Bucky would admit, he never thought a dame would come into his life like this so unexpectedly. Not that he was complaining.
Rose was quite beautiful, and her eyes were very distinctive. When the guards caught her outside their camp, it was only natural she would be suspected as a spy.
However what she did next completely ruined that idea.
"Are you all bloody idiots?" she said with a distinct English accent.
Dead silence.
"Excuse me?" demanded Colonel Phillips.
"I said you're all bloody idiots if you think I'm actually a spy," she deadpanned, completely unafraid of her situation. Bucky liked her spunk, as did Agent Carter if the choked laugh was any indication. "If I was a spy, then why in god's name would have I come to the camp directly rather than try to butter up one of the officers with my looks and attention in a tavern?"
She had a point. A dame that pretty would have gotten attention rather quick in a bar.
"If you're not a spy then why is a British woman here?" demanded Phillips.
"Because I know a pair of idiot twins who think it's hilarious to get their surrogate sister so drunk that she wakes up in the middle of a bloody forest with no idea where they are or what day it is," deadpanned the woman. "Jokes on them, I left several loud and obnoxious alarm clocks in random places to wake their arses up every hour on the hour once the hangover sets in."
Bucky definitely liked her now. That sounded like a hilarious prank.
Either way, until they knew whether she was a spy or not, they couldn't let her leave camp. Mostly because of the secret division laying low with them at the moment.
She took one sip of the soup made and grimaced.
"Not to your taste, your majesty?" sniped Phillips.
"It's passable, but whoever made this clearly doesn't know the first thing about cooking," she said. She downed it like a pro, mostly so she wouldn't have to taste the rest of it. It was like whoever was cooking didn't have the first clue about how to go about it properly.
"We're in a war. We don't have time to worry about fancy cooking," said Phillips.
"War?"
"Hitler declared war on England some time ago," Carter commented.
Her face went through a myriad of expressions before it settled on incredulous.
"Hitler, as in Adolf Hitler," she said slowly.
"Yes," said Carter.
"...I am going to murder Fred and George when I get home," she growled. "That being said, I can understand the point of rationing, but why in god's name haven't your soldiers bothered to harvest the local plants to add to the food stores?"
"Now look..." started Phillips.
"They haven't had the training of picking out what plants are edible and which ones aren't," said Carter.
"That does make sense," she commented. "But what about hunting? Surely someone knows how to set snares and the like."
"Most animals don't go near the camps and hunting them would draw attention," said Carter.
"That's only if you use guns. Arrows are silent."
That night...
Carter could openly admit she liked Rose Evans. The girl had a fiery personality, a practical mindset, and was fiercely loyal to those she considered friends.
But it hadn't taken more than a few days to realized Rose was a witch, and a trained one at that. Her story of being dumped in Germany by her friends in England had a bit more credibility when one factored in magic.
Peggy might have been a squib, but before she had been discreetly sent to a mundane girl's school she had been a proud member of the Peverell line.
Her grandfather had left her a decent inheritance before his death, and had approved of her efforts to fight Hitler and his band of idiots. Especially if it meant killing those despicable Hydra agents, who were responsible for the death of her cousin.
Peggy wouldn't admit it, but she had joined the military for a less than altruistic motive. Her sister wanted to marry a muggleborn soldier, but he was on the front lines against the Nazis. Peggy had joined the Strategic Science Division to keep tabs on him and to assure her younger sister that he was still alive.
Still...there was something rather familiar about Rose.
"I know what you are," said Peggy, once they had a bit of time together. Since Rose was a woman, and a potential spy, it was only natural she bunk with Peggy for the moment.
"Excuse me?"
"You're a witch, aren't you? A muggleborn, I'd guess."
Rose's expression turned to surprise, before it became amused.
"A half-blood, actually," she admitted. "Though Hogwarts was rather disappointing overall."
"I thought the Ministry banned the use of magic in the mundane side of things?" asked Peggy.
"The Ministry can bugger off for all I care," said Rose flatly. "So long as I avoid any overt and obviously magical displays, they can't really complain about me helping out. And potions are so hard to trace."
Considering she had established herself as an herbalist, Peggy believed her.
"So what are you really doing here then?"
"You know how Hydra has accidentally stumbled on a few magical settlements?" asked Rose.
"Yes. My cousin was killed by them," said Peggy.
"Well they also managed to find a few spell researcher's notes and were experimenting with what they found. I was cleaning up one of their bases and somehow I must have set it off. Bloody bastards had managed to get their hands on time sand of all things from a time turner."
If Peggy were anyone else, she would have called Rose crazy. But she was a squib and more importantly her cousin (the one who was killed) had been an unspeakable. A witch setting off time sand while cleaning out a Hydra base was entirely possible. There was one thing though...
"If you set off time sand, then you would have traveled through time. How far back did you get sent?" asked Peggy.
"At least sixty years," said Rose promptly. "Hitler gets his arse kicked rather thoroughly and Schmidt is dealt with by someone called Captain America. No one is sure what happened to him, just that the Captain went missing before the end of the war."
"Missing?"
"His plane went down. I don't really remember the details to be honest, just that McGonagall told me that he deliberately crashed his plane to keep weapons from reaching America," said Rose honestly.
Peggy remember that awkward soldier who selflessly volunteered for the serum. It made her heart ache to know he had vanished.
While her appearance might have been sudden, her loyalties were quickly revealed after a surprise attack by Schmidt's forces.
Her hatred of Nazis and Hydra was impossible to hide, and she decked a soldier out long enough to steal his weapon and begin expertly sniping the enemy without hesitation or remorse.
Upon returning to camp, Rose immediately began assisting the doctors in healing the men, taking over the lesser wounds that only required basic first aid knowledge and freeing them up to handle the more serious injuries. She kept a calm poker face even when witnessing such horrors.
It was hard for the men to distrust her after she worked tirelessly through the night keeping them alive without a word of thanks in return.
The men were so used to her that when she briefly left camp, they didn't try to stop her. But quite a few of them stared when she brought back a decently-sized buck trailing behind her.
"Anyone want to help me carry back the second one? This one was bloody heavy," said Rose.
Bucky was the first to volunteer.
"How the hell did you catch two deer?" demanded Phillips.
"I told you the first night, arrows are much quieter than bullets and easier to make on the fly. Besides, I think the men could use a proper moral boost like some fresh meat," said Rose smugly. "Besides, I know how to stay quiet and I don't reek of gunpowder like the rest of you do."
Rose expertly cut up the deer, and with the help of the other cooks started making a stew that was hot, filling and most importantly edible.
Phillips kept a firm eye on her the entire time, but acknowledged that she wasn't trying to poison them with the guts she insisted on saving to turn into impromptu sausages and add to the flavor of the stew when he saw her actually taste testing the food straight from the pot using a small dish.
They might have lost the last battle, but the moral improved with the hot food that had actual meat.
And then Rose got her hands on a guitar, and Bucky fell completely in love with her. Apparently one of her friends had gotten her hooked on American country music, so she decided to liven up the camp with it.
"American Girls
And American Guys
We'll always stand up and salute
We'll always recognize
When we see Ol' Glory flyin'
There's a lot of men dead
So we can sleep in peace at night
When we lay down our head
My daddy served in the army
Where he lost his right eye
But he flew a flag out in our yard
'Til the day that he died
He wanted my mother
My brother
My sister and me
To grow up and live happy
In the Land of the Free
Now this nation that I love
Has fallen under attack
A mighty sucker punch came flying in
From somewhere in the back
As soon as we could see clearly
Through our big black eye
Man, we lit up your world
Like the 4th of July
Hey Uncle Sam, put your name
At the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty
Started shaking her fist
And the Eagle will fly
And it's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother Freedom
Start ringing her bell
And it'll feel like the whole wide world
Is raining down on you
Oh, brought to you, courtesy
Of the Red, White, and Blue
Oh
And justice will be served
And the battle will rage
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage
And you'll be sorry that messed with
The U-S-of-A
'Cause we'll put a boot your ass
It's the American way
Hey Uncle Sam, put your name
At the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty
Started shaking her fist
And the Eagle will fly
And it's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother Freedom
Start ringing her bell
And it'll feel like the whole wide world
Is raining down on you
Oh, brought to you, courtesy
Of the Red, White, and Blue
Oh-oh
Of the Red, White, and Blue
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Of my Red, White, and Blue."
(If you're a country music fan, you'll recognize Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue". I've been to every single one of his concerts in my hometown!)
She had every single one of the soldiers cheering by the end of the song. Rose grinned at them, and started playing another one.
"I didn't know you could play," said Bucky grinning. He was glad Rose had found their camp...her presence alone was a major moral booster for the men, and they desperately needed it.
"It was a good way to distract me from my nightmares," admitted Rose.
Bucky had to admit, he liked Rose. A lot.
And then things went to hell in Azzano. Bucky resolves as they were shoved into the cages that if they managed to get out of this hell hole the first thing he was going to do was kiss Rose.
"So. You're Steve Rogers," said a feminine voice.
Steve turned and was faced with the most beautiful woman he had seen since he first meet Peggy.
"Um, hello?" he said confused.
"Bucky talks a lot about you. A clueless kid who didn't know when to back down from a fight," said the woman.
"You know Bucky?" said Steve.
"Wait... you mean no one has told you yet?" she said in shock.
"Told me what? Where's Bucky?" said Steve.
Peggy walked up at that point.
"What's wrong?"
"He doesn't know about what happened at Azzano," said the woman.
"Schmidt lead a force to Azzano. He captured or killed most of the men who were there. Your audience contained what was left of the 107th."
"And Bucky?" asked Steve.
"His body wasn't recovered, so there's still hope. However Phillips isn't likely to send a rescue team because he's a complete pessimist who thinks the odds are hopeless. However a small infiltration team might be able to get in and do some damage," said the woman.
"Rose, no one is going to risk a court martial for something like this. And no one would be suicidal enough to do it," said Peggy.
"A normal man might not...but it only takes one good man to make a difference," said Rose.
Besides, she did know that Captain America only really gained traction as a soldier when he lead a solo rescue operation to save his best friend. And he succeeded.