Chapter 6: The Howling Commandos
It's Dum Dum Dugan who gives them their name. When "Craziest Sons of Bitches to Hit Hydra Where It Hurts" doesn't fly over well with Colonel Phillips and the rest of the SSR leadership, they end up as the Howling Commandos. Dum Dum runs into danger headlong, howling like a rabid wolf as he gives every Fritz he can find a hit with his own big stick. Just as he promised.
The name sticks, and Steve's elite infiltration crew are quickly the bane of Hydra and Johann Schmidt. They never hang around long enough for Schmidt to find them, but they know from the increased presence at each new factory they hit that Schmidt is aware of who's behind the attacks.
With every target Bucky hopes that they get Zola. Schmidt is the real target, but he'll settle for taking out the doctor and preventing him from doing more experiments on more unwilling victims. This sense of vengeance worries him though. Steve is a successful lab experiment looking to make good on all that was invested into creating him. Bucky's happy for Steve and he's grateful to be alive, but the strange anger that comes in waves worries him. The occasional need to mow down as many Hydra operatives as he can worries him. Destroy the target, that's all you need to do, Buck, he tells himself, and it takes effort not to take out more enemy soldiers than he has to.
They'll have to deal with Schmidt's wrath. That should make him glad, because that will be far worse than anything he can dispense.
From the base in Greece they move north through enemy territory. Their camps are small and quiet, which is pretty amazing given the group of them. Gabe and Jacques chat quietly in French; sometimes Gabe gets a signal on the radio and they're able to eliminate more Hydra operatives en route in Poland.
Hydra has all but eradicated the Nazi presence along this stretch of road. The day is dreary and gray, and cold. Bucky's breath steams in the air and he's sure it's a dead giveaway as he hides behind a tree along the roadside. His sniper rifle is slung over his shoulder and his blue wool coat isn't quite thick enough to withstand this kind of chill. He grips his assault rifle and holds it to his chest, the metal cold even through his leather gloves.
The air feels like a thick blanket of quiet, the kind that comes right before a snowfall. The first few flakes are drifting down lazily, catching in his eyelashes. He glances to his left. Steve is crouched behind a boulder, shield at the ready. The sound of a deep, purring motor floats on the air and Jim Morita grins as he hefts the explosive bundle in his hand. He crouches low to the ground and scurries to the roadside.
Bucky holds his breath as the engine gets louder. The shadow of a large Hydra vehicle looms and then the engine is a roar and Jim leaps out into the path of the vehicle and lies perfectly still on his back in the middle of the road.
Bucky closes his eyes and listens for the inevitable ba-bump of tires over a body, but instead he hears a low bird whistle and looks to see Jim standing in the middle of the road. He pulls a small transponder out of his pocket and grins. He holds it up for all of them to see before his thumb presses down on the button.
The gray clearing explodes in a fireball.
Another vehicle is closing in and Bucky gears up for the fight. It always ends in a fight. He looks over at Steve. "Ready?" Steve asks. "You know what they say. Cut off one head and two more spring up."
Bucky grins and readies his gun. "Let's find some more heads."
The next Hydra supply truck rumbles down the road and squeals to a halt before slamming into the burning wreckage of the first vehicle. Steve throws his shield at the front grate of the vehicle and the engine sputters and grinds and screams. For an object normally reserved for defense, Steve's pretty good at using it offensively.
Dum Dum howls with glee and leaps out of a tree onto the canvas top of the truck and begins firing down into the back. Several Hydra soldiers scream and jump out only to be taken out by Gabe, Jacques, and Falsworth, who melt out of the trees on the roadside. Steve fights off two Hydra officers: big, bulky guys with the glowing blue guns that can dissolve a person. And a third has limped out of the wreckage of the first vehicle, clothes still smoking. He raises his gun. Steve doesn't see him.
Bucky levels his shotgun at the guy. Time slows down: the crackle of flames is muted in his ears and the snowflakes pause in the air. He strides over to the guy, who turns his weapon on him rather than Steve. Bucky pumps the shotgun, but rather than fire he spins it in his hand and whacks the guy on the side of the head with the butt of the gun. The man falls to the ground. Bucky drops his shotgun. He wedges his toe under the Hydra weapon and flips it into the air and catches it. He points it at the Hydra soldier, who's screaming but it sounds far away like an echo. He squeezes the trigger and a pulse of blue light erupts from the barrel and then the Hydra soldier is no more than dust and a pair of twitching legs in the middle of the road.
"Bucky."
He blinks and shakes his head and then he feels the cold and hears the crackling fire. He looks up. Steve. He looks down. Legs and ash. His stomach turns and he swallows against the bile welling up in his throat.
"Buck, you can drop it now. We got 'em," Steve says in a low voice.
Bucky's knuckles are white where he grips the Hydra weapon. The other guys are looking at him with a mix of fear and awe. He throws the gun on the ground and wipes his sweating palms on his pants.
No one says anything as they salvage what they can and head back to their camp. Bucky retreats to his tent and sighs when he sees Steve following him. He pulls back the flap and nods for Steve to enter.
"You okay?" Steve asks.
"I'm going to say yes," Bucky says slowly. "But you know me better than anyone so you'll see right through my bullshit." He settles down on his bedroll and runs his hand through his hair. His hands are shaking. He clenches them into fists and jams them into his pockets. "What happened?"
"You moved faster than anyone I know, other than me," Steve tells him in a low voice. "One minute you had my six, the next you were blasting that guy into oblivion."
Bucky swallows against the lump in his throat. Tries to push his stomach back down where it belongs. "I guess old habits die hard," he says. His voice is forced. His grin stretches his face tight. He's going to snap and he doesn't know why. He remembers the buzzing and the rush of fire in his veins whenever Zola tested things on him, remembers how everything slowed down, how everything was too bright and too sharply defined, how he could hear everything and nothing all at once.
Steve is watching him, concern written all over his face and Bucky's not sure if he should laugh or not. He's always been concerned about Steve; and now that Steve is Captain America and can hold his own in a fight-more than hold his own, he is a fucking fight-he's concerned for Bucky. The role reversal is kind of funny, and maybe a little scary.
He clears his throat. "Do you know what they did to you? Like, really know," he asks, just barely above a whisper.
Steve nods. "They explained everything."
"Would you have done it even if they didn't?"
This time Steve hesitates. "I… want to say yes," he says. "They were going to give me a chance I wouldn't have had otherwise. And I knew it was a chance going in; I knew there were no guarantees."
"What if they made you do it?" Bucky asks. "What if you didn't want it?"
"I don't know," Steve says. He looks down at his hands. "So much of my own life has never been in my control. I guess if I'd been forced into it, it wouldn't have been any different than anything else. At least I got to choose, regardless of what the outcome was."
Bucky bits his lip because he doesn't trust himself to speak. He keeps trying to remember that moment of preternatural clarity and speed, but can only recall the twitching legs and the ash pile that were a person. And he remembers back to Azzano, when he first saw that weaponry in action, and decided he didn't want to be unmade like that.
He's no better than Hydra.
"Steve. Don't let me touch one of those fucking things ever again," he says in a shaking voice.
"Bucky-"
"Steve, please," Bucky says, and something about the look in his eyes makes Steve agree.
Later that night when the fires have died down to embers and the guys have passed out, Bucky is still awake. He can hear the occasional wolf howl from far in the woods and he feels his chest swelling. He rolls over and howls into the pillow but no sound comes out.