49.
Avignon, France
July 25th, 1944
Steve drives into the late hours of the night, eventually passing the open border into France and leaving Spain far behind. He navigates through the winding roads of the French country side, through the forests and the open plains, heading for an allied camp. He doesn't know which one, but he'll find one.
The rest of the Commandos fell asleep in the back of the truck once dark settled over the country and they've been snoring away for hours. Isabel eventually fell asleep against Steve's shoulder and he carefully manoeuvred her down so that she was curled up on the bench seat, her head resting against his leg. He pets her hair as he steers with one arm, rarely needing to change gears except for when he goes down or uphill or comes to a tight corner.
Steve sneaks a look at the petrol gauge, seeing it is getting low, just passing the quarter tank mark. Only a few more hours of driving and they'll run out.
When Steve drives past Montpellier, the road splits into two and he takes the one toward Lyon, staying on the main roads so they'll get wherever they're going faster. He knows it puts them at risk of attack, but at such hours of the morning he doesn't expect any troops to be awake, and any watchmen would barely notice a German army truck pass with its headlights off.
Steve follows the road as it winds down the side of a low mountain range, around and around in a seemingly endless spiral before they emerge on the flat again. The car putters along underneath him, a comforting sound. He wishes he had some music though to keep him preoccupied. He isn't tired, not at all, but it's boring being alone for so many hours, left only with his thoughts.
Eventually, the sun starts to rise, and the green French landscape is thrust into the light once again. The Commandos slowly start to stir, used to waking up at an ungodly hour, stretching and yawning in the back of the truck. Isabel stays asleep on the seat next to Steve, looking peaceful. Steve doesn't have the heart to wake her, not even when the men get the last of their rations out and eat their breakfast, though there isn't enough for all of them to be full. Living on the SSR base has its advantages, but when it comes to food, it's given them a false sense of being comfortably full at all times, particularly when they venture back out to the front.
Bucky passes Steve his share, pausing to smile down at his sister with the same look he gives Becca. Steve looks over and smiles appreciatively; Isabel's lucky having such a family with an older brother who loves her unconditionally. Steve always wished growing up that he had siblings, and it had taken him a while to realise that Bucky was the stand in, that Bucky played that role for him. Ever since he worked that out, he's been so eternally grateful. And now, he realises, the world threw him another bone and gave him another five brothers. In that moment, looking out at the morning sun warming the world and the rolling green hills before them, Steve realises he really is lucky, too.
Isabel stirs awake when they drive over a pothole in the road that throws her up in her seat. She sits up immediately, eyes wide as she looks around. She slumps back when she realises where they are, rubbing at her eyes before looking out at the landscape.
"Where are we?" She asks groggily, frowning over at Steve.
"We're headed to Lyon. Stark could pick us up from there, there's supposed to be an allied airfield not far from the city. But I think it'd be best if we stopped at the next town for some real food, if we can. And for some fuel, we're getting low. But we won't stop if the town isn't allied-held. I don't think any of us feel like a fight today," Steve tells them.
"Sounds good, Cap, my rations taste like someone pissed on them," Dugan says sourly around a mouthful of a protein bar, spitting his bite of the bar out the back of the truck.
"Maybe they did, Dum Dum," Jones says cheerfully, his tone laced with sarcasm. "You did fall asleep first last night."
Steve drives for a while longer along the road before they come across the next town. The metal sign on the town's outskirt says that it is Avignon, but it's bent and burnt in a way that makes all of their stomach's turn. Ahead, across the river, they can just make out the city, or what used to be of it. Even from afar, they can see that it's been bombed severely. From the smoke rising into the air, rather recently too. A good majority of the buildings are misshapen, piles of rubble that used to be beautiful architectural structures. They're surprised the bridge is even intact, as in these sorts of battles, the bridges are the first to be blown to stop people from evacuating the city.
Their car passes over the bridge across the flowing river and into the edge of the township. They sit there for a long while on the road, watching and waiting and surveying the area searching for any signs of allied or axis soldiers, or even townspeople themselves. The Allies are supposed to have been pushing through France, moving the enemy further into Europe toward Germany. Surely by now, Steve thinks, they would have managed to take these parts of France?
"We shouldn't walk through," Steve eventually mutters when there's still no sign of life.
"Maybe there's no one here?" Isabel suggests. "Maybe it was evacuated?"
"Perhaps," Steve agrees. "But it has this feeling, you know? It feels like its still alive."
"Well if the town is held by us, what do you think they're going to do if they see us driving a German armoured vehicle?" Bucky retorts.
"I think the American flag draped around the Captain may persuade them," Dugan jokes from the back.
"If we see our guys, we get out. If we see others, we keep on driving through?" Jones suggests.
Steve looks down at the petrol gauge again and shakes his head. "We won't get far. It's on empty. This is our only option, or else we're on foot. If we could just find some gas and fill up, we could keep going. Keep your eyes peeled."
He presses on the accelerator and the car slowly lurches forward, puttering through the town at a snail's pace. The roads are covered in debris, buildings demolished in no pattern, just large areas dissipated by the fall of bombs from above. The truck bounces all around as it drives over bits of building. There's no sign of human life anywhere, no one walking through the demolished streets, no movement in any of the still standing windows. But even so, there could be eyes watching. Their armoured vehicle provides a lot of protection with its metal exterior, and in the event of an emergency, they could easily escape.
"Maybe we shouldn't stop," Bucky suggests from where he leans into the driver's cabin, eyes wide as he stares out the windshield. He's got that worried frown on his face again, his shoulders tense and his knuckles white where they cling to his rifle.
They're driving down the town's main street, lined with shops and pubs and establishments, and Steve finds himself distractedly looking around at the smoking ruins. He spots the petrol station in the far distance, up the end of the main street when Isabel suddenly screeches. He slams on the brakes and comes to a sudden stop just before he runs over a mass of bodies lying in the street, lined up along the white paint line of the middle of the roadway.
Isabel hurriedly opens the door and gets out of the car before Steve can stop her, running over to the line, about thirty bodies long. She bends down next to the closest body, but quickly stands up and moves away holding her nose and cringing. Steve gets out too and comes closer, hurrying to cover Isabel with the shield. Just because the town looks deserted, doesn't mean it is. As he does, he looks at the bodies, seeing that the men, women and children were clearly killed in the bombings all those days or weeks ago – they're missing limbs, their skins scorched, their faces unrecognisable, and the smell… Steve leans over and gags at the smell, holding his nose and his stomach as he brings up his rations. He's only ever smelt anything like that once before, the horrible odour of burnt and decaying human flesh, and that was when he himself was burnt.
"They've been dead for at least a week," Isabel tells him, her voice muffled through her hand as she looks away, wide eyes burning a hole through the badge on the front of their truck to concentrate on anything else. "The way they've all been laid out like this, I'd say the surviving townspeople went through and found them all. They're identifying them before they bury them. Would've been better had they not been laid out in the sun."
Steve nods in agreement, still looking very sick. If they've been found like this and laid out to be put to rest, the town is most likely not deserted as they'd thought. Perhaps it is allied-controlled, and the people of the town are enjoying a lazy morning. They can hardly expect the stores and businesses to open in the light of such an event, and when many of the workers are likely deceased.
Steve still isn't willing to take any unnecessary risks. He hurries Isabel back into the protection of the truck, getting her into the passenger seat before climbing back behind the wheel.
"You can't just run out into the open like that," he starts to tell her, when his eye catches movement in the distance at the end of the street in front of the church that sits at the t-junction of the main street of the town. He narrows his eyes, spotting the two men walking as they patrol the streets, rifles raised. They're German, a swastika on their shoulder. "Get down," Steve tells Isabel, pushing her down so her head is below the dash.
Almost as if on cue, the men spot the Hydra truck sitting in the middle of the street. They start toward it with their guns raised warily, not shooting. Hydra may be German, but they aren't following the German regime, they have their own agenda, and these men are right to be wary of the Hydra truck in the middle of the town they're clearly still occupying despite the bombings. No doubt, they've probably been told that Hydra is just as much an enemy to them as the Americans or the British.
"Drive, Cap!" Falsworth says.
Steve does so, slamming the car into reverse and pushing down on the accelerator. The car goes about ten feet before it starts to sputter and jump and then the engine cuts out and they roll to a stop.
"Damn it!"
They look up and the soldiers have stopped, rifles raised toward them and expressions wary. They start again toward the truck once it stops rolling.
Steve lets the men get close enough before he flings the shield at them through the still open door. They look surprised to see the red, white and blue disc come at them like a giant frisbee before it hits them with blunt force right in the stomach, sending them both down with a painful thud. They don't move again. Steve jumps out of the truck and collects up the shield.
"Wait here!" He yells, mainly to Isabel, before he starts off through the town toward the church ahead. Bucky, Jones and Dernier follow right on his tail with their weapons at the ready.
Isabel sits up on her elbows, peering over the seat at Dugan and Falsworth who've stayed in the truck. Their guns are trained on the streets around them and their eyes watchful. There could be people waiting in any of the buildings, could be some patrolling down any street. It isn't safe to be exposed and be so out in the open. Isabel knows it, and the two other Commandos know it as well.
"We need to get to cover," Dugan decides.
The men jump from the back and Isabel ditches herself out the passenger door, following Dugan as he leads them across the street into a nearby building, a pub by the looks the bar at the back of the large room, that hasn't been totally demolished and ruined by explosives. The front wall has been somewhat crumbled, the large window smashed, but it provides cover for them and an opening to see through and shoot through if they need. The three of them duck down low behind the crumbling wall, beside the blown out street-facing window. To their left, the wall has fallen down, opening up into the next establishment, a small bakery with baked goods rotting in the display cases. Dugan sneaks a peak at the cakes and groans with hunger despite the mould coating the pastries.
The town isn't eerily silent anymore. They can hear the Commandos somewhere in the distance yelling out commands and warnings, shooting, the shield banging off walls and people. The sounds echo through the seemingly barren streets, sounding much closer than they probably are. Though, they really have no way to tell how close or far they are. For all they know, the fighting could be just on the other side of the buildings on the other side of the street from them, or right in front of the church, just out of their sight.
They hear a whole lot of yelling in German, the firing of guns back, the explosion of grenades. The ground seems to tremble beneath them with every explosion. They suspect Frenchy is using his newfound pride and joy once again.
"Maybe we should head that way, help them," Dugan suggests to Falsworth.
"We can't leave Barnes alone," Falsworth argues.
Then, suddenly, there are German voices much closer to them, the sound of pounding footsteps. A group of the German patrol is escaping the destruction that the Commandos are wrecking on the town. The group run down the main street toward the other three hiding Commandos. Isabel peeks around the wall. There's about fifteen of them in the group, fright frozen on their faces, looking back over their shoulders toward the Church as they run. They skid to a stop, however, at the sight of the dead truck in the middle of the road. They approach the truck warily, peering inside the open passenger door and the back flaps, only finding a bunch of backpacks. They look confused for a moment, a Hydra truck with American gear inside–
"Get your gun out, Baby Barnes," Dugan whispers to Isabel without taking his eyes off the scene in front of them.
"I've already got it," Isabel replies, showing him her loaded pistol.
"Good. If they see us, prepare for a firefight."
"What–"
Before Isabel can reply, the German men scatter the area. Whether it is in search of them, because surely they knew a few of them were missing from the firefight a few streets over, or whether it is to find cover thinking they may be a target, none of them are sure. They wait with baited breath as the men spread, and a good eight of them head straight toward them. They pause again as they get closer, spotting Dugan's gun sticking out from behind the wall, and they begin to shoot.
Dugan and Falsworth shoot back immediately. Dugan nails one man in the chest, the leader of the group who was getting his radio from his pocket to inform the others of their discovery. Not that the gunfire isn't enough of a lead, but they don't need it sparking a fullblown man hunt for them all that could leave them grossly outnumbered, especially as their group is split in two.
At the sounds of returning gunfire, the German soldiers immediately duck down, those who haven't already been taken down by a bullet diving for cover behind the Hydra truck. Dugan and Falsworth fire back and forth, hiding from the shots that come straight back at them. It's loud, incredibly loud, and the bullets pound into the wall that Isabel hides behind, too afraid to shoot her own pistol alongside Dugan and Falsworth.
Bucky showed her how to use it. He'd taken her to the firing range at the base many times when she joined the Commandos and she'd done well. And every time they're at one of the camps before a mission, he has her practise. He makes her stand in the muddy road and aim at a poor Coca Cola can on the fence line, makes her shoot and shoot until she finally hits it. It doesn't take many attempts, her shot isn't too bad, but he always picks her up for her stance being terrible and apparently her breathing is still wrong, something she didn't know was a thing. They practised everyday until she was an okay shot, and now they're working toward good. Okay or good, and definitely not a professional, especially when compared to the skill level of the Commandos. She's only ever shot one person before and that was pure luck. She can't fire under the circumstances with the threat of a bullet landing on her. It could kill her, it could be a head shot. She doesn't want to die. She can't get wounded in case she needs to help one of the others–
Dugan doesn't give her a choice. His gun clicks to inform him he's out of ammo and he quickly scuffles around her to her other side behind the thicker part of the wall as he reloads. Falsworth is their last line of defence. Isabel watches in distress as Falsworth fires back and forth. Surely he'll run out of ammo soon–
"What are you doing?" Dugan yells to her over the noise, pushing on her arm. "Shoot back! You don't have to hit them, just scare 'em!"
Isabel stares at him wide eyed and he pushes her harder, right toward the opening of the broken glass. She ducks behind the safety of the wall, glaring at Dugan. She peers around the wall carefully, sizing up the area, just as Falsworth's own rifle clicks empty. Isabel feels a rush of adrenaline at being their only line of defence. They can't halt their barrage of bullets or else the Germans will take the opportunity to advance on them. Isabel quickly raises her pistol with a shaking hand, her finger on the trigger. Pull it, pull it, she yells to herself, and then she does.
The gun trembles as it releases the bullets, getting hotter in her hand, one after the other in a barrage at the German men. Most of them miss, hitting along the side of the Hydra truck, but there's no one to shoot anyway, since the Germans cower behind the truck. One lone bullet makes its way through the shoulder of one man who bravely ventures out from behind the truck, sending him to the ground with a scream. Isabel doesn't do much else or cause much damage, but her bullets halt the Germans from trying their chance at leaning around the edge of the truck long enough for Dugan and Falsworth to reload and get back into position.
"Good, BB," Dugan congratulates her, pushing her back behind the wall.
Isabel lets him, a little wide-eyed, and quickly reloads her pistol with shaking hands, ready in case they need her again. She recites the pieces in her head, just as Bucky had made her, grateful for him engraving it into her mind. The pieces slot together without complaint and her hands move without hesitation, acting as though they actually know the gun and what to do with it. But it's all just a facade, an elaborate facade that Bucky's thrust upon her. She truly has no idea what she's doing.
Out of the corner of her eye, Isabel sees movement through the hole in the wall that leads into the bakery next door, equally demolished by the bombings. Her head snaps up, particularly at the faint sound of a floorboard creaking, only just audible over the firefight. She gasps when there stands a man, German, coming toward them to take them out from behind. He's sneaking quietly, hoping to go unnoticed, and he had until now.
Isabel acts quickly. Neither Dugan nor Falsworth have noticed the man, too concentrated on their current fight. She can't let the man shoot Dugan or Falsworth, especially not at this close range; they'd never make it out. She raises her pistol before the sneaky soldier can raise his own, and maybe he doesn't even realise she has a weapon or doesn't see her as a threat, and he certainly doesn't expect it when she aims right for his head on reflex, just as Bucky trained her in the shooting range. She doesn't even hesitate when she pulls the trigger, the shot making Dugan and Falsworth jump beside her. The bullet whizzes right between the man's eyes, a spray of dark red blood bursting out from behind his head where the bullet goes all the way through his skull. He sways for a moment on the spot before falling forward, his head only mere centimetres from Isabel's feet. Dugan and Falsworth stare at the man for a mere millisecond before getting back to the fight.
But Isabel stares at him with wide eyes, unable to look away from his still features, the way his eyes stare at the wall, the red that soaks his entire face and the floorboards beneath him. I just killed someone. I just killed another person, she finds herself thinking, over and over.
She isn't sure how long she's sat there staring, but it can't be long. Dugan and Falsworth haven't even run out of ammo again by the time she jolts. Dugan yells something loud, and a small round grenade flies in through the window above their heads. Isabel's on her feet before she can really think about it, running over the man's unmoving body through the open hole in the wall before the grenade hits the ground. The three of them run away and they hear the clang as the grenade hits the floorboards further inside the burnt-out pub. Time seems to slow right down as they run over the debris of the next building, trying to get as far away as possible before it detonates.
It seems to be taking so long for the grenade to explode that Isabel thinks it may have been a dud. They just make it through to the next building as the grenade explodes behind them, sending the pub up in flames. The fire fills the entire room where they'd just been, forcing its way through the hole in the wall, hot on their heels. They feel the fire lick their backs as the force of the explosion sends them all to the floor, landing hard against the debris. Isabel holds her hands over her head, keeping low to the ground to shield herself from the plaster and rubble and wood that falls all over them, the entire pub obliterated behind them.
Falsworth had been at the back of the group and the flames managed to catch his uniform on fire. He quickly rolls around on his back to try to extinguish it, Dugan hurriedly patting him down to help.
"Are you burnt?" Isabel asks, crawling over to him on her belly and keeping low considering the Germans are still right outside.
"No, just my uniform," Falsworth reassures her, despite looking petrified.
The three Commandos quickly crawl over to the bakery's front window and hunker behind the wall, peering carefully outside at the truck that's now a bit further down the road from them. The remaining Germans that haven't been taken down, only about four of them, are up and approaching the burnt pub, guns at their sides, apparently thinking the three had perished in the blaze.
"We're lucky that grenade had a seven-second fuse," Falsworth whispers gratefully. "They have old weaponry, like pre-40. The new ones only give you four seconds."
"Yeah, lucky," Dugan mutters. "Let's hope they don't have another. There's nowhere for us to go this time 'cept out in the open. They'll pick us off like-"
They hear gunshots from outside and immediately duck down again. The three watch as Bucky and Jones come racing down the street, letting out a string of accurate shots from their rifles that take down the last four Germans easily.
Bucky takes one look at the bullet riddled truck and prays his friends hadn't stayed in there. His eyes flick to the smouldering pub and his brows furrow. Seconds later, Isabel, Falsworth and Dugan emerge from the bakery. Bucky swivels toward the sound with his rifle aimed at them, but immediately lowers it at the sight of them, their arms raised in the universal sign for peace.
"They damn tried to blow us up, and then you try to shoot us up," Dugan tells Bucky. "It hasn't been such a good mornin', Sarge."
"I wasn't gonna shoot you," Bucky reassures. "We've taken 'em all out near the church. These guys were the last," Bucky says, hooking his thumb at the four he just killed on the ground behind him. "I saw the group of them run this way toward you but none of us could get free of the others to take them out until now."
"We had it covered," Falsworth reassures.
"You okay, Is?" Bucky asks, looking worriedly at his sister. She looks a little bit singed, the ash from the pub having covered her, and she's got a few cuts and scrapes, but other than that she looks unharmed.
When her eyes flick to him, they're a little wide, but steely. "Fine," she reassures.
The men quickly sweep the street to ensure they're in the clear. When Jones returns with a silent nod, Isabel runs back to the truck and grabs her and Morita's medical kits before she follows after her brother and friends, heading down the street to the church where the rest of the Commandos are waiting and doing some final sweeps of the town for rogue soldiers.
"What happened here?" Dugan is asking Bucky when Isabel catches up.
"The town got bombed about a week ago by the Allies trying to drive the Germans out. There's a factory on this side of town, only a block that way. The Germans were producing weaponry there and were basically holding the town hostage. The Allied bombers weren't exactly accurate; they took out half of the town with them and they actually missed the factory, so they had to come back and try again, and the townspeople got hit twice," Bucky explains hurriedly, his face falling. "Those who survived were trying to pick up the pieces, finding their dead and slowly getting through burying them when a troop of German soldiers came through the town to inspect the damage to their factory, we presume. They thought it'd be a good idea to scare all of the townspeople a bit more. Shoved them all into the church and then looted what was left of the town. We came through just in time to save them all." He says the last part ominously, as though looting hadn't been the soldiers' only objective. Dugan nods knowingly.
"Save them all from what?" Isabel asks.
Bucky sighs, rubbing his forehead in exhaustion. "A few months ago, there was a massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane. The Germans came through, locked the women and children in the church, looted the village. Then they led the men to the farm sheds and..." He pauses, licks his lips and looks at his sister sideways, "...shot them in the legs so they couldn't escape before dousing them in fuel and setting them alight. In the church, they placed an incendiary device beside it and blew them all up, shooting those who tried to escape through the windows. An awful lot of people died, hundreds…" Bucky trails off
Isabel feels quite sick, her face going green. Dugan and the others look solemn.
Bucky looks up from his feet, at the desolated city around them. "Since they locked everyone up in the church here as well, we think they may have been trying to do it again once they'd gotten what they wanted from the people."
"Why would they do that in the first place?" Isabel cries, thoroughly disturbed. "What did these poor people do to deserve this?"
"Nothing, they did nothing," Bucky says quietly, his voice soft to try to calm everyone.
"It's all in retaliation for what the Allies are doing to stop the Axis powers," Falsworth tells her quietly. "Oradour-sun-Glane, that was retaliation for the kidnapping of SS commander Helmut Kämpfe."
"Then what was today for?" Isabel asks quietly.
"Who knows?" Bucky shrugs. "To show they still have power despite how they're being pushed out of France right as we speak? As retaliation for blowing up their weapons factory? Or perhaps they've got a taste for it, as sick as it is."
Bucky leads the three of them toward the Church in the centre of the village at the end of the main street. It's a small, quaint building, white panelling on the outside and a stunning wooden ceiling and beams on the inside. A large, colourful stain-glass window rises above the altar, which has amazingly managed to escape damage in the bombings, except for a singular hole toward the bottom.
Steve, Dernier, Jones and Morita stand in the street in front of it, the ground around them littered with the bodies of the German soldiers. There's got to be at least one hundred, and another fifteen over where they'd left the truck. A whole squad, if Isabel's knowledge is correct.
All of the Commandos are bathed in blood, dirt and debris with their own share of scrapes and bruises. Steve's holding his upper arm tightly as blood pours out from under his hand, most likely a bullet wound. Isabel goes straight to him, attempting to lift up the sleeve of his suit to get to it.
"It'll be fine," Steve tells her, grabbing her hands to stop her. "It's only a scrape."
Isabel puts her hands on her hips indignantly. "Steve, you have a bullet lodged in your ar–"
"Belle, it can wait. We have to help these people first," Steve says, a little more forceful. Isabel nods in resignation.
Inside the church, they can hear the murmur of terrified French civilians, none of them game enough to peer out of the doors and windows in case they're punished. Steve walks up the stairs and opens the door, peering inside. There's many women, men and children inside, all of them cowering in the corners and huddling together. The children are crying, a baby screaming at the back near the altar. Their cheeks are wet with tears.
"Jones, Dernier," Steve says, and waves the two men up. "I need you to come and reassure the civilians that we aren't a threat. They're safe now."
Jones nods, carefully making his way up the stairs of the church toward Steve, who opens the thick wooden door all the way. As he appears in the doorway and steps inside, Steve behind him, there's an almighty roar of terrified screams from the people inside.
"S'il vous plaît, restez calme. Nous sommes des alliés, nous sommes venus pour vous sauver. Les Allemands sont partis, ils ont tous été tués. Tu es en sécurité (Please, stay calm. We are Allies, we have come to save you. The Germans are gone, they have all been killed. You are safe)," Jones tells them sympathetically, his arms raised in the universal sign for surrender.
Their eyes all flick from Jones to Steve beside him, a recognisable figure, and then to the men and one woman standing outside the church, surrounded by mutilated bodies. Some of them seem to calm immediately in relief, clutching their little ones just a bit tighter.
One brave man stands from his spot on the floor, facing Jones. "Qui es-tu? (Who are you?)" He asks in a quiet voice, frowning at the American soldier.
"Nous sommes les Commandos Hurlants. Nous suivons Captain America (We are the Howling Commandos. We follow Captain America)," Jones tells them, pointing to Steve in his suit and then to the rest of the Commandos outside.
A few gasps start up in the crowd, all of their eyes widening as they recognise the Captain. Steve stands just a little bit straighter, but offers them a genuine smile, waving shyly to them. A few of the children wave back, their mouths open slightly at they stare up at the tall American soldier.
"Avez-vous un médecin? (Do you have a medic?)" A middle-aged woman asks, coming closer to Jones hesitantly. She's got a small cut on her forehead, but otherwise she looks unharmed.
"Oui, nous avons deux (Yes, we have two)," Jones tells her immediately, growing worried. "Des gens ont-ils été blessés? (Have people been injured?)"
"Oui! Oui! (Yes! Yes!)" The woman cries.
"Isabel, Morita, we need you," Jones calls out to them.
Isabel hands Morita his medic pack and the two of them ascend the steps, stepping into the church. The woman who'd spoken to Jones grabs onto Isabel's wrist, perhaps more comfortable confiding in the young woman, dragging her down the aisle between the pews toward the altar.
"S'il vous plaît, vous devez les aider. ils ont été fusillés! (Please, you must help them. They've been shot!)" The woman cries, but Isabel doesn't quite understand every word.
Isabel lets the woman drag her through the church, Morita following closely. They walk through the closed door to the sacristy off to the right of the altar, the small room where the priest and attendants would have prepared for services and stored the vestments and vessels. However, the room's objects have been pushed to the side, the floor used as a makeshift hospital for thirteen men and two women, all of whom are suffering from bullet wounds.
There is a lone man working on helping their injuries, a doctor by the look of him, struggling to juggle the many patients with limited supplies and limited hands. Isabel and Morita immediately drop beside the next waiting patient, deeming which ones need assistance first. They're all in a bad way, most of them with gun wounds to the torso, not a good location due to the presence of all of the organs and the likelihood of internal bleeding from the trauma.
Isabel quickly gets out a syrette of morphine and injects it into the first man she treats, the medication immediately taking away the blinding pain from his wound. She wipes away the blood carefully, revealing two shots to the lower abdomen. The blood continues to spirt out of him, soaking her hands and her uniform quickly. It's hard to see what she's doing as it fills the wound again, and she's continuously wiping it away, making the man wince. Whatever bullets and guns the Germans were using, they're extremely powerful, maybe even moreso than the usual Allied weapon. The bullets are slugs, thick and heavy and fast, lodging painfully in the body. The man's abdominal cavity's been violated, the abdominal wall shot through. With the force, at such a close range by the look of it, there could be any amount of damage to his liver, stomach, intestines, colon, kidneys, bladder, even his spine.
He's lost an awful lot of blood, a large pool of it soaking into the wooden floor. A major blood vessel has likely been severed. Isabel looks up at the patient – he's unconscious, his eyelids fluttering like a drunk's. She hurriedly shines a light in his eyes, but there's barely any pupil response. His heart rate is slow, pulse weak, and he's hardly breathing. On his abdomen, there's an enormous bruise forming against the pale skin. A few seconds later, the man's chest stops moving.
"He's gone," Isabel tells Morita.
"Nothing you could do," Jim reassures.
Isabel moves on to the next patient, the woman with the gunshot wound to the calf. It hurts, it really does, but Morita's right, there was nothing Isabel could do for the other man. She isn't a god or a miracle worker, she doesn't have any magical powers that heal wounds and bring back the dead. She feels a twinge in her heart, the same one she gets every time she ever loses a patient, even if it is beyond her control. She's the one qualified to be able to help them, she's the one with the tools and the knowledge. She knows there's always a limit to everyone's abilities, even those with a super soldier serum, but it never gets any easier.
Isabel swallows down the lump in her throat, ignores the twinging in her heart. She may not have been able to help this man, but there are others that she can fix. You can do this, she tells herself, and she does.
Steve, Bucky, Falsworth and Dugan split into two groups and make their way through the still deserted streets of the small town in search of lone surviving Germans, or any hiding or endangered civilians. If they run into a German, they'll put a bullet through his head before he can say "boo". The civilians, they'll tell them that their safe. If they need help or if they're wounded, they'll get them to the church to assist them. They're hoping for civilians – if the few people in the church are all that's left of the large township, it will be a sad day for all.
Steve takes the lead in front of Bucky, as he always does, shield raised in front of them. They look inside every building and house, whether it's destroyed or not, and don't leave any corner unturned. They stay on the ground floor, not wanting to risk falling through any damaged flooring above, and call up into the higher levels, if there are any, the sentence that Jones told them to say: "Est-ce que quelqu'un est là-bas? Nous sommes des Alliés. Les allemands sont partis. Yous êtes en sécurité pour sortir de la clandestinité (Is anyone up there? We are Allies. The Germans are gone. You are safe to come out of hiding)." Steve repeats it over and over, and they very rarely get a reply.
At one house, a young man opens the front door warily, peering outside. At the sight of Steve in his uniform, he relaxes, and the family behind him cheer for joy that they've been liberated from the enemy's rule.
At the next with a response, an elderly woman opens the door, looking frail. Her eyes light up at the sight of the American soldiers and the absence of gunfire and German yelling outside. She thanks the men in French, though they don't understand much of what she says, and hands them an old baguette for the road. They take it, pick off the mould and share it as they continue walking through the streets. They feel a little bad for not keeping any for the others, but Steve's stomach is growling so loudly Bucky thinks it might start eating himself and they may be the only two who could ingest it without getting sick.
A final house produces a very young woman, maybe twenty if she's lucky, holding in her arms a baby. She herself can't be more than six months old, her baby blue eyes wide beneath a pink lace bonnet. While Bucky coos over the little doll and pinches her cheek in the girls' arms, Steve attempts to communicate and inform the woman she's safe. But then the baby starts to cry, and Steve takes note of the redness around her eyes, as though she'd been crying for days; and perhaps she has. The woman sighs, looks up to the Heavens, and then casts her eye on Steve and Bucky for help. She rubs at her stomach then, in a circular motion.
"She's hungry?" Bucky asks quickly.
The woman nods hurriedly, miming feeding the baby a bottle.
"She needs milk," Bucky tells Steve.
They scour high and low throughout the town and on the outskirts spot a farmhouse, a group of cows sitting in the shade of the barn. They pay off the farmer for a gallon of fresh cow's milk and then pass into the corner general store, stepping through busted open front door and rummaging the shelves in search of baby formula. They miraculously find three small tin cans of formula out in the back stock room and carry it back for the thankful woman. They stay until the woman is settled in the chair with the infant in her arms guzzling frantically at the nib of the bottle.
The town isn't overly big, thankfully, and a whole portion of it has been totally obliterated, the buildings just piles of rubble. They stay away from there. If they were going to find a body, they most certainly wouldn't be a survivor. Their priority for now is helping the survivors. Besides, they've seen enough blood and gore for the day, as selfish as it sounds. Once the Commandos depart, the people of the town will be tasked with recovering the dead. When they make it to the Allied camp, Steve will put in a request for a recovery team, the groups going around to the war-ravaged towns to help them recover and reunite lost family members, helping with evacuation and supplies. The teams are inundated with missions already and the town will have to join a long list.
There are a few small cottage-like homes on the very outskirts of the town, sitting right on the edge of the dense forests. Steve and Bucky approach the houses carefully, noting that the row has been half destroyed, not by the explosions but by secondary debris and fire, the roofs burned. There doesn't seem to be much life from any of them except one. As they get closer, almost on the porch of the cottage, a heavily pregnant woman opens the door to greet them, having watched them approach from the window. She all but waddles out onto the landing, leaning heavily on the banister of the porch.
"If you are here, Captain, I assume the Germans are not," she says in heavily accented English, smiling forcefully at the American soldiers to try to convey her relief. She looks a little flustered, sweat on her forehead, her face distorted into a frown.
"They're all gone, it's safe to come out of hiding," Steve agrees, but he looks worried about the woman. He shares a look with Bucky, who looks equally unsure. "Ma'am, are you okay? Do you need help?" Steve asks, taking a step toward her.
"Actually, help would be appreciated," she admits in a tight voice.
Then, she's bending over and holding the banister of the porch to stay upright, squeezing her eyes shut and breathing through her nose, clearly in immense pain. Her hand goes to her enlarged stomach, clutching it tightly. Steve hurries up to her, putting a hand on her back in an attempt to comfort her. Bucky knows what this is, he's seen it before with his own mother when she was pregnant with the twins. He was old enough, at thirteen, that he remembers it clearly - his mother washing dishes in the sink in the kitchen when she'd suddenly doubled over in pain, dropping the plate which shattered all over the floor, and twenty hours later in the hospital little Robbie and Becca had been born, and Bucky had got to hold Becca first, a little bundle of joy wrapped up in his arms–
After a minute, the French woman stands again, her face red from the exertion. "I'm in labour," she grits out, confirming Bucky's immediate suspicion.
Steve's eyes widen comically and he stands up a little straighter, losing his relaxed posture straight away. "We'll get you to the church. That's where the medics are," Steve immediately offers, preparing to help her down the porch, carry her if she wants him to.
"No, I can't, not that far," she pants. "I can't. I-it's been too long. I'm too close. And m-my child…"
Steve and Bucky shared a wide-eyed look. Bucky isn't entirely sure if she's talking about the baby or another child inside the house, but he isn't about to hang around and find out, knowing the woman needs medical attention straight away if they want any chance of the delivery going off without any trouble.
"I'll go get them," Bucky says with a nod, running off back to the church to bring back either Isabel or Jim, leaving a flustered-looking Steve to get the woman back inside.
Bucky hurries through the crowd leaving the church to disperse back to their homes, swivelling through them. They look at him as he passes, recognise him and smile at him, moving aside for him. Perhaps his flustered and worried expression gives away the sense of haste. Bucky hurries up the stairs into the church and runs between the pews, bursting into the sacristy. Everyone inside looks up as he enters like a hurricane. Morita's treating a man's bullet wound to the shoulder, his hands covered in blood, the patient looking as though he's about to lose consciousness, another wound to his abdomen bleeding steadily through the bandages.
"I need one of you to come with me," Bucky says through his shallow breathing, looking at Isabel and Morita. "There's a pregnant woman in her house on the outskirts of town. She's having her baby."
"I can't come, Serge, I'm losing this guy," Morita says, panicked, attempting to stem the blood flow of the man's shoulder as he tries to tend to the abdominal wound as well, the ultimate juggling act.
The French doctor doesn't speak English enough for Bucky to ask him, so Bucky turns to Isabel, who's busy with one of the women, treating the gunshot wound to her calf. She's nearly done by the looks of it, wrapping it with gauze.
"Isabel come on, you're up," Bucky tells her, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet, not even letting her tie off the bandage. "We can't move her, you have to go to her."
Isabel looks terrified, her eyes wide. "I can't deliver a baby, Buck. I'm not a midwife, I've never done that before!"
"What, and you think Steve and I have?" Bucky asks, clearly frazzled. "I left Steve there alone with her. Poor guy's having a fit as we speak."
"You can do this, Isabel," Morita says from the floor, not taking his eyes off his patient.
"You went to nurse's college and they taught you this stuff in theory, even if you've never done it. That woman, she needs you to help her. You're the most qualified here to do this, and you know you can," Bucky continues, shaking Isabel's shoulder slightly to emphasise his point. "I know you can."
Isabel looks at Morita and then Bucky a moment before nodding. Her eyes get a little more determined, her brow furrowing. "Lead the way," she tells Bucky, collecting up her medical gear and following him from the church.
They run back through the town, which is significantly more bustling than before as the citizens file back out to their homes. They reach the forest on the outskirts, not far from the winding river.
Bucky enters the house without knocking, listening for noises. He spots Steve in the back bedroom, leaning over the bed beside the woman. Isabel hurries into the room behind Bucky. Steve's clearly gotten the woman to lie down on her bed out of the heat, kneeling beside her. She's got his hand in a death grip, breathing loudly as she gets through another contraction. Steve looks extremely uncomfortable, his eyes wide and darting around as though he doesn't know what to do.
When he spots Isabel, he looks immensely relieved. "Oh, thank God," he breathes. "This is the medic," he tells the woman, pointing to Isabel with his free hand. The woman's eyes light up in recognition and relief.
"She's never delivered a baby before, Steve," Bucky tells Steve quietly, warning him.
"That's comforting," Steve says, shaking his head in worry.
Isabel comes to sit beside the woman, putting down her medical kit, seeming extremely calm although on the inside she could be screaming. She knows how scared the woman must be, how terrified the last few weeks have probably been. She's about to go through one of the hardest, most terrifying but most rewarding experiences of her life, so the least Isabel, Steve and Bucky can do is help her and stay calm for her.
"She speaks English?" Isabel asks Steve, noting how Steve had spoken to her earlier.
"Very well," Steve agrees.
"What's your name, honey?" Isabel asks, smiling softly at the woman.
"Adele," the woman says, her forehead slick with sweat.
"Alright, Adele. My name is Isabel. We're gonna be just fine. We're going to get through this together, okay?" She tells the woman, who nods firmly. "Bucky, I need you to find some sheets or towels, a lot of them. And wet a flannel soaked in cold water if you can."
Bucky nods and hurries off into the house, searching through all of the cupboards. He pauses when he notices a small child sitting on the sofa; he hadn't seen the boy before when they'd come in. Now, Adele's previous comment about not being able to leave the house because of her child makes sense. He can't be more than three, Bucky guesses. Bucky doesn't stop to talk, even though the little boy looks at him curiously. He bustles back into the room with his arms laden with towels. Isabel takes them from him and starts laying a few on the bed underneath the woman, Steve and Bucky's eyes widening even further.
"You're going to deliver it right here?" Steve asks in astonishment, looking very pale.
"Where else am I going to? It's not like we have a choice," Isabel tells him. "I think she's close, really close. This is the most comfortable place she could be."
Bucky goes to the kitchen with a cloth and runs it under cold water, ringing it out. He comes back and approaches Adele, a little hesitantly since he isn't sure how the woman will react to strange men being near her. She doesn't seem to mind, smiling at Bucky with a kind eye despite the pain.
"Where is your husband?" Bucky asks the woman, pushing the sweaty hair from her forehead before lying the cold cloth over the beaded skin.
"Now's not the time to chat her up, Buck," Isabel says with a smile, positioning herself at the unspeakable end of the woman. The men stay up near her head, looking away.
"He is fighting, to answer your question," the woman says with an amused smile.
"Where was he last?" Isabel asks her, trying to keep Adele's mind off the pain and off the things she's doing down below to prepare her for the birth and try to work out what exactly is going on. She does exactly as she remembers reading in her textbooks. She says a little prayer in her mind that there aren't any complications and that it's a smooth delivery. She hasn't the tools, experience, or the knowledge to do anything else other than that because the textbook only allowed for smooth deliveries. She can't perform a cesarean surgery or fix anything if it goes horribly wrong. She doesn't want to be the cause of the baby, or Adele, not getting through this. "Where is he fighting?"
"Last I heard from him was three months ago. He was passing through Paris, I believe," Adele pants. "He is a part of the French Resistance. He hasn't done much fighting, mainly just helping the French citizens to clean up after they have been liberated."
Another contraction washes over the woman and she screams out in pain this time, clutching her stomach and gritting her teeth. It takes a long while for it to pass, and another comes straight after, the contractions only seconds apart. Bucky sees a look of panic wash over Isabel's face as she realises how close Adele is, before Isabel quickly schools her expression. What she can't hide, though, is how pale her face goes, all colour draining from her cheeks.
They hear the door open, and the little boy Bucky had seen before pokes his head around, looking up at his mother with curious but frightened eyes, her scream having had attracted his attention. He loiters in the doorway, lips parted in concentration and fear. Bucky spots him and waves at him. The boy waves back shyly, not coming any closer.
"Adam, please, go back into the living room. Leave these nice people be," Adele pants to him, looking at her son and his frightened expression.
"He's okay," Bucky promises. He reaches out a hand to the boy and the boy takes it, letting Bucky pull him up into his lap. Bucky holds him tight, right up next to his mom, letting him talk to her.
"Maman, vas-tu aller bien? (Mommy, are you going to be okay?)" The child asks her, his dark eyes welling with tears when she screeches in pain again.
"Oui, mon amour. Je te fais un frère, tu te souviens? (Yes, my love. I am making you a brother, remember?)"
Adam nods, reaching forward and taking his mother's hand.
"She's fully dialated," Isabel says to herself more than anyone else. "Okay, I think this is about the time you start pushing," Isabel tells the woman, looking up at her both with fear and determination. "You've done this before, I assume, so you know how it goes. When I tell you, you push as hard as you can, okay?"
Adele nods, looking determined but exhausted. Adam begins to cry loudly at the sight of his mother in pain, so Bucky picks him up and takes him out of the room again. Bucky can tell Steve desperately wants to follow, looking extremely uncomfortable and giving Bucky pleading eyes. Bucky would swap and let Steve go with Adam if he could, but Adele has Steve's hand in a death grip and she isn't letting go any time soon.
"Now," Bucky hears Isabel say once Adam is clear of the room. There's a moment of silence, just a loud grunting noise, and then Isabel says, "No, no, don't hold your breath, honey. You're not going to be able to push if you hold it." Following is an ear-piercing scream.
Bucky feels a little bit faint. No doubt, Steve is the same. Bucky actually waits for a second to hear the thud of Steve dropping to the floor, but it doesn't come. He peeks back into the room and Steve looks extremely pale, his cheeks tinged green, his blue eyes wide, but he's awake and alert and awkwardly telling Adele to keep breathing.
Bucky sits down on the sofa with Adam, the boy on his lap and clutching to his jacket tightly, his face buried in Bucky's neck. Bucky reaches into the pocket of his jacket and feels around for the chocolate bar he'd been saving as celebration for when they got back to the Allied camp. He holds it out to Adam, who looks up and takes it carefully, his tear-streaked cheeks making his skin shiny in the warm light of the room. Adam looks at the package and turns it over in his hands, a frown on his tiny face.
Bucky watches for a second before he takes the chocolate bar back from the boy, peeling back the wrapper before handing it back again. He watches with a curious smile as the boy takes an experimental bite. He chews for a second, frowns, and then his face lights up in a bright smile, chewing happily and grinning toothily at Bucky.
"You've never had chocolate before?" Bucky asks the boy, who looks amazed by the bar in his hands. He mimes it then, for the boy's sake. Adam shakes his head no. "I guess you would have been born during the war. A little hard to get rations, right?" Bucky's face drops a little at that thought, of a child knowing nothing but a life of war. His eyes flick to the bedroom door and another child coming into the world, drenched in the war from the day of its birth.
"One more push, Adele. One more," Isabel's saying, followed by a loud cry of pain and then the ear-piercing scream of a baby's cry. Bucky would recognise that sound anywhere, even if he's never been present at a birth.
Bucky smiles down at Adam as the boy looks up in surprise toward the door at the baby's scream, the chocolate only momentarily forgotten before he goes back to eating it, a small smile on his face. Bucky finds himself looking at the child in a way he didn't expect he would, his eyes soft and a little sad, like he's reminiscing. The boy's dark hair and dark eyes, pale skin, toothy grin; it all reminds him of someone he misses terribly and didn't realise until now.
"It's pretty good, isn't it?" Bucky asks the boy, who nods at him again. He's quiet too, just like Robbie. "You remind me of my little brother, you know? He's a little older than you, but you're much the same the two of you," Bucky tells him.
Adam looks up at him, a little confused. He probably doesn't know that much English. "Thank you," he manages, waving the candy bar.
"You're welcome, pal," Bucky says, before licking his thumb and wiping off a blob of chocolate at the side of the boy's mouth.
Bucky shifts Adam off his lap and stands up again. Adam lifts both arms, making grabby hands at Bucky to be picked up. Bucky obliges, hoisting Adam onto his hip to take him with him.
"You wanna go see your new baby sibling. Mama said it was a brother, yeah?"
Adam only nods again. Bucky walks him back into the room slowly. Adam's eyes swivel immediately to his mother, half-eaten bar of chocolate nearly slipping from his hand, forgotten.
Adele is lying on the bed, looking like she's in significantly less pain than before, a hand covering her eyes and wiping the sweat from her forehead. Isabel's still kneeling at the end of the bed, and in her arms is a tiny little baby. She's wiping the blood from the baby's face with a spare towel and drying the small tuft of black hair on its head, wrapping the infant in another to swaddle it before she hands the baby to Adele, something Bucky knows the nurses in the hospital do so that the baby is cleaner when the parents first see it.
But what stumps Bucky is that Isabel's got this look on her face, of love and warmth and admiration, a true motherly expression that only comes with maturity. It's a look Bucky has never seen on Isabel's face when she looked at a child, not even when she held Robbie or Becca, and apparently Steve hasn't seen it either going by the lovesick smile on his face, his eyes soft and warm. Bucky knows those expressions, has seen it on the face of nearly every woman when they see or hold a baby and on the face of his own father when his siblings had been born. Bucky looks between his sister and Steve with a knowing smile, earning a look from Steve and no response from Isabel who's rather preoccupied. Bucky says nothing and instead sets Adam down on the bed, chocolate bar still in hand.
Isabel stands carefully and brings the baby up to Adele, placing it on her chest against her skin. "Whoever told you the baby would be a boy was wrong. It's a girl," she tells Adele.
Adele's eyebrows rise in surprise and she clutches the baby tight, laughing down at the baby and touching her tiny nose, running a finger gently over the baby's tiny lips. "It is a wives tale, I guess, based on the way you carry. My mother told me about it when I had Adam, and it was correct then. I was carrying low, she was supposed to be a boy," Adele explains through her still shallow breath.
"What are you going to name her?" Bucky asks quietly, watching the new mother hold her child.
"All the names we had picked were for a boy," Adele laughs again. She takes a moment to think before looking up and making eye contact with Isabel, smiling gratefully at her. "I think I shall name her Isabelle, if you don't mind. It means 'pledged to God', for the woman who gave her to me, safe and healthy," she decides with conviction.
It takes a moment for that to click for Isabel, that the baby is being named for her, before she breaks down into tears, taking the woman's offered hand and kneeling beside the bed.
"T-thank you," Isabel stammers, clutching her hand. It takes her a few moments to collect herself from the utter shock and honour, before she looks at the baby in Adele's arms, smiling down at her brightly. "Belle petite Isabelle, tu es si chanceuse, (Beautiful little Isabelle, you are so lucky)," Isabel tells the newborn, petting her head of dark hair on top of her head. The baby stares at her, baby blue eyes bright and alert, reaching a hand up from her blankets that Isabel takes, letting the baby wrap her hand around her finger.
Steve and Bucky watch for a while with a smile as the two women coo over the baby before the two men go out to the kitchen and take a seat at the table. They sit in a comfortable silence, just looking around or at their hands, letting the events of the day wash over them. They can hear the nature outside, the sound of voices as people file slowly back to their houses, and the soft voices of Isabel and Adele speaking.
"How will you do it?" Isabel asks quietly, one hand slowly trailing over baby Isabelle's small hand. There's worry in her voice and she doesn't try to hide it. She is worried for Adele and Adam and Isabelle, leaving them here alone. "Here alone in a war with the two babies. How have you done it?"
Adele sighs quietly and shifts the baby to free one arm before she takes Isabel's hand in her own. There's a maturity to her, and suddenly she looks much older, when she says, "One day, you will have children of your own. And you will love them more than anything, like I love mine. You'll realise then that no conditions are good enough for you to raise your children, that no life will ever be perfect enough for them. There's always something you wish was better or safer. But you'll love them enough that you'll work to make the best with what you've got to keep them safe and happy."
"As long as they're with you," Isabel mutters, nodding in understanding.
"Exactly. As long as a family is together, they'll be okay. The love for my children will be enough that nothing else will matter." She squeezes Isabel's hand in reassurance. "You needn't worry about us. The war will end in good time and everything will be okay again."
Eventually, Isabel backs away to give them some alone time, the tears dried but her eyes red. She shuts the door behind her, giving Adele, Adam and baby Isabelle some time alone to get to know one another. In the kitchen, Steve and Bucky are still sitting in relative silence, just enjoying the time to sit and be still. Bucky has a cigarette in his hand, lips puckered around it taking a drag, and he blows out a long wind of smoke. Steve's found a pad of paper and a pencil in the kitchen and he's sketching the baby to leave as a gift for Adele.
Isabel goes to the kitchen sink and starts to wash the blood from her hands, looking a little emotional. Bucky and Steve look up as she enters. Their eyes trail her as she eventually takes a seat, looking at the both of them in return. Steve sits a little heavier than Bucky, his brows furrowed. Its then that Isabel remembers the bullet lodged in his arm that must be giving him some pain as the wound attempts to heal itself around it. He hadn't bothered Isabel with it before so that she could concentrate on the others, but now he wishes it were gone. He notices Isabel's eyes flick to the wound and to the blood stain that has formed on the arm of his navy sleeve.
"I'm so sorry, I forgot!" Isabel cries, jumping up to grab her medical kit. "I'll get it out now."
Isabel comes back with the kit and sets up her equipment, attempting to roll up Steve's sleeve without paining the wound.
"Should've said somethin', punk," Bucky mutters around his cigarette.
"S'fine," Steve reassures. "Drawing was keeping my mind off it once the adrenaline wore off."
In the kitchen of the cottage, sat at the chairs, Isabel works to remove the bullet from Steve's arm where it's embedded in the thick muscle. It takes her a long while since the bullet has fragmented inside and moved around, causing extra damage to the muscle that might have been avoided had she been able to remove it right away.
"Gotta say," Bucky mutters, running a hand over his hair. "When I went to war, I never thought I'd end up delivering a baby."
Bucky hands his cigarette to Steve who takes a puff to distract himself from Isabel pulling and pinching and plucking at his arm. "Neither did I," Steve says in agreement, still looking pretty flustered with residual red cheeks.
"You didn't even do anything, Bucky," Isabel tells him with a playful frown. She makes a grabby hand for the cigarette and takes a breath as well, hoping to nicotine will be a distraction for her as well from the thoughts that are still pressing on her mind.
"Hey, I babysat Adam," Bucky argues as he takes the stick back from Isabel.
Isabel mock glares, and she tries to smile but it doesn't reach her darkened eyes. "But you're right, I didn't expect it either," she concedes.
"You did good," Steve tells Isabel sincerely, his eyes soft.
Isabel shrugs. "I don't deserve the credit; it was all Adele. I just caught the little one," Isabel says.
Isabel finally manages to get the bullet and its fragments out thanks to Steve's body pushing it all out toward her. She wipes away the blood and holds a rag to his arm to apply pressure until the bleeding slows of its own accord. Then, she stitches it up, wrapping a bandage around his arm.
When she's finished, Isabel stands and takes the equipment to the sink, washing away the blood, dumping the stained cloths, and soaping up her hands again. She turns off the tap and then stands there for a moment, both hands gripping the edge of the cupboard, and stares out the small kitchen window to the forest behind the house. As Steve struggles to tug the tight sleeve of his uniform down again, he watches Isabel as she runs a hand through her frazzled hair.
"You okay, Belle?" Steve asks quietly, that frown on his face. In the reflection on the window, he can see she's got an expression that Steve can't place and there's a tight tension to her shoulders.
"Yeah, sorry," Isabel says quickly, and, still facing away from them, she wipes away at the tears that have suddenly threatened to spill over. "I'm fine. I was thinking… It just…" She turns around to face them, leaning back against the cupboard. "It felt so good to use my skills for something other than fixing up a bullet wound or a landmine accident, some terrible thing someone's done to someone else. It felt good to be a part of something so… beautiful. I miss that, treating people who aren't bleeding out under my hands."
"I know what you mean, Belle. All we ever see is misery and torment and struggle," Steve says. He gets up from the seat and steps over to her, leaning on the cupboard beside her. He takes her hand and squeezes it sympathetically. "But it isn't the only thing left in the world. There's still good. I know it doesn't always feel that way, not when we're out here doing what we do, but there is still something worthwhile left for us to find."
"Yeah, there is. Kind of forgot, to be honest," Isabel says, smiling at Steve despite her tears. "Instead of trying to stop a life leaving the world, I was bringing one in. It felt good. It reminded me of what we're missing out on being here, but also what we're fighting to keep safe."
"That's right," Steve says, pulling Isabel into a hug, tucking her into his side. "This is why we fight, and its why you nurse. For the good of the world."
Isabel nods her head, pulling away and smiling brightly at Steve. Steve wipes away a tear for her.
Once Adele is stable and Isabel is sure she'll be okay, the Commandos leave her be with her newborn baby, saying their goodbyes to the sleeping newborn. They'll never see any of them again, despite the bonds they've established by such an intimate act, and its almost makes Isabel tear up again.
"What is your husband's name?" Isabel asks suddenly, turning back to the woman standing on the porch as they're walking away.
"Pierre Bisset," Adele answers.
"If we happen to run into him before you do, we'll give him the good news," Isabel promises.
"I doubt you will, my love, but I thank you," Adele says with a soft smile. "Be safe."
With a final wave, Isabel walks off between her two boys down the path back to town. They reach the denser buildings and onto the cobblestone streets, making their way through the town toward the church where the rest of the Commandos are still waiting for them, Isabel's hand clutched tightly in Steve's.
With the town's mayor deceased, the doctor is taking up a temporary position as leader. On behalf of the city, he thanks them all profusely for their help, saying he would be able to care for those who survived from then on. Jones translates Steve's message about Adele, asking for him to check on her in a few hours, and he promises that he will. Steve also informs the doctor of where there are more deceased persons that they'd stumbled across in their search, and the doctor writes it all down, preparing to send a search party through the town once everyone is of able body and mind. Steve also informs the doctor that he'll send word for a clean up crew as soon as possible.
"You lose any of them?" Isabel asks Morita quietly, noticing the solemn expression on the man's face.
"Yeah, the one I was working on when you left, he didn't make it either. We lost eight of the fifteen," Morita tells her sadly.
"Sorry I couldn't stay to help," Isabel mumbles, the guilt starting to eat at her.
But Morita just shrugs, silently saying that that's the way it goes. "How's the new babe?"
"Beautiful and healthy," Isabel says with a content smile. "And named for me."
"Really?" Morita asks brightly. He claps Isabel's back. "Congratulations. I'm proud of ya."
After that, the Commandos move back to their borrowed Hydra vehicle, and after filling it with fuel from the gas station and leaving double what the fuel would have been worth, they're ready to finish the drive to their rendezvous point in Lyon. It's been a long day, full of fighting against the Germans and fighting for the lives the Axis powers threatened to take. They're all utterly exhausted and a little disturbed, but that's understandable.
No one speaks as Dugan starts the truck up and drives them out of the desolated town, the French civilians waving to them as they leave the city limits and turn onto the main roads once again.
Isabel sits in the back this time, quietly looking down at her hands, a little bit of blood still lodged under her fingernails. She takes a deep breath, reassures Steve again that she's fine when he asks. Falsworth gives her a look because he knows what she did today in that burnt out pub. He raises his eyebrow questioningly and she shrugs at him, forcing a smile. She doesn't know if he buys it, and she doesn't stay awake to find out. She almost immediately falls asleep leaning against Steve's shoulder, who himself falls asleep against the wall of the truck, ignoring the rocking of the vehicle as they speed through the French countryside.
As one life left the world at her hands, another entered. Isabel falls asleep wondering if that was a coincidence or not.
A/N: I feel like this chapter started as usual, lots of fighting and guns blazing, and then it seemed to take a sudden turn. I never planned to have the delivery in this story at all, but it actually came to me in a dream. I've been debating whether or not to keep it, whether or not to delete it, but I decided to add it and I'll tell you why if you didn't figure it out from the chapter. Isabel's seen a lot, she's experienced a lot of events where she's had to use her medical skills for things that are less than savoury. But as she says, delivering a baby is one of the most amazing experiences anyone can imagine, bringing new life into the world. This chapter is a big character development for Isabel - as she says, she's grown so used to the war and the gruesome, violent acts that constitute it, she's forgotten that there's good in the world too, and that shows she's losing herself, because if you think back to when she was in Brooklyn, she always managed to see the good. I feel like this chapter needed to happen for Isabel to be able to move forward with everything that's going on around her, for her to be able to make it to the end of this with her head still screwed on. Otherwise, with everything that happens in a war, by the end she won't see the good in anything anymore, and Isabel is not a pessimistic or negative character.
Bucky, as well, has a bit of an eye-opening experience with little Adam. The young boy shows Bucky that he misses his family, as much as he doesn't quite think about them all of the time. Bucky's been very preoccupied with protecting the family he has with him (Isabel and Steve) and the new family he's found for himself, and sometimes he forgets just how much he misses and needs the rest of his family. I feel like there was quite a lot going on in here that's a bit underlying, but that may just be me reading too much into what I put to paper. Who knows?
Just some history for you: The events in this chapter are based on the true experiences during World War II. Between the time of the German victory in the Battle of France (starting 10th May 1940) and the liberation of the country, the Western Allies bombed many locations in France hoping to drive the Axis forces from the country. Altogether, 1,570 French cities and towns were bombed by Anglo-American forces between June 1940 and May 1945. Unfortunately, this saw a massive number of French civilian deaths, approximately 68,778 men, women and children in total, with over 100,000 injured. The total number of houses completely destroyed by the bombings was 432,000, with 890,000 partially damaged. Avignon was bombed on May 27, 1944, with 525 dead. While the Commandos get there sometime in July, they see the after effects of such an event and of the Nazi occupation, and in no way would the town have even begun to recover after such little time.
There was a massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane on June 10, 1944. The villagers were ordered to assemble in the square and have their identity papers examined. The women and children were locked in the church, the village looted, the men killed in the barns, and then the women and children killed in the church just as Bucky describes. All together there were over 190 Frenchman, 247 women and 205 children killed in the brutal attack. There were less than thirty survivors who were left to bury the 642 dead. The atrocity was revealed to be a retaliation for the partisan activity in Tulle and the kidnapping of SS commander Helmut Kämpfe. However, as much as this did happen, just a disclaimer that the events depicted in this chapter of what Bucky assumes "almost" happened at Avignon, of the almost-massacre, are fictionalised. The town of Avignon was bombed beyond repair, but no such further events occurred to my knowledge, and I have researched it. The Germans, to my knowledge, did not loot the town or prepare to assassinate the townspeople. That is not a plot point but only implied, as it would have been a thought running through their minds in light of Oradour-sur-Glane. I just thought I'd make that clear since a lot of this story had stayed close to historical fact, despite the fact it's a superhero fanfiction.