Bucky smirked, "What could you expect? She literally is faster than you, probably due to her lighter weight compared to you, but her moves are like yours, with a twist sometimes of her own moves by inspiration from training or such. You should have seen her when she made the bigots in several people's ranks eat their own words!", with a laugh.
"Oh, already saw that even before either one of us changed.", Steve laughed. "Just sealed the deal, I'm sure though.".
"You two done gossiping about me?", Peggy called out with a smirk on her face. "Come on, I think we're getting closer to Schmidt's main chambers... Sinclair's probably there!".
Bucky replied, "Game on.", as he narrowed his eyes, checking his rifle with extra ammo from his harness of bullets as Steve took out another fresh pistol from his belt, as Peggy took out her second pistol, filling it with ammo from her belt as well, and once again for the thousandth time through this place, they fought the urge to get close and kiss and hold each other thanks to temptation as it's not a distraction they need right now, but they were still free to do another thing.
Peggy looked at Steve, "I love you so much, Steven Grant Rogers, and I'm damn proud to fight alongside you, Captain America.", conveying all the love she had in both her eyes and voice as she doesn't know what Sinclair will have in for them in the main chambers, praying so damn much that they would win, survive what Sinclair planned for this place if he's following into Schmidt's footsteps, and get back to their children, along with Bucky in tow, as he deserves the same too, to be reunited with Audrey and their daughter.
"I love you too, Margaret Elizabeth Rogers, and I'm ready to fight alongside you, Captain Britain.", Steve smirked before Bucky's gun rang out, causing them to jump a little bit.
"No offense... but maybe next time we should have you two splitting up to not be so distracted...", Bucky told them as he pointed to the HYDRA goon that had come around the corner that Bucky put down.
Steve raised an eyebrow, "Oh, I'm sorry, do you want us to make it even more embarrassing for you by being so intimate like kissing and all? That would have been a major distraction, not this meager exchange of loving remarks.".
Bucky snorted, "Point taken, but I still say you better get used to splitting up in battles from now on.", and Peggy chuckled, "Fair enough. Let's do this, and oh, just by the way, I love you too, you annoying pest of a brother.".
Steve smirked, "Ditto.", as Bucky rolled his eyes before nodding, "I love you guys too. Let's go.", as they prepared to head to the main chambers, the nest lair of Hydra.
"This place gives me the creeps...", Bucky admitted as they got closer. "Schmidt clearly went like full occult stuff around here.", he glanced around as they were moving a bit slower.
Steve snorted, "Believe me, I got the full gist when I fought him in the cockpit...He may have been a genius, but he was insanely obsessed.", remembering how Schmidt revealed himself as Red Skull, inspiration from a Norse God or something.
Peggy replied, "But we've been cutting all heads off to the heart, and this is the heart, no doubt about it..", as then more Hydra goons came out of the chambers, clearly on orders to protect Nikhol Sinclair, their leader of Hydra, as Sinclair had claimed that he was asked to take on the role as he was the best of all the scientists, "Fire!", protecting her body with her shield as she ducked down, firing as the others followed her lead.
"Now these guys are who I was expecting!", Bucky shouted as the HYDRA troopers were all armed with Tesseract weapons. "Think we've reached the right place!".
"Stay down, Bucky! Don't want to risk you getting hit!", Steve called out to him as they responded back with some return fire.
Bucky stayed down, using his prosthetic forearm to cover himself, stunned as the Tesseract firepower didn't even scrape it, but absorbed just like the shields, and then bounced back at the Hydra troopers, catching most of them off guard as the weapons exploded on them, with other Hydra troopers injured, struggling to fire back, but quick motion of both rifle and pistol from the group got the others down for good and out of commission.
"No matter how many times I see it, it's still amazing.", Bucky commented as they went ahead, and Steve smiled, "Vibranium is truly special.", as Peggy replied, "Now we got the big one to hit.", focused.
"Be careful... don't know what sort of tricks he might have...", Steve warned her as she nodded, "Bucky, stay back, keep us covered from here, we'll take care of this, alright?", as she then glanced at Bucky.
Bucky nodded, "You got it, Captains.", as he went to stay flat against the chamber wall, where he could have eyes on both sides of the hallway and all, covering the heavyset door nearby, and Peggy smiled at Steve, "Shall we knock our way in?".
"Yeah... depends on how you want to do this though...", Steve said as he glanced around it. "Might take some time to really get that thing open... you don't happen to have some explosives for us to at least weaken this thing before knocking it down?".
Peggy grinned, "That you mention it...", as she then brought out some grenades she picked off some of the Hydra troopers a couple of levels back down, "Karma for karma.", giving two of them to Steve who grinned, putting it on one side of the hinges, as Peggy put her own two grenades on the other side of the hinges as it'd may be a single heavyset door, but it's like a French door in a way, undoubtable that it might be barred from the other side.
With a nod, they quickly pulled the pins, and ducked back with a signal to Bucky, as they covered themselves with the shields, and Bucky turned, moving further down a bit, covering himself, and then the grenades exploded, with the heavyset door booming open with a shaking crack, hearing muffled shouts of pain as maybe a Hydra trooper or two was too close, confused for the silence in the hallway.
As the dust cleared, Steve smiled with a nod, "Ladies first.", and Peggy tensed her shoulders, and took a deep breath, and then charged at the door, hitting it with the shield, hearing more cracks as the door was looking to collapse, but not quite there.
Peggy backed off, holding up her pistol with a nod, "Your turn.", with a grin as Steve then got the door down this time, with Peggy watching out for him from behind and above at the moment the door came down before he went into instinct with his pistol.
The two of them quickly saw the inner sanctum, very scary mix of Norse mythology and design along with the occult. Clearly, Sinclair didn't both changing things up now that he was in charge of HYDRA.
"Any sign of him?", Peggy whispered as they kept their shields and pistols up. "No... did he perhaps already flee or something?", Steve asked with a frown.
Peggy replied, "I don't know.", before her eyes caught into a red laser spot on Steve and dived/pushed Steve as she and he was out of the way suddenly as an explosion of a bomber gun was hit into the wall behind them, in glowing blue.
Curses in German was heard in rage and irritation, making Peggy throw her shield in the direction, hearing a yell of surprise as the shield teared out a curtain, revealing a anti-tank rifle able to turn and such, standing into an engine of remaining Tesseract energy and electricity, with a man of dark blonde hair and very eerie familiar blue eyes like Helga behind the controls, as it was Schmidt's invention with Zola back then with the admirals of Hitler, and Sinclair had updated it to the best of his limited research lately.
"Steve!", Peggy shouted as she quickly then went over to Steve as Sinclair started firing again. "Stand still and just die already!", Sinclair roared with anger as Steve recovered and used his shield to block several shots.
"Yep, he's related to Helga.", Steve admitted. "And clearly mad as hell...". Peggy looked at him, "It's clearly revolving around on his controls. I'm faster, and besides, I think it's time to reveal some of the truth about the volcano battle and Helga while you take out the engine if you jump, just like you did with the tanks.".
Steve's heart clenched yet he exhaled, nodding, "Right...Use mine, I'll get yours while you distract him, and I'll do the clash/jump. It would backfire on him hopefully, putting him out of commission, if not injured then.", handing the strap of his shield to her hand as they kept hearing roars of anger amongst their running with the shield blocking them from the incoming shots.
Peggy kissed him on the cheek quickly with a determined smile, and grabbed into his arm with a nod, and Steve exhaled, then twirled her like a spinner top as they soon heard some confusion from Sinclair, and then he let go of her, and she flew over to another wall of the chamber-like rooms, landing perfectly, and she called out, "Did you know that Helga ironically fought like a demon destined for hell before she got punished perfectly by falling to her death in a volcano?", flourishing her husband's shield proudly, awed that she can carry and hold it just fine like her shield, with a slight difference of size and weight, but still the same ratio of Vibranium.
Steve had to admit, with what Peggy had just said, that was a good idea. Probably to rile Sinclair up so much that he makes a mistake. Sinclair's response obviously was to yell in rage and keep wildly firing.
"Jeez, doesn't that thing need to reload?", Steve whispered to himself as Peggy reflected shot after shot that got dangerously close to her.
Steve moved quickly, seeing the gleam of his wife's shield, and picked it up, glancing quickly at Peggy with a nod, and she got the signal, and after a roll from a missed shot, she yelled, "And I thought Helga never missed, that is, until she couldn't!".
Sinclair snarled, "Shut up, bitch! You didn't stop that yankee bastard from killing Helga when it wasn't his war!", firing at her, and she expertly deflected the next few shots, "Hey, no one calls my Yankee a bastard, and besides, who said that he killed her?", as she can see out of her eye that Steve is running at full speed to make his jump/slash move to kill the engine, to cause it to backfire on Sinclair.
Sinclair paused for a moment which was a moment too much as Steve made his attack and struck the engine, causing it to go very violent as it was practically tearing itself apart now that what was keeping it stable had broken. Sinclair quickly tried to fix things at that moment, but it was obviously too late with the damage that had been done.
Steve jumped to Peggy, with his wife's shield in unison with his shield in his wife's hand covering them as they huddled together into the wall, hearing a big explosion along with Sinclair's horrified scream of pain, "NO!", as the chamber-like rooms shook and rumbled and such.
It was maybe two minutes before they heard silence, the whoosh of cold, whipping wind, and Bucky's voice, "Captains!", as the dust cleared up, and they lowered their shields to see that a part of the chamber-like rooms was gone, the engine/machine itself into debris, and Bucky coming over before stopping and glancing at a body, whistling as he nudged the foot, "Damn, you got him, he's hardly moving...Ugh, only a mother can love that face now.".
Steve and Peggy got up, walking to Bucky, and yep, Sinclair is clearly dying, mangled and disfigured and all, glancing at the trio with pain and anger and fear, his neck torn yet he managed to wheeze, "Wwwhooo gooot mmmmy sssister?".
Peggy raised an eyebrow, "She brought it on herself, but I admit I led her to it. She didn't hold back, you know.", as Sinclair slightly choked in shock as anger dimmed down to respect and resigned acceptance, "Yooou wwwin...Mmmmercy, pleease?", for he had heard that both of the super soldiers were quick on not making enemies suffer, though he doesn't know about the third person.
"Your choice.", Steve told him; not entirely sure if Sinclair was wishing for them to not hurt him any more of if he just wanted to quickly finish him off. "I say you don't get much longer anyways... you willing to spend your last few minutes suffering, or shall we just at least give you that mercy and ease your passing quicker?".
Sinclair wheezed, "Pleease finnnish mmme off. Nooo moore sssuffeerring.", wishing for them to give him the mercy of easing his pain into death. Peggy glanced at Steve, "Well, he said please twice...He knows that Hydra is clearly done.".
"Allow me.", Bucky said as he walked up, pulled out his pistol and with almost no hesitation, shot Sinclair in the head, ending him instantly. "I mean, he was already dead; I suppose it just would've been cruel of us to let him live much longer like that...".
Steve nodded, "We're not monsters in that way.", exhaling as he motioned with his head, "Come on, let's nab any information we can about the Nazi, since Sinclair would have reports of their moving convoys and such, and I think I am still stunned that we won...".
Peggy grasped his hand, "Me too, luv...And then we will bring this place down somehow so nobody else would use this place or even dare to take inspiration from Hydra. Let's go.", as both men nodded at her logic, and began to take all notes, papers, and such they could before Bucky stumbled on the switch for the secret elevator to the secret basement below the fortress.
"Damn, if Sinclair hadn't decided to fight back and all, he would have taken the true coward's way out by running away.", Bucky commented, and Steve narrowed his eyes, "Let's make sure we truly cleaned out if the Rangers hadn't found another way into the secret basement.".
Peggy glanced at them, "And if the secret basement was the launching bay for the bombers and the Valkyrie, all the more important to keep alert, in case if there is still desperate Hydra with the mind to push the ultimate button for this place to explode off the map, and if there's one, we better get everyone of our friends and allies out fast.".
"If this place does have a self-destruct... you'd think it would be back in Schmidt's quarters...", Bucky pointed out. "Not if he wanted to escape.", Steve reminded him. "In that case, he'd place it in an area where he's practically already gone and safe from any blasts.".
Peggy nodded, "Exactly. So, let's clear out any more Hydra before they get the idea. We'd have to be careful and out of the way when this elevator lands, since they would expect Sinclair.", walking into the elevator, and the men follow her in.
She pushed the only other button next to the office chambers button, and the usual sound of an elevator is heard as the doors closed, with the trio quickly checking their ammo, their pistols and rifle, as the elevator then headed down.
Bucky grunted, "I got two cartridges of ammo left for my pistols while my rifle got one load.", as Steve replied, "Two cartridges for my pistols too. Peggy?".
Peggy nodded, "Yeah, same. And no more grenades. Best we could do with the shields, I think we need to do a leapfrog version, and the closer we get to any dead Hydra, we nab more ammo if there are still others behind cover or something.".
"Hopefully, this place has been mostly cleared out by now; I doubt the Rangers or Paratroopers were really satisfied by just simply holding position in this place.", Bucky said.
"Yeah, I hope so too; I want to be done with this place as soon as possible... and be able to finally truly have a reunion with a man I've missed so much.", Peggy smirked as Steve blushed.
Bucky groaned dramatically as he replied, "Please, you're torturing my ears about your desires with my brother. When this is done, and if camp is exhausted by tonight, you two better get either Bebinn or Preston to do the soundproofing runes after being picked up by portal. I ain't going to explain to your kids why you were loud the next morning before we have to go back to camp to keep Phillips unsuspicious as much as he could be.".
Peggy blushed hard as her husband is, and Bucky smirked, smug at how he would tease like that over his brother and sister-in-law, and then they heard and felt the subtle signs that the elevator is starting to slow down.
"Feels like we're almost there...", Steve glanced around. He motioned to Peggy. "Shields up, just in case...", he warned as she nodded before the elevator came to a stop and opened... to reveal several paratroopers with their weapons aimed at them.
"Hold your fire!", an airborne sergeant shouted. "Damn it all, you guys were this close to getting lit up!", a private laughed at the relieving situation.
"Guess you were right about them not staying put...", Steve leaned over to Bucky who smirked, "Hey, less of a problem to worry about then, huh?".