50.
London, United Kingdom
August 15th, 1944
When it's been nearly a month since their last mission, all of the Howling Commandos grow antsy. Sitting around the SSR base is contributing little to the war effort, and not even working on developing the serum feels like enough. Steve expresses these concerns to Colonel Phillips one afternoon in the man's private office when his boredom and frustration get the better of him.
"Something will come up, Rogers," Phillips grunts. "As soon as you're needed, you'll be out there. That's a promise."
"It's a war, Colonel Phillips. Wouldn't we be needed everywhere?" Steve asks.
"Hate to break it to you, Rogers, but the men can get by of their own skill and intelligence. Leave them be and wait. We don't want you out there risking yourself unnecessarily either. You're too useful to the war on Hydra. I'll buzz you when I need you."
Weeks pass after that and Steve's frustration grows, moreso than any of the others. The desire to commandeer another plane and find his own way to the front is strong, and on a few occasions, Steve nearly asks Peggy or Howard to fly them, but he relents. Going rogue isn't a good way to get on Phillips' good side, nor is it a smart way to follow orders, considering it wouldn't be the Commandos first time they defied orders from superior officers. Steve's reach can only be stretched so far.
Instead, the Commandos sit around the base and help with finding intel, coming up with new tactics, testing weaponry, training in the gym and shooting range, and annoying Isabel and Stark in the laboratories while they work on their various projects. Bucky loves science, so he is always willing to let Howard teaching him something or show him some invention or even help out, but most of the other men just want to try out the new guns and play with the chemicals.
"I swear this war's been eighty percent sitting around," Dugan mutters one day as he juggles three of the bombs Howard invented for Dernier's gun between his hands, showing them his circus skills.
"And the other twenty?" Steve humours, not looking up from his sketchbook, sitting at a desk in the corner of the laboratory.
"Ten percent fighting, and the other ten percent running for our lives."
When they get annoying or are causing trouble and danger, Howard gives them a relatively safe gun and tells them to go to the small shooting range in the far corner of the base. The men look delighted.
Isabel, whilst everyone else has been sitting around and wasting time, has been quite busy. After her revelation in the Hydra base in Spain, she'd practically run back to Howard to inform him of her theory that the Valkyrie would be powered by the Tesseract, that even if they didn't use it to teleport as it was intended, they could travel faster than ever before around the world at an unheard of speed. Howard had whole-heartedly agreed, assigning himself a new project to work out how the Valkyrie would work, how Schmidt and Zola could harness the energy of the Tesseract.
"It makes sense. It makes complete sense; I don't know how I didn't think if it before. But would they have extracts of the energy like they have with their weaponry, or will they find a way to cement the Tesseract into the plane's controls, like the coal in the engine of a train? A never-ending supply of coal..." Howard had muttered before sitting down and starting to sketch a drawing of what he thought the Valkyrie would look like. He even interviewed Bucky and the other Commandos who worked on the parts of the Valkyrie before it was put together to get a better idea.
Howard spends the first few weeks of their slump working everything out and drawing up blueprints of how he believes the Tesseract could be used, and once he confirms it will be possible, Isabel shows up at the Stork Club with Howard in tow, walking up to the table of drinking Commandos. She looks at Dugan with her hands on her hips, a triumphant smirk on her red lips.
"Dugan, you'd better get your twenty dollars ready. Howard agreed with me."
Dugan's eyes flick to Stark in betrayal. Howard shrugs. "She's right, Dugan. Sorry, pal."
"Nah, Baby Barnes. That's just what you two are assuming. Nothing has been proven right or wrong yet. You'll get your money when we see for ourselves that the plane is powered by the Tesseract," Dugan argues with a smug smirk.
"You're a sore loser, Dum Dum," Isabel pouts.
"You'll live with it, BB."
Following that night, Isabel and Howard work tirelessly on both the Valkyrie's plans and on the serum, which they still can't entirely decode. Even with the list of ingredients Jones had translated, they are missing most of the information, but they've made quite a dent decoding Erskine's notebooks. They even toss up the idea that they'll never actually decode the entire formula, because it is likely that Erskine had committed at least part of it to memory to ensure it would never be recreated. Howard proposes that he could identify the missing parts if they could uncover the rest, and so they work harder than ever but still, frustratingly, without results.
In order to help his concentration, Howard bans any of the Commandos from the laboratories, except for Isabel, who always works quietly in the corner when she does come in, testing Steve's blood for any serum changes.
Still, when the Commandos get a free afternoon and file into the labs, there isn't much Howard can do to physically stop them other than vent his frustration. The Commandos probably aren't supposed to be there as most of it is probably classified but asking them to leave is futile and making them leave even more so, so they're left to wander around the lab. Isabel doesn't seem bothered since she's grown used to their rambunctious behaviour, but Howard clearly is, protective of his work. As though they know that Howard no longer wants them in there, they seem to act even more boisterous to annoy the inventor further. They touch things that they probably shouldn't. They ask a million questions. They follow Howard around like curious children and inquire about everything.
Even Steve has the afternoon off, a rare occurance, and he walks into the labs in search of his men just in time to see Morita pick up a glass jar of electric blue liquid.
"Don't touch that," Howard's telling Morita in a frantic tone, hurriedly grabbing the jar from the man's hands and sliding it back into its position on the shelf.
"Why, what is it?"
"A concentrated sample of the tesseract energy. It's unstable, you have to be extremely careful with it!" Howard cries, looking flustered. When he spots Steve enter the room, he looks a little more relieved. "Thank the Heavens above. Rogers, please get your men out of my lab. They were supposed to be banned. I'm done playing babysitter, now you're on duty."
Steve laughs, but nods his head. "I'll take 'em off your hands, Stark."
"Well, what are we supposed to do?" Jones asks, standing from his seat on one of the stools.
"Anything you want, but not in here," Howard tells them, pushing Morita out the door. "Come on – out, out."
The Commandos all file out of the room, a little dejected, and Stark comes back over to Isabel who hasn't moved from her spot beside the laboratory bench, still holding the vial of Howard's latest attempt of the oral portion of the serum in her hands, a small white tablet that he's created from a variety of possibilities of all the ingredients, which he thinks he's narrowed down from the other information in the notes. Howard takes it from her, smiling. "You too, doll. You're a Commando, you've got free time."
"But–"
"No buts, doll. Have an afternoon off with your boys. I promise I won't be too jealous until you come back to me," Stark tells her, winking.
Isabel nods with a smile, kisses his cheek and then hurries from the room, joining the end of the line of Commandos who all follow Steve through the hallways.
"Ah, you got kicked out too, BB?" Jones asks, smirking at her behind him.
"No, I was graciously escorted out because I'm not a trouble maker."
The Commandos rambunctiously drag each other through SSR to the mess hall to eat lunch. They all make it just in time to grab the last scraps of the lunch rush, sitting at the hard metal tables and eating with rambunctious talk and laughter. The SSR agents passing through the halls don't even bat an eyelid anymore, not like they did the first few weeks the Commandos invaded their secret base.
After they all finish eating, they clear their trays and then sit around for a while not exactly knowing what to do with themselves. Steve's supposed to be back at a meeting for two o'clock, but even he's considering skipping it in favour of spending time with his men out of the Stork Club and the barrage of gunfire. It feels weird to not be running off somewhere, planning the next mission, working in the laboratory. They've got time to themselves, and they can't for the life of them think of something to do. Still, they all feel light, like they're walking on a cloud, better than they've felt in months.
The Commandos go to the shooting range for the afternoon to brush up on their skills. Isabel and Steve sit up the back perched upon a spare table and watch the men take turns with new and different guns, some of them designed for them by Howard. They all wear earmuffs and get into the proper stance, eyeing up the black paper target at the other end of the range. They take their time shooting, perfecting their aim, getting their breathing just right, attempting to hit the bullseye to show up their Sergeant.
Bucky, of course, barely has to try. He steps up to the mark with the gun Dugan hands him, lifts it to his eyes, and shoots without even thinking, the bullet flying down the range right into the dead center of the bullseye.
Morita goes to collect the paper, his jaw going slack. "It's perfectly centred," he exclaims. He measures the distance between the hole and each edge of the bullseye. "Like, perfectly. Right in the middle." He looks up to Bucky then. "How?"
"Must be a good shot," Bucky smirks with a shrug. He turns then, looking at Steve. "Come on, you big lug. You're up."
"Let the others practice–" Steve tries to argue.
Bucky won't have it. "You want your skills to slip? I won't always be around to pick off the ones you miss, punk. Com'ere."
Steve sighs longsufferingly but gets up without further argument. Isabel kicks his bum lightly with her toe as he walks past her.
Steve takes the gun from Bucky, gets into position, and shoots, hitting the bullseye on the first shot but not quite as perfect as Bucky's. Bucky smirks at that, and Steve playfully frowns. Bucky still takes the time to correct Steve on his posture and breathing and the fact that he apparently holds the gun wrong, and Steve listens quietly, taking it in. No one argues with the sniper about shooting, it's just an unspoken rule. If Bucky, the best shot in the United States Army, says they're holding the gun wrong, they're holding the gun wrong.
Steve shoots for a while and the men watch, cheering on their Captain as he demolishes the black target paper down the range. Once the gun clicks out of bullets, Steve hands it back to Bucky.
"Alright, Belle, your turn," Bucky says, turning and waving Isabel over.
Isabel jumps down from the table and walks up to her brother. "I'm not exactly wearing the right shoes," she notes, nodding down to the heels on her feet that click with every step.
"Better than barefoot. You'll be right," Bucky promises.
He hands her the gun and a clip and watches her clumsily but successfully reload the gun. He's taught her many times, made her run over the process hundreds of times over, and over, until it was seared into her memory. For good reason, too, because a firearm is no good once you run out of ammo and don't have anyone around to reload it for you.
Bucky stands right behind her in case she slips backward with the force. Isabel lifts the gun up to her eye, getting a good grip on the cool metal, and immediately Bucky puts an arm on her shoulder to stop her. "Been a while with this bad boy, hey?" He laughs, referring to her poor posture and hold.
"Pistols are much easier," Isabel admits.
Bucky corrects her mistakes and waits until she can do it again correctly herself before he lets her shoot. She flicks off the safety and then moves her finger to the trigger. She takes a deep breath before pulling it, the gun jolting back into her shoulder, making her take a step back into Bucky. The bullet tears through the paper where the target's heart is, only a few centimetres away from the bullseye over the chest.
The Commandos look impressed. Steve beams. "That'd be fatal," Falsworth notes while Dugan whistles.
"She gets it from her brother," Bucky says, pride evident in his voice.
"Might've been a fluke," Dugan still jokes.
Isabel looks backward at Bucky. "Go again," he encourages after shooting Dugan a glare.
Isabel tries again, this time aiming for the second target on the man's head. She fires, hitting within the first ring outside the bullseye right where a person's eye would be. The Commandos cheer and howl at the sight of it.
"Looks like we got a new sniper," Jones cheers, clapping Isabel on the back. "Serge's got a protigee."
"No, thank you," Isabel politely declines with a laugh, handing the rifle back to Bucky's waiting hand. "I'm much better with bandages and sutures."
At that moment, there's another pair of high heels clicking along the ground, and the group turns around to find Peggy standing in the doorway to the gun range. In her hands is a beige file, marked 'top secret'.
Steve stands up straighter immediately. "Do you have a mission for us, Agent Carter?"
"I hate to break up the party, but yes, I do," Peggy says, smiling toward Bucky. "It's rather surprising, too. I feel this mission may break up the monotonity of your usual adventures."
"Not sure if I'd call any of it monotonous," Falsworth laughs.
Steve steps forward and takes the offered file from Peggy, flipping through it. His eyebrows immediately rise in surprise. According to the newest intel, Allied merchant ships are being sunk off the Mediterannean coast by u-boats that aren't attributed to any of the Axis powers. One after the other, the boats have been sunk as they travel along the trade lines running from the port of Naples in Italy toward Siciliy, and then on to Tunisia in Africa. A transmission had come through only a few hours prior as one merchant ships sunk, reporting on the appearance of a submarine that rose above water to see the destruction they caused, and the octopus-like symbol painted onto the side of it. Immediately, the SSR knew that the u-boats were Hydra.
The rest of the Commandos are filled in on the schematics, and most of them look apprehensive about the mission. Never before have they been transported by ship to a mission, and their being on the waters in that area puts them at risk of being sunk by the Hydra submarines as well. Steve would likely fare well, and Bucky as well, but the rest of them maybe not. Water poses new dangers they haven't dealt with before.
Nevertheless, the plans go into action immediately, and within a few hours, the Commandos are flown from London to Naples in Italy, where a boat has been commissioned by the SSR to take them out onto the Mediterranean Sea. It's only a small charter, similar to a fishing boat, but its big enough for them all and to do the job against the waves out on the open ocean. Dugan volunteers to drive the boat as transport specialist, which he can actually do for a change since they usually travel by plane. Howard leaves the plane at an allied airfield and waits in Naples for them return. He's Italian anyway, so he won't have much trouble fitting in.
At the port is also a large merchant ship, empty of everyone and of supplies. It will plough ahead through the water as bait for the Hydra submarine to draw it out of hiding and to the surface, and then the Commandos can enact their plan. Steve is going to be driving the merchant ship, after a crash course from Dugan and Howard. As the boat is sinking due to being bombed by the submarine, Steve is going to find away aboard the submarine and await the perfect time to attack. Once he has control of the submarine, he'll get the Commandos aboard and they can track down the docking base for the submarine.
The Commandos aren't exactly sure how Steve is going to pull it off, but he reassures them he knows exactly what he's doing, that he and Howard mapped it all out. The Commandos, not really ones to argue much, agree, even if Bucky's mouth is a fine line and Isabel's eyebrows are furrowed with worry. Steve leaves his shield with Bucky, since it won't fit aboard the submarine the way he's going. They say their goodbyes to Steve and then watch him sail off at top speed out of the port and along the coast. They board their own boat, the smaller charter-sized one, and Dugan starts it up, steering them away from the port.
They fly across the water at top speed toward, along the coast of Italy, the mountain ranges and vinyards and cities flying past them. The weather is warm and lovely against their faces as they stand on the edge of the boat, scanning the water and admiring the views. It's a rather beautiful sight, a far cry from the muddy fields and snowy mountain ranges of Europe, and Isabel wishes she'd brought the camera, but she hadn't wanted to risk losing or destroying it in the water.
Eventually they leave land behind, the island of Sicily only vaguely visible in the far distance on their other side, and head out onto the sea, surrounded by blue water in all directions. Their isolation reminds them of their time in the desert only a few weeks ago, surrounded by red dirt and cliffs and a hot sun. But the wind out on the sea turns strong and cool, and eventually the Commandos make their way inside the protection of the small cabin, cramping inside.
The boat has a radar equipped, courtesy of Howard, that can detect other ships and submarines in their direct vicinity. They just hope they are fast enough to get away if they are approached by the submarine, or that the submarine will be gliding low enough that it won't see them either. It hasn't been attacking charter boats, only supply ships. Steve's ship is the biggest target.
After a few hours of gliding across the water, they're around the middle of the sea on their way to Tunisia when a new small dot starts to blip on the edge of their screen, getting closer to the larger green dot that is Steve above the water. Steve's too far ahead for them to see him through the naked eye, other than just being a tiny dot in the distance on the horizon. Falsworth gets out his binoculars and can just see the ship. On the monitor, they can watch as the submarine gets closer and closer, and then stops. Everyone holds their breath.
Seconds later, there's a bright explosion in the distance as Steve's merchant ship catches fire. Falsworth jolts, lowering the binoculars. Bucky takes them from him and squints into them, watching with a tight mouth as the ship burns on the horizon.
Dugan steers them a little closer but still a safe distance away so that they can see the massive ship as it groans and explodes and begins to sink, the bow of the ship going down under the beautiful blue water. Slowly, it moves down, down, until the very top of the antennas drop below the surface and the ship disappears. It still blips on the map, and so does the submarine, menacing and lurking. The submarine is slowly moving away though, out toward open sea, away from them. Isabel swallows loudly.
"Hopefully he won't take long," Dugan notes.
Steve swims and swims, down as far as he can. The ship sputters and groans above him. The water is hot and lit up orange from the fire above the waves. It lights his path down into the blackening depths. His lungs begin to burn, but he ignores it. His eyes sting, but he forces them to stay open. He can see his destination, the outer door of one of the torpedo tubes on the side of the submarine, the chute that the submarine just fired a torpedo at his bait merchant ship from. The chute that Howard thought he'd have the power to open long enough to slip inside.
Steve reaches it and grips the small door with his fingers, jamming them underneath the metal. He manages to pry the heavy metal airlock door open just long enough for him to slip inside the tube. Water rushes in with him and pushes him inside, filling the airlock before the door snaps closed again behind him, nearly clamping down on his foot had his reflexes not been faster. There's only a tiny gap between the ceiling of the tube and the water and Steve emerges, gasping for breath.
The water quickly drains away into the flood tanks, leaving him soaking wet but able to breathe. He takes a few minutes to catch his breath and shake away the burning of his lungs, pushing his fringe back out of his eyes. He carefully wrings some of the water out of his suit so that it isn't as heavy as he listens to the commotion going on inside the submarine, only a few metres from where he hides.
Just outside the tube, Steve can hear the Hydra soldiers speaking, preparing new torpedos in the other hulls. "Radio Herr Schmidt, our Thunder Lance torpedo has had its first successful test," one of them barks to their subordinate in German, which Steve can just make out, and quickly there's an echo of rapid German. "Jar, Herr Schmidt. Hail Hydra."
"All ahead full! Flood tanks."
"The fools never knew what hit them," another says, referring to the civilian merchant ship they believe they've sunk. Steve suppresses his chuckle.
Steve hears the footsteps coming closer and stopping on the other side of the torpedo hull. There's nowhere to hide, and then the door to his torpedo hull is being opened by unsuspecting men expecting to replace the torpedo, finding instead Captain America. There's a round of surprised gasps and yells and then Steve's bursting out of the tube and knocks them all back against the wall.
"Sorry for the intrusion, but you seem to have blown up my boat," Steve snarks as he throws his fist into an approaching soldier, the man flying backward with a strangled yell. "Mind if I borrow yours?"
A round of Hydra soldiers file toward Steve, weapons raised. They're rather risky to use their tesseract-fueled guns aboard a pressurised ship hundreds of metres below the surface. One hole in the wall and they'll sink. The men seem to realise this and ditch those guns for their usual pistols.
"Mad man!" One of them shrieks at Steve. "This Leviathan submarine will be your tomb! You are but one man, and we are Hydra." Steve ducks behind a wall-sized computer system as they shoot and a round of bullets bounces off the thick metal, landing on the floor. It's times like this he wishes he had the shield. Nevertheless, he waits patiently for them to run out of ammunition, and eventually they all run out at once, defenceless.
"Like the beast of old, cut one of us down and two more rise to take his place!" The man continues cockily, his German accent thick on his tongue.
"Is that so?" Steve asks. He grabs a spanner from the toolbox on the ground beside him where the men were working on the system and whirls around the side of the machine, throwing the spanner. It hits the man at the front square in the forehead. Then Steve grabs the toolbox itself and throws that too, into the last two unsuspecting men, who take each other out with the force and land unconscious on the ground. The toolbox lands with a clatter, the tools going everywhere. "Better take down all three of you at once, then."
Steve pulls his pistol from his pocket and moves to walk through the cabin. He stops when he sees the thick metal door of the small doorway that divides up this room from the next. He looks at it for a second, gets a grip, and then pulls, the door coming clean off at the hinges. It isn't awfully heavy or all that much larger than the shield. It'll do perfectly as a temporary replacement.
The man on the ground, who was hit by the spanner, groans and rolls over, attempting to grab Steve's ankle. Steve brings the door down on him rather unceremoniously and he's still. "Not so tough when you're not sneaking up on unarmed merchant ships, are you?" He asks the man snarkily. Blood rolls down his neck from under his mask.
Steve turns and the rest of the crew seem to have rallied to attempt to defeat him. The man in the front, wearing the clothing of a Hydra lieutenant, raises his pistol at Steve, but his eyes are fearful, and his hands shake. They know. They know they're no match for the super-soldier. Steve smiles.
"Hate to tell you, boys, but the joke's on you. We know that lonely freighter would be too sweet a target for you to rest, and you fell for the bait." Steve ducks down, bringing his new shield up protectively in front of him, and readies himself to pounce on them. He raises his pistol and wiggles it tauntingly. "Now, I'm reeling this big fish in."
Dugan slowly steers the Commandos' ship toward where the submarine still blinks on the monitor, stopping a few hundred metres away. It hasn't moved in a good few minutes now, half an hour at the longest, but the dot is now growing larger on the map, getting closer, rising up from the depths.
Dugan leaves the engine running just in case, but they all go out onto the back landing of the boat, watching as a large black mass slowly gets bigger under the water. Its rather imposing and eerie to watch it come toward them, so much larger and more powerful than themselves or their tiny little boat. It rises up until the submarine breaks the surface in a spray of salt water, the Hydra insignia staring right at them. The men pull out their guns, aiming them at the massive submarine that towers above them. The submarine tips slightly in the waves it creates, but no one emerges.
"What was that, twenty minutes since he dove underwater?" Jones asks in disbelief.
"Hah! Means you owe me five bucks, Jones!" Dugan says, nudging the other man.
"I don't believe it – how can one guy take over an entire submarine that fast?" Jones asks again, still disbelieving.
Bucky sighs. "I know this excuse for a unit is called the Howling Commandos, but do you mugs have to keep your gums flapping all the time?" He asks, partly joking and partly to keep the men concentrating.
"Serge is right," Morita says. "Be ready for anything until we're sure Cap has secured the…"
Morita trails off when the hatch at the top of the submarine opens and Steve appears, arms raised in surrender, and smiles smugly down at them all. "Glad you could join the party. I mean, really glad. This tub isn't built for a crew of one!" He calls down to them.
Bucky looks immediately relieved, standing straighter as though a million tonne had been lifted from his weary shoulders. "Not even you, tough guy?" Bucky calls back, a smirk stretching across his mouth.
"He's a super-soldier, not a super sailor," Dugan laughs. Even Steve rolls his eyes at that one.
Dugan parks their tiny boat as close as he can to the submarine and Steve climbs down from the hatch to help them across. They'll board the submarine and use Hydra's own technology to track back to their base of operations for their submarines. If they can wipe it out, Hydra will have one less advantage.
Bucky goes first, making the jump between them without even stumbling his steps. He and Steve stand at the edge and reach out their hands. Dugan pushes Isabel forward first, and she leans across and takes Steve and Bucky's offered hands, letting them pull her across the rather large gap over the swirling blue water between them. Once she's on steady feet she moves up the submarine, careful not to slip on its wet metal surface, and watches the rest of them jump over. Once everyone is in positon, Steve leans across and pushes hard on the edge of the boat, sending it floating off away from the submarine across the water.
They all descend down the hatch and into the bowel of the submarine. There are quite a few bodies scattered along the walkways, and Steve and Bucky work to move them aside to clear the path. Isabel and the other Commandos look around at the pipes and small rooms and torpedo tubes in awe, having never been on a submarine before. Not that Bucky or Steve have either, but their ability to stay on task is what makes them the Captain and Sergeant.
They finally come into the main operations room, one wall lined with radios and monitors. Morita is already standing in front of one monitor with Gabe, and the two of them are muttering jargon to one another. The rest of them all wait patiently for the translation.
"There must be a base around here somewhere, just like we planned. We can use the sub's course charts to retrace Leviathan's steps back to her home base, Cap," Morita eventually reports.
"Good work, Morita," Steve affirms.
Dugan moves toward the monitors then too, and together the three of them, along with a German manual that they find in the cupboard, get the submarine below the surface again. It's rather complicated, not as easy as driving a boat or car. There's a lot of controls and knobs and switches and they know they have to get it right or else something could go drastically wrong. There's some kind of global positioning system that they're relying on to lead the way, and the rest of them can only hope its accurate. They're virtually flying blind other than that.
Immediately, the air gets a heavy feeling to it and the humidity picks up. They can feel that they're moving downward below the water. A funny pitched sound starts up in their ears from the pressure. They jolt as they start to move forward along the submarine's last path toward its home base.
Steve's rifled through all of Hydra's paperwork in the control room and managed to find a map of the facility they'll be invading which they previously knew nothing of. He brings it over to show the others who aren't steering the submarine. The faility could be somewhat likened to an underground cavern. It has been carved out of the rock of the cliff face, hollowed out so it isn't visible from the outside. To enter, they'll have to drive the submarine below the surface along a dug-out tunnel that leads inland, the only way in or out of the facility. From there, they'll emerge in a large port where they can submerge inside the cliff and above water. It's rather intricate and maybe even a little far-fetched, were they not looking at images and blueprints of it. They doubt anyone ever would have found it had it not been for the intel.
"Allied intelligence said Hydra was building something big at a secret u-base. They weren't sure, but now we've found it," Steve reports, turning to the rest of his team. "We know what the base looks and we've got co-ordinates. There's no mention anywhere of building anything spectacular or dangerous, but we may not find out until we're there. Nevertheless, our job is to shut this facility down, at the very least to stop them from sinking any more merchant ships. And if there is a new weapon – whatever it is – it's likely to deploy against our soldiers in the field. It needs to be stopped." Steve turns to Falsworth, then. "You're our tactical expert, Falsworth. How do you recommend we proceed?"
"Surprise is bloody well crucial to the success of my plan, Captain," Falsworth tells him. "We're going in blind, but they'll never see us coming either. When we get to the base, Dugan needs to be steering the ship. We can't have us running off into walls or hitting the seabed. Sergeant Barnes, you direct supressing fire from the top of the submarine, while Dernier plants the explosves we'll use to make the underground grotto go kablooey. I suppose you'll want to go in and scope for any intel, Captain, so we'll do that, too."
"Anything we can find will be of use. Hopefully, we can scope out what this big weapon is," Steve nods.
"When it's time to leave, one well-placed shot should ignite the charges," Falsworth continues, looking at Bucky. "And Morita plots our return course to the British base on Gibraltar so that Howard can have a look at Hydra's machinery closer to his equipment and staff. We just hope someone doesn't try to blow us up on the way back."
"We'll radio it in, call them off," Steve promises.
"And Isabel, you stay out of the way," Bucky mutters in addition. "Sounds easy just talkin' about it."
"Always does, Serge," Dugan agrees.
"Fine," Isabel says, though her bottom lip pouts slightly. "Just keep talkin' to me through the radio so I know you're all alright."
The submarine eventually nears land and then the large underground cave that's embedded into the side of the cliff shoreline, the hole dark and foreboding against the relatively light waters. On the GPS system they follow the directions carefully mapped out in the manual, guiding the submarine through the narrow tunnel dug out for it.
"This sounds much easier in the manual," Dugan adds, sweat forming on his brow through the stress.
Dugan and Morita manage to steer the submarine through the long underwater tunnel before they appear into a large opening, the roof and walls made of rock in high ceilings like the sky. It resembles a port, with a dock along the side that leads to the building carved into the wall. They slowly rise the submarine out of the water and breach the surface. Dugan and Bucky watch through the perescope, turning it around to get a good look at the location. They can see that they're docked against the side of the concrete platform that is, surprisingly, empty. There aren't any Hydra workers to great their submarine on its return.
"Oughta be a Hydra convention out there," Dugan mutters.
Bucky's mouth turns into a tight line again. Steve gets that worried pinch between his eyebrows.
Once the submarine is secure and isn't going anywhere, everyone moves toward the exit of the submarine, and Steve climbs the ladder, preparing to push the door open. Isabel stays at the bottom with a pistol in hand, ready to climb onto shore if the Commandos should need her. If not, she'll stay aboard the submarine and wait. It will be gruelling to sit inside the windowless metal contraption, but at least she can look out at the dock through the perescope.
Steve gets a good grip on the handle to the airlock. "On the count of three," he says. "One. Two. Three!"
On three, Steve flips the door open and the Commandos clamber out of the airlock onto the roof of the submarine, rifles and shield raised against an expected onslaught. But when they're out in the open, in the stuffy room of the cave, they're met with an unnerving silence. There's no one on the dock, no one on the upper balcony overlooking the underground port. No one attacks. There's no movement.
"Uh, he said "three"," Falsworth remarks.
"Someone forgot to send Hydra an invitation to this party?" Dugan asks, eyes scanning the empty docks.
"Deserted… completely deserted," Steve mutters, lowering the shield. Carefully, Steve jumps from the swaying submarine on the still concrete platform, looking around. "Too quiet."
Dugan and the rest of the Commandos follow, Morita slipping on the wet concrete but staying upright. "How can we be sure the base's garrison isn't just hiding?" He asks.
"We can't, not until we search this place," Bucky mutters. Steve is off looking around, eyeing the base around them. There's three hallways leading off the platform that they know lead into a rabbit warren of tunnels and rooms. "Dernier and Jones, you take that corridor down there to the left. Falsworth, Morita and Dugan, you take the right," Bucky directs.
The two groups run off down their respective hallways, ensuring their comms are all working, and their guns are loaded. They have some idea of where their hallways lead thanks to the maps, but they know it will be easy to get lost. Isabel is back on the submarine with the blueprint and a radio in case they need directions.
"Steve, you and I'll…" Bucky trails off and spins in a circle when he realises Steve is no longer standing by him. "Steve?" Bucky turns and looks down the middle corridor, where a trail of wet footprints run across the cement and into the darkness of the hall. "Typical. Sometimes I think that guy's skull is thicker than his shield."
Bucky runs off down the hallway to catch up to Steve. He doesn't find any bodies, and no one jumps out at him, and he knows that if Steve's ahead he hasn't a need to move slowly or quietly in case he's ambushed. Steve isn't exactly aloof, and anyone on the path would have been alerted to him long before Bucky comes running through.
The hallway turns into a narrow staircase and Bucky hurries, following it down by taking two stairs at a time. He emerges into an office-like room, the base of operations for the facility with computers and maps and telephones and typewriters set up on desks. Steve is standing in the middle of the room reading a bunch of paperwork left on Commander's desk, going by the nameplate on the front.
Bucky approaches and smacks Steve on the shoulder for leaving him behind, but Steve is too enraptured by the paperwork. "No giant super weapon, just a laboratory," Steve tells Bucky, shaking the paper to emphasise. "And one that is in pretty rotten shape, at that."
Bucky frowns and picks up a large page, the entirety filled with a large mythological drawing of a beast with multiple heads and long necks. It almost resembles a dragon with eight heads and one large body. There's German scribbled all over it, arrows pointing, exclamation marks. Bucky isn't sure what any of it means.
"The beast of old… cut off one head, two more take it's place," Steve mutters, reciting the quote from the soldier on the submarine and also Hydra's well-known motto.
Bucky and Steve share a look. They've never seen the drawing before, only ever Hydra's logo. A bad feeling settles over the two of them, anticipation for something. It can't be good, it can't be–
"Come in! Cap, Serge, anybody!" A voice suddenly crackles through the receiver. "This is Falsworth! Morita, Dugan and I are in trouble. We just made contact with… with… with a monster– AAGGHHH!"
Steve drops the papers and runs toward his men, Bucky hot on his heels. They hurry back up the hallway where they came and then down the hallway Bucky delegated to the others, running toward the sound of screaming that gets louder with every step, the voices echoing through the corridors.
"Hang in there. We're on our way," Steve replies into the comms. " What is it? What's happening–"
Steve skids to a sudden halt and Bucky slams into him, hard. Their eyes widen at the sight before them. The hallway opens up into a large bunking room for the men, and the beds are overturned, possessions everywhere on the wet ground. And in the middle of the room, they're confronted with a large monster-like creature, resembling some sort of mutated, massive octopus. It's a sickly orange colour with slimy and splotchy skin of different paleness. And in the grasp of one of its mutated tentacles is Morita, being flung around in the air as though he weighed nothing. Dugan and Falsworth have been pinned up against the far corner against the wall, and the octopus is steadily moving toward them, dragging itself along the concrete with a sickening slurp.
Morita is fighting the thing as it holds him in its grasp, using a pocketknife to repeatedly stab at the tentacle wrapped around his middle, squeezing tighter. Dugan is shooting, but the bullets don't seem to do anything, embedding in the skin.
Bucky looks disgusted. "What the fu–"
"Morita! Falsworth! Dugan! Keep fighting it!" Steve yells, and then he's throwing the shield ahead of them. "I can– uh…"
Steve's shield flings through the air and slices through one of the flailing tentacles, but within seconds the amputated appendage grows back, two arms appearing out of the slice where one once was. The new arms have grown entirely before the amputated end has even hit the floor with a sick thud.
Steve catches the shield as it comes back to him. "Whoa. Gross."
Apparently enraged, the faceless monster makes a sudden lash out and grabs both Dugan and Falsworth from where they're hunkered in the corner, pulling them into its dangerous embrace and smashing them painfully into the floor. Its tentacles curl around them tightly, wrapping up their body toward their necks like a snake coiling around the neck of its enemy to suffocate it.
And then, the octopus-creature pulls itself to the side, through to the adjacent room, and before Steve or Bucky can do anything it disappears through a large crack in the floor, landing in the waters below the flooring where the basement level runs beneath them. The three Commandos are screaming and yelling and swearing as they're pulling away into the depths and through a range of tunnels of the flooded sub-basement.
Steve and Bucky share a look. They can't follow, not without backup or even the map to know where they're going. But they have to hurry if they're going to give any of them a chance of survival.
They run back to where they'd come from, hoping to run into the two other Commandos. They aren't in the main operations room, and instead they find Dernier and Jones in a room serving as the base's laboratory, which looks surprisingly a lot like Howard's laboratories back in London. They walk in, only the two of them, and the other two look up solemnly having heard the conversations over the comms link.
"They're gone… we couldn't save them," Steve tells them, anger flashing through him.
"What was it?" Jones asks, looking worried.
"That," Steve says, pointing to the drawing that Jones is holding in his hand of the mythological creature now apparently come to life. Jones and Dernier must have visited the operations room looking for them and collected up all of the files.
"Doubt we could do any better against that monster movie reject, Cap," Jones tries to consolidate.
"That doesn't make me feel any better, Jones. Sorry," Steve runs a hand down his face. "That creature dragged them into a flooded section of the basement. I'm going to bring them back if I have to swim to the bottom of the ocean to do it," Steve decides stubbornly, checking his weapons to prepare himself.
"Just hold on there. There's a fine line between being brave and being just plain mule-headed," Bucky snaps, trying to pull Steve out of his stubbornness to think properly about the situation.
"What the hell is going on?" Isabel's voice suddenly comes through the comms, and the men jump, forgetting that Isabel has been listening the entire time to everything that's been happening.
"Just stay where you are," Steve orders. "It isn't safe out here."
"Uh…" comes Isabel's voice, and just the way she says it makes Steve sigh. "It's a little late for that. Which tunnel was I supposed to take? Left, middle, or right?"
Before any of them can reply, Isabel appears through the entrance to the labs, looking panicked and flustered, having gotten lost in the hallways.
"You were supposed to wait," Steve accuses.
"Oh, save it," Isabel replies. "You've never followed a rule in your life. It was terrifying sitting in that big container all that time on my own, not being able to see out, hearing all of you screaming and yelling. I had to come find you all. Now, tell me, what's happening?"
"This is happening," Bucky replies, pulling out the large drawing of the multiple-headed dragon that Jones brought with him. "But it looks kind of like a deformed, messed up octopus."
"Hydra made a Hydra?" Isabel asks.
"What?"
"The Hydra? The namesake for the whole of the Hydra organisation?" There's still a few blank stares, namely from Dernier and Jones. "Haven't any of you been listening this whole time?" Isabel cries.
"Isn't it like a multi-headed dragon?" Steve asks.
"No, its a serpentine water monster in Greek and Roman mythology. It should look more like a snake, I guess," Isabel responds, looking between them all.
"That thing was supposed to be a Hydra… sort of?" Bucky asks in disbelief.
"Apparently."
"Two tentacles did grow back when you sliced one off," Bucky reasons to Steve with a shrug.
"What are we going to do?" Isabel pushes.
"I've been trying to make sense of this Hydra lab," Jones says as he pours over the books they've collected around the room. "Maybe I can work out what we're dealing with before we rush in half-cocked."
"Well then, how about it, Jones?" Steve asks.
"Most of the journals and notes were destroyed, by the looks of it, when the lab got trashed. Dunno what trashed it, but we can have a pretty good guess. There's no mention of any creature in any of these notes – these mad scientists were experimenting on people, but not creating monsters. They were trying to take the name of their organisation literally by putting the mythology into the super-soldier serum, researching means of cell regeneration to enhance the combat effectiveness of Axis soldiers," Jones explains, paraphrasing the many laboratory workbooks remaining.
"Just like Hamburg?" Isabel asks.
"They hadn't even perfected the serum in Hamburg, and now they're already trying to make it better."
"Surely we'd know if Zola had perfected the serum?" Isabel asks. "He'd have released some kindof army on us all."
"Guys, this is more extreme," Jones punctuates, breaking through their conversation. "This isn't just a super-soldier. This is not just incredible healing factors, but regenerating body parts. Unkillable. Immortal…" They all take a moment to take that in, the impact of it all. "True Hydra style," Jones adds to lighten the mood.
"Cut off one head, two more take its place. That… octopus thing seems pretty familiar with that trick already," Steve notes.
"And it must have had the rest of the staff of this dump for a snack because there ain't nobody here but us and it," Bucky notes. "Dernier was able to waltz right in and out of the engineering department with the newest version of the plans for the whole complex and didn't meet anybody but his own shadow," Bucky says, eyeing the plans over Dernier's shoulder.
Steve comes over to look. "Okay, the sub-basement is definitely the flooded section. That's where the thing took Dugan and the others," he says, eyeing the map. "Actually, looks rather small…"
"Oui." And then Dernier says something, and the rest of them look to Jones for a reliable translation.
"Dernier should be able to plant sufficient charges on the floor of this level to drop the ceiling of this beast's lair on top of it," Jones supplies.
"Sounds like a plan, but we're gonna have to get Morita, Falsworth and Dugan out of there first… if they're still breathin'," Bucky says solemnly. "It's too far for any of us to swim, we'd run out of breath, we can't swim fast enough." Everyone looks up at Steve, then. Bucky eyes his friend critically. "You up for that, Steve?"
Steve's jaw is set, and his eyes are determined. "Always. Give me thirty minutes."
The team moves back through the hallways to the bunks and to the last place they'd seen Morita, Falsworth and Dugan. They take their time to ensure they're weaponed up and ready for a fight, if need be. They were caught extremely unprepared last time, and they won't make the same mistake twice.
They're eyes constantly flick to the crack in the flooring where the monster disappeared, just in case it returns. Below them, between the cracks in the concrete floor, is just water, and they can just see the underwater hallways and rooms running below.
Once they're ready, Steve stands right by the edge, prepared to go down and rescue his men. He's got a determined set to his jaw and his shoulders. Jones is behind him with Bucky, once more going over the maps of the facility to ensure Steve swims the right way. He's only got so much breath, even for a supersoldier, and they can't risk Steve drowning, or else they'll never get the others out, let alone be able to continue taking down Hydra.
Steve's got a watch on his wrist, as does Bucky. "Our watches are synchronised, Steve," Bucky says. His shoulders are tight with unease, as they always are when Steve puts his ass on the line, and his mouth is a fine line again.
"You've got thirty minutes before we bring the roof down over the monster's hideout. Your orders, Cap," Jones confirms.
"If I'm not back by," Steve checks his watch, "1438 hours, we're long gone. Bring the roof down so that thing never makes its escape."
"Steve, are you sure?" Isabel whispers.
He sees the look of unease on Isabel's face, the way she frowns at him. "It's for the best," he says, more to her than anything. "Understood?" Steve asks again, this time to Bucky, Dernier and Jones.
Bucky nods solemnly. "Understood," Jones answers.
"Oui," Dernier nods.
Steve turns and gives Isabel a quick kiss, and he feels her arms come up around his neck, almost as though to anchor him on dry land. He wishes he could stay, oh, he does, but he can't, he can't. He pulls away, looks away from her sad eyes and worried brows, and then he dives head-first into the freezing water. Steve swims and swims, pushing himself through the narrow tunnels and past the fallen walls and parts of the roof. Something rocked these hallways, hard, and caused them all to tumble, caused the cracks in the walls that let in all this water.
He gets lost once or twice, or comes to a fork in the road with two ways, and he has to think back to the maps he looked at so carefully before choosing his way. He worries he may have gone the wrong way, that he might be swimming further into the tunnels, but then he can see above him that there's a room extending up out of the water. He swims up and emerges, taking a deep, gasping breath. His lungs burn and his head hurts so much he thinks he might faint. He knows that on the way back, he'll have to be quicker and smarter, even if he is dragging three men along with him.
He's in the sub-basement, can tell by the shape of the room and the size of it. There's writing enscribed into the rock of the walls, in German, but he barely takes any notice. It seems like a weird place for some kind of graffiti, but he is otherwise occupied, his eyes flicking around the room in search of his men, or in search of the monster.
"Hello?" Steve calls out, his voice echoing coldly on the walls. "Gloopy orange slime monster?" He calls. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," he says, slowly lifting himself out of the water and onto the dry flooring.
"Cap? Do you copy?" Jones' voice comes through the radio.
"Loud and clear, Jones," Steve replies, walking slowly into the cluttered basement.
"All of the explosives are set, we're just waiting for the time. You've got twenty minutes left by our watch. And we found some more notes. I've translated the last few pages of the lead scientist's journal, and its dated to just four days ago."
"Go ahead," Steve says, intrigued. He stops for a moment to properly regain his breath.
"Apparently an underwater earthquake damaged the u-base and flooded the section you're in now. But it also cracked the seals containing the Hydra serum they were working on. The doctors were concerned some of it got into the base's water supply. That's all we got. Make sense at all?"
Steve sighs. "Normally I'd say any light thrown on this situation was appreciated, but none of that explains where this monster came from in the first place or how the entire staff ended up eaten by it without a single survivor."
He begins walking then, through the motionless halls of the sub-basement. Other than a stray of cluttered boxes and furniture, there's nothing of value. Steve makes his footsteps as quiet as possible to move through.
"They're Hydra, they're supposed to be good fighters…" Steve's whispering, when he rounds the corner and spots a slimy orange tentacle through the doorway to the next room. He backs up and presses himself flat against the wall. "Target sighted. Maintaining radio silence. Rogers, out."
There's no response, but Steve didn't expect one. Bucky, Isabel and the others will just have to wait the next fifteen minutes to see if Steve emerges or not, and if he doesn't, they've got an order to follow through on.
Steve could try to take down the monster here and now, but he needs it to lead him toward its lair so he can find Dugan, Falsworth and Morita. Without it, he may never find them, and he especially won't once the roof falls down on them.
"Why don't you be a good disgusting tentacled thing and lead me straight to them…" Steve whispers, watching its tentacles flail through the doorway.
He knows he hasn't got time to play games with the monster. He can only hope that it hasn't let its newest captives stray too far. Steve hurries into the room it occupies and sure enough, in its long, strong tentacles are Steve's men, entirely enclosed in orange as they flail and struggle to break free to no avail. Falsworth's entire face has been covered by the skinny end of one tentacle, and he's screaming out in a muffled shout. Dugan's has him around the middle, and he's yelling in fear, a mumble of words Steve can't make out. Morita is relatively silent, but he looks terrified. He looks up and locks eyes with Steve's.
Steve doesn't exactly know what he'll do, so he just charges toward the monster with his shield raised. He lands a few good hits, but nothing debilitating, and all he manages to do is alert the monster to his presence.
The tentacle lowers from around Falsworth's mouth and he takes one gasping breath before he yells, "I know good tactics when I see them, Cap! This thing led you straight into a trap!"
Steve continues to hit the monster whilst dodging its flailing limbs, hoping that attacking its body rather than its legs will result in a victory. "Are you a zoologist as well as a strategist now, Falsworth?" Steve shoots back, puffed. "How can this thing be smart enough to–?"
Suddenly, one tentacles slams into the shield and pushes Steve forcefully back against the wall with a thud, knocking the breath from his lungs. The monster faces him, a massive mouth ringed by sharp teeth that could tear them all limb from limb. It bares its teeth and then lets out an almighty roar, with terrible breath, that blows harshly against Steve's face.
"Touchy, huh? If you're smart enough to have your feelings hurt, you're smart enough to be reasoned with. Let them go and I won't hurt you," Steve offers, slightly sarcastic.
It turns away then, concentrating on Morita in its grasp, and slowly lowers the screaming man down toward its mouth. One of the tentacles wraps forcefully around Steve's arm, holding it back against the wall.
"I'll take that as a no," Steve quips.
He throws the shield with his free hand as hard as he can muster. It flies straight through the tentacle holding Morita and he falls from the sky, the end of it still wrapped around him. Steve breaks free of the tentacle and hurries forward, catching the man bridal style before he hits the hard ground. He sets Morita on his feet and Morita quickly shrugs off the end of the tentacle, standing behind Steve to help.
They look up, and the tentacle has already grown back, revealing three more. "Someone's been drinking their cell regeneration fluid," Dugan quipps, somehow, whilst suspended upside down by the monster.
Steve throws the shield again and again, managing to get Falsworth and Dugan free in the same way. Dugan isn't quite as easy to catch as Morita due to his weight, but Steve manages. Once the three of them are safe and breathing, Steve points them away. "Get as far that way as possible. Dernier's cooked up a little surprise for our friend here and we don't wanna be around when its ready!"
Dugan, Morita and Falsworth run off, the first two holding up the latter, whilst Steve continues to fight off the monster, stopping it from following them and dragging them all back with it. He jumps and kicks into one of the tentacles, sending it thudding back into the monster's face, and it cries out.
"What did you used to be, a regular octopus that ate some serum after the earthquake and mutated?" Steve wonders aloud as he jumps around, kicking and slicing and punching. "Guess we'll never have time to find out."
"This is your two-minute warning, Steve," Bucky's voice comes through, tinny and small and worried in his ear. He's breaking the radio silence, and Steve can understand why. They're practically waiting thirty minutes to see if their friend dies or not. "All charges are set and counting down. You better be well on your way back by now or I swear to God…" Bucky doesn't finish, but Steve can imagine what will happen to him.
"I might have needed a bit longer than thirty minutes," Steve admits.
"Get out of there!" Bucky yells in his ear, and Steve can even hear Isabel's voice yelling something to him that he can't make out.
Steve turns and runs, the monster hot on his heels. "It's been fun," he tells the enraged monster. "Actually, that's a lie. No, it hasn't. But–"
The tentacles slowly gain on Steve and then they're encircling him. He expects them to close around him, scoop him back up, but they keep stretching and stretching well ahead of him to the wall he's approaching, and on that wall is the graffiti Steve noticed earlier, the carvings into the wall. One of the monster's tentacles opens up to reveal a long claw-like end and it scrapes into the wall, carving out the graffiti words.
Steve skids to a stop before he can really think about it, and so does the octopus behind him. The monster keeps writing, alongside all the other words its apparently written.
"W-What are you… writing?" Steve asks, confused. "How can you…?"
Steve's eyes widen as his mind translates the words the monster has written and is now tapping repeatedly with its claw to emphasise it. Helfen sie mie.
"That's German," Steve mutters. "Help me?"
Steve turns around to look at the monster, and it's deflated with defeat, looking small and vulnerable amidst the rubble of the basement. It looks toward Steve, and that's when he notices the tiny eyes littering where its face should be, around its mouth, eyes that are small and sad and a multitude of different colours. They look at him, pleading and wide.
Something in Steve's mind clicks. He doesn't know what's going on, or what all this means, but the monster clearly has thoughts and feelings and it needs help, and Steve's never been one to let someone in need go without. There's something going on here, in this Hydra base, and he'll be damned if he doesn't get to the bottom of it and help this creature.
Steve looks at his watch, and they've got ten seconds, even less. The entrance to the sub-basement, which won't be affected by the demolition, is only a few metres away, around the corner. And that's where Morita and the others are waiting for him.
Steve motions for the monster to follow and then runs out of the sub-basement, the octopus following obediently. The explosion goes off behind them seconds later, though Steve is widely shielded by the mass behind him. The whole roof falls down, blocking off the entrance to the sub-basement behind them and the force is enough to throw them both forward into the swirling water at the entrance, a billow of smoke and rock and hot, fiery air stalking them, filling the cavern and lighting it up a bright red.
Steve stays underwater, watching the heat above him through the blurry water. When the fire has dissolved and the smoke subsided, Morita, Falsworth and Dugan emerge from their hiding spot behind the thick wall, coming warily to the edge of the water. Steve appears then, taking a deep breath, and swims himself quickly to the edge. The monster is somewhere below him within the depths, hiding most likely, and even though they made some kind of peace, he feels uneasy.
Steve's got a nice knock to his head that causes blood to trickle down his wet cheeks. He gets his hands on the edge of the pool and pulls himself out with a groan of pain.
"Cap! Are you alright?" Dugan calls, grabbing Steve under his armpits and helping the larger man from the black water.
"Everything's attached, I'm fine," Steve says, rolling a little undignified onto the ground and standing, his body feeling stiff from the fighting.
The men watch then as, from the depths, an orange shape emerges, slowly rising up in a mass of tentacles. It breaks the surface and stares at them with large, frightened eyes, its mouth no longer baring its sharp teeth and its tentacles no longer whirling around trying to strangle them all. It looks almost harmless, there in the water, defenceless. Like a glorified octopus.
"Why on earth did you save that thing?" Falsworth cries, staring in disgust at the creature. "This completely ruins our whole plan!"
Steve turns to look at it, pity in his eyes. "It can reason. It can read and write. That writing on the wall, it says "help us", and there's names on the wall," he says pointing to them as he now looks more closely. "I…" Steve thinks about it, long and hard, trying to piece everything together. "They're all names, I… I think they're clues. And the information we discovered in the lab journals. I… I don't think this thing ate the u-base's staff. It is the staff."
If he'd been told this a year ago, he never would have believed it. But now, after all he's done? Well, everything's possible, now.
Dugan, however, doesn't seem entirely convinced. "How do you mean?" He asks, staring at Steve as though he'd lost his mind.
"It will be easier to explain if I can show you the notes as well," Steve says with a sigh. "Just… trust me?" He asks, spreading his hands in surrender. "We've been standing here five minutes, and has it killed us yet?"
They all turn to look at it, at how submissive and quiet it is.
"Guess not," Dugan mutters.
Somehow, Steve gets back to other side of the underwater tunnels with all three men intact, and without any of them drowning or dying in the process. Steve swims faster and harder than he ever has and probably ever will, with Dugan's hand clasped around his uniform belt and Falsworth and Morita hanging onto him in a line. It's tiring and heavy, and the tunnels are dark and winding, but they find their way back before they run out of breath.
They come into an open part, which once was likely another quarters for the men, and when Steve looks up through the broken roof, he can see the other Commandos standing worriedly by the edge, peering down into the water for any sign of them.
Dugan, Falsworth and Morita emerge from the water first, gasping for air. They'd been nearing the end of their ability, running out of breath. Falsworth looks a bit faint. Jones and Bucky help to pull them up, soaking wet and shivering. Immediately, they wrap them in blankets they've found in the bunks, and from somewhere Jones has brewed up mugs of coffee and passes it to them, letting the men warm their bellies.
Steve's pushed the others up ahead of him, and he stops for a moment, suspended there in the water, and turns to see the creature a few metres away, hidden in the tunnel, staring at him. He makes eye contact with it, gives it a small smile, and then comes up to the surface, hoping it will follow.
Steve emerges from the water, finally, grabbing onto the edge and rubbing his eyes, spitting out a mouthful of water. Isabel is there immediately, as though she'd been anxiously waiting at the edge from him when the others came before him. She pushes his fringe away from his face. She looks so worried, frightened for him.
"I thought you'd drowned," she whispers.
Steve looks up at her, his eyes apologetic. "It was just complicated," he reassures.
He gets a grip on the floor and pulls himself up slowly, his arms and legs exhausted as all his activity catches up to him – the gruelling swim and the fight and swimming down to break into the submarine a few hours ago. His arms shake as he pulls himself up. Isabel helps as much as she can to drag him up, but there's little she can do.
When he's standing, he takes a moment to look at his men. "Something's happened, but promise me you won't freak out," he tells them.
"That is usually cause for us to freak out," Jones argues, looking confused.
And then, a single orange tentacle emerges from the water, crawling across the floor. Following it is another tentacle, and a few that go up the wall and pull the orange creature out of the water onto the floor in front of them with a sick squelching noise.
Jones shouts. Dernier swears. Isabel screams. Bucky's there within a second and he grabs Isabel by the arm, dragging her behind him protectively. He's got his gun up, aiming it at the monster.
The creature's eyes widen, but in fear, and it pushes itself backward again partly into the water.
But Steve isn't moving, he doesn't even look surprised that it followed him out of the depths. He looks like he's trying to comfort it, putting out a steadying hand to tell it that its all okay. He looks apologetic. He looks pitying.
Bucky is looking at Steve as though his friend has turned deranged, but Bucky's got his own air of madness to his eyes, a look of ferociousness he never, ever, had before the war. "Steve, what the hell are you doing?!"
Isabel's watching, and she cocks her head to the side, seeing that the monster isn't attacking as it had been, and it looks submissive to Steve. It's watching them all with frightened, calculating eyes. "Buck–" Isabel tries.
"Serge–" Dugan tries, knowing some sort of agreement has been made between Steve and the Hydra.
"Are you trying to kill her? Is that what you're doing?" Bucky accuses, shaking his gun for emphasis. "I swear to God, Steven…"
"Bucky, calm the hell down," Steve snaps, putting his hand toward Bucky this time to try to reassure him. "Jesus! You're scaring it. It isn't what you think."
"Well, what is it, then?" Bucky snaps back, keeping his gun raised. His hand is shaking a little bit now, probably with fear.
"I haven't worked it all out," Steve begins. "I'm just going off what I read in the notes and what I saw in the sub-basement. There was writing, all over the walls. Names, German names. And also, it said help me and help us, over and over again. Something had to have written that. And I saw first-hand that this… creature, it wrote it on the walls. It needs help. And it was asking us the only way it knew how. We're the first people to step in here since the accident."
"But what is it?" Isabel asks.
"I think it's the staff. I think when the cell regeneration serum seeped into the drinking water, it somehow merged everyone together. I don't know how, or if that's even possible, but…"
The creature moves then, revealing its clawed end of its tentacle once again, and into the wall it inscribes the German word for 'true', over and over, three times, followed by the words we will not hurt you, again in German. It looks at them all, each and every one of them, with utter defeat and uselessness, its entire body slouching.
Bucky slowly lowers his gun, not because he considers it no longer a threat, but because he's in shock, confused and doubting but also seeing how the puzzle fits together, how this all could be true. Isabel is still behind Bucky, her hand on his arm that's still circle around her protectively.
"We need to help it– them," Steve corrects. He says it with such vindication that they know he won't be swayed on his decision.
"How?" Dugan asks.
"Fortunately, we work with one of the greatest minds in the country. If Howard can't help them, no one can."
Isabel swallows. "But Steve, if that's true, they're Hydra…" Isabel trails off.
"Not like Hydra would do the same thing for a guy from our side if the shoe was on the other foot," Dugan agrees, crossing his arms.
"I know," Steve says. "That's what makes our side the right side."
London, United Kingdom
August 23rd, 1944
The Commandos transport the creature back to London by "borrowing", as Steve termed it, the Hydra submarine and then using an SSR-owned plane, on a journey that is both exhausting and unnerving, being in such close quarters to the now silent creature. They land in London at the SSR's airfield on the outskirts of the city, far from prying eyes, and quickly escort the creature into one of the hangars along the edge. If a civilian were to see the creature, the world would be up in arms. It's best for it to be kept a secret as much as possible. They also can't afford for it to escape. As much as it's made up of people, those people were still Hydra, and the monster itself is powerful and strong and dangerous. On the streets of London, it could wreak havoc.
At their call, Howard comes out to meet them at the airfield, walking into the large hangar and stopping dead in the doorway. The Commandos are all sitting around inside, only slightly phased by the creature even if a few of them are sitting quite a distance away with their guns beside them. The creature sits quietly, hardly moving, still slimy and dripping a large amount of water onto the floor. It's massive, monstrous, with tentacle-like arms stretching at least ten metres out from it.
How they fit the creature into the submarine and plane to bring it back is a mystery to Howard.
The creature looks up when Howard walks in, its eyes wide and wary. Howard's been warned, of course – it would be pretty harsh for the Commandos to let him walk into this one unprepared. He looks at it a long time, at once fascinated and disgusted by the mesh of bodies.
"I'll tell you, Cap, you've stumped me this time," Howard finally says, scratching the back of his neck. "What is it?"
"We aren't exactly sure, but from what we can gather… The entire crew of a Hydra base mashed together," Steve says. He hands Howard all the files they collected from the base.
"Can you get them... separated again?" Isabel asks.
Howard's jaw is still on the floor, his head shaking back in forth in disbelief. "I don't know…" he mutters. "But I'll try."
"And if you can't?" Jones asks.
"I don't know. It will probably go to the SSR from there, and I have no idea what they'll do with it." Howard squares his shoulders, stands up a little straighter. "I'll do my best, I promise."
"That's all we can ask," Steve says with a tired smile.
"I'll have to run a lot of tests, do some experiments," Howard mutters, flicking through the files. "Water contaminated with the super soldier serum… Not our serum, a further mutated serum… Regrowth of amputated limbs…" He looks up then. "You understand what it would have meant if this version of their serum was successful?" He asks.
The Commandos all look at one another, nodding. "Soldiers you can't hurt or kill," Steve mutters.
Howard looks at Isabel then. "And you realise how far behind we are with our replication?" Howard persists. "If they're working on version 2.0 of the serum, they've finalised the first version. We aren't even at 0.25."
"I know, Howard," Isabel sighs. "We can keep working. I'm sure there are things we've missed or other ways we can try. We'll get there, no matter what it takes," she insists.
"Wish I had your positivism, darl," Howard responds. "That Zola must be a goddamn genius."
"Might have something to do with his wide availability of test subjects as well," Falsworth adds.
A phone rings somewhere on the other side of the hangar and the guard answers it in his office, wide eyes following the creature. He speaks on the phone for a moment, standing tall and proper, before hanging up and walking out into the hangar.
"Captain Rogers, sir?" He calls. "Colonel Phillips is requesting the immediate presence of yourself and the Commandos at the Strategic Reserve base, sir."
"Thank you," Steve says, watching the man snap off a salute before returning to the safety of his office, eyes still locked on the thing. "Well, Stark. We'd stick around and help but we're needed elsewhere."
"Oh, of course," Howard says, somewhere between sarcastic and dumbfounded. "You go, just… leave me here with the thing. I'll sort it all out, don't worry about me."
The Commandos quickly file out of the hangar and find three cars outside waiting promptly for them on the curb. They've come to learn by now that Chester Phillips doesn't mess around when he wants something done. Bucky slaps Howard on the back as he walks past, following Steve out of the hangar.
"You'll be fine," Isabel promises Howard, stopping beside him to look back once more at the silent creature. "Just, listen to them, okay? They'll tell you what they want."
"Yeah, they…" Howard agrees. "Should I give it a pen and paper?" He asks, only partly joking.
"The wall should do just fine," Isabel jokes.
"What do you mean?" Howard asks after her, but Isabel keeps walking.
A/N: This chapter is based off a Captain America comic called Captain America and Thor Avengers! in which Steve and his Commandos infiltrate a Hydra base and discover the staff have been merged into a massive Hydra-like creature. For some reason (and I don't know why as I don't read the comics) Bucky is not in this comic and his role is somewhat taken up by Dugan. The story line has obviously been adjusted to include Bucky and Isabel, but I thought this comic was really interesting so I decided to include it into the canon of this story! I hope you all enjoyed.