To Those Who Wait

by hiyabucky

Isabel Barnes spends her days in Brooklyn nursing patients and following the mischievous likes of Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers. Their life turns upside down when Bucky is drafted for war and Steve joins the Project Rebirth experiment, leaving Isabel with the decision to either stay behind or follow "Captain America" into war. [Steve/OC]. Timeline - CA:TFA to A:IW

43. Chapter 42

42.

London, United Kingdom

April 29th, 1944

Two days after Bucky and Isabel's conversation, Isabel still hasn't admitted anything to Steve, making Bucky actually twitch. Physically. He looks at them together and his eye twitches. He swears those two are going to give him a brain aneurysm. Their affection is obvious, hanging heavily in the air around them all, but neither of them addresses it. Instead, Bucky watches them dance around each other like lovesick puppies without ever using the 'L' word, and it makes he and the other Commandos roll their eyes at the pair. Still, Bucky doesn't push them; it will happen in time. Neither of them is exactly known for being in a hurry.

As afternoon shifts into evening and darkness threatens to fall, the Commandos pack their things and group together on the tarmac, ready to depart for another mission. They're finally acting on the intel provided to them by the impostor janitor who worked for Hydra, who had informed them about a large Hydra facility in Greece. It had been another few weeks of researching and gathering as much intel as possible before they could embark to ensure the Commandos weren't walking into the unknown or into a trap.

The men stand around waiting as Morita retrieves their medical kits, and Isabel and Steve listen to one final debrief from Peggy, who shows Isabel a map of the factory and a spot marked for where she needs to wait as the emergency medic. Isabel nods along, repeating the plan back to the Agent whilst Steve watches her, wary, affection and proud, his blue eyes soft like an loving puppy.

"The Captain's in love," Dugan laughs, watching the exchange. "You can see it in his baby blues."

"I know," Bucky sighs. "And they're still both too stubborn to say it aloud."

"They don't have to say it aloud for them to know it's true, Serge," Falsworth says, fixing the maroon beret atop his head. "Actions speak louder than words."

"Yeah, alright Casanova, I know that too," Bucky nods, watching Steve and Isabel walk back hand-in-hand over to the group with Agent Carter behind them. "But not louder than the words Isabel told me," Bucky mutters to himself.

"Serge, listen to Monty here. He's one of the only one's of us who's managed to get himself a dame apart from Dernier, but Frenchy can't give anyone advice without Jones butcherin' the translation," Dugan tells Bucky, patting him on the back.

"I don't need relationship advice," Bucky argues. "Direct it at Steve, if you must share your wisdom."

"I have been, don't worry," Monty reassures.

"Lieutenant Falsworth has been mentoring our young Captain on the ways of women and romance," Dugan laughs.

"I've been trying for years. If you have any luck, let me know," Bucky mutters.

The men zip it as the two women and Steve approach. Steve glares at Bucky and Dugan, and Bucky remembers too late that Steve has super-soldier hearing and likely heard their entire conversation. Bucky gives him a smirk and a shrug of his shoulders in a what are you goin' to do about it? sort of way.

Peggy slips into the side of Bucky and kisses his cheek goodbye. "I'm sorry I couldn't come along again, fellas," Peggy apologises to them all. "Duty calls here at base."

"No problem, Agent Carter," Dugan says. "We'll bring your man back in one piece."

The Commandos drive out to the tarmac and load into the plane that will fly them down to Greece where the Hydra factory has been uncovered by nearby allied troops who followed the coordinates provided by the undercover janitor. The factory is presumably one of the largest they've faced so far, hidden into the side of a mountain, the building a tunnel forged into the rock itself. The true size of the factory is unknown, but the allied soldiers reported seeing a steady stream of trucks and armours coming to and from the factory, indicating it's relatively important to Hydra's war effort.

Everyone gets inside and sorts out their gear as Steve closes the cabin door, sealing off the exit.

"Buckle in, Buck," Steve says with a cheesy grin, taking his seat along the way toward the front of the plane, close to the cockpit to speak with Stark.

"Roger that, Rogers," Bucky chuckles in return, dutifully buckling his seat belt. The Howling Commandos all roll their eyes and groan, having heard the joke every time they fly in a plane.

They buckle themselves into their seats in preparation for the take-off, the plane rumbling to life down the runway and rattling into the sky. The force makes their stomachs swoop uncomfortably, having eaten a large dinner in preparation for the mission. Once they've levelled out and the rocking from the wind has calmed considerably with the higher altitude, Howard announces over the speakers that they can move around the cabin. Steve immediately stands from his seat beside Isabel, going to the cockpit to talk to Howard about their landing position, his shoulders tense with unease about the mission. He always gets like that.

Bucky turns to Isabel across the cabin. "Have you talked to him yet?" Bucky mouths.

Isabel glares at him. "No, not yet. We're on a mission now," Isabel mouths back.

Bucky rolls his eyes and Isabel subtlety flips him the bird.

"He never rests, does he?" Dugan asks, watching Steve's tense back as he communicates with Stark.

"Nope, but that doesn't mean I can't," Bucky says. He unbuckles himself too, lying down on the ground of the plane, using the time to catch up on any lost sleep. The other Commandos follow suit, finding a space on the floor and closing their eyes, managing to fall asleep despite the rumbling engines.

Isabel stands and walks up to the cockpit, stumbling a little with the movement of the plane. Steve blocks the doorway, leaning against the frame and speaking to Howard. She puts her hands on Steve's shoulders and peers under his arm. Steve looks over his shoulder at her, fumbling his serious conversation with Stark. Isabel sees the scientist in the pilot seat with a microphone and headset over his ears. Howard spots her and waves, leaving one hand on the steering mechanism.

"Come, sit in here," he yells over the sound of the plane.

Steve moves to the side, letting Isabel past. She plops into the second pilot's seat, immediately looking out the front windows. They're flying over the English Channel, the sun setting far off on the horizon and turning the sky a dull pink as night takes hold, the lands of France just visible in the distance. She leans forward to look down at the water below, and then to the sea out to their right.

"Wow," she yells over the whirr of the engine. "This view is beautiful."

"One of the perks of flying you guys through enemy territory. Too bad we're usually travelling at night," Stark smirks, tilting the steering mechanism slightly to the left. Isabel sits back in her seat, looking around at all the flashing lights on the dash and the roof of the cockpit with wide eyes. "Impressive, right?" Stark says. "Though it's no Stark plane, it's still the best mode of air transportation we have to date."

"Is it hard to fly?"

"Not for me, but for you maybe," Stark says seriously, smirking at Isabel's offended reaction. "I'm messing with you, doll, you're the smartest dame I know. Though, I'm going to have to put Agent Carter up there too, or else I'll never walk again." He shifts in his seat then, leaning forward, and hands Isabel another pair of headphones so that she can listen to him easier and to the transmissions. She puts them on snugly over her ears. "Now, listen, here. The controls are confusing at first. It's a real art form to ploy them all at the right time. But once you get the hang of it, it's as easy as driving a car. That's all it really is; a very fast, flying metal car."

"I've never driven a car. Can't be too hard though, right?" Isabel asks confidently.

Stark almost looks offended. "Doll, have you lived? I know you have cars in Brooklyn, I've been there myself. Here, let me enlighten you…"

Steve laughs, shaking his head. He leaves Isabel with Stark who begins to point out the different controls and buttons, explaining what each thing does and when the right time is to employ them. Steve walks back through the cabin, stepping over the sleeping bodies of his men, and finds a spot in the far corner in the tail of the plane, sitting with his back against the metal wall. He's not tired, but he knows he'll need all of his energy for this mission, and none of them ever know when they'll get their next feed or sleep. He leans his head against the wall and eventually finds himself dozing off to the sound of the whirring engines and the rattle of the metal behind his head.

---

Steve jolts awake sometime later when he feels something move next to him, opening his eyes. Isabel looks apologetic, carefully sitting down next to him. "I didn't mean to wake you," she apologises.

"It's okay, I was only dozing," Steve reassures, taking her hand in his. "You an expert pilot now?"

"Oh, definitely. I could land this baby all on my own if I tried," Isabel laughs, patting the floor of the plane.

"You've never even driven a car," Steve says, cracking up.

"Well, maybe we can remedy that. Will you let me drive one of the army trucks back to base one time?" She pushes, raising her eyebrows at him with her excitement.

"What?" Steve laughs. "You want to learn how to drive a car on a mission in enemy territory?" Steve reiterates.

Isabel shrugs. "Why not? You did. You'd never driven a car before we came here either; Monty and Bucky had to teach you. Gotta learn sometime. It isn't an issue of space or lack of vehicles – we have all the space we could ask for since we're usually all alone in this war wasteland, and we can easily steal a car from a Hydra factory somewhere. I'd get you back to base just fine!"

"No, I don't thi–" Steve starts to protest, but chokes on his words when he sees Isabel's expression.

She's suddenly turned to him, her eyes wide and doe-like, fluttering her eyelashes. "Stevie," she says in a voice a pitch higher than her own, "If you don't teach me to drive, I'll just ask one of the other boys. I'm sure one of them will happily teach me. You wouldn't want me to get stuck somewhere all alone and not be able to drive to safety, would you?"

Steve looks at her a moment with wide eyes, a smile growing on his face. "Fine," Steve gives, his voice a little strained. "If we're ever driving around, have the time and aren't in any imminent danger of being chased down by Hydra, I'll teach you how to drive. I'm sure the fellas won't mind another whiplash inducing drive."

"Good man," Isabel laughs, kissing Steve's cheek in thanks. "I heard your first time behind the wheel got off to a rough start."

"Stick's hard to learn," Steve shrugs. His first time driving had indeed been rocky, and he hadn't been much of a driver. He's been in cars before, obviously, and he knows how they work, but being a passenger when Bucky borrowed the Barnes' family car to drive them somewhere and actually driving are two very different things. It had taken only a few minutes for Bucky and Monty to explain how everything worked, and Steve got it just fine, but at that point he was still a little uncomfortable and uncoordinated in his body and it took him quite a whole to coordinate everything with his arms and legs at once. After an hour or so they were flying through the countryside.

"Where did you learn that face?" Steve asks to change the subject, squeezing Isabel's hand.

"Peggy taught me," Isabel says, smirking at Steve. "She told me it would work like a charm, and what do you know…" She laughs, leaning in a little closer, catching Steve's lips with her own. She smiles into the kiss and so does he, breaking apart after a few moments. She remains right up close, her lips nearly brushing his again, and looks up into his eyes, a sneaky smile on her red lips. "So, you really will teach me to drive?"

"'Course," Steve tells her with a smile, his shoulders sagging as he calms. He lifts his own hand to thread through Isabel's hair, pulled back into a short pony tail. "Anything for you, Belle."

Isabel smiles brighter, her eyes crinkling and going soft with affection. She brings a hand up to stroke it gently across Steve's cheek. After a second's hesitation, she says, "Steve?"

"Yeah, Belle?"

"I–" Isabel opens her mouth, the words on the tip of her tongue, just as a loud groaning noise comes from one of the men. They jump apart in surprise and turn, finding Dugan sitting up and looking at them disgust, his eyes heavy from sleep.

"Oh, nausea. Save it for the bedroom," Dugan mutters.

Steve's cheeks go as red as a tomato.

---

Eventually all of the Commandos are wide awake, the plane crossing the border into Greece. They've been flying for hours, the plane rocking slightly in the wind, the low rumble of the plane's engines the only thing piercing the silence of the sleeping European countryside below. Of course, they know below is far from silent, the lands ravaged by war and turmoil. The forest of trees hides the gunfire and explosions and waiting enemy, seemingly stretching forever in all directions.

"We'll land the plane eleven miles away from the factory, around here, at the closest Allied air base. We'll have to walk the rest of the way, along this route, south-west," Steve is directing, using a scribbled-on map of Europe as a visual guide. The Commandos all crowd around to heed his instruction. Jones holds a flashlight up to the page. "Isabel, we leave you here," Steve says, pointing to the same spot on the map that Peggy had shown Isabel earlier. "Then, we get in quickly and check for intel. Word has it that there is an office for Zola at this site, so we need to find it. This may be our chance to get some information on Hydra's weaponry. We search for any prisoners and then we get out and take the factory down. Stark will fly back to London before daybreak, then he'll come back for us tomorrow night if we're ready at the airfield. If not, the next night. Then, we high-tail it out of here."

"Sounds solid," Dugan says. "No foreseeable issues?"

"Eh," Steve says, giving the 'so-so' hand gesture as he rolls the map back up. "The terrain isn't flat around here so getting to the spot may be more challenging, but hills give us an advantage. The problem is the factory is hidden in the mountainside, so it'll be impossible to tell the size of it until we're inside. And so far, our intel has only notified us of one visible entrance and exit, which may make getting out a little hard. We won't know until we get there. Still, one entrance means limited deposits of security around the site. Getting in shouldn't be a problem. We just have to knock on the front door–"

Suddenly, a loud bang sounds somewhere in the air nearby, rocking the plane slightly.

"This may be a problem," Falsworth says, looking out one of the small side windows of the plane.

Outside through the pitch black, bombs have started to shoot up from in the trees, exploding in the air in massive fireballs, inching closer to the plane.

"Fuck," Steve curses. "Howard we're being targeted, evasive manoeuvres!"

The plane begins the rock violently, both from the blasts outside and from Howard shuffling the plane back and forth in a zig-zag fashion to limit the possibility of a direct hit.

"Is it Hydra?" Dugan yells. "We're close to the factory."

"How are we supposed to see from up here, Dum Dum?" Bucky yells back, frustrated. "Could be goddamn anyone. The Nazi's have occupied Greece since nineteen-forty."

"What do we do?" Morita asks, clutching tightly to his medical kit and trying not to fall over.

"We hope we pass them. This happens all the time," Steve yells in reassurance over the roar of the engines, holding tightly to Isabel beside him.

It does happen all the time. Nearly every time they fly over enemy territory they encounter a small barrage from random sites set up to shoot down planes. But they've never been attacked before at night, since the darkness always conceals the plane from view from the ground. They rarely fly during daylight hours for that exact reason. But even in daylight, the barrage has never gotten this close to the plane, has never rocked it in the sky or the force been enough to knock them over.

Howard sweves the plane randomly through the sky, up and down and side to side, but the explosives become more accurate each time, nearing closer to the plane.

"They must be tracking our movement, somehow!" Howard yells over all the noise. "I don't know how they can see us–"

Suddenly, a bang sounds right outside the plane, almost deafening everyone on board. The plane shudders and jerks so hard that everyone falls over, thrown into the air by the force of the impact. The terrible sound of metal splitting fills the plane and then the rush of howling air. A wave of hot air fills part of the cabin through the hole in the wall, searing and red.

Isabel's ears ring, and when she looks up from where she's pinned by Steve's arm to the floor, there's a hole in the wall of the side of the plane, the air violently rushing out of the hole like a vacuum. Dernier is only just pulled out of the suction of the wind by Jones, saved from being sucked out into the black sky surrounding them. Dernier looks frightened but relieved, holding tightly to one of the bars running along the plane's wall. He's a bit black with soot as though he got caught up in the small fireball that exploded into the cabin. Nevertheless, he gives his Captain a thumbs up, indicating he's fine.

Steve jumps up quickly, dragging Isabel with him. Outside the hole, the wing of the plane is visible, looking awfully fragile and flimsy, flapping in the heavy wind with parts of it breaking off behind it. The engine itself clicks and shudders, and blows out billows of smoke and fire, bright red and yellow against the black sky, only drawing more attention to them.

The plane slowly turns to the left, propelled forward by only one completely working engine, but that engine isn't enough to keep them in the air. Steve hurries to the cockpit, and Howard turns off the second engine, the plane falling into an eerie silence.

"We can glide for a couple of miles," Howard tells Steve whilst flicking various switches on the roof. "Depends on our weight and altitude, but we can probably make it to the airfield and make a safe landing. As long as we don't get hit again."

That's not possible, however, because the only thing stopping them from getting hit earlier was Howard's evasive manoeuvres, which aren't possible without two working engines. Every turn of the plane would cause them to lose precious altitude, which would lower their chances of making it to the airfield.

Howard speaks into his headset, radioing someone at the airfield they're heading to.

Suddenly, the plane takes another hit, this time to the underside of the cabin. The floor of the plane bursts opens with a wide crack where it hits, and bits of the metal underneath the flooring peel away in the wind. The force throws them up upward and forward toward the front of the plane. Isabel trips, her head knocking into the window, and she feels her eyebrow snag the window shade latch, drawing blood.

The force sends the plane's nose downward and the plane begins an alarming free fall. Gone is Howard's plan of gliding toward safety; the way they're losing altitude, they'll hit the ground somewhere on the mountainsides below them. The force of the free fall threatens to send them flying toward the back of the plane. Dugan grabs hold of Isabel's wrist just as she floats backward and pulls her against the wall next to him, sitting wedged between the seats for support.

The alarms of the plane are blaring, but the noise is drowned out by the rush of the wind and by their hearts beating fast in their chests, loud in their heads. Steve makes himself stand upright and help Howard as he grabs the steering column and attempt to straighten it out to at least halt their descent. Howard groans and yells as he attempts to hold it, and eventually, the plane painfully levels out slightly, but then suddenly there's a loud band and snap, and the steering column just wiggles freely in Howard's hand without moving the plane.

"The steering just malfunctioned, Cap," Howard tells Steve in a panicked voice. "We won't make it. We're crashing. Time to eject."

Steve stares at Howard in exasperation for just a second before he recovers, jumping the cracks in the floor and running to the box bolted to the back of the plane. He opens it by ripping the door off its hinges, revealing four parachutes.

"That's not enough!" Falsworth yells over the roar of the winds and the engine.

"We'll have to pair up!" Steve instructs, eyeing each person quickly to guesstimate their weight. The parachutes can only carry so much to land at a safe speed. "Jones, take Dernier. Dugan, you take Stark. Morita, you're with Falsworth," Steve instructs, handing out the parachutes quickly. The men quickly suit up, the larger of the men strapping the backpack to themselves. "Go! Green light!" Steve tells them.

The explosions are coming much less now, and most of them are far away behind them, meaning they've likely passed over the site. But the plane's going down and there's no way to escape it. One by one, the pairs jump from through the hole of the plane, allowing the wind to carry them into the vast blackness and to the ground below.

Steve quickly approaches Isabel and Bucky, Isabel still seated on the ground where Dugan had been before, Bucky crouched beside her to stabilise himself.

"Buck, you take Isabel," Steve tells Bucky, handing him the last parachute.

Bucky hurries to shrug the parachute pack and all its components on, tightening it over his chest and arms to ensure it won't pull off midair. Steve pulls Isabel into a standing position just as the plane is hit by another final explosion, the plane veering suddenly toward its broken wing and sending them hard into the wall, knocking the breath from Isabel's lungs. Despite Steve's body squashing her small figure against the wall, his hand cups the back of her head to stop it from slamming into the metal, his other hand shooting out to grab Bucky and stop him from slamming into the wall himself.

"God, you're heavy!" Isabel yells, pushing Steve off of her once they can stabilise themselves again and Bucky's standing.

"Sorry!"

Another lot of the plane's panic mode systems begin blaring at the back of the plane, making it hard to hear anything. The dim lights in the cabin flash, over the roof and along the walls that aren't blown to smithereens.

"Wait, where's your parachute?" Isabel yells to Steve, seeing his hands are empty and looking around the cabin for another box of parachutes, only to find none.

"There's another one in the cockpit," Steve promises. "I'll be right behind you. I promise."

Isabel nods, and surges forward to plant an emotional kiss to Steve's lips, panic in her eyes. Steve kisses back but cuts it off short.

"You need to go, now," Steve demands, guiding her back toward Bucky who has slowly edged closer to the hole in the wall, holding the wall to keep himself in place against the force. Isabel steps toward him, grabbing the hand he offers to pull her toward him. The cold air makes her hands and nose feel frozen instantly. The hole is slowly getting bigger, chunks of the plane's wall ripping away in the wind. She makes the mistake of looking down, shrieking at the sight of the ground below them, frighteningly closer than it had been minutes earlier, but her shriek is lost in the howling of the wind.

"Jump up," Bucky tells her, holding his arms out.

Isabel jumps into his arms, clamping her legs around his waist and holding on tightly to his shoulders. Bucky threads an extra strap around her waist, connecting to his own parachute. To his credit, Bucky grips her tightly, almost tight enough that she can't breathe, one arm around her back and the other over her shoulders, holding her head against his shoulder. Isabel keeps her eyes on Steve as Bucky edges toward the door to the plane and doesn't hesitate as he steps over the side, Steve disappearing from view within the plane's cabin.

They tumble uncontrollably, caught up in the wind from the engine, looking at the sky and the ground in a dizzying pattern. All Isabel can see through her hair whipping in her eyes and over Bucky's shoulder is the dark grey of the sky and the white lights of the stars above them.

Then suddenly, they're free falling. The wind whips them, cold enough that it feels like it's skinning them alive, and any scream that may have escaped Isabel is lodged in her throat like a bullet. She holds tighter to her brother, who returns the gesture, clamping her eyes shut. They fall, a horrible feeling of being out of control, their stomachs seemingly rising into their throats, faster and faster until they finally plateau.

Eventually, it feels like they aren't moving at all, like they're suspended hundreds of meters above the ground by an invisible force. Time seems to slow down, and it feels like they've been falling for hours, silent, when in reality it hasn't even been thirty seconds.

Bucky suddenly yells, "Pull the chute!"

Isabel hesitates, not wanting to let go of her grip on Bucky, worried that as soon as she does she'll fly out of his arms. He feels her tense and hesitate, holding her even tighter. "I won't let you fall," he yells into her ear, barely audible over the rushing wind.

Isabel lets go quickly with one arm, grabbing the chute cord by Bucky's head and pulling hard. The chute billows out of the pack on Bucky's back, jolting them forcefully upward as it fills with air and slows their descent. It knocks the air audibly from Bucky's lungs and causes an ache in Isabel's arms where she clings to her brother.

The noise of the wind immediately calms as they float slowly down toward the trees and mountains below, only hearing the sound of the soft whipping of the silk chute above them. Isabel carefully looks down, her heart pounding at the sight of them still so high above the mountain. They're heading toward the top of the mountain and the thick tree growth covering it.

She forces her mind to count all three of the other white chutes further below them, Dernier and Jones already almost to the ground. Then she looks up, searching around the billowing material of their own chute for Steve's chute above them. There's no chute, only a burning plane falling to the ground on their left, having passed them on their descent without a parachute to slow it down.

"Where's Steve?" Isabel screeches, her panic instantly taking over.

Bucky looks around then from his steely staring into the distance, his own eyes wide and horrified. "He said he was following!"

They both squint over at the plane. The engine, which had been billowing and sputtering all this time, finally explodes and lights up the plane like a Christmas tree, illuminating the navy-blue clad figure standing in the hole of the plane with his arms propped against its sharp edges to stop himself from flying out. Steve stares up at them as they float safely to the ground.

"He doesn't have a chute," Isabel cries, the information just dawning on her.

They watch in horror as the plane and Steve inside spiral to the ground a few hundred meters away from them, fire bursting out from the ruined engine and leaving a trail of black smoke behind it. It hits the trees hard, accompanied by the sound of crunching metal and snapping trees, breaking through the evergreens. They hear the sound of the plane landing with a loud resounding thunk on the side of the rocky mountain, and immediately it explodes, sending heat through the air and lighting up the woods around it, sparking the trees to burn.

"No!" Isabel finally manages to scream just as they themselves hit the trees at a very fast pace despite their parachute.

Isabel and Bucky fall through the green leaves, bounce off branches, and crash through the smaller twig-like branches, letting out grunts and cries of pain as they hit the hard wood and are cut up by the sharp branches. Nevertheless, Bucky keeps a tight grip on his sister, cushioning at least some of the force. Their parachute gets tangled in the thicker branches above them and they come to an abrupt stop just before hitting the ground, suspended in the air by Bucky's pack. It saves them a hard landing and most likely broken bones, but it doesn't hurt any less. Bucky lets out a cry, the backpack pulling on his shoulders and chest painfully. Isabel feels the wind knocked out of her and takes a moment to catch her breath again.

Isabel looks down carefully, judging she'll land somewhat safely from this height. After another second to psyche herself, Isabel reaches around and unclips herself from Bucky's pack before she lets go of Bucky's neck, falling a few feet to the ground below. She lands off balance, falling forward on her hands and knees. She feels a small twinge in one of her wrists, but she comes off alright. Her arms and legs are stinging with cuts from the branches. The old blood from the bang to her eyebrow on the plane mixes with the new blood oozing from a fairly large cut on her cheek, the blood leaking down her jaw and onto her neck.

She looks up just as Bucky manages to awkwardly unbuckle himself from the parachute, falling momentarily before landing crouched beside her, much more agile than Isabel. His own body is littered with cuts and red blotches, sure to bruise sooner or later, but he seems no worse for wear.

"Are you okay?" He asks his sister, holding his own chest tightly as if hugging away the pain from the backpack's straps.

"I- I think I'm fine, you?" Isabel says, standing up on extremely shaky legs, unsure if they'll even hold her. Her focus is cast through the trees where they can vaguely make out the burning fire of the plane that illuminates the dark, dense forest.

"Fine," Bucky says solemnly, looking toward the plane as well.

After a second, Bucky takes Isabel's hand, which he notices is shaking extremely in his, and leads her toward the plane. They move carefully but quickly, Bucky sweeping the area with his eyes, his pistol raised in his other hand. Isabel allows herself to be pulled along, dreading approaching the plane in case they find something less than pleasant.

They get as close as possible without catching on fire themselves. The plane is unrecognisable, a scorched hunk of metal, the nose of the plane concave from landing face down. The wings have snapped off the main body, one lying in a crumpled heap at the side of the plane and the other fallen down the end of the mountain a few metres down. The windows of the cockpit and passenger area have been blown out by the explosions and the impact, shattered glass littering the ground. The glass also falls from the trees above them, along with ash and soot, like a deadly rain soaking them in black.

Bucky inches closer to the flaming vehicle, calling out for Steve with panic clear in his voice, no matter how he attempts to hide it. He runs up and down the plane and searches the ground and surrounding forest for their blonde friend. He then steps up to the edge of the mountain, where the ground slopes down for a few hundred yards before dropping off into a ravine. If the plane had landed ever a few metres to the right, it would have rolled down the hill to the bottom.

"B-Buck, don't fall," Isabel calls out in warning, watching as Bucky slowly walks down the slope to make sure Steve hasn't fallen anywhere down there in the thick shrubbery. Isabel waits where Bucky left her. Even if she felt inclined to follow, she's not sure she could make her legs work.

Behind her, Isabel hears the muffled mumble of voices shouting and it jolts her out of her thoughts. She immediately goes on guard, pulling a handgun from the pocket of her pants and pointing it into the trees, finger on the trigger. Her breathing quickens and she feels another surge of adrenaline rush through her. She's anticipating soldiers bursting out of the tree line, drawn from their other positions by the flaming plane. Whoever shot them down, Axis or Hydra, must be wanting to come and investigate. And if it was Hydra, they must be searching for the Howling Commandos who would have jumped from the plane. Surely if Hydra was trying to take them down, they would follow them up, try to find them, take them to the nearby factory, to the Red Sku–

As they get closer, Isabel recognises the voices as some of the other Commandos running toward the wreckage. Dugan appears through the trees first, followed by Falsworth and Jones, who all stop to stare at the flaming plane in awe. Dugan catches sight of Isabel with her gun raised, quickly moving toward her.

"Whoa, darlin', it's just us," he assures.

Isabel lowers the gun slowly, her eyes wide with shock. She feels a massive sense of relief rush through her, but the fear that Hydra will come never truly leaves. She's about to tell them they must be being tracked when Bucky appears from the other end of the plane, having done a lap of it and around the area. His features are solemn as he shields his face from the heat and jogs back to the group. Dugan looks around then, confused. Isabel's brain doesn't seem to be functioning properly, all she can think of is Steve and Hydra, and it takes her another second to realise Dugan's clutching a broken arm to his chest, the bone of his wrist sitting at an odd angle on top of the bone in his hand.

"Where's the Captain?" Falsworth wonders aloud, asking the question they're all thinking.

Isabel can't help it. She begins to cry, hiding her face in her hands and turning away from the soldiers, who take her reaction to mean something is wrong. "I didn't tell him. I didn't tell him," she cries into her hands.

"Steve didn't have a chute, I don't know if he jumped from the plane," Bucky quietly tells them.

"If he's still in there…" Falsworth mutters, and the four men turn to stare at the burning wreckage. No one could survive that fire and heat, not even a super-soldier.

"Maybe he jumped when he got lower to the ground?" Jones asks, always one to see the cloud's silver lining.

"What? When the plane exploded?" Isabel shoots back, glaring at Jones over her shoulder.

Jones ignores Isabel's snark, looking pointedly at Monty. Falsworth pulls his walkie-talkie from his pocket, setting it to the frequency of Steve's own radio, holding a finger to the button on the side. "Cap?" He says slowly. "Come in, Captain?"

Static fills the air around them, loudly spilling from the radio's speaker.

"Captain Rogers, this is Lieutenant Falsworth requesting a response regarding your current situation and location. Over."

The static wears on, and Isabel brings her hand back up to shield her eyes, the tears spilling over again. The saltiness stings the cut on her cheek, making her eyes water further. Bucky steps toward her and pulls her into his chest, his arms protectively encircling her and patting her hair comfortingly, hushing her quietly. He keeps his eyes wary, flicking between Falsworth, the wreckage, and the forest around them.

"I didn't tell him, Buck. I shouldn't have waited. He never knew," she cries into his chest. Bucky sighs, his entire body seemingly deflating. Isabel feels something wet drip onto the top of her hair as Bucky lets a few tears fall himself.

"He isn't responding," Falsworth eventually gives in, putting the hand-held radio back in his pocket. "He must be…" Falsworth looks again to the burning plane and then slowly removes the beret from his head, holding it against his chest in solemn mourning.

"Well, we know the drill," Dugan says, stepping up in Bucky's place as the Sergeant seems in no way able to lead the group right now. His own bowler-hat has been removed, tucked under his armpit. "We need to keep moving, get away from the crash site. The smoke and flames are only going to attract whoever shot us down to our position. From how many explosions we were dodging up there, there's a lot of them out here somewhere. We just have to hope we don't run into them on the way out of here."

"We still gonna take the factory?"

"We don't even know where the damn thing is, we got so turned around coming down. Plus, I don't think it's awful wise to take down Hydra without our personal shield. We're all injured anyway; we should try to get to the airfield."

In agreement, the group begin to walk, following Dugan to where the other Commandos are waiting, leaving the burning flames behind them. With every step Bucky forces Isabel to take, the tears from both of them fall faster, their eyes growing red and puffy. Bucky sniffs and holds it in after giving himself a few minutes, his eyes roaming the forest around them. Isabel is in a state of shock, not knowing how to process it. It doesn't seem real and it doesn't seem possible.

After walking a few hundred meters, Jones slows his pace to fall into line with Isabel and Bucky, Bucky still with his arm around his sister's shoulders, his hand rubbing her upper arm comfortingly.

"Isabel," Jones says carefully. "A few of us were injured in the fall. Dugan's arm, as you saw. But also, Morita is treating Dernier back where we landed. He got stabbed by a branch in his side in our descent. It's rather deep. We're going to need you to help."

Isabel knows that Morita could easily deal with the injuries himself and that Gabe is trying to give her something to do as a distraction, for which she is thankful. She wipes her eyes, accidentally smearing the blood from the gash on her cheek as well. She wills herself not to think about it yet, to wait until later. She pushes the pain down, way down to the soles of her boots, and takes a deep breath.

"Okay. I'm okay, I can do this," she reassures, more to herself, looking up at Jones with determined eyes and a mouth set in a thin line.

After a few more minutes of walking over the rugged terrain, the group reaches Dernier, Morita and Stark. Stark looks relatively unharmed, only a little bashed up. Jim is finishing wrapping the wound on Jacques' side, just below his last rib. Blood is soaking a small spot on the bandage already, and the bandage sticks up awkwardly, a piece of twig emerging from a hasty hole made in the bandage to accommodate it. Isabel approaches, kneeling down beside Morita.

"How deep is it?" She asks, her voice hollow and empty. She puts a comforting hand on Dernier's forehead, feeling it is sheen with a layer of sweat, his skin hot to the touch.

"It's not very big, but he fell on it hard. It's quite deep. I don't think it punctured anything important, though; he'd be in more pain if it had. I was going to remove it before I bandaged it, but as soon as I touched it Dernier shrieked and it started spewing blood. We can't have him drawing attention or bleeding out until we're somewhere safer where we have the security to attend to him. The twig is stopping the bleeding a little bit."

Isabel nods in agreement. "It should be okay for a while until we can get somewhere safer. He won't make it all the way to the airfield like this. We'll have to make camp. But we need to get there quick. The longer it stays in, the more likely it is to get infected."

Morita nods, and with that, he and Falsworth lift Dernier from the ground, supporting him with his arms over their shoulders. Meanwhile, Dugan, Stark and Bucky had been pondering over the maps, trying to locate their current position and the direction they need to travel. Once they're sure they'll be heading toward the airfield, the group begins to walk through the black forest, hurrying to get away from the burning wreckage. They walk silently, only the sound of their panting breaths and the thump of their boots audible.

Dugan and Jones take the front, ensuring the path is safe to follow. Stark walks in the middle of the group, without a weapon, telling Falsworth he prefers to design them rather than shoot them. Bucky stays at the back of the group, near his sister, pistol raised carefully as he scours the forests behind them, having abandoned his favourite rifle on the crashing plane in favour of hanging onto Isabel. Nearly every shadow draws Bucky's attention, but he never shoots, wary that the sound of gunfire could further attract unfriendlies.

Isabel begins to feel sore from the fall, her muscles seizing up slightly, a harsh pain in her right elbow where it hit one of the branches on the way down. She lifts her sleeve and looks at it, a dark bruise already forming along the bone.

The terrain starts to slope as they make their way down from the top plateau of the mountain into the valleys. Their path through the trees gets steeper and the ground is covered in small rocky debris that slides around under their feet. The thick foliage and leaves on the ground provide some traction.

It's painfully slow going getting everyone down the mountain. Morita and Falsworth walk in the middle supporting Dernier, and they set the pace for everyone else to follow. It works well for Dugan and Jones because it gives them time to scour the forests in front of them. But for Isabel, Bucky and Howard, its slow and painful. They can still smell the burning plane, the odour of plastic and metal melting and charring. It's a painful reminder that seems to waft off after them, following on the backs of their heels.

And Dugan had been right before. It feels weird to be walking around in enemy territory without Steve. He's only one man, but Steve holds within him the power and protection of twenty men, and it isn't without its peace of mind. Walking without him at the front of the pack makes them all feel vulnerable, unguarded, and intimidated under the towering trees.

Suddenly, from behind them, Isabel and Bucky hear thumping footsteps and rustling cut through the silence. They both halt and turn to look, listening quietly. It's a singular set of footsteps, but its loud and quick, whoever it is approaching fast. As the Barnes siblings halt, so does the rest of the group. Morita and Falsworth duck down beside a large tree with Dernier, the Frenchman muttering quiet curses. Jones and Dugan scan the rest of the tree line for any other approaching parties, eyes darting back to the loud footsteps.

Isabel raises her pistol from her pocket again, clicking the safety off. Her eyes scan the woods, only just making out the dark silhouette of a tall figure coming toward them. It gets closer and the person becomes clearer, until through the woods appears Steve.

Steve's face is scrunched up in pain, and he's bruised and battered, a large burn noticeable even from afar on his cheek. His uniform is singed from the flames with large slices missing across the chest, the cuts gushing blood. He walks toward them quickly, though with a slight limp in his gait, clutching his chest tightly with one arm and his shield and a rifle dangling from his other hand.

Dugan is the first to speak up, recovering from his shock. "Cap!" He cheers, his face lighting up into a smile under his skewed bowler hat, still somehow on his head after parachuting from the plane.

Isabel feels her legs moving before she even thinks about it, and suddenly she's sprinting toward Steve and throwing herself into his arms. He drops the shield and rifle in his hands and catches her, only letting out the smallest of groans at the impact, and clutches her tightly to his chest, her feet dangling off the ground. Isabel buries her face in his neck, wetting it with hot tears.

"Oh, thank god! I thought you were dead," she cries.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," Steve reassures.

"You lied to me!" She accuses, the tears falling faster.

"I know, I'm sorry. It was the only way I could get you both to go," Steve apologises, running a hand through her hair.

"I didn't get to tell you. I thought I waited too long," she continues to babble.

She pulls back and kisses Steve forcefully on the lips. He kisses back passionately, holding her up with only one arm as the other grips the back of her head. They break apart, staring into each other's eyes. Steve can see the relief on her face, and also the remaining terror, and he immediately feels a terrible guilt flood through him.

"I love you," she whispers. "I love you so much. I should have told you. I love you, I love you, and I thought I lost you," she repeats over and over, the tears flowing faster with every confession.

"Belle," Steve breathes, taken back by her confession, his eyes wide. After a second, Steve smiles at her, his face dirty and red but still beautiful nonetheless. "Not as much as I love you," he tells her cheekily but honestly, meeting her lips once again.

They break away and their foreheads touch momentarily before Steve puts her down. She immediately starts looking at the scorch marks and cuts on his arms and chest, and the large bruise forming on his forehead. When she pulls back the shards of his uniform slightly, she gasps at the sight of the burns on his skin where the fire has touched him through the rips in the material.

"How the hell did you survive?" Dugan asks in admiration over Isabel's fussing, clutching his broken arm to his chest.

"I jumped when the plane was nearly at the ground. Waited a little too long though, because I got caught up in the final explosion and took myself out on the serrated edge of the hole," Steve answers, waving a hand over the large slashes across his chest that have cut through the uniform. "Hit the ground pretty hard and knocked myself out, I think. When I woke up, I was slumped over this large rock jutting out halfway down the side of the mountain. I must have rolled down."

"You're lucky you didn't fall all that way," Falsworth notes. "That would've been hundreds of metres."

"I know," Steve agrees. "I had to climb back up, which took a fair while. I got to the top and the plane was still burning. I tracked you all here." He rubs his forehead, wincing in pain, a large bruise forming on his left temple. Isabel looks at that too, trying to get Steve to stay still. "Belle, I'm okay," Steve tries to reassure, and Isabel gives him a pointed look that shows she clearly doesn't believe him.

Bucky steps toward Steve then, having hung back a bit to allow Isabel and Steve to reunite. Steve turns to Bucky as soon as he notices him, looking proud and relieved, but backs up when he realises the brunette looks furious.

"What the hell were you thinking, Steve? You're being too reckless!" Bucky demands, stomping up to face Steve. He's a little shorter now, but Steve still shrinks away from his friend's wrath. "You could have died and then what would we all have done? What would Belle have done?" Bucky's voice is angry, but his eyes are hurting. "I swear that serum has made you even more suicidal than usual. At least your poor sainted mother isn't around to give me grief for it."

"Your faith in me is touching, Bucky, truly," Steve deadpans, finally finding his pained voice.

"The only thing touched around here is you, and that's in the head," Bucky says angrily, pointing an accusing finger at Steve. But then his resolve seems to melt, because he steps forward and embraces Steve, slapping his friend on the back. "As much as you annoy the shit outta me, I'm glad you're okay, punk."

"Yeah, thanks, jerk," Steve replies, smiling at Bucky's sudden mood changes.

"You said you tracked us, Captain? How? There aren't any footprints, we made sure," Falsworth asks.

"Not that you can see," Steve tells them. "My eyes, they're so powerful and everything is so clear. I can see the path you've taken, how the leaves have been crushed under your boots and the branches have been moved aside. And your scent lingers. I can smell you all."

Everyone is silent for a moment, taking in Steve's abilities. "Did you know you could do that?" Howard asks quietly, looking gobsmacked.

"No, I've never had to try it before."

Howard manages to close his mouth. "Might come in handy," he says with a nod of his head. He pulls a small notepad from his pocket and scribbles some notes.

"I thought you might have wanted this back," Steve says, picking up the rifle from the ground beside his shield. As soon as Bucky sees it, his eyes light up, recognising it as his precious rifle he'd left on the plane in favour on having both hands free to hold Isabel. "You're lucky I didn't lose it down the mountain. I don't think it got too banged up in the fall, maybe just a little dirty and scorched–"

"Oh, my sweetheart. I thought I'd lost you forever," Bucky coos, taking the rifle from Steve and checking it out himself, cradling it like it was made of glass.

"Didn't know that was how you felt about Cap, Serge," Dugan jokes.

"You know I was talkin' 'bout the rifle, Dum Dum," Bucky retorts without looking up from examining his rifle. It has a few dings in the metal, but nothing that will inhibit it working.

"Does that make you any less mad at me?" Steve tries sheepishly.

Bucky looks up with a glare. "Nah, pal. I still got a bone to pick with you."

"It's quite funny that you request that Captain Rogers refrain from doing anything stupid," Morita notes. "We aren't so much better ourselves. We're all a bunch of morons, really, for doing this. Can you get any more stupid than what we volunteer to do?"

"Probably not," Dugan laughs and Bucky glares at the men.

"Si vous avez tous fini de vous réunir, j'ai une branche dans mon côté que j'aimerais retirer? (If you are all finished reuniting, I have a branch in my side that I'd like removed?)" Dernier's sarcastic voice speaks up from where he's hanging off of Jones and Falsworth. Steve turns to him, seeing the Frenchman's extremely pale face, the twig in his side leaking more blood onto his uniform. Jones laughs, offering a translation to the others.

"We'll find our way to the airfield," Steve decides, a little breathless. "We all need medical attention. The mission can wait until another day once we've all recovered. Monty, you got the map?"

Falsworth pulls the map out of his pack and shows Steve the direction they're attempting to head toward the airfield. Steve agrees quickly and they immediately set off again. They need to get down the mountain and make their way to the valley where the airfield sits, unaware that a Hydra factory has been operating for years only a few miles from them.

The sun is slowly rising over the mountain ranges bathing them all in a warm sunlight that shines through the tree canopy in little beams. While the light is helpful for them to see where they're headed, it means they lose their protection against whatever or whoever may be lurking in the woods around them. They know that whoever shot them down must be searching for them and closing in. They can only hope that they can walk far enough in the other direction to escape them.

Steve hangs back by Isabel and Bucky, the limp in his walk seeming to get slightly better with every few steps they take, but he remains hunched over, encircling the wounds on his chest with his arms. He looks weak, taking rather small steps, his face paler than usual despite the burns and bruises. Isabel watches him worriedly while Bucky monitors the woods behind them. It's awfully familiar to see Steve hunched over and bleeding, but never burnt. When Isabel tries to have another look, he turns her away, saying he'll be fine until later and plastering on a pained smile.

"I'm fine, really, Belle," he reassures. "Just a little knocked around."

"You fell out a burning plane and halfway down a cliff," Isabel argues. "I wish you'd let me clear you."

"When we stop," Steve promises. His voice is still puffed and thick, and he gets more unconvincing that he's okay every time Isabel asks. But she finally agrees, and they keep walking.

Steve doesn't hear any other movements around them with his enhanced hearing. After an hour and a half of walking, Steve calls for everyone to stop, partly because he thinks they've gone far enough that they won't be found and partly because he isn't sure how much further he can walk without collapsing in a heap. He consults the map and confirms they are close to the airfield, and that their current position will do while he calls the airfield and notifies them they're coming, and also calls base to tell the SSR they'll be postponing the mission.

Everyone who isn't worryingly injured takes a seat on the ground, still on alert with their rifles raised toward the forests surrounding them. Dernier happily collapses onto the ground, laying down and scrunching his eyebrows in pain, clutching his side. Morita immediately rushes to him, opening the first aid kit he carries and pulling out a needle and thread.

Isabel moves to treat Steve first, who by her professional eye looks to be the most injured. "No, help Dugan and Dernier first," Steve tells her, his voice authoritative and leaving no room for argument. It falls short when he starts coughing as though his lungs had been on fire, and maybe they had.

"But you said–"

"I know what I said, but I'll be okay. It's just a few scrapes. I still have to call base." He pulls his radio from his pocket to make his point known, switching it on and filling the air with low static white noise.

Isabel looks, unconvinced, at the blood soaking his uniform but doesn't argue with her Captain. She knows she'll never be able to talk him around. "Watch him, please," she says to Bucky, who nods, before she scurries over to Dugan, keeping low to the ground.

Isabel quickly examines Dugan before digging through the medical kit, searching for the morphine. The individual medical kits carried by every front-line fighting soldier are rather pitiful, usually containing gauze, bandages, dressings, water purification tablets, inhalants, sting stoppers, two types of antiseptics, and petroleum jelly. The medic's kits are always more stocked, and the Commandos carry a few of both due to the nature of their work. Their medical kits contain a few syrettes of morphine and omnopon – two types of pain medications – iodine, scalpels, and simple braces to temporarily secure jarred, fractured, or broken bones in the major joints.

Isabel isn't sure if even that much will be enough. There's a lot of men that are going to need pain medication, and Steve may need a lot of bandages.

Normally Isabel restocks the kit before they embark on a mission and adds a few extra of the essentials just in case, but she'd been preoccupied the morning they'd left, giving it to one of the other nurses to do it. Unfortunately, the nurse restocked it as a regular medical kit, not that that is anything against her as she was just doing it as the rules suggest, but usually Isabel bends the rules slightly. There are only eight morphine syrettes and three of omnopon. Isabel and Morita will have to work with what they have. She gathers up whatever supplies she can, growling unhappily. She should have checked before they left.

Isabel grabs a morphine syrette and brings it over to Dugan. The syrette is similar to a syringe, except that the tube containing the liquid is flexible, able to be squeezed like a toothpaste tube, with a hollow needle protruding out of it, covered by a clear plastic casing to prove it hadn't been used or tampered. Isabel breaks the seal, revealing the hollow needle. She lifts the sleeve of Dugan's knitted jumper, careful to avoid his broken arm, feeling around for a vein in his elbow and inserting the needle under the skin at a shallow angle. She flattens the tube between her thumb and fingers, injecting the entire dose before pinning the tube to Dugan's collar to remind herself of the dose.

"Let that start working, and I'll be back," she says, leaving Dugan to aid Dernier.

"Yeah, fine. You take your time. I'll just wait here, dying," Dugan says sarcastically. Isabel ignores him, only rewarding him with a hidden smile.

Dernier's been given his own syrette of morphine for the pain, and Isabel helps unwrap the bandages around his thin torso, revealing his pale skin that has been stained red with dark blood, a thin brown twig protruding through the skin. They hear Dugan in the background somewhere make a gagging noise as he watches.

"It definitely needs to be stitched," Isabel notes, moving the stick slightly. Dernier whines in pain, clenching his teeth. "We can't give him too much morphine at once though; we don't have enough and Dum Dum's gonna need more of it later."

"Omnopon?" Morita asks.

"I wanted to save it for Steve. It's stronger, it might work for a while, at least, while we clean him up."

Morita sighs lowly. "Alright. Does anyone have any booze?" Morita asks, looking back at the other guys. "And a belt?"

A leather belt is handed to Morita, and he motions for Dernier to bite down on it. Falsworth hands over his flask of vodka.

"Ca va faire mal (This will hurt)," Isabel warns Dernier in stuttered French, her voice quiet and apologetic.

She mimes with her finger for him to be quiet. Dernier nods and takes a large swig of vodka, more likely equivalent to three mouthfuls, swallowing through the burn of the liquid down his throat and holding the flask tightly in his hand. Morita hands Isabel the needle, motioning for her to do the stitching. She nods to Morita and he takes hold of the twig, ripping it from Dernier's side in one swift motion. Dernier begins to howl with pain but manages to control himself, his eyes watering uncontrollably and his teeth leaving dents in the leather of the belt.

Isabel immediately dumps some iodine disinfectant from the first aid kit onto the wound, making Dernier howl louder at the sting. Then, she gets to work, quickly threading the wound shut with neat and careful stitches, only requiring three or four in total. Her hands are practised, moving swiftly, stitching, pulling threading, wiping away the blood that clots on the skin. When it's closed tightly and she's sure Dernier won't burst it open too easily, she leans forward and uses her teeth to break the string and ties the stitches together. Morita cleans the excess blood from the wound and puts more disinfectant on before wrapping Dernier's torso again tightly to stench the blood flow.

"All done. Jones, please tell Dernier he's got to take it easy for at least a few days. And to keep on with the vodka," Isabel asks, moving away. Dernier remains lying on the floor with the vodka flask to his lips, his forehead slick with sweat. Jones repeats the orders to Dernier in French, and he nods, a silent thank you in his eyes.

"Alright Dugan, feelin' good?" Isabel asks, shuffling back over to Dugan a few feet away.

His face has lost its painful expression, replaced with one of contentedness. "This shit's good," he notes, pointing to the empty morphine syrette on his lapel. "Can't feel a thing."

"Good," Isabel says, grabbing one of the wrist braces. "Because this is going to hurt, too." She takes Dugan's wrist gently, feeling it carefully. She frowns as she moves her hands up and down his arm, feeling the bone. She pushes on certain spots and Dugan flinches. "Distal radius fracture. Extra-articular, displaced."

"English, please?" Morita asks, appearing beside her. He may be a medic, but his knowledge of things other than trench foot, bullet wounds, stab wounds, and the odd bump and cut is slightly limited.

"He's broken his radius at the wrist end of the bone. From what I can feel, it's snapped clean in half around here," she points, pressing slightly and causing Dugan to shift uncomfortably, clenching his teeth. "The broken end of the forearm bone has moved upward on top of his wrist bone. We'll have to push it back down before we splint it. You may have to put it back, it'll require a bit of force."

"You think this is a ticket home?" Dugan asks in a joking manner. They all know the man has no intentions of leaving the front until the job's done.

"Could be, depending on how it heals. If we don't get it in place, they may have to re-break it and set it again back at base. He'll need an x-ray. This will have to do for now," Isabel says, more to Morita, who nods along. Isabel looks back then at Dugan's horrified expression. "It would definitely be a ticket home if you lost it entirely. Want me to chop it here, just below the elbow?" Isabel jokes.

Dugan swallows and manages to smile. "Go for it, darl. I'd kill for a good sleep."

Isabel nods to Morita, indicating Dugan is ready. Morita grasps Dugan's wrist as instructed, pushing with his thumbs to force the broken bit of bone back into place. It pops back in with a snap, the sound of the bones sliding together loud and cringe worthy. Dugan goes a bit green in the face, biting down on the belt against the pain despite the morphine. He then falls backward as he faints, his eyes rolling back into his head, and Falsworth is kind enough to catch his head before it hits the unforgiving ground.

"Weak Americans," Falsworth notes, taking another breath of his cigarette as he puts Dugan's unconscious head down on the ground gently.

Isabel takes Dugan's wrist again, pushing the bone around to make sure it's in the right place. "At least he'll get his good sleep. Alright, can you get me the splint?"

Morita and Isabel stretch the brace over Dugan's floppy hand, snapping it in place to hold his wrist. It supports it somewhat, but when they let go of Dugan's wrist, it curls uncomfortably in a way that would cause him pain were he conscious. They attach the metal rods to the wrist brace, which supports it completely but leavs Dugan unable to move his wrist even if he tried. It won't be much good if they have to fight, but for a simple walk to the airfield it should be fine.

"It's only temporary, but it'll do until we get him back to base. It's going to swell anyway, so we couldn't put a cast on it, even if we had the materials," Isabel says, starting to put the equipment away again.

"Good," Morita says. "Alright, you go see Serge and Cap. I have a feeling they're a little more injured than they're letting on. I'll tend to Jones, Stark and Falsworth's injuries, if they have any." Morita moves instantly to inspect the shallow cut on Jones' leg, only shallow due to the protection offered by the thick material of his pants as they fell through the trees.

Isabel doesn't argue, making her way over to Steve and Bucky, who are sitting on the other side of their temporary camp. "Let me look at you both," she says.

Steve and Bucky look at each other. "Do Bucky first," Steve tells her, his voice slurring as though he's struggling to stay awake.

"You can't fight him," Bucky says quietly.

The siblings stare at Steve for a moment, how pale his face is, how the red burn is inflamed and weeping up his face and down his neck, disappearing beneath the cloth of his uniform. His eyelids flutter like he's drunk. He's mumbling for Isabel to check Bucky first.

"I'll be quick," Isabel promises. Bucky obediently removes his blue jacket, which has a tear in the arm, and then rolls up the sleeve of his shirt, revealing a deep red gash on his forearm caused by a scrape from a tree branch. Isabel inspects it quickly. "It doesn't need stitches with the way you heal, but I'll disinfect it and bandage it," she says quietly.

She gets to work, quickly hiding the scrape from sight with the cream bandages. She wipes the blood from a few other scrapes and cuts from his arms and face, inspects the bruising budding on his chest and shoulders from the pack, and then deems him good to go, albeit very bruised and sore.

"If any of them look like they're getting infected, you need to tell me. Even the smallest cuts can turn out to be dangerous."

"Yes, ma'am," Bucky promises cheekily, shrugging his jacket back on against the morning chill.

As Isabel moves away toward Steve, Bucky picks up his rifle again and scours the tree line. Isabel reaches Steve, finally gets close enough to get a good look at him without being pushed away and immediately feels her gut constrict with fear. His eyes are fluttering a little as though he's fighting off sleep, and he's clutching his chest tighter with a pained expression. His uniform is soaked with a pale bloody liquid that Isabel immediately knows is blood mixed with some sort of watery bodily fluid. Her first thought is that he's been burned more severely than just on his face and neck, and her mind flashes to the man in the hospital from all those years ago, the water from his body leaking from his hands like a tap.

"Steve, take off the top part of your uniform," she instructs, looking worriedly at the slashes in the uniform.

"What?" Steve sputters, somehow managing to be embarrassed by the request despite how much pain he's in. His blush looks increasingly dark compared to the unusual pallor of his skin, a colour he hasn't had since before the serum when he was sickly. "No, Isabel, I'm fine. We don't have to-"

"Steve, you are not fine," Isabel argues, exasperated. "You're pale and weak and bleeding. I can see the cuts and burns through the rips in your uniform. You need medical treatment right now, you've put it off long enough. Stop being so damn stubborn. You promised."

"Okay, fine," Steve mumbles, giving in, though Isabel thinks he doesn't have much fight left in him anyway.

As Steve moves, the uniform shifts, and Isabel can see inside the cuts in the material to Steve's skin. It looks red and raw, bloody and blistered. She has to swallow down all her feelings. She has to stay strong for Steve now. He works to unbuckle the top part of his uniform from his pants where it connects at the belt. He finally fumbles it open, but now has the task of removing the tight uniform. His movements are extremely slow and laboured as he tries to pull the tight, thick material over his head, wincing when he lifts his arms. He gives up with the armour and undershirt still around his shoulders.

Isabel's eyes fall immediately to his defined chest peering out from under the material, and she gasps when she sees that the bullet holes from a few months ago are gone, fully healed without even a trace of a scar. Now they are replaced by two deep bloody gashes across his entire chest and stomach as though he'd been slashed by a tiger. His chest and uniform are slick with blood from the cuts. But, where Isabel had just expected the cuts and maybe a little bit of fire damage from being caught in the explosion, she finds skin that has been almost completely burned; Steve's skin is singed from the fire, both on his back and his chest. Some of the skin is red raw and other parts are completely missing, all of the layers of skin burnt away to reveal the muscle and only leaving black flaps of dead skin around the open wounds. The intact skin is blistered. It looks as though he's been on fire, which he probably has been, like a piece of charred meat from a barbecue.

"Jesus Christ," Bucky breathes behind her, looking over her shoulder. Bucky's face goes extremely pale. He swallows loudly before he speaks again. "Looks like your burns training is going to come in handy."

Isabel swallows down the bile in her throat. "I thought the suit was fireproof?" Isabel whispers, her eyes welling with tears at the sight of him.

Anyone in a normal hospital that came in like this would be scarred extensively for life if they were to survive. The rate of survival would be so low anyway. It's just like Sergeant Daley all over again, singed and charred, body fluids leaking out. They just have to hope and pray that Steve's super soldier serum can take care of an injury so severe without any lasting damage. They don't have the equipment out here to take care of the wounds. They don't even have the water supply to wash Steve down as often as he needs to be to keep the burns clean.

Everyone who is still conscious looks up at the sight of Isabel and Bucky's shocked expressions. Steve seems too out of it to notice he's being stared at. Falsworth mutters a few curses and takes a sip from another one of his flasks. Morita looks up from where he's working on Falsworth's sore ankle, his eyes widening. Jones gets up and relieves Bucky of his watch on the woods, since Bucky seems too entranced by Steve's wounds to want to keep watch any longer. He kneels down beside Steve instead, his hands hovering as though wanting to do anything but not wanting to touch Steve.

Stark comes over to investigate at their shocked expressions, resisting the urge to gag. "It is supposed to be fireproof, but not when the flames get in under the suit through the ripped material and catch his entire body on fire," Stark breathes, looking a bit green. "I'll work on it, Captain, don't worry."

Steve looks down slowly, following their line of sight, and his mouth droops down flatly. He doesn't look overly surprised. "The plane exploded, and I got thrown. The fire came in t-through the material. I-I was on fire. I tried to roll to put it out and then I was sliding all the way down the hill. I blacked out and woke up hanging over the edge… I-I guess it does look pretty bad."

"I need to clean these cuts and burns up," Isabel tells Steve. "Lay back. Carefully."

Steve looks at her dopily, all of a sudden seeming extremely tired and dazed, more than before. He eventually does as he's told, though it's more because he sways backward slightly and uses that momentum to fall down completely. His eyes close momentarily, his forehead beading with sweat. Isabel leans anxiously over him, quickly lifting his eyelids to shine a light in his eyes. His pupils are responsive but slow.

"It's going to take his body a while and a lot of sleep to recover this much damage, no matter how fast his healing factor is," she tells Howard, who stays kneeling beside Steve, ready to assist her since Morita is still finishing up with the others. She turns back to Steve, looking at his face. "I'm going to give you some pain relief, okay? It might not work but it's worth a try," Isabel tells Steve, preparing the omnopon syrette.

"No, save it for the others," Steve says.

"Okay," Isabel agrees to satisfy him, but then easily inserts the syrette into the crook of Steve's elbow. He hardly feels it. She pins the syrette to his belt by his hip since his shirt is still hanging around his neck. "I just need you to stay awake for me, honey, okay? Stay awake."

"Don't wanna go to sleep," Steve tells her, eyes still screwed shut. "Wanna look at you."

Isabel can't help the chuckle that rises in her throat. "You do that sweetie. Look at me." Steve opens his eyes obediently, staring straight at Isabel. "Buck, make sure he doesn't go to sleep. His body wants to sleep so it can heal, but we need him awake for now. Otherwise it's too hard to move him."

She grabs her canteen of purified water which dangles from her belt and pours it over the cuts and burns, the cool water sizzling slightly as it touches the burns, which are still extremely hot to the touch. She can't reach all of the burns though, Steve's uniform still hanging from his shoulders over his collar bones.

"I need to get his shirt and armour completely off," she tells the boys, grunting as she tries to remove it from his shoulders. Stark grabs the material and pulls as Bucky lifts Steve's head, which is surprisingly heavy to Bucky's weak-feeling arms, Steve a dead weight on the ground.

Morita eventually makes his way over to help. Isabel begins to carefully clean out the cuts with a cloth, removing the small pieces of metal and dirt and glass she finds embedded in the skin. Howard and Bucky point out little specks she misses, some of them only visible in a certain glint of morning light. Morita wipes the cuts as much as he can until their canteens run out of water. The cuts are bright red gashes, clean of their dried blood now, but they still look horrendous. They most likely aren't deep enough to be fatal, even to someone without the super soldier serum. Still, they're severe enough to leak a fair amount of blood, the edges of the wounds building up a layer of congealed blood as Isabel works to clean them.

She tries to thread the needle quickly, her hands slightly shaky, and she can't get the silk threaded. Morita takes it from her and threads it with stable hands before giving it back, nodding to her supportively. Isabel leans close to Steve's chest to see properly. Each gash requires between ten and fifteen individual stitches. She pierces the skin, pulls it across the gash, pokes it through the skin on the other side, slips the needle off the thread, and expertly ties the stitch together, handing it back to Morita to thread again. The gashes slowly close up as she works her way along them. She ignores the salty, coppery smell of the blood and sweat that she is so used to being a nurse, getting lost in the task of sewing up the wounds. It's a long process, the slow way to stitch wounds, but it ensures that the scars form neat, straight lines, if they even scar at all.

"This will test his healing factor," Stark notes, watching with his face screwed up as Morita holds the skin of Steve's chest together for Isabel to sew. "We better make sure we document all of this."

"Hate to break it to you, Stark, but I don't think the serum is the first thing on her mind right now," Morita answers as Isabel sits back to shake the cramp from her hand.

To his credit, Steve doesn't move an inch or even flinch, despite how much the stitching must pinch and the cuts must throb and the burns must sting. He keeps his eyes on Isabel or on Bucky as he was told to, the latter keeping him awake by talking to him. Bucky says something about that time when Steve got his nose broken, thanks the Lord he should recover quicker so he can get a date. Every now and then Steve mumbles something quietly back to Bucky in response, not wanting to distract Isabel, his chest rumbling underneath her hands. He still looks dazed and out of it, like he hasn't slept in a good week. It seems to take him longer to process what's being said to him, his thoughts sluggish. He belatedly laughs at something Bucky says, coughy and shallow.

Isabel finishes the final suture, sitting upright again. Her back aches from leaning over, her hand still cramped. She pushes down her embarrassment that she was basically laying over him to reach the top of his chest.

"How you doin', honey?" Steve asks her from the ground, smiling dopily at her.

"Good. Your cuts are all clean. Now we just need to wrap your burns," Isabel replies.

"I'm so proud of you, you're doin' so well," Steve tells her sincerely, voice slurred.

Isabel feels a surge of affection for him, even though his behaviour is only caused by his slightly hallucinogenic, sleep-induced state. She reaches toward him to cup his cheek, smiling down at him. The burn on his right cheek, which was hardly as severe as those on his body, is already healing, a large red mark remaining rather than a blistered burn. The large bruise on his forehead has blossomed fully in a bright purple welt, though Isabel fears he could have a concussion. She makes a mental note to not allow him to sleep lying flat.

Steve hums, smiling at her like a loyal golden retriever or something. He reaches a weak arm up and rubs a clumsy finger over the crease between her eyebrows made by her frown, then looks up at Bucky. "My girl's so beautiful."

Bucky laughs. "I can't wait to tell everyone about this."

Isabel shakes her head at the two, looking back at Steve's injuries. The burns themselves look the same, but there isn't a lot she can do for them. Large chunks of the skin are gone, leaving only a charred black remainder. If Steve had been in a hospital, they probably would have done a skin graph by taking some of the undamaged skin from elsewhere on his body to patch it up. Isabel has neither the skills nor the tools to do so, especially not out here in the wilderness. She just hopes it will all grow back without interference.

Her and Morita spread antiseptic on the angry burns and then smother them in petroleum jelly to keep them moisturised before taping a row of gauze over the gashes and burns. They'll put bandages over the wounds when they're finished his back, Isabel decides, calculating if they haves enough left to wrap a few times around Steve's broad chest.

"Okay, now his back," Isabel says, sitting back for a second to survey her work.

Bucky, Stark and Morita shuffle around and help her lift Steve, trying to roll him over onto his side. They can't roll him onto his stomach because it will make his newly sewed cuts dirty and risk infection, if Steve can even get infections. After a few minutes of shoving and nudging, Isabel mentally swearing like a sailor and Bucky swearing aloud, they get Steve rolled onto his side, Bucky propping him up to hold him in place. Steve is extremely heavy, particularly when he offers little assistance.

The burns on his back are not as bad as those on his chest. Clearly the fire didn't manage to spread underneath his clothes to his back, except for a patch of raw skin around his neck, and another on his lower back near another scrape in the material. Isabel quickly spreads antiseptic and petroleum jelly onto the burns before taping more gauze over the small areas.

She then puts her arm under Steve's shoulders, trying to haul him up into a sitting position. Steve attempts to help, though he's rather weak and almost asleep, and Bucky's final burst of energy gets Steve sitting upright. Stark and Bucky lift one of Steve's arms each as Isabel and Morita work quickly to wrap the bandages around his wide torso, under his armpits, and across his collarbones, hiding the gauze and red skin from sight.

It looks significantly better once Steve is cleaned up. Isabel quickly wipes some of the dried blood from his arms and stomach where it has spread and wipes the sweat from his brow.

"All finished, love," she tells Steve, wary of how British her newest pet name sounds. She's been hanging out with Peggy too much.

Steve smiles groggily and then puckers his lips, pointing his head to where he thinks Isabel is. Isabel divulges him by leaning forward, pressing a small kiss to the corner of his mouth and avoiding the small split healing on his lip.

"You can go to sleep now, if you want," Isabel allows. "As long as you have no more injuries?"

"No, no more injuries," Steve tells her, his eyes closed. "Maybe a few broken ribs, but… M'okay."

"Uh, Steve–"

But Steve isn't listening and isn't staying awake. There's nothing she can do for ribs anyway. Steve falls backwards again, a snore escaping his lips. Bucky and Morita catch him, lowering him to the ground and resting his head gently on the stack of packs Stark has stacked as a makeshift pillow pile to keep him upright for his possible concussion.

Bucky laughs at Steve's antics, shaking his head. "If only Hydra could see big tough Captain America puckering his lips for a kiss from his gal. What would they say?"

"I'm not sure. It would certainly surprise them," Isabel laughs. She feels her adrenaline rush wearing off, her own eyes feeling extremely droopy. "I might need a sleep myself," she notes, looking on longingly at Steve's sleeping form.

"Not yet. Everyone's been looked at except you," Morita tells her, dragging the medical kit closer to them as they kneel on the ground beside Steve's sleeping form. He quickly cleaning the cuts on her brow and cheek. "You did well today. You feelin' okay?"

"Yeah," Isabel says truthfully, shrugging her shoulders slightly. "Just tired and sore."

"Join the club, everyone is," Morita assures her. He notes the rather bad bruise on her elbow, almost black now, but other than that, she's fine. "Okay, you have my permission to sleep," Morita allows her jokingly, stepping away to clean up the medicine kit.

Isabel looks around quickly, seeing that almost everyone is fast asleep except Falsworth, Morita and Bucky. Everyone's adrenaline rush seems to have worn off, and their injuries, no matter how small, are draining their energy.

"Have a nap," Bucky assures Isabel, watching as her eyes droop. "Falsworth and I will keep watch. We'll keep moving through the afternoon to the rendezvous point."

Isabel takes notice of the black bags under Bucky's eyes and the stiff way in which he holds himself, most likely sore from the fall, but before she can argue that he probably needs sleep more than she does, she all but collapses on the ground next to Steve, the world turning black.

---

Isabel jerks awake to a noise a few hours later. The sun above them has moved across the sky, almost setting over the tree line. The air is significantly colder than earlier in the day, the absence of the sun casting them in gloomy shadows projected by the trees. She takes a second to lay silently, listening carefully for the noise again, but the world is eerily silent, except for the rustling of the trees and birds above.

She goes to move and sit up, and freezes, pain flooding her body as her muscles stiffen and refuse to move. She takes a deep, painful breath, her elbow screaming as she leans on it and her ribs protesting from the movement. She looks around to make sure none of the men are watching, lifting the hem of her shirt. The skin of her stomach is splattered with black and yellow bruising from hitting the branches, and taking deep breaths causes a stabbing pain in her side. She hopes the ribs are only bruised, not fractured or broken. Either way, she's in for a few weeks of pain.

She forces herself upright, grunting in pain, and looks around the campsite. Steve, Dernier, Dugan, Jones and Morita are all napping still, peaceful expressions on their faces. Dugan has another syrette attached to his collar, meaning Morita must have administered another dose whilst he was asleep, and Dernier still has Falsworth's flask gripped in his limp hand. She realises quickly that Falsworth and her brother are nowhere to be seen. She quickly scans the tree line, seeing no sight of them.

"Bucky?" She calls quietly, hoping her brother will hear her without having to raise her voice loud enough to attract any unwanted visitors.

In response behind her, she hears another noise, the same one that had woken her up. The noise of a twig snapping. She turns around slowly, staring into the forest behind her and meeting two eyes, looking out at her from between the brush. She jumps backward, away from the gunmetal blue eyes that seem to be sizing her up, calculating her importance. She looks to the left and sees another pair of eyes staring at her, and a face attached to it. And another further down. And just in front of all these faces is the end of a rifle pointing out from the bushes, directly at the members of the Howling Commandos. They're surrounded, by Hydra presumably, unless they've been found by one of the Axis army units.

She discreetly kicks Steve in the leg with her boot, not taking her eyes off the gun pointed at her. Steve mumbles beside her in his sleep, his words unintelligible, but doesn't wake up. She kicks him again, a little harder, and his eyes snap open. He frowns up at her with confusion and tiredness, and Isabel looks at him out the corner of her eyes, directing his attention toward the tree line with just the slightest nod of her head. Even through his grogginess and the pain, Steve immediately sees the faces and guns staring at them from all sides. Despite the immense pain he must be feeling all over, he grabs the shield from the ground beside him and throws it into the bushes, taking out two of the unrecognisable faces with one hit, the shield flying back into his hands. The men yell as the shield hits their faces, and the commotion wakes the other Commandos, who jump up despite their injuries with their guns raised.

However, they don't get very far. The enemy surrounding them suddenly shoot, small darts embedding themselves in the necks or arms of the Commandos. Isabel feels the pinch in her neck and the flood of a cool liquid entering her veins. She immediately feels drowsy again, falling to the ground at the same time as the others, her vision immediately swimming before her eyes close and she doesn't remember anything else.

Steve manages to fight the tranquillisers. He quickly surveys the scene and notices Bucky and Monty are missing, presumably already taken prisoner. He shoots his own pistol and throws the shield at the invading men as they inch closer to him, closing in on him. Finally, as the tenth tranquilliser dart makes contact with Steve's neck, he can't stay awake any longer, falling to the ground and facing Isabel's already sleeping form. Her eyes are closed, her mouth slightly open as she takes deep breathes, in a deep sleep.

Steve's second last thought is that he can't let them get Isabel. It's a terrifying thought that sends adrenaline and fear through his veins, but there's nothing he can physically do. He can't move or talk or fight them off, can only watch as one of the agents picks Isabel up off the ground easily, as though she were a feather, the metal of the man's Hydra pin gleaming in the dull orange light of sunset.

Once he calms down a little and Isabel has been carried away, Steve's very last thought has to do with the two distinct muffled screams and yells he can now hear coming from the woods. He wonders whether they belong to his friends, to Bucky and Monty, and then the world goes silent.

---

A/N: Hi all! Thanks so much for sticking with me this far! It's been a ride and so has this chapter! Lots of emotions packed into a few thousands words. I hope you all enjoyed it. I thought I'd just make a few notes about some of the elements in this chapter.

I did a bit of research for this. I found that yes, it is possible for a plane to lose both engines and glide for multiple miles, depending on the size of the plane and its altitude when the engines failed. However, if a plane is repeatedly hit by a barrage from below, it's inevitable that gliding would not be possible, especially with a hole in the side of the plane. The plane flying toward Greece also would have been flying fairly low in comparison to commercial airplanes, so they wouldn't have been able to glide for long anyway. As for the parachuting out of the plane together, this is possible, even with only a single parachute. Most tandem parachutes are made larger and strong than typical single-person parachutes, but it is still possible to share, providing the people are not morbidly overweight. The wing loading is doubled, and so the descent speed and glide speed will increase. The type of landing will depending on the canopy the people are descending into. A gentle and forgiving canopy may require a rough parachute landing roll and bruises, whilst an unforgiving area may end in sprained joints and even broken bones. Nevertheless, the people will survive. Normally, the passengers would join themselves to the same parachute, but with the time frame of this emergency landing, I doubted the Commandos would have had the time to do so. It is possible to jump simply holding onto one another.

I hope you all enjoyed. There will be even more action next chapter and a reappearance by a certain Madame. Stay tuned! Please keep reviewing, your kind words are fuel to my creative fire!