by side with her soulmate.

Still, given their combined sniper skills, she and Clint were the best choices for the rear guard. Well, maybe not the best, Skye corrected herself. The best would've been Bucky Barnes, who'd been a sniper during World War II, and only gotten better with those skills as the Winter Soldier. But he had simply planted himself beside Steve, silently daring the other man to assign him anywhere else.

Then Steve and the others came into view, and it was time for her and Clint to go to work, clearing the path for the rest of their team as they approached the Ten Rings stronghold.

"Upper left," she told Clint, and squeezed the trigger.

#

This was where Steve felt most at home - fighting an enemy he knew to be real and evil, not just going where he was told like that performing monkey he'd drawn so long ago.

Just like in the old days, Bucky was at his left, shooting almost in tandem with him at the enemy. To his right - maybe it wasn't Dum Dum Dugan or Jim Morita or Gabe Jones, but it was Gabe's grandson, and that, too, was right. The weapons might be a little more advanced, and the enemy a little less formidable, but this was familiar, and Steve couldn't help the grin that curled his lips.

Natasha's preference for hand-to-hand engagement, what was now called close quarters combat, today appeared to be fueled by her anger, and Steve actively pitied the men she chose to engage - even the one taking position to shoot her in the back.

He threw his shield, caroming it off that man, and into two more before it returned to his hand.

"I had him," Natasha's voice came through the comm.

"You're the one who taught me to hustle pool. That was a perfect bank shot."

"You can't actually hustle pool, can you?" Trip asked.

Bucky's snort was answer enough, but he elaborated, "Punk couldn't lie if his life depended on it before the serum, let alone now."

"That may not be an advantage in this line of work." Melinda May spoke from where she was taking down the last of the defenders before the gate.

"That's why I leave the spying to Nat. Clear?"

"Clear," four other voices answered.

A fifth, Coulson's, said, "Clear the door. Fire in the hole."

Steve turned aside as Coulson fired the weapon - a modified rocket propelled grenade - and a moment later, the fortress door had been destroyed, with minimal damage to the rest of the structure.

Steve glanced back at Coulson. "Nice."

Coulson, oddly out of place in combat fatigues instead of his usual dark suit, wore an expression of regret. "I'll have to donate to a historical preservation society. It's a shame to destroy something that's stood so long."

It wasn't the first instance of modern values Steve didn't know how to respond to, but it was the first that came from a battle comrade, and he could only clap a hand on Coulson's shoulder.

"Don't worry, DC," Skye's voice came through the comm. "We'll figure a way."

"We always do," Coulson said, and then he was back to being the imperturbable agent.

Steve adjusted his shield and strode forward, Bucky, Coulson, and Trip falling into place behind him. Not surprisingly, Natasha, Maria and May had already slipped inside.

"Better hurry, or they won't leave anything for the rest of you slackers to do." Clint sounded amused.

"Can't have that, can we?" Steve asked. "Let's go."

#

"This is the hardest part," Clint's voice came through Skye's comm, and she suspected he'd shifted to a private channel.

"I know."

For a moment, Skye wished she and Steve had already bonded so she'd know whether he was all right. But they hadn't, and so she could only draw on her training, and offer a silent prayer to the God the nuns told her always had a plan.

You're alike that way, she thought, so please keep him safe.

#

The main difference between the Nazis he'd fought in the '40's and the Ten Rings terrorists he fought today, Steve decided, was organization.

He'd sat through enough security briefings at SHIELD that he understood terrorist organizations were loosely organized into cells, small groups that each knew only a handful of other groups, so the organization itself would survive if any given cell were compromised.

Steve hadn't expected that looseness of organizational structure to translate so directly to looseness of command response, but in this case, it most definitely had, and so Natasha and May had taken down a half-dozen hostiles by the time Steve and the others cleared the remains of the doorway.

"Save some for the rest of us." Bucky sounded amused.

"Pull your weight, slowpoke," Natasha shot back, sending a bulky man twice her mass to his knees with a stinger to his throat.

"If you insist." Bucky squeezed off three shots in rapid succession, and three defenders fell.

With barely a glance between them, Bucky and Steve charged forward, past the initial, ragged and quickly shattering, line of defense. This really was just like the war, and for a moment, Steve could let himself believe nothing had changed.

Then light glinted off Bucky's cybernetic hand as he tossed a smoke grenade further into the castle, and Steve pressed his lips together. There was no clearer sign that things - that everything - had changed than that.

A bullet singing past his ear reminded him of just where he was, and he flung the shield in the direction the shot had come from, only to see the man who'd fired it collapse before the shield could hit him.

Steve glanced over, saw Rumlow fading back into the shadows.

Huh.

There was no time for any deeper thought about that, not with Ten Rings finally realizing they were under attack and doing what they could to regroup and counter-attack.

Not that it did them much good, Steve thought wryly. They had to fall back, and back, and further back

And then it was as familiar as the war – the slow, steady march forward, the elimination of hostile opponents, securing those who surrender, and the grim satisfaction as the job was done. Steve took no pleasure in this, just as he had taken no pleasure in Nazi Germany so many years ago according to the calendar, only a few months ago according to his memory.

At some point, his work undercover done, Rumlow fell in with them, flanking Natasha, his shots as steady and true as the others'. Steve gave Rumlow a nod that he hoped conveyed thanks for the man saving his life, earlier. Rumlow nodded back, and then they were both focused once more on the task at hand.

It felt like hours but it was probably only fifteen minutes or so before the SHIELD/Avengers team had forced the defenders into a single room, the heart of the castle. With Bucky and Rumlow flanking him, Steve stepped into the doorway, shield raised for protection.

A hundred men faced them, and Steve cursed himself for a fool.

Of course they'd fall back to protect the Mandarin. He wouldn't leave himself vulnerable.

Steve shoved the anger aside, surveyed the scene before him.

In the center of the room stood a man who could only be the Mandarin – as tall as Steve, almost as muscular as Thor, inky black hair falling past his shoulders.

"You think you've won," he said, his voice rich and deep, "because you've reached the heart of the castle? You've only come into the jaws of death. The Ten Rings will de-"

Whatever else the Mandarin might have said was cut off by the resounding crack of a rifle shot and the snap of his head backward and forward again, and as he collapsed, Steve could see the dark hole in the center of the Mandarin's forehead.

For a moment, everyone in the room, Avengers, SHIELD, and Ten Rings alike stood frozen, staring at the body on the floor.

Then, almost as one, the Mandarin's henchmen laid down their weapons and rested their hands on their heads.

"Well," Rumlow said. "That was anticlimactic."

Steve turned to look behind them, where the shot had come from, and saw Skye lowering her rifle. Beside her, Clint held his bow loosely.

"No," Steve said. "That was perfect." Perfect that his soulmate, who'd brought them to the Mandarin in the first place, had been the one to bring him down in the end.

"Perfect," Bucky muttered. "Except we still have to clean up the rest of this mess."

Steve shared a quick smile with Skye before turning back to the others. "Then let's get started."