48.
Tabernas Desert, Spain
July 23rd, 1944
The lone Hydra factory, far from all the others, had been found by pure chance.
A lost Allied plane had flown across the Spanish desert in search of their way back to France, the needle of the plane's built in compass damaged and unable to point its pilot in the right direction. The soldier was flying from the North African Campaign, delivering important information to the Eastern Front's officials. It was an important mission and he didn't want to mess it up, but the sight of the lone factory had intrigued him. As he'd flown over it, a machine gun on the roof of the factory had released a steady stream of bullets in his direction that he'd managed to swerve and avoid, but it had taken him longer than it should have to realise the bullets weren't bullets at all, but blasts of blue energy.
He'd called his discovery in to the US Army around 1000 hours, claiming the factory had a steady stream of trucks and armouries driving through the abandoned desert toward it. The vehicles, he said, were unrecognisable – they didn't belong to the Allied or Axis powers, were painted entirely black with only a white symbol on its side, untraceable. There's no reason for the vehicles to be trekking across this part of the unforgiving desert, well away from any main roads, the lone narrow track leading to nowhere but the factory.
The mention of the suspicious factory, as well as the blue energy blasts, caught the attention of officials, who immediately passed on the information to Colonel Phillips, making its way straight to Captain America himself. Steve immediately decided to act on the intel, and by 1200 hours, all of the Howling Commandos receive word. They hastily suit up and pack themselves into their designated plane, flying through the bright blue sky over the French countryside and then the Spanish desert. Initially, it had taken a lot of mental energy and convincing to get some of the Commandos back into the plane after what happened last time they were on board one, and even those who showed no signs of hesitation felt a sensation pool deep in their bellies. Howard proves brave enough to pilot them all to their destination, though he refuses to take them too close to the factory in case they're shot down again, which they consider understandable.
Isabel looks out the window at the ground below. She's never seen red and brown dirt like this before, stretching for miles toward the horizon in waves of red, orange and brown. It seems to stretch on forever. She can't see anything else but dirt. It doesn't look the way she expected a desert to, though. She expected rolling sand dunes and nothing else; but she can make out canyons, ravines, gullies, buttes, and other geological formations she never expected. It's almost beautiful, in a scary sort of way. It's unknown, and she thinks that may be what intrigues her so much.
"It's so different to anything I've ever seen before," Isabel notes.
Bucky comes up beside her and looks out the window, having noticed his sister's fascinated stare. "The terrain, it's called Badlands," Bucky tells her. "All those ravines and canyons, the earth is shaped by the water and the wind and it erodes it. Makes for a pretty picture, right?"
"Sure does. I never thought I'd end up in a desert."
"Semi-desert," Bucky corrects easily. "Like the middle of America. Rough, hilly and a helluva lot of cactus."
Isabel looks over her shoulder where Falsworth, Steve and Dugan are leaning over a map of Spain on the floor, circling parts of the south-eastern corner. She walks over to the map to have a look. Most of it is bare; there's hardly any towns where they're going except for a sprinkle near the border. The map shows the hills and ravines, and there's a lot of them. There's a mountain range to the north of where they'll be landing and another to the south-southeast of the desert, isolating the massive area from the Mediterranean Sea. They'll be surrounded by mountains on both sides with only a narrow valley to trek through to make it to the location of the factory.
"We'll be trekking through a lower area, only about four hundred meters above sea level. The temperatures shouldn't drop below freezing at night, but during the day, the temperatures will easily surpass forty degrees Celsius," Falsworth is telling them. "That's one hundred and four degrees Fahrenheit for you Yanks. It probably won't rain at all since it's the hot season, which is good because the place floods since the ground is so hard. Shouldn't be too hard to get across to the factory if we can withstand the intense heat."
"It'll be a bit different to the weather we're used to in Europe," Dugan notes.
"Sure will be. We might even get a tan," Falsworth smirks, rolling up the map into a tight scroll.
"Alright get ready," Steve says, nodding at this information. "It's going to be difficult to navigate by foot, but it would also be difficult to get the plane in, so we don't have much choice. Make sure you have everything, there's nowhere to get supplies out here."
"We think we're the luckier bastards getting sent to the Eastern Front," Jones says from his spot sitting on the floor of the plane, "and then we end up in the desert anyway."
"Too bad there aren't any of those native girls and coconut trees here," Bucky adds, remembering the conversation from basic, though it hadn't been with these men.
"Nah, just cacti."
"Ain't it cactuses?"
"Don't even get me started."
Howard eventually descends the plane low to the ground, landing when he spots a section of flat terrain. There aren't many of them around, so he makes the most of it, landing them in a valley with sloping canyons on either side shielding them partly from the heat. Falsworth and Steve get the coordinates from Howard and situate themselves. Howard leaves the engine rumbling, needing to jet out of there as soon as possible. He's needed back at base as soon as possible for meetings with Colonel Phillips regarding new weaponry, but he also can't risk running out of fuel in the middle of the desert.
Their pick-up rendezvous point is not in Almeria. It isn't even in Spain at all. Howard doesn't want to test his luck landing in the country more than once, since they've no real idea what actually lurks in the rolling red hills, and he doubts he would be able to find them again in the desert, even though they have a transponder. Plus, it's too dangerous to make them wait around for him to come back; there are too many weather and nature-related variables that could harm them all. It'll be safer for them to find a way back into Europe where the weather is a little more predictable and safer for them to be waiting around in.
None of them have established a pick up entirely, though they know it will be somewhere in France. There are many areas of the country that are still German-occupied and therefore they need to avoid them. They need to find an airfield for Howard to land in that is controlled by the Allies, and so there will be a little searching on all of their parts. The plan is that Steve and the Commandos will send the factory to the ground if it is Hydra, steal one of their vehicles and drive their way back into France. It sounds well and good, albeit a bit vague, but not all of the Commandos' plans go as such.
Besides, Steve sort of wants to prove to Phillips that he's quite capable of road-tripping cross-continent in a stolen vehicle with his Commandos all in one piece and relatively stable.
As soon as the Commandos disembark the plane, Howard takes off again, speeding down the makeshift runway and into the sky, whipping the Commandos hair and clothes around them. It leaves them alone in a country none of them have ever dreamed of visiting, let alone standing in on the way to blow up an enemy facility. How things change.
"According to our coordinates, we've got a fair walk," Steve tells them. "About twelve miles. It's going to be hard walking through the sand and across the terrain – there's canyons, gorges, plateaus, everything you can think of. We'll take our time, stop when it gets dark and continue tomorrow if we aren't already there. And be on the lookout, keep your eyes on the ground in front of you. Last thing we need is a broken leg."
Everyone agrees. They aren't looking forward to the walk, but this is what the men trained for. This is why Bucky's unit at basic walked the perimeter every Friday night without drinking from their canteen. This is why they were made to run miles and carry their gear on hikes and climb walls and conserve their water and cover their delicate skin.
They're all prepared, or as well as they can be, except for poor Isabel, but she looks determined. Her lack of training and experience doesn't seem to bother her.
"If I get too tired, Steve can just piggy back me anyway. He said I don't get any special treatment, but he would if I asked," she tells Dugan with a smirk before following after Steve like a loyal puppy.
About an hour in, the muscles in Isabel's legs start to ache. The sand and rocks they climb make it feel like every step is actually four, their feet sinking deep into the moving sand. It feels like they're wading through thick water, even though they only sink ankle deep. They all trip every now and then over jutting rocks and small ravines in the terrain.
Dugan goes down at one point in a heap of laughter and comes very close to falling into a small cluster of cacti that definitely would have made him shout out and wipe the smile from his face. He does, however, get a stray needle caught in his finger and Isabel has to pull it out for him, stopping him thereon from scratching it as the grown man pouts and sucks on it to relieve the itch.
The golden globe of the sun is unforgiving and cruel, a malevolent unblinking eye, the sky it's co-conspirator with not even a wisp of cloud to soften the harsh rays. The lizards take shelter in the shadows of the rocks where they won't be roasted by the hot sand, but there's no shade large enough for the Commandos unless they take shelter at the side of a ravine. The sun beats down on their backs, making them all sweat profusely. A few of the men look as though they've just stepped out of the shower.
Isabel goes to take off her long-sleeved top to use as shade over her head, but Steve stops her, saying she'll get too burnt. She can see the logic in that so she keeps her long-sleeved top on, ignoring how warm her skin feels. If she was to get burnt, she may not even make it to the factory, especially if she got heatstroke. She's dying for a drink of water, but she isn't allowed to drink from her canteen either. She has to save it because they don't know how long they'll be out in the desert for. She can agree that she doesn't want to run out of water and die of dehydration, but the temptation to bleed her canteen dry is pretty strong.
The view had been so beautiful from the plane, but now she thinks she could maybe do without it. Spain can keep its desert-but-not-a-desert, thank you very much.
Three hours into their walk, they find themselves at the edge of a small cliff. It's a fair way down, enough that they wouldn't be able to jump without some form of injury. They look to their left and right, but the cliff continues for kilometres in each direction, and walking either way to find a less steep way down could cost them hours and much of their precious energy. Steve goes first, jumping off the edge and landing crouched, knees bent with a loud thud on the rocks below. Bucky sits on the edge of the cliff and then swings himself off, hanging in the air toward the ground. He lets himself drop after a moment, falling the few metres and landing lightly on his feet with a small oof, but he's otherwise unharmed. The other Commandos follow suit, some of them complaining about a knee or an ankle, and Steve helps a couple of them down. They leave Isabel standing at the top, looking down nervously.
"Come on, Belle," Steve says, extending a hand up to Isabel, though he's nowhere near reaching her.
Isabel hesitates and then sits on the edge of the cliff as Bucky had, slowly lowering herself off the edge and hanging on for dear life. Steve still isn't tall enough to reach her, his hand barely touching the bottom of her booted foot.
"You gotta let go, I'll catch you," Steve promises.
Isabel gulps, mentally curses Steve, and then let's go with both hands. She drops a moment, a terrifying moment, and then Steve's hands catch both sides of her waist and lower her easily to the ground, setting her down very gently on the red dirt beneath them.
"Thanks, baby," Isabel says sweetly, kissing Steve's cheek.
"Thanks, baby," Dugan mocks. "We didn't get a nice lift down, did we Monty?" He asks, knocking into Falsworth who goes flying, tripping over his boots.
"Perhaps the Captain thought that if you fell and hit your head, you'd get a little smarter," Monty remarks.
From the cliff, the group continues to make their way down a continued, fairly steep slope lower into the valley. Thankfully there aren't anymore cliffs to face, only the steep hill. The ground is a bit sandy and rocky, and they have to step carefully as to not slip. Small pebbles roll under their boots, threatening to move their feet and make them lose their footing. Such a thing happens when Bucky's foot skids on the rocks. He doesn't fall, barely even wobbles, just stays upright and keeps climbing. Meanwhile, when Dugan's foot slips, he falls backward onto the ground, dragging Morita down with him in his frantic scramble to stay upright. The two land with a loud thud on a harder rocky part of the hill, whining at the pain that shoots through their bodies, particularly their behinds.
Falsworth turns to laugh at Dugan's misfortune, not looking at his feet, and steps on a bit of uneven surface. Monty slips forward, knocking down Isabel who was walking in front of him and not concentrating on the falling men in preference to watching where she was walking. They fall forward, arms outstretched to break their falls as they hit the ground, not as soft underneath them as they would have wished for. Steve reaches out to grab them as they fly past him, but he just misses. They roll a little way down the massive sand dune in a tumble of limbs and Monty's shouts, stopping halfway down.
Falsworth is up before Isabel even realises what happened, laying face down in the dirt. She sits up as Falsworth reaches her, coughing and spluttering, red sand in her eyes and mouth. Her hands are a little scraped up, a bit of blood pooling in the shallow grazes, but their clothes and their quick reactions stopped them from getting any scrapes to their faces or any other part of their bodies.
"Isabel, I am so sorry," Falsworth apologises profusely, fluttering over her as the rest of the Commandos run down to them with worried expressions, particularly Steve and Bucky.
Monty thinks Isabel might actually be crying before he realises she's laughing, and apparently Steve thought the same as he rushes to her. They both pause when they realise she's laughing, wiping away the sand from her face, her mouth stretched into a wide smile, her laughter loud and pure. A real smile, they realise, one Bucky and Steve truly haven't seen since they were taken by Hydra all those weeks ago. They all laugh together for a moment, Isabel saying something through her laughter about Falsworth letting out a scream when he fell.
"It's okay," Isabel promises once she stops laughing, wiping the tears from her eyes. She opens her mouth and wipes off her tongue, finding her hand coated in sand. "Gross."
"Desert isn't so nice after all, is it?" Dugan asks her, clapping her on the back. She glares at him but takes his offered hand with her own grazed and gravel-filled palms, standing awkwardly so they can be on their way.
Five hours into their walk, their shoes are filled with sand, rustling around uncomfortably in their boots. Those who had been optimistic at the beginning are starting to lose the faith. Even Steve looks more disgruntled than usual, his brows pulled tight over his sweating forehead, his golden hair tousled with sweat and sand. It gets in their hair, in their eyes, in their mouth. Dugan spits it out, a clump of red. It almost looks like blood.
Everyone's sweating by then and some of them are just holding in their swearing, their mouths parched, their stomachs rumbling for food. They've removed their over-shirts, despite the warnings not to, to hold them over their heads and fight off the unforgiving sun on the backs of their heads and necks.
When the sun finally starts to set, and the air becomes cooler, everyone has to suppress the urge to cheer, breathing heavy sighs of relief. Steve decides to stop and make camp while they can still see what they're doing to set up. The men stop gratefully and place their sleeping bags on the ground, choosing a spot beside a sand dune to somewhat block any winds that may start up during the night.
The Commandos all sit on their sleeping bags, so they aren't in the sand, facing out toward the setting sun on the horizon. The sky lights up in a flurry of colour, red and orange and pink rays that spew outward across the plains, and Isabel takes a picture, like she had been at random times throughout the day. It reminds Steve of when he'd spilled his paint pots that time on the wooden kitchen floor and the colours all mixed together in a swirl. Sarah Rogers hadn't been happy about that, but she'd laughed it away at the sight of eleven-year-old Steve's paint stained nose and cheeks and his crying blue eyes. She'd kissed away the tears and they'd cleaned up the mess together.
The memory makes Steve's heart constrict, and he realises he hasn't thought much about his mother since he started fighting. It just hadn't felt right to reflect about someone so pure in a place of such brutal destruction. He wonders what Sarah would think of what he's been doing, whether she'd be proud? Well, he guesses, she was proud of him before, surely she'd be proud of him now that he's making a difference and helping save the world? That thought comforts him and he allows himself to somewhat relax, as much as he can this deep in uncharted territory.
Isabel sits next to Steve, leaning against his side. He pulls her close, one arm behind him to hold them up and the other running through her dark hair between her shoulder blades. They watch the sunset together like it's only the two of them there and the Commandos don't bother them, letting them have their moment. Even in the middle of the desert on the way into an enemy territory, they both feel some sort of peace. The wind is fresh and cool against their faces, the ground soft beneath them. They're both a little thirsty, both a little hungry, both pretty beat, Isabel's hands sting a little, but they're content in that moment and that's enough.
Eventually the sun disappears behind the rugged horizon, plunging them all into an eerie darkness, everything only slightly illuminated white by the moon above them. The desert becomes a vast undulating sea, punctuated by the shadowy silhouettes of the cactus and the cliffs, like great ghost ships upon sandy waves. The shadows of their faces seem just a bit darker, a bit gloomier.
The temperature drops significantly, and soon enough their wishing for the sun's heat to come back and warm their freezing bones.
"Really could go for a cold beer," Dugan mutters, holding his jacket tight around his body.
"A beer?" Morita repeats. "You crazy? It's too cold for a beer." Morita's already bundled up in his sleeping bag, laying back against the sand to stay warm.
"What do you suggest then?"
"Whiskey'd be nice," Morita admits.
"Doctors orders," Falsworth cheers, pulling a flask from his pack. They hear metal clinking and Dugan peers into the pack, seeing there's more than one flask in there, presumably with different alcohols in each. They always trust Monty to bring at least one.
The flask gets passed around as it normally does, warming the bellies of the Commandos as the cold air swoops down upon them. Isabel shuffles a little closer to Steve, his body heat warming her side and across her shoulders. She leans her head on his shoulder, only stirring when Dugan taps the flask against her shoulder for her to take. She takes it from his hands and downs a mouthful, wincing against the burn in her throat. It immediately warms her insides and seems to go straight to her head. It's been a while since she had a drink given her recovery and absence from the Stork Club.
She passes the flask to Steve, who lifts it to his lips and tips his head back as he takes a fairly large gulp. She watches him carefully, his shadowed features, the way he somehow still seems to be a light in the darkness. He hands the metal flask back to Dugan over her shoulder, who sneaks another sip before passing it back down to Bucky at the end where he and Morita are using Bucky's small telescope to look up at the stars. The lack of city lights gives them an unmitigated view above and it's breathtaking.
After a while, once most of the Commandos have had their fill of whiskey and laid back on their sleeping bags to sleep, Steve notices Isabel watching him, feels her eyes on him. He turns to her with a curious expression. "What is it?"
"Nothing," she says with a smile. "Just looking at you."
Steve blushes just a bit, looking a bit uncomfortable under her gaze. "Why?" He chuckles.
"Well, we're goin' steady, so that gives me the right to look at you whenever I want. I waited a long time to have that right so I'm not gonna waste it," Isabel begins, smirking up at Steve. She quickly glances behind her to make sure no one's looking in on their conversation, not that it would matter or that they would. The only people still awake are Morita and Bucky well away from them, the others passed out in their sleeping bags, snoring.
She looks back to him, wide eyes staring at him through the darkness. Her lips are red and plump and so kissable, almost permanently stained from how often she wears lipstick, though Steve wonders if she put some on before they came on the mission. She always does that, wears lipstick and makeup and does her hair, and Steve isn't entirely sure if its for herself or for him.
"I'm looking at you because…Well, Stevie, because you're beautiful," she says sincerely, making Steve's eyebrows rise.
"Really?" Steve asks, frowning just a bit and making that crease form between his eyebrows.
"Don't tell me you don't know," Isabel laughs. "You're pretty easy on the eyes."
"Well, I don't really think of myself that way," Steve admits, shrugging his shoulders. "I guess it explains why all the women went crazy over me on the USO Tour."
"You bet it does. But you weren't just beautiful after the serum, Stevie. You were the most handsome man in Brooklyn long before that," Isabel says offhandedly, looking up at the stars. Steve doesn't know if she's avoiding eye contact or if she's just generally interested in the stars.
Steve smiles at her, ignoring the blush that crawls up his cheeks. He lies back against the sleeping bag, pulling her back with him. She lies her head against his shoulder and chest, her hair splaying out around her. They look up at the stars for a while, pointing out the constellations they think they can see. Neither of them have ever seen them so clearly before, clear from the light of the city or the smoke of the battle. It's almost easy to forget where they actually are, that they aren't just sitting on the rooftop of the parish hall. The dead giveaway, of course, is the near silence of this landscape. There's no honking horns or bustling people down below, no city lights.
"You really don't see it, do you?" Isabel asks again eventually, waiting so long that Steve thought she'd fallen asleep.
"See what?" Steve asks.
"You never saw it, not even when you were smaller back in Brooklyn. You've never realised how beautiful you really are. And not even in appearance, just you. You're just…indescribable," Isabel tells him, not even stumbling through the words because she says them with absolute utter conviction.
Steve doesn't quite know how to respond to that, so he squeezes her shoulder just a little bit tighter. Isabel rolls away from the sky to face Steve, leaning against his side and sitting up, looking down at him with her forgivable eyes, dark enough to look black in the darkness of the night. She takes his free hand and threads their fingers together, holding them tight and pressing a kiss to his fingers.
"I told you that night on the roof that if we were stars, you would shine the brightest of them all," she says, leaning her cheek against his hand in hers. "And you know what, I really wasn't that far off. We aren't stars up in the sky, but we are stars. We're celebrities. We're in the spotlight."
"I never wanted to be a celebrity," Steve tells her honestly. "I just wanted to do good."
"I know," she says with a smile that's a little sad for him. "But that's what people do to heroes; they make them famous, they make them known. Everyone loves the hero. They put them up on this tall pedestal whether they want it or not so that they're standing amongst the stars. And you, you're the brightest star of them all. In a room of people, everyone just looks at you because you just radiate this light and they all want a piece of that warmth. They just can't get enough…" Isabel pauses, most likely for effect. She's always been a bit dramatic, but she can't beat Steve for that title. "And neither can I. I love you, Steve. Every little piece of you, and every piece of you that used to be just a bit littler. And no matter how much you give me, it'll never be enough."
"Belle," Steve breathes, looking up at her with this dopey, lovesick smile on his face. His heart races in his chest and his breathing hitches in his chest, and he's just so damn in love with her and has been for so long. He loves her so much it hurts. He lifts the hand that cradles her to him and runs his thumb along her cheekbone. She leans into him, smiling at him brightly. "You're so beautiful," he whispers. "Just like an angel. You know, you glow too, Belle. You just have this light that makes everyone feel a little better when you're around. Maybe that's why you're a nurse, because you heal people without even trying to. It's like you have a halo. You're like an angel sent from Heaven just for me. It's like God gave me my own little star because he knew I'd look after you."
Isabel's eyes are a little wet. "I think that's the nicest, most poetic thing anyone's ever said about me," she chuckles, leaning forward to kiss Steve softly. Mid-kiss she breaks down into tears, hugging Steve's neck tightly. She's half-laughing at herself through her tears, and Steve chuckles at her.
"You always say poetic things and you can't handle it when you hear them back about yourself," Steve laughs, wrapping Isabel up in his arms tight. "You deserve to be told, Belle. Every day. And I will tell you every day if you'll let me. I just gotta tell you how special you are all the time, just in case you forget."
"I wouldn't dare forget, Captain Rogers," Isabel laughs, sitting up again and looking at him. "It'd be a little hard anyway. It'd mean I'd forget everything else too, because you're just my everything."
Suddenly, Morita shifts down the other end of the line, making the two jump at the sudden movement. Truthfully, they'd both forgotten they weren't alone. "I found the North Star!" Morita cheers, using Bucky's telescope and looking up into the sky.
"It's called Polaris," Bucky informs him. "Sailors used it to lead them in the direction north."
"Isn't that because it's the brightest star in the sky and they could always find it?" Morita asks, apparently believing Bucky to be an expert on stars and astronomy. Lucky for him, Bucky's always been a bit of a science fanatic.
"It's not the brightest, it's just a second-magnitude star. Moderately bright. It's famous because it's fixed in a northern sky. It's steadfast, it's always there; even when all the other stars are rising in the east and setting in the west, circling in a wheel around it," Bucky recites as though reading from a textbook, and maybe he is in his mind.
"Oh," Morita says, a little disappointed that his fact hadn't in fact been true. "I thought it was the brightest."
"Not quite," Isabel whispers so only Steve can hear, snuggling close to him with her head on his shoulder and her arms wrapped tightly around him.
Steve presses a kiss to Isabel's forehead, pushing her hair off of her face. "Not quite," he agrees, but he isn't talking about himself.
They all start walking again in the direction of the factory before the sun rises in the morning, getting to their destination just after sunrise.
Bucky and Isabel hunker down behind a large sand dune, using it as Bucky's snipering position. From their point lying against the sand dune, they can see the entire factory in the small valley below them, and the road leading to the factory. Someone would have had to stay outside with Isabel on this mission since they didn't want her to be alone in the exposed desert without protection. The desert lacked the trees and undergrowth she can usually hide in. It only seemed logical for her to stay beside Bucky, who is fulfilling his true role as sniper on this mission, due to the openness of the terrain, rather than following Steve inside and covering his friends' six.
The sky is still dull as the Commandos run down the sand dunes toward the concrete structure, Steve in front with his shield raised. Getting in, however, isn't as easy as usual. Being out in the open and without the protection of the forest, Hydra's lookouts spot the Commandos coming from a mile away and they find themselves under fire before they can find cover, not that the desert provided any cover anyway. Bucky fires back right away from his position. He raises his sniper rifle, leaning into the sand, and fires repeatedly, taking out the Hydra agents that emerge from the factory toward their invaders, picking them off one by one. Isabel watches in admiration at Bucky's accuracy – he never seems to miss. Every shot makes contact, and deadly contact too. His breathing is calm and steady, the gun loose in his hands. It looks like he belongs in that position, like he was born to do it.
Steve risks his own exposure by throwing his shield ahead of him, taking out the sniper atop the lookout with the fling of the metal. That clears the path for the Commandos to get inside unhindrered. Steve gets an opening when no more Hydra agents are running out to tackle them outside. As he moves toward the front doors to enter, he turns and salutes to Bucky in thanks, promptly giving away the position of the sniper.
"God dammit, Steve," Bucky hisses, quickly crawling down the sand dune to a height where he can stand up without the top of his head being exposed, dragging Isabel along with him. "We got to move, he just gave away our position."
Isabel scrambles after him through the sand, following Bucky around to a new position to the side of the factory, past the now empty lookout. "I get the feeling this isn't the first time he's done that," Isabel mentions as Bucky reloads his rifle, muttering swears and curses at Steve.
"No, it isn't. If my count is right, it's the third," Bucky says, setting up his rifle again in their new position. They can still see the factory clearly in front of them. "I love him like a brother, but he can be a right idiot. Strategical genius, my ass" Bucky huffs, but there's barely any heat behind his words, mainly amusement.
Once they're settled again, Isabel and Bucky are left to wait under the stinking sun whilst Steve and the rest of the Commandos are inside the Hydra factory. No one enters or exits the main doors and so there's nothing for Bucky to do but wait. As the minutes and then hour passes, the sun rises higher in the sky above them, beating down hard on their backs. Isabel takes a small swig from her canteen and then pockets it out of reach. She watches the factory carefully for any sign of activity, but it seems silent. Isabel and Bucky wait and wait after that, the time ticking by slowly. They wipe the sweat from their foreheads, staying quiet and staying down. They can hear the gunfire from inside the building, just hoping none of those bullets stray into the bodies of the Commandos.
"You think they'll find any more super soldiers here?" Isabel asks Bucky after a while.
"Dunno," Bucky says quietly. "I get the feeling we'll come across more, though, even if they aren't here."
Isabel nods at that, looking away. The idea of finding more super soldier experiments is daunting, but Isabel also feels a pull to do so, to free the people being experimented on. She just feels as though it won't be a pretty sight when they do find them, from what Bucky described. And those poor people, they'll most likely have some major issues, both physically and mentally, if they are alive. It sounds like an enormous task, but since when have the Commandos not been up for a challenge?
In the far distance, because they can see for miles from their vantage point with nothing to block their view, Isabel spots a cloud of dust coming toward them along the road. Bucky isn't looking in that direction, his eyes are flicking around the factory in search of any rogue Hydra agents. When Isabel squints, she can just make out a car, a black spot against the brown landscape.
"Buck, look, ten o'clock" she says, tapping Bucky's shoulder. He turns to look too, eyes widening when he spots the car, considerably closer now. It must be moving at an unimaginable speed.
Bucky quickly swivels and points his sniper rifle at the car, following it through the scope as it comes toward them. "It's just a transport truck," Bucky says, relief coursing through him when he knows it isn't the Red Skull or Madame Hydra coming to join the party. He gets his radio out of his pocket and lifts the antenna. "Steve? It's Bucky. We got a car approaching down the road, ETA one minute. Over."
The white noise comes over then, before Steve's voice comes through, hollow sounding through the speakers. "Roger that, Buck. I'm coming out with Dernier, he's got the gun Stark made him. Over."
Not half a minute later, Steve emerges from the front doors of the factory with Dernier by his side, the gun Isabel had seen in Howard's factory safely in Dernier's capable hands. The car's extremely close now, and it slows to a stop when the driver notices the star-spangled man standing by the front doors like the ultimate blockade to whatever they'd had planned. Steve's brows furrow in determination, his jaw setting tight. There's a small smirk to the edge of his lips.
Seconds later, a bunch of Hydra soldiers jump from the back of the truck, coming around with their pistols raised to fire, all of them yelling variations of "Captain America". Bucky starts shooting at them as they jump out of the truck, their feet not even hitting the ground before they find a bullet through their skulls, hitting the hard ground with a sick thud and making a pile on the road.
At Steve's nod, Dernier lifts the weapon in his hands, flips the switch, and pulls the trigger. The small bomb seems to float through the air in slow motion before coming in contact with the bonnet of the truck. It explodes in a massive fireball, hot air blasting out from it as the truck is forced up into the air, bits and pieces of metal and body spraying all over the area and onto the factory roof. Steve ducks behind his shield with Dernier, heavy pieces of metal bouncing off. Isabel and Bucky cower behind the sand dune, shielding their heads with their hands against the rain of debris. A particularly large piece of metal lands on Bucky's back, making him yelp quietly. When they look up, there's nothing left where the car had stopped except a scorch mark on the ground.
Suddenly, a large intact piece of the back of the truck, wheel included, falls from the sky and lands in a smokey heap where Isabel and Bucky had originally been waiting. Luckily, they moved to a new position or they would've been squashed had they not seen it coming. They see Steve's face fall and he sprints up the sand dune to the spot, looking for them frantically, leaving Dernier at the doors of the factory.
Bucky lets Steve panic for a moment. Isabel knows better than to shout across the expanse, and Bucky holds the radio out of Isabel's reach so she can't contact Steve before he finally gives in, pressing the button and whistling quietly into the radio. Steve pulls it out and then looks around, just spotting the scope of Bucky's rifle on the top of the sand dune. Relief floods his entire body as he climbs over the sand dune to their side and comes running over to them. Isabel waves to him sheepishly.
"You scared him," Isabel berates her brother with a glare.
"He deserved it, he gave us away," Bucky says, before he tells Steve the same thing.
"I'm sorry, Buck. I keep forgetting," Steve apologises.
"Yeah, you do," Bucky says with a smirk, standing to his feet beside Steve. "You find anything?"
"No, nothing," Steve says, looking defeated and grateful at once. "It's just a weapons factory, they don't even have a basement. We searched the whole building for any hidden corridors and rooms and found nothing. There isn't even an experimentation room. I don't think Zola's ever set foot here."
"Alright, let's blow it to the ground and get out of here. It's too damn hot," Bucky tells Steve.
The two siblings follow Steve back into the factory and inside. It's just as hot within the walls of the building, even more humid, if possible. The factory is mainly just a weapons manufacturing facility, rows and rows of assembly lines scattered across the floor with weapons in various stages of completion. They've got explosives, firearms, a barrel of grenades, and even a few tanks at the back corner. But mainly now, the factory floor is covered in a mass of bodies, all of them noticeably Hydra workers with their black uniforms and masks.
Steve leads them to the waiting group, none of them looking too worse for wear. Isabel notices blood on their faces and uniforms, but she doubts it's theirs. Dugan and Falsworth are standing beside a massive turbine, like an engine from a plane. Dugan slaps a hand on it as Steve approaches. "This is an engine for the Valkyrie, Cap. They had us building another engine back at Azzano, just like this one. It's finished. No doubt they were preparing to ship it out."
"Whatever plane it's for, it's big," Monty says. "Like, unimaginably big. I'm not quite sure how they think something of that size will fly."
"What's a Valkyrie?" Isabel asks, cocking her head.
"It's the massive plane Hydra is building. We don't know what for, but the one-oh-seventh was tasked with helping to build the individual parts before they're shipped off to another Hydra location where the Valkyrie will be put together and launched from. We presume it's for dropping bombs," Steve says.
"Why does the plane need to be so big?" Isabel asks, looking at the massive turbine that stands nearly to the ceiling. "The bomber planes that we use are only small, and they can do lots of damage."
"Presumably because these bombs they're dropping are big, too."
Isabel thinks for a moment, cocking her head again in thought. "If the Red Skull and Zola find a way to power the Valkyrie with the Tesseract, the same way they power their weaponry, I don't see why it wouldn't fly, despite it's weight and size. The Tesseract, apparently, is an unlimited power source."
"Explains why they have unlimited weapons," Morita mentions.
"Uh, are you sure it's meant to be a plane?" Isabel asks, looking to Steve for an answer.
"Yes," Dugan says instead, in a duh sort of fashion. "What else would it be?"
"Well, the Norse mythology that Hydra refers to for information regarding the Tesseract says that the Tesseract acts something like a portal. That if a person knows how to use it, they can open doorways to anywhere else in the universe or to another dimension without the need to physically travel there. Space travel."
"That makes no sense," Monty says, looking confused.
"I'm not an expert, but I've been helping Howard work out what's in those cartridges that Hydra loads into their weaponry. The cartridges with the blue energy are extracts from the Tesseract, which has unlimited energy so, as we said, they have unlimited firepower. When they use the energy and their target disintegrates, the target isn't just turned to ash; it is taken from its position and dropped somewhere else within a blink. It goes to a different dimension, or to a different planet, or maybe its just deposited into the abyss of space. We don't know where it goes, and I don't think Hydra does, either. They haven't got any control over the energy or where it sends the target. But, if they work out how to choose where the target will teleport to... what if they want to use the Valkyrie as, like, a spaceship or something? To travel through space and time, or to a different dimension."
Everyone is silent, and then Dugan begins to laugh, rowdy and loud. "I think you've been reading too many fairy tales, sweetheart."
"I'm being serious! If Hydra wins the war, which we don't want to happen, they will conquer the world. But since when is Hydra going to stop at the world? What's stopping them from already thinking of total domination? If they can use the Tesseract as a portal to space and they get up there and find out what's in space, something no one else on earth knows, then they have the monopoly. They have the control. They could take over other planets, the whole universe. Think about it."
"I am thinking about it, and it sounds ridiculous," Dugan says, but no one seems to agree with him. Steve looks curious and thoughtful, Bucky intrigued, the others confused but listening.
"Okay, even if they don't use it as a spaceship. Let's scrap the whole space idea. What better way to control the world than to be able to teleport from one side to the other in seconds rather than the hours it takes to fly. If they can be anywhere, any time."
Dugan looks more open to this idea. His eyebrow cocks, his moustache flicking on his lip as he literally chews it over, chewing on his bottom lip.
"And let's suppose they don't work out how to teleport, suppose that isn't possible. The Tesseract is still insanely powerful, and these engines can probably accommodate that," Isabel continues, slapping her own hand on the metal of the engine. "Using the Tesseract's power, the Valkyrie could get around the world fast enough that they do it in minutes, not hours. In a single flight. Hell, it would never have to land if they didn't want it to since they have unlimited fuel." She turns to Dugan then, looking determined. "I bet you it's powered by the Tesseract."
"How much do you bet?" Dugan asks, taking the challenge.
"How much do you bet?" Isabel pushes, raising an eyebrow.
Dugan thinks about it. "Twenty bucks says you're wrong."
Isabel's eyebrow rises higher on her forehead before she shakes Dugan's hand. "No, honey. Twenty bucks says you're wrong. When we get back to base I'll be having a little chat with Mister Stark, and I think you'll find he'll be in my favour."
Dernier has run off somewhere, rummaging through the equipment left behind. He emerges after a while, talking away to himself in French and reveals to them the explosives he's found – bombs he can stick to the walls and detonate when they're far enough away. He walks around the room and sets them up, sticking one to every one of the four walls and then to a few of the explosives stacked in neat rows on the floor. The factory really doesn't stand a chance.
Steve leads them all to the back of the factory where the vehicles are all standing, some of them with their engines still idling, the drivers slumped over the steering wheel in their seats. It's clearly a loading bay for Hydra to transport the weapons and supplies to and from the factory. There's motorbikes, tanks, cars and trucks.
The Commandos go through and check them all, trying to see which has the most petrol. There's no use running out of gas halfway through the desert. The truck Dugan goes to ends up being the one with the most petrol. He peers over the man who's slumped in the seat, the keys in the ignition but not turned on, just able to see the petrol gauge is right to the top. When he comes around the other side, he sees that the car is still connected up to the petrol pump being refuelled. It probably should have been a giveaway.
"This one's got a full tank," Dugan tells Steve, hooking his thumb toward the truck behind him. "If you get the dead guy out of the driver's seat you can take it for a spin?" He offers Steve, smiling at him. Dark humour, it really works.
Steve makes quick work of the deceased Hydra goon, placing him on the ground gently despite the fact the factory is going to be set to explode with him in it. Steve goes to get in the drivers' seat, but pauses when he hears someone clear their throat behind him. He turns to see Isabel standing behind him with her arms crossed and her eyebrow raised.
"I believe you promised I could drive? The conditions are all optimal," she says cheekily, sauntering up to him. "You wouldn't want to be known as a liar, would you, honey?" She runs a hand over his shoulder, smirking up at him playfully.
Steve gulps, dutifully handing over the keys without saying a word. He goes around to the passenger seat and Isabel gets in behind the wheel, looking at the controls like a kid in a candy shop.
"You know how it works?" Steve asks.
"You didn't even have a licence before we came here, Steve," Bucky argues. "We had to teach you how to drive."
"Gearshift," Steve says pointedly loud to ignore Bucky, gesturing to the stick attached to the wheel. "Clutch, gas, brake," he continues, pointing to the pedals.
He runs her through the method of how to drive, how to change gears. She listens intently even though Howard already hold her the basics that time in the plane, aware of how long it's taking for him to explain and the fact they're sitting idling in an enemy factory that Dernier is just itching to blow up.
"And the steering wheel, don't forget that," a voice says from the back, but they can't make out who. Isabel has a suspicion it's Dugan.
"This is going to be fun," another voice mumbles, and she knows that sarcastic voice is Bucky.
Their clear undermining of her abilities fuels her and she's determined to be able to drive, to show them up. "Got it," Isabel says.
She puts her feet on both the clutch and brake as she starts the car. The engine revs to life beneath them, powerful and loud as a diesel. She pushes the stick into first gear, releases the brake, revs the engine, and immediately stalls. The cabin fills with the smell of clutch, and Steve wrinkles his nose. The men in the back laugh, jolting forward like it's a ride at Coney Island.
Isabel takes a deep breath and tries again. Clutch, brake, ignition, first gear, rev engine to 2000RPM, slowly release the clutch. The car slowly starts to roll forward, and she pushes on the gas, steering them out of the parking garage through the open garage door. Steve looks immensely proud beside her – whether it's because of his teaching or for her performance, she doesn't know, but she'd bet on it's her.
They roll out into the open and she turns right, steering them around the side of the factory in the direction of France, rolling faster. The engine gets a bit loud, protesting at them as they pass the main entrance to the factory and veer slightly onto the road.
"Put the clutch in and switch up to second," Steve reminds her quietly.
She does as he instructs, the engine giving for a moment before shooting up into second gear and flying forward faster. Isabel stays at a low speed though so that they can watch as the factory goes up. She swerves easily around the remaining fiery debris of the approaching truck they'd taken out, leaving it simmering on the road in their wake.
When they're far enough away Dernier presses a button on the explosive's ignition switch in his hand, and seconds later, the factory explodes behind them in a mass of flames, only second in size to the explosion he caused in the mountain, not that Isabel was awake to see it. It goes up in smokes, the flames as red as the dirt below it, debris littering the once unventured-into land all around. The Commandos watch out the back through the canvas flaps, the sky around them darkening from the black smoke. Isabel splits her attention between the dirt track and the rear-view mirror until eventually the obliterated factory behind them gets smaller and disappears over the horizon. The Commandos cheer at another job well done, settling back into their seats.
Isabel puts her foot on the gas to high-tail them out of there. She switches to third when the engine tells her, then to fourth and finally to fifth, the highest gear. Her gear changes are a little sloppy and jerky, and the Commandos rock around in the back, but eventually they're flying away across the barren landscape, following the path created by Hydra.
"She's no worse than the first time Cap drove," Morita tells them all, sounding a little proud of his fellow medic. "Maybe she can be our designated driver from now on. We'll certainly get there faster."
Isabel drives a lot faster than Steve does, speeding through the sand at a whopping speed, a red dust cloud of dirt flying up at the back in their wake. The Commandos love it, cheering and egging her on while Steve holds on a bit tight to the dash in front of him, a look of fear on his face that he tries to hide behind a tight smile.
"Let your hair down, Stevie," Bucky tells Steve, leaning over the seat to talk to him and hitting his friend on the shoulder. "If we crash, it's not like you'll die."
"We won't crash, I was taught to drive by the best. And I don't mean you, Stevie, I mean Howard. He taught me how to fly a plane and drive a car at the same time," Isabel informs them, swerving a bit on the wide track to avoid a large tumbleweed in the middle of the road. "What are we supposed to crash into anyway? It's deserted."
"Get it, because it's a desert?" Dugan laughs in the back.
"Yes, Dugan, I do believe that was the joke," Falsworth tells his American friend with little humour, pulling another flask from his pack.
Isabel drives for hours, the landscape never changing. She must admit, now that she's in the safe confines of the car with the air blowing in through the vents to cool them, that the desert is beautiful. Maybe it's just because she's never seen it except in pictures. The red dirt is continuous, but it's harshness and bright colour just show how dangerously beautiful it really is. The rolling red hills and canyons are truly untouched, and no one dares to penetrate the expansive landscape, except Hydra, of course, but they're a parasite; they can adapt to any landscape, and that's what makes them so frighteningly dangerous.
Eventually the dirt tracks they've been following through the desert join up with the main bitumen road that winds through the valleys, and Isabel turns onto it, barely stepping on the brake. There's no cars anywhere, the roads deserted. She speeds off down the cemented road, sticking to the correct side thankfully.
Falsworth directs her to veer off to the right, wanting to avoid going anywhere near the city of Madrid. Although Spain isn't technically fighting with the war, their ideology does side with the Axis powers, and Spanish soldiers have volunteered to fight for the German Army since nineteen-forty-one. While there was a clear and guaranteed condition that the Spanish volunteers would only fight against the Soviet's Communism on the Eastern Front and not against the Western Allies of any Western European occupied populations, they still feel a sense of unease at being in Spain, considering Steve is literally the embodiment of the American military. They aren't entirely sure their presence would be welcomed.
In the back, Falsworth tries to keep up with where they are on the map, and after a while informs them they are only a few hours from the border to France. Isabel's driven almost the entirety of the Spanish country within about eight hours, but her speed has actually been a blessing considering it's helped to preserve petrol. They'll get closer to home before they run out.
By the time Steve tells Isabel to pull over, her eyes are looking a little tired, and she's been driving for more than half the day, the sky starting to darken as twilight approaches once again. Isabel pulls over dutifully on the side of the road, shifting gears down again. The car comes to a stop, not because she put her boot all the way down on the brake, but because she stalls, having not put the clutch in again, and everyone is thrown forward just a bit with the sudden halt, laughing.
Instead of getting out of the car, Steve just grabs Isabel and lifts her over his lap, sitting her in the passenger side of the bench seat and sliding behind the wheel. After a second, Steve takes off again, leaving a dust of dirt behind him. He drives a little faster than usual.
Since they'll be entering France sometime during the night, they're all a little glad that Steve's driving. Considering the country is currently under German control, they know that as soon as they enter France, they're more likely to encounter others, and they may even need to evade the enemy. It's better to have an experienced driver behind the wheel.
Isabel scoots over to him on the bench seat, fitting herself under his free arm. "Thanks for letting me drive, Stevie. It was fun," she tells him, pressing a firm kiss to his cheek.
Steve leans into the kiss, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, all while not taking his eyes off the road. "Anything for my best girl."
A/N: The Tabernas Desert is a real desert in Spain. All of the descriptions about its geography and landscape are true because not only am I a history nerd, I also love biology. And everything Bucky says about it is true as well because he's smart.
Everything Bucky says about the North Star is also true because he's my little science nerd and I just love it. The North Star, or Polaris, is a star found in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere that appears fixed in the sky, the other stars circling around it in a wheel from east to west. It is not the brightest star in the sky and is commonly believed, and is a moderately bright second-magnitude star as Bucky tells Morita. Sailors and scouts' livelihoods and survival used to depend on stars which they used as direction, and Polaris always pointed north. If it is in front of you, you're facing north; behind you and you're facing south. Give it a try, star gazing is fun. I hope you've all enjoyed your little astronomy lesson :)
The Spanish State under authoritarian leader Francisco Franco did not officially join the Axis Powers during World War II, but their ideology did somewhat fit with the Axis outlook, and Franco's regime supplied material and military support to the Axis. This was also in part due to the heavy assistance that Spain received from both Germany and Italy during the Spanish Civil War, which they believed they had a duty to repay. As of June ninteen-forty-one, Spanish volunteers joined the German Army to fight against Bolshevism (Soviet Communism) on the Eastern Front, and not against the Western Allies or any Western European occupied populations. In this manner, Franco could keep Spain at peace with the Western Allies, while repaying German support during the Spanish Civil War and providing an outlet for the strong anti-Communist sentiments of many Spanish nationalists. However, despite ideology sympathy and providing volunteers, eventually, Franco stationed armies in the Pyrenees to deter any German occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish's policy frustrated the Germans, who proposed they take British-controlled Gibraltar. Franco did consider joining the war and invading Gibraltar in nineteen-forty after the Fall of France, but knew his armed forces were not strong enough to defend the Canary Islands and Spanish Morocco from the British attack that would follow in retribution.
Also, just FYI, on Google Maps it apparently takes about seven hours to drive from the Tabernas Desert to Zaragoza, Spain, where I imagine Steve would have asked Isabel to pull over so they could swap. From there, it's about another seven hours of driving to the location where Steve and the Commandos will stop in the next chapter. Definitely a doable distance in a day, especially with how empty the country would have been.