Bucky replied, "Sounds like a good plan to me.", as he and Peggy then took turns, noting the time of the shifts for patrol and all for two hours while keeping warm by doing push-ups which is more subtle in hiding their location than jumping jacks as that would have risked them, before they left, heading back to camp and of course, suppertime.
Peggy has a strange feeling that tomorrow is either good or bad as it's...it's peculiar...Definitely, when they are able to be free for one moment, like in the war tent or something, by an hour before first light in the morning their time which is about 4 am, since she knew that in America, it'd be 10 pm on the day before, since first light in the morning is said to happen around after 5 am, which should be enough to get by for the sneaky walk with the skies turning into lighter shades of gray and blue, and maybe a bit of misting fog too, to make a bit of trouble for the patrols.
By that planned moment, she and Bucky would have to tell Bebinn or Preston that they can't come for the weekend as this is a huge occurrence, and who knows if they'd be busy cleaning Hydra out for the whole weekend?
And so, that's what they did, after planning with the other commanders and such, with some rest and food here and there, and after they told Preston, they had to quickly head on, leading carefully and quietly and such, ready for the assault, not knowing what the day would have for them, especially Peggy, but determined to make the best for everything while prepared for the worst.
It was dark and cold, just a slight time before dawn as Peggy, Bucky and the Howling Commandos along with several platoons of Rangers and paratroopers were close to the entrance, ready to attack.
"Any ideas of what German defenses we have near that entrance? Hidden pillboxes, dug outs? I can't imagine they just have no outer defenses...", A Major Richard 'Dick' Winters of the 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Regiment, was talking with the regiment's commander Col. Robert Sink.
"No idea.", Sink shook his head. "From what our special forces friends say, these Nazis... or HYDRA, or whatever they call themselves... they've got crazy weapons and their more fanatical than even the SS to their cause. Greatly weakened as of late, but cornered animals tend to fight much harder.".
"We can handle breaking the outer defenses; if we hazard the right guess, we'll have to get through several hallways at first before we'd start being in more wider areas. Either way, close quarters fighting.", Peggy explained.
"Easy Company's ready to take charge if need be.", A Lt. Spiers informed. "Think you'll have to wait, Spiers...", Winters chuckled. "I get the feeling the Rangers want this charge.".
"We're ready for anything... been fighting these HYDRA bastards for years now.", Bucky spoke on behalf of the several Ranger officers that were with him.
"Like I said, myself, Barnes, the Howling Commandos and we'll take a few Rangers with us... we'll charge the front and get ourselves in. Focus on moving in and holding the halls and rooms we take. And let's not try to throw in all the troops we have... decent chance that they've got that whole mountain ready to blow if need be. We've seen them do it before with their other bases.", Peggy explained.
The commanders nodded in agreement, hearing the sharp command in Captain Britain's voice, realizing that she's more than ready, and knew this day would change for either good or bad.
"No fooling around, no dawdling, this is the big one. Watch each other's backs, and however this day goes, we will finish this.", Peggy commanded in a low voice, and they nodded again, and Peggy then signaled to the Howling Commandos, as Bucky signaled to the Rangers, and then they moved to attack.
"What do you think?", Bucky asked as they buried themselves in the snow when they got close to the entrance way. "Think we better knock and see what sort of welcoming committee they got.", Peggy chuckled.
"How? Don't see a doorbell...", Bucky got his answer when Peggy stood up, and tossed her shield hard against the door before it bounced off and came right back to her before she dived into the snow again. "Get ready to shoot whatever shows up...".
True to her word, the patrols on the walls came to check out the sound, and suddenly, the Rangers, Peggy, and Bucky shot out at the patrolling people as Peggy nodded at one of the Howling Commandos who grinned, snapping out grenades to each of his band, and threw the active ones over the walls and over the door, and to the door itself.
Shouts, screams, yells filled the air as the dwindling patrols tried to fire back at the up and down attackers in the snow and bushes and such as explosions was heard behind the walls, with the door exploding out from either side, and then Peggy shouted, "Go!", as she went into action as the last of the patrol people fell over dead and all.
They got to the walls, flattening themselves, with Peggy and Bucky peering carefully around the corners of the destroyed big door, and ducked back with both prosthetic arm and shield protecting them by the lash out of gunshots through multiple murder holes, and signaled with two fingers to the commanders each to tell orders of releasing a swarm of grenade launchers for the murder holes on either side over the walls.
"Knew it looked too easy for an entrance.", Peggy cursed. "At least we got them all, and the front door is open...", Bucky said.
"Yeah, look at that hallway... set up a machine gun at the end and no one's getting through that.", Peggy glanced as more HYDRA troops were rushing down the hall towards them. Several Ranger sharpshooters were firing off their shots and cutting down a few troopers moving forward but they were still coming, though perhaps unaware of others being right up against the mountain wall and doorway.
Bucky swung his Thompson and fired off a few bursts down the hall taking down a few more troops as they came to a stop and started opening fire down the way. Basically, the doorway was blocked for the moment with how much back and forth fire there was.
Peggy then shot out her first pistol at the other hall from her standpoint, covering Bucky as he covered her, as more Hydra troops went down, and then they heard the whistle of grenade launchers over the walls from the forest, thanks to their signal to the commanders, and heard more screams, shouts, and yells as the grenades made it near or into the murder holes, exploding several areas, as Peggy, Bucky and the others braced.
Peggy then heard silence and all, and ordered, "Move! And keep your guns up! This ain't over yet!", as she momentarily gave a spun signal to the commanders to start the waves of the next Ranger squadrons and the paratroopers.
"Down the hallway... hope these guys are still pretty drowsy from such an early wake up call.", Bucky said. The spearhead group of Peggy and Bucky along with the Howling Commandos moved down the hall until they reached the end of it. It split in two directions. "We split up?", Bucky asked her as she bit her lip.
"Wish Steve was here... he'd go the other way for sure... alright. We'll go to the right. Two doors right besides us here, left and right, probably halls that lead back towards the mountain side into where those murder holes were, let's make sure they're cleared out first before we go in further. Plus, they'll be good staging areas for the upcoming waves.", Peggy commanded.
Bucky nodded, "Aye, Captain!", as the Howling Commandos nodded, and so, they went to the right, with Peggy and Bucky taking up the right door, as the Howling Commandos took the left door, clearing out any stubborn injured Hydra goons who was snapping around the machine guns too late before they even touched the triggers, all by shield, rifle, pistol, etc.
The upcoming wave of Ranger squadrons and paratroopers took up the exploded murder holes since the murder holes rooms is actually like chamber-like rooms, as Peggy and the others went the other way, but unfortunately, the machine guns were on guard before they even got into the rooms, but with the explosions from the grenade launchers, the doors were blown away, so, they were firing back against the barely surviving Hydra gunners in swift time.
The Howling Commandos won first, clearing out the right room, and was about to take another refill of ammo with one of the team looking out, and saw a swarm of Hydra troopers coming down the hall, "Captain, Sergeant, look out!", as Bucky and Peggy were still fighting the last of the Hydra gunners in the left room.
Peggy moved around on instinct, throwing her shield as Bucky kept firing at the Hydra gunner into the room, and as it looked like her shield is heading down to take out a half of the troopers, leaving the other half to fire out at Peggy and the incoming Howling Commandos in the open, another shield suddenly came out of nowhere, heading to take out the other half of the troopers.
Peggy blinked for a moment as the whole world slowed down for her before she turned her head to see the shield return to its thrower... and see Steve standing there as he caught his shield.
"Sorry I'm late...", Steve smiled, his familiar half-grin smile. It was taking everything for Peggy to just drop all her things and rush into his arms but now wasn't the time.
"Took you long enough...", Peggy smiled, trying hard not to have the biggest smile on her face that she could have ever done.
"Sorry you weren't the first one charging in here!", Bucky shouted from where he was. "I'm here now, so what's the situation?", Steve asked.
"Basically, still trying to punch through some of the first levels of this place... considering where we saw the Valkyrie door, this place might take us days to clear out.", Peggy explained.
"That is if the Valkyrie was on the same level as that giant hanger. If it was lifted up there; probably sooner but either way... this place is massive.", Bucky grimaced.
Peggy held tight into her shield as she received it as well, as the Howling Commandos were in shock to see Captain America alive and well for a minute before they snapped back to attention at Peggy's orders, "Hey, you go help the Rangers by covering these rooms. Who knows if there are more Hydra coming up from a possible secret basement? Barnes, I, and Rogers will go up as we go, is that clear?".
The Howling Commandos nodded, "Yes, ma'am, Captain Britain!", as Bucky finally shot the last stubborn injured Hydra gunner in the head, as Steve's heart swelled in love and awe and respect for his wife, looking damn beautiful, and yes, dirty and all, yet dangerously badass as Captain Britain, with her British Flag of her shield gleaming in pride, feeling the same as he wanted so badly to rush to hold her in his arms too, but holding everything back as he knew it wasn't the time as anything would happen out of anywhere in this place.
The trio moved as they got to work, pushing their way through and slowly starting to clear out the complex. One thing was for sure, it felt like despite HYDRA's headquarters, things were feeling a bit easier. They were rarely running into any sort of Tesseract weapons, at least they had thought that a lot of troops would've been armed with those but no, it was so few. Steve wondered himself if maybe losing the Tesseract, Schmidt, hell, all that stuff with the Valkyrie had really crippled HYDRA beyond saving now.
As they took a breather for a few moments, Steve replied with a wry smile, "Never thought that Preston could be hitched. Got the story from him and Bebinn as I rested up at your folks' home before reuniting with the kids. You'd be upset for a second when I say that Ash was crawling for the first time, and I mean, not the stumbling and wobbly crawl, but a literal crawl when he saw me...".
"Damn...", Peggy shook her head as they followed down another hallway. "Guess it makes sense, he was so happy to see you...".
"How the hell did you even manage to survive, man?", Bucky asked him. "You're lucky we found out you were still alive in... the other place, even time before Peggy went through her procedure.".
"You did?", Steve glanced at her, "You still went through with it when you knew I was alive?". Peggy replied, "I don't regret it, Steve, as I could keep the children safe while being here or at home, especially when we know why.", looking at her husband for the thousandth time since they started canvassing through the place.
"Right... well, hopefully, after today, we won't need to worry about all that, and a few more weeks, the war will probably be over here in Europe.", Steve said.
"Can't imagine the Nazis able to put up much more of a fight, you should've seen it, Steve, we were only having to fire off a few rounds and they come out of the woodworks with their hands raised. You can't tell me that's not a sign that's practically all but over.", Bucky told him.
"The way I hear things, if we were Russian, that wouldn't be the situation. They're still fighting with everything they got left against the Soviets probably to just hold out long enough to surrender to us.", Steve replied.
"Yeah, because we're less likely to line them all up against the wall and start shooting... even though a lot of them deserve it, you seen those camps yet?", Bucky asked.
Steve blinked, "I heard rumors and such before the whole Valkyrie thing...Was that bad?". Peggy shivered, "It wasn't horrible compared to the Nazi gas camps, but the miner prison camp was awful prior to discovering the location of this place.".
"Just the shit they were doing, either with slave labor or just outright exterminating those they deem to be subhuman... if anyone wanted a reason of why we're out here fighting; there was your damn reason for sure.", Bucky growled as a few more HYDRA troopers approached but were cut down by the team in quick succession. "Boy, Steve, you must have really messed everything up, this is way easier than any of our other attacks on their bases.".
"Must have, but we ain't done yet. This place is more packed of Hydra people than technology, but that means they ain't giving up as they just keep coming...", Steve said.
"Just keep it moving... we find Sinclair, we can probably end this all at once.", Peggy said as they ducked behind some cover and got into another quick firefight. As they continued to clear forward, more and more US troops moved in to secure the base; HYDRA launched a few counter attacks from areas unsecured but were quickly thrown back and slowly being more and more cornered as squads began to take the initiate without their leading super solders.
After the quick firefight, Steve blinked, glancing at Peggy, "Wait, Sinclair, as in related to Helga Sinclair?", and Peggy replied, "Yep, according to my gut. Bucky here says that the guy would have been a random Sinclair since there could be anyone who isn't even remotely related to the main Sinclairs like Helga.".
Steve frowned, trusting Peggy's gut, thinking as the theory sounds surer than Bucky's theory, and then his eyes widened in horror as something clicked into the puzzle, "No...Those bastards!", with a furious growl.
Peggy looked at Steve in worry, "Steve?", and Steve looked at his wife, "The first attack, Schmidt ordered for that as he had major respect for Zola, and the attack came after his trial and execution, and the second attack, Schmidt must have told this Sinclair guy rumors of me coming back to Britain more than America which must have been strange to him until he realized that there was reasons keeping me there, and Schmidt must have told Sinclair that I killed Helga which wasn't true, since he assumed it when he was in the cockpit fight, not knowing that it was you...hence the second attack...".
"Hey, again, coincidence.", Bucky reminded. "I mean, England was a pretty top area to attack since Schmidt was attacking everywhere that day.".
"Maybe... but I think it's too much of a coincidence.", Steve shook his head. "Either way, yeah, obviously they're in charge now so we need to take them down.".
Peggy looked at Bucky, "Has Steve ever proved you wrong back in the day before you know what?", and Bucky exhaled sharply, "Like a lot, but not all the time...", as he also had his family in danger too...
"Gods, I hope we are both wrong, Steve...Not that I would never blame you or Peggy as the reasons for nearly putting my gals in danger as it was Schmidt's fault...", Bucky paled, clutching his rifle tighter.
"Let's not think about that right now, we grab him, we'll bring an end to HYDRA probably once and for all.", Peggy said as she charged forward for another push with the boys following her close behind. "She's certainly gotten quite bold lately...", Steve admitted as he chuckled.