61.
London, United Kingdom
January 31st, 1945
Late in the afternoon while Steve is in the laboratories with Stark, Peggy Carter enters the room with her usual air of professionalism and beauty. Stark's built Steve an entire motorcycle based on the ones Steve had found in the first Hydra factory they'd ever invaded in Poland, a motorbike with flame throwers and multiple other attachments. Howard is showing Steve how to engage the turbo speed functions and Steve is sitting on the seat of the bike when Peggy enters the room.
At the sight of the Agent, Steve looks up and positively beams at her. "Do you like it?"
Peggy walks a circle around the bike with an approving smile, her eyebrow only rising at the sight of the flamethrowers. "Very nice," she says approvingly. "How long will it take you to ruin it?"
Steve looks a bit affronted. "I'll cherish it, Stark, don't worry."
"You'd better," Howard warns. "This has taken me months."
"Actually, Captain, now that I have your attention," Peggy continues, fiddling with a dossier file in her hands, which Steve's eyes flick to. "We've gained some intel that you'll be needing to read through. It's rather urgent."
Steve takes the file and opens it, still sitting perched on the seat. His eyes widen as he reads over the translation of the transmission from Hydra itself, and he flicks his eyes up to Peggy to make sure it's legitimate.
Peggy nods. "The transmission was intercepted only about thirty minutes ago. We're on a time limit with this one, Captain Rogers. You'll need to decide quickly whether you're in or you aren't. This may be the next or only chance we get. And just so you know, I am open to joining the mission."
With that, Peggy leaves the laboratories, leaving Steve to stare stunned at the file in his hands.
Steve feels as though he's being pulled in both directions. While he's adamant to chase the lead, to apprehend this vital section of Hydra once and for all, another part of him is extremely hesitant and wary. The mission is dangerous and risky, espionage-level dangerous, with so many variables that could turn against them. None of the Commandos nor Steve are agents in the least; they're soldiers who get by on luck and a dose of super-soldier serum.
Steve takes the dossier file with all of the information, wary of the time limit, and retreats somewhere quiet to think. He spends a short while tossing up whether the benefits outweigh the danger, sitting on his bed with his head in his hands. He goes over plans and tactics, over who he thinks will be on board and who'll choose to stay behind and attempts to create strategies based on that. Once he's sure it's possible, once he knows there's actually a way for this mission to be successful, he calls a meeting for the Howling Commandos at the Stork Club where the men were going to be anyway at such a late hour.
Before he makes his own way to the club, Steve knocks on the door to Isabel's room. She answers the door quickly, smiling up at him brightly.
"You wanna come to the Stork Club?" Steve asks immediately. He holds up the file. "We've got a mission."
Isabel's smile only falters slightly before she corrects herself, nodding. "Only if you buy me a wine. I'm sick of whiskey," she says cheekily, grabbing her coat and following Steve out the door.
They walk down the empty street hand-in-hand, Isabel asking what the mission is and Steve telling her to wait and find out with the others. Steve hurries in front and opens one of the double doors to the club, holding it open for Isabel to step inside out of the icy streets. She brushes some snowflakes from her dark hair as she looks around at the rooms on either side of the entrance lobby, searching for the Commandos. Steve spots them first in the room to the left, hidden away in a small corner around a large round table, quite a few drinks already in front of them and each of them with a cigarette in their hands. Steve has a hand on Isabel's back as he leads her over to the table. She sits while he goes back to buy all of the men a round of drinks and Isabel her white wine before returning to the table with all of them balanced on a round tray, setting it down in the middle. Isabel takes her flute and kisses his cheek in thanks, then toasts her glass with Dugan's when he offers it.
"We already checked around for bugs," Bucky informs Steve, nodding his thanks for the drink.
"So, you called a meeting, Captain?" Jones asks, sipping at his beer.
Steve nods. He lets them and himself get settled before he breaks the news, his mind whirring with how to go about informing them. "Agent Carter has informed me of some intel regarding the location of Doctor Zola," Steve says.
The news, and mainly the name, cuts through the Commandos' jovial nature like a knife. Bucky flinches, Isabel winces, and the rest of the men turn solemn, angry, determined. Bucky grabs his beer and chugs it in one go, but it does nothing to settle his nerves, not even a buzz. Isabel follows his actions with her wine, and after a few moments, it goes straight to her head and she feels a little calmer. Her hand stops shaking after a few more minutes.
"Where is he?" Dugan eventually asks into the silence that's fallen over them, his jaw set tight, mouth a thin line beneath his moustache.
"I think a better question is where he is going," Steve says vaguely, running a hand through his hair. "We've destroyed every known Hydra base in Europe, except for the mystery base that wasn't on the map that we know they're holding the Valkyrie in. Schmidt's frustrated, Madame Hydra's angry, and Doctor Zola, we think, is taking the brunt of their anger. His weapons and ideas haven't been enough to secure a victory as of yet. In response, Schmidt is trying to accelerate their plans for world domination, and as Belle said, the Valkyrie is probably going to play a large role in that."
"So, we find the Valkyrie?" Falsworth guesses.
"Eventually, but first, we find Zola, and then Zola leads us to the Valkyrie."
"Zola's like a slippery slug, Cap. We accidentally run into him, he slips out of our grasp. He's very well protected so we can never get close to him. He makes some damn robot machine, you take him down, but he still gets away because he's not actually inside at all but controlling it from somewhere else. Zola's the brain of Hydra. Without Zola, there isn't a Hydra. He'll be the most protected member of Hydra after the Red Skull himself, especially if they know we're after him. How are we going to find him?" Jones asks.
"Through this," Steve says, pulling the file from inside his Army jacket and slapping it onto the table, opening it up to the first stark white page. "A radio transmission was picked up and decoded this afternoon. Zola's presence has been requested by Madame Hydra at what we presume is the hidden Hydra base in the Austrian alps. They want him there by tomorrow at midday to be involved in some kind of experiment or presentation, they never said. But they want him there, and that's all that matters. The train he's catching leaves Stuttgart at seven tomorrow morning. He'll be riding it into the Alps to the stop at Badgastein, where Hydra is going to have a car waiting for him and presumably drive him to the base."
"Why don't we follow him from Badgastein to the base?" Isabel asks quietly, reading the file over Steve's arm.
"We could, but who knows how many people will be there to escort Zola? And we don't know how many people are working at the base itself. We need more firepower than just the eight of us. We need an entire infantry, at least, to back us up, and it's not enough time to round one up," Steve explains, to a nod of understanding from the others. "Agent Carter believes, and I agree, that it would be a much heavier blow to Hydra's morale if Doctor Zola was never to actually make it to Badgastein station. If he was to disappear along the way, gone without a trace."
"So, we're going to catch him before he gets on the train?" Morita guesses.
"I'm not sure if that will be an option, either," Steve admits. "The station is in Stuttgart. We'll be working in Germany for this one, we'll be the enemy. All eyes at the train station will be against us, waiting to take us down. I think it would be safer to find a way to get onto the train itself unnoticed. Once the train's en route, there'll be much less people to contend with than at the train station. If we're on the train, we can take over it and take Doctor Zola as we go. Once he's in our custody, we can stop the train at the next available station and high tail it out of there by calling Howard to our position with the transponder. No one will ever expect it."
"How do we get onto the train without being caught? Thanks to those damn comics and movies, we have some of the most recognisable faces in Europe," Bucky points out.
"Not all of us were featured in those comics or on the news. And not all of us have to sneak onto the train, just one or two to have an inside eye. We know where the train runs, the route it will take. Apparently, there are multiple positions along the tracks where a telegraph line passes over. We can use it to zipline onto the train."
"You want us to… zipline onto a moving train?" Dugan asks with a hint of suspicion.
"I don't expect anyone else to," Steve reassures. "But I am. It'll be a stealth mission. Even more dangerous than anything we've probably ever done. And I don't expect any of you to come, if you don't want. Agent Carter has already agreed to be the one sneaking onto the train, and frankly, she's the most qualified of all of us to do so. The rest of the mission, you can leave it up to me, if you wish."
Steve's leaving it open, as he has multiple other times regarding more dangerous missions, or when the men were going back into the trenches. He's respecting their autonomy, something being a soldier always takes away. Steve's a respectful leader, and he cares for his men, and in return, that makes him one of most well-regarded and respected leaders of maybe the entire army.
The Commandos share a look, having a conversation with only their eyes. After a few moments of varying facial expressions – determination, pride, and even a bit of fear – all of them look at least resigned to complete the mission.
"We don't wish, Cap," Morita says eventually for all of them, putting a hand on Steve's shoulder. "We're with you on this one. We've worked damn hard to get to the point where we had Zola in our reach, and we aren't about to skip out now."
Stuttgart, Germany
February 1st, 1945
The Commandos leave London almost immediately after they've agreed, flying into the pitch-black night sky, surrounded by the stars.
In the very early hours of the morning, not long after everyone else would have gone to bed and many hours before the sun will rise on the horizon, Howard lands the plane in a small field on the outskirts of Stuttgart. The lands are silent except for the rumble of the plane's engine, the glow of the city just visible in the distance.
Steve opens the door to the plane, checks outside is safe, and then disembarks, leading the way for Peggy and Falsworth, the two brave souls who have volunteered to be the ones sneaking onto Zola's train at the station. A few of the other men, including Bucky, had put their hands up to follow Peggy, but they'd all been much too recognisable thanks to their fame. Falsworth, who had one of the smaller roles in the comics, barely recognisable without his beret, was ultimately chosen after he volunteered. Or else, Agent Carter was determined to go it alone.
They're both dressed in their disguises already, Falsworth wearing the formal uniform of the Germany army and carrying a large briefcase in his hand containing a radio, whilst Peggy has dressed herself in strictly German brands. Peggy barely looks fazed by the upcoming adventure, and the Commandos assume it's because she's embarked on much more dangerous tales of espionage in the past, including single-handedly saving Doctor Erskine from the clutches of Hydra long before Steve was ever Captain America. Falsworth looks a little worried, but he schools his face into a determined frown.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Steve asks Falsworth for possibly the fiftieth time since he'd volunteered for the role. "It isn't too late to–"
"Captain," Falsworth interrupts, raising an unimpressed eyebrow at Steve. "If I hadn't been sure, I never would have put my hand up. I have faith Agent Carter will guide me through."
Peggy nods at Steve. "We'll be okay," she promises. "We need to go," she tells Falsworth.
While Steve and the others go over the plan one more time, the one they'd hashed out on the plane, Peggy moves off to say goodbye to Bucky, who stands away from the crowd with Isabel, still easily able to hear Steve's voice thanks to his advanced hearing.
Isabel looks away to give them a sense of privacy as Bucky welcomes Peggy with open arms, pulling her into his chest tightly.
"Please, be careful," Bucky whispers.
"This is not my first rodeo, Bucky," she reminds him with a small chuckle.
"I know. I'm just beginning to understand how Isabel feels watching Steve run off into the fray all the time," Bucky agrees with a small smile, winking at Isabel over Peggy's head.
"I dare say Peggy has more idea of what she's doing than Steve does," Isabel notes, no heat behind her words at all as she shoots a smile at the two before smirking over at Steve with an expression that could only be described as a mix of proud and amused.
"I'll see you on the train, and hopefully Zola will be there to see our passionate reunion," Bucky tells Peggy, cupping her cheek.
Peggy plants a long, passionate kiss on Bucky's lips, her white-gloved hand coming up to grasp the side of his face. "I look forward to it."
Peggy gives Isabel a tight hug before she wraps a brown scarf around her neck to fight the cold and partly cover the bottom half of her face. With a round of goodbyes and good lucks, Peggy and Falsworth leave the group, officially beginning their espionage mission. The Commandos watch Peggy and Falsworth hurry across the field and then walk along the bitumen road toward Stuttgart in the far distance. The two have quite a long walk, needing to get into the city and then locate the train station before seven. It's manageable, as long as they don't get lost. The Commandos watch them until they're only two figures in the distance, barely visible in the darkness of the night.
"Anyone else have a bad feeling about this?" Dugan asks into the silence, and he only gets a solemn silence in return.
Stuttgart is surprisingly easy for Peggy and Falsworth to get into. There are guards positioned near the entrance to the city, but the couple slips past easily with only a smile and a wave, looking like a couple walking into town from the residences on the outskirts of the city's border.
Peggy's German accent has always been rather flawless, her German language even more so, and so posing as an innocent German woman is not a problem for her. She dresses herself in German-made brands, a scarf high around her face. Her hair is down, swirling around her face, further hiding her identity. To anyone else, she will be just an average German woman, not the famed Agent Carter of the Howling Commandos.
Monty easily slides into the role of a German soldier. He dresses himself in the dark suit ensemble, ensuring that all of his pins and badges are positioned according to the army regulations, and places the dark cap atop his hair, replacing his usual beret. His accent is passable, while his German is limited to what he's heard the men they encounter in the factories say, and so they agree that Peggy will be doing the talking and they go from there.
As they walk through the city's streets, still empty due to the early hour, Peggy takes the crook of Falsworth's elbow, the two of them acting as though they were a couple. She ignores the ache in her feet from the walk, the bite of the cold winds against her nose. They barely know the streets, which are in a turbulent mess from the Allied bombings throughout the war – rubble, fire, overturned vehicles, smashed windows, fallen walls and buildings – nothing out of the ordinary for the battle-hardened soldier and agent. They barely blink an eye at any of it. However, the lack of standing monuments and undamaged street signs makes it a little difficult for them to navigate through the city.
They continue their facades the entire walk as the streets slowly get a little busier and the sky slightly lightens. Within a few hours, the sun will rise and plunge them into brightness. Despite the fact that once morning comes they will have missed the train, it will also take away some of their disguise, as they manage to stick to the shadows and pass unnoticed through the city streets.
Eventually, as Falsworth begins to grow restless and feel lost, they spot the train station in the distance. The large brick building with a domed roof is beautiful, sat amongst a splatter of similarly styled buildings. They can see that inside its doors there is already a bustle of activity as people await the early morning trains.
It's very easy for Peggy to walk up to the booth and request two tickets for the seven o'clock train to Munich. The woman working the ticket booth doesn't bat an eye as she takes Peggy's change and returns two paper tickets. Peggy hands them to Falsworth, who slips them into his pocket with the intent to never use them. As he does, his hand brushes against the metal of the pistol he's pocketed in preparation. He hopes he won't have to use that either.
As they walk at a strolling pace, Peggy's eyes flick seemingly calmly through the crowd as she scans every face. No one's appearance sticks out as even slightly remarkable or recognisable. Nevertheless, it's an engraved habit of hers to always be looking over her shoulder, to always be on alert, especially when this deep in enemy territory. She puts her hand in the pocket of her coat and runs a finger over her gun, ensuring its presence and feeling her breathing calm back to normal. Slowly, they cross the station from one end right to the back as though they were just a couple wasting the minutes before their train is due to depart, but in reality, they keep their eyes peeled for the streamlined Hydra trains that Doctor Zola is expected to be riding in that morning or for the man himself.
Peggy leads Falsworth up onto the walkway that is elevated over the train lines so that passengers can walk over the tracks and trains and take the stairs to the correct platform. Once she's there, she has a perfect vantage point of the whole station, and her hawk's eye scans every train and every position until she hits the jackpot. In the far corner on a small track, surrounded by abandoned trains and tracks, Peggy spots it. The train is streamlined and smooth, rounded on the edges as the trains had been at the Hydra Castle in Bavaria. It's so long that only part of it actually inside the terminal, the rest of it extending out into the snowy world outside, steam puffing from above the engine into the air. The tell-tale sign, however, is that it is surrounded by a dozen or so armed soldiers on the platforms. They look German, from afar, but as Peggy moves slightly closer, she can make out the distinct Hydra aspects of their uniform – the darker colour of the suits, the small octopus pin stapled to their chest, the slightly blue energy emitting from their rifles.
Peggy and Falsworth stop at the railing of the bridge close to the train. They lean against the railing, looking out at the station and at all the trains, their eyes constantly flicking back to the spotted Hydra locomotive. While Peggy searches for a way aboard, Falsworth keeps an eye out for any approaching undesirables.
"How are we going to get aboard, Agent Carter?" Falsworth asks out of the corner of his mouth.
"I'm thinking," Peggy replies just as quietly.
Her attention is taken then by a smaller male figure that walks down the platform right against the wall, flanked on every side by an armed guard. She immediately recognises him – the short stature, the briefcase and lab coat, glasses perched on his nose.
"Zola," Peggy whispers, her eyes narrowing at the sight of him.
Falsworth and Peggy watch casually as Doctor Zola is herded onto the train into one of the rear carriages where he'll presumably move toward the front of the train from the safety of the cabins. The engine of the train starts up, the whistle blowing. Falsworth checks his watch and sees the clock ticking alarmingly toward seven.
"Better think faster, Carter, we've got three minutes. Maybe less if they depart right away."
Peggy takes Falsworth's hand then and drags him halfway down the bridge, down one of the flights of stairs, and onto the platform closest to the Hydra train that has another train waiting on it, giving them an excuse if they're caught. Falsworth doesn't question her motives, only allows her to guide him.
Peggy walks to the end of the platform where the front of the other train is. She gets very close to the edge of the platform, looking around to ensure none of the Hydra guards on the platform are watching, before jumping down onto the pebbles of the tracks. Falsworth quickly jumps down after her, crouching as the two of them run around the still train. They close in on the tracks and the other edge of the platform, and throw themselves against the platform wall, hidden beneath the slightly protruding concrete. The Hydra soldiers don't see them, aren't even looking the right way. They can vaguely hear the footsteps of the Hydra soldiers just above their heads, pacing the platform without actually paying any attention to their surroundings. Two of them are talking about what they did on the weekend.
Zola is already safely on the train, entered from the other side anyway.
They wait only a minute before the train screeches and thumps, and begins to move out of the station, the wheels filling the station with that chugging sound anyone would recognise. Peggy peers over the edge of the platform and meets only the retreating backs of the Hydra soldiers as they move off the platform and disappear around the other side of the train. Whether they actually get onto the train or leave the station altogether is unknown, and Peggy doesn't wait around to find out.
Peggy grabs the edge of the platform and easily hoists herself up, Falsworth following. They grab hold of one of the handles on the edge of the last cabin of the train, only just making it aboard, and put their feet on the small step that runs along the entirety of the train, their feet not far above the moving wheels. There's a door, right on the edge of the train not far from Peggy, secured only by a small lock. Peggy carefully makes her way along the step, clinging tightly to the varying railings as the train starts to rapidly pick up speed, the wind whipping them wildly. She pulls a clip from her hair, straightens it out, and jams it into the lock, wiggling it ferociously until the lock clicks. She pulls the lock from the door and throws it down onto the rocks below.
Peggy grabs the handle of the door and pushes, but it barely budges. Falsworth gets a good grip and pulls toward him, just managing to open the train enough for them to slide inside the cabin. Peggy squeezes inside, the wind whipping her hair into her face. She pushes the brown strands away, her gun already aimed and ready, but they encounter no one, emerging into an empty cabin of the train. Falsworth gets inside and closes the door behind him, blocking out the sounds of the howling wind and the snow that's already coated both of them.
"Perfect," Peggy says with a smile as she wipes the snow from her clothes and hair, looking around at the grotty, damp, musty cabin. There's nothing in it but a bunch of wooden crates in one corner. "Well done, Lieutenant Falsworth."
"It was all you, Agent Carter," Falsworth promises.
"Now, we stack these up for protection and set up shop in the corner."
Together, they move the crates and stack them up as a barrier between them and the only door to enter the cabin from the rest of the train. There's a door behind them with a small window slow that leads to a small balcony at the end of the train, where they can see the world outside.
Falsworth pulls his radio from the briefcase he'd been carrying, setting it up and tuning it to the correct station. Peggy ducks down behind the crates behind him and watches, her attention flicking every now and then to the door.
Immediately, Falsworth pulls out the receiver and speaks into it, sending out a notice to Steve that they've made it aboard the train. They're sure that, in the hours it's taken for Peggy and Falsworth to walk into Stuttgart and board the train, the Commandos have probably been dropped off by Howard in the Alps and are hiking toward their position, ready for the next stage of the mission.
"This is Captain Rogers. Did you have any trouble getting aboard?"
"Negative, it was as though we were invisible."
"I'm glad. Howard dropped us off at the rendezvous point about an hour ago. We've still got about an hour or two's walk ahead of us to the position. Notify us if anything changes."
?, Austria
February 1st, 1944
Howard flies the plane into the high mountains, high above the sea level. The air is thinner where they are, making it a little harder than normal to breathe.
Howard lands and drops the Commandos off a few hundred metres from the base of the large mountain they're going to scale, where at the top, a telegraph line runs between the mountains directly over the train tracks.
As soon as they disembark the plane, the group is hit with the snow and ice and cold air of the Alps in the midst of a blizzard. Howard says his goodbyes and then sends the plane back up into the sky, flying to the closest Allied airfield to wait for the call to come back and collect them after the mission.
To fight off the cold, Steve gets them all walking straight away, across the flat ground and then up the side of the slope. The walk up the single Austrian Alp is harsh and cold and terrifying. It's quite steep, but not unmanageable, though the ice doesn't help, their boots providing only so much tread. Quickly, all of them are sweating and panting as they attempt to scale the side of the mountain. They feel hot enough that they could take off their coats, but the cold winds and rustling snow makes them think twice.
They can't deny that the view is beautiful, a blanket of white snow coating the marshmallowed mountains that stretch far into the distance. The sky is overcast like white cotton candy in the sky, the sun dull behind their obstruction. The air looks thick, filled with tiny specks of snow that float down to the ground. The land is isolated, no signs of life anywhere other than the trainline slithering around the bottom of the mountains and valleys.
They come to a few sections where they're faced with a small cliff face, a little too high for any of them to pull themselves up and over. Dugan tries, and he manages to grab a hold of the edge of the jutted rock, but it's icy and he slips back down again, stumbling. Steve gives all of them a boost, letting the Commandos step up onto his hands and lifting them up high enough that they can practically climb onto the rock. Isabel grasps Steve's shoulder as she puts her boot into Steve's clasped hands. He lifts her easily, as though she weighs nothing, letting her grab hold of the edging and Bucky's waiting hand before giving her foot a little push, practically lifting her onto the top of the cliff. He jumps himself then, easily, landing with two feet on the surface.
As they get closer to the top of the mountain, their packs seem to weigh more on their backs, the wind gets colder, the snow falls faster, and the layer of snow on the ground gets thicker and harder to wade through. It gets steeper and slipperier, the ground becoming unforgiving. Steve walks at the back of the group so that if anyone slips or falls, he can catch them before they tumble halfway back down the slope. It wouldn't kill them, a fall like that, maybe wouldn't even injure them with how many layers they have on, but it would certainly take a lot of energy to climb back up the distance again.
Isabel's legs ache, her lungs scream, her nose and fingers feel like they might fall off, and her stomach grumbles loudly. She knows the others are feeling the same because Dugan is groaning unhappily, his voice somewhat lost in the wind as he walks ahead; Jones is swearing under his breath, and Morita is panting so much he can't speak at all.
The walk is gruesome, hard, painful, and exhausting. Worse than the usual forests. Worse than the damn desert.
"You doin' okay, Belle?" Steve asks when they're about halfway up the slope, the peak of the cliff barely in sight well above them. It feels like they've been walking and climbing and slipping for hours, and maybe they have been, Isabel's not entirely sure.
Isabel turns, her lips a pale blue and her arms wrapped around herself to keep the warmth in, her hands clenched into tight fists. "What do you think, honey?" She asks sarcastically, gesturing to herself and earning an amused chuckle from Steve. How he can laugh in a situation like this is lost on her.
She's not watching where she's walking, of course, and her boot slams into a large rock hiding beneath the snow, sending her tumbling toward the ground. Steve rushes forward and catches her just before she lands on her behind in the snow. It wouldn't have hurt, not one bit, but it wouldn't have been comfortable to get wet like that, to soak herself with the cold.
Steve keeps an arm around her shoulders for a while as they walk, letting her lean against his side and suck up some of his warmth. She can barely feel it through the layers of her clothes, her outer jacket wet from the snow, but it's a kind gesture. She turns her head, letting Steve lead the way for a while, and jams her nose in the crook of his neck against the warmth of his skin, trying to warm it enough that it won't peel off like the Red Skull's mask had.
By the time they near the top of the mountain, Isabel has moved to behind Steve, holding his hand and letting him pull her up the hill behind him. He barely notices, if he's honest, walking at a steady but manageable pace and stepping carefully around larger obstacles he probably would've just stepped over had he been walking alone. Up ahead, Dugan makes a comment about the rest of them not being dragged, but the glare from Bucky hushes him. Bucky's been increasingly grouchy and fidgety ever since Peggy walked off with Falsworth toward Stuttgart.
Being dragged by Steve takes the pressure off Isabel and allows her to make it to the top. She didn't do boot camp, hasn't done sport since she was in school, and she wasn't trained for these conditions as the men were. She thinks, at times, she can be given a bit of help.
They make it to a flattened edge of the mountain, the peak only a few feet above their heads. The platform is large enough for them to all make temporary camp above a scene where it seems that the entire world is visible in front of them. Below them, the train tracks run along the ground along the edge of a cavernous ravine, a swirling river at the bottom. The tracks emerge from behind them and then continue onward through the mountains. The valley is covered in a blanket of white, the forest trees sticking up in clumps above the snow.
"Worth it," Dugan pants with an awed smile, standing at the edge of the cliff with his hands on his hips, looking at the view.
"Not what you said on the way up," Bucky murmurs.
"Perhaps if you moved your ass, we'd be able to enjoy the view as well?" Jones jokes, earning a smack from Dugan as he takes a seat away from the edge.
Isabel collapses onto a large rock, cold underneath her but hardly caring, and sits facing the view. Her face is covered in sweat despite the cold, her heart beating wildly, her lungs panting for breath. The other Commandos look exhausted as well as they sit or lie on the ground, except for Steve and Bucky, who haven't even broken a sweat.
Bucky and Steve stand at the edge of the cliff, getting battered by the wind and snow as they frown down at the telegraph line that they'll zipline down, suspended hundreds of metres in the air and before running right over the top of the straight section of the tracks.
"Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?" Bucky asks into the howl of the wind, a small smile playing at his lips.
"Yeah, and I threw up?" Steve replies, a little confused by Bucky's decision to bring up that particular memory at this time.
"This isn't payback, is it?"
Steve huffs out a laugh. He smirks up at the zipline. "Now why would I do that?"
Bucky laughs and shakes his head as Isabel pitches in from her spot on the rock, frowning at the memory of Steve throwing up his lunch into the trash can. "I remember that very vividly."
"As do I," Steve notes, turning back to smirk at her.
A few minutes pass as Morita, Jones and Dugan set up the radio and get out the equipment from their packs. Dugan also gets out his rations and wolfs some food down, offering some to Isabel, who doesn't even notice she's being talked to, her mind off with wild thoughts. Dugan taps her shoulder, his face pulled into a tight frown.
"What's up, Baby Barnes?" He asks, his tone concerned.
Isabel sighs and rubs her forehead. "You said before you had a bad feeling?"
"You got it too, huh?"
Isabel nods, her eyebrows drawn in a deep frown. Her eyes flick up to Steve, who's still standing beside Bucky with their backs to the others. She sighs again and then stands from her spot, leaving Dugan to get out the rest of the handles that the Commandos will use to zipline down the wire. She comes to stand beside Steve and grabs his arm, threading her fingers into the crook of his elbow.
"Stevie?" She asks, her voice barely above a whisper. If Steve didn't have super hearing, he probably would've missed it. He would've missed it with the ears he used to have.
"Yeah?"
"Dugan was right. I've got a bad feeling about this," she says, suddenly looking very panic-stricken, her eyes wide and her eyebrows still furrowed. Steve's beginning to wonder if that frown has become permanent.
Steve shares a look with Bucky before pulling Isabel against his side, rubbing her back comfortingly. "It'll be okay," he says.
"Don't say that," Isabel argues. "Only a few months ago you couldn't even promise that you'd come home. Don't make promises like that."
Steve sighs, turning to face Isabel and holding her by both shoulders, forcing her eye contact with his. "I'm sorry, you're right," he agrees. "To tell you the truth, I get a bad feeling about nearly every mission. But they always work out alright, don't they?"
"I barely ever have a bad feeling, Steve. I may get scared or angry, but I never get this sort of feeling. That one right down in your gut when you just know something bad is going to happen." She grips his arm again and squeezes a little tighter, shaking his arm to get him to listen. Her voice is pleading and verging on hysterical, and it catches Steve off guard. He doesn't think she's pleaded with him since when he wanted to join the Army way back in Brooklyn when she'd just lost her patient to the landmine. "Don't do this, Stevie. I've had a bad feeling about it all night. Please. There must be another way to get Zola. Hell, there must even be another way to get on the train. Meet them at the station Zola's supposed to get off on?"
Steve's eyes widen a bit at her tone and expression. He looks away a moment, thinking. For Isabel to say something, for her to not be supporting him with this or simply standing aside to let him do it, she must truly believe something terrible is awaiting them. It makes him falter in his plan, reevaluate whether they should proceed. He knew there'd been a reason why he'd been hesitant in the first place when Peggy had come to him with the intel–
Suddenly, Falsworth's voice comes over the radio behind them to inform them all that the train is winding through the Alps at an alarming rate, and the train only seems to be going faster. From what he and Peggy can estimate from inside the train, they're nearing the mountain that the Commandos sit atop. Dugan gets out a pair of binoculars and looks into the distance behind them, spotting the train snaking along the track toward them, only a blur due to the howling snow.
Steve turns back to Isabel, presses a kiss to her blue lips and then another to her forehead, just like that night on the rooftop. "I'm sorry, Belle. The plan is already in motion. We've got to do it this way."
Isabel looks, frankly, heartbroken that Steve is not heeding her warning. She steps away from him slightly, her bottom lip quivering as she debates whether to continue arguing and her brows furrowing even further. But Steve's already moving off toward Gabe, trying to listen to the transmission from Hydra that Gabe is translating, one being sent to the train Doctor Zola is on.
"I believe the Hydra dispatcher has given permission to open up the throttle. Wherever Zola's going, they must need him bad," Jones tells them, interpreting the radio transmission of the train from his own radio he's set up against a rock.
"Let's get going, we're moving like the devil," Falsworth supplies over the radio, his voice laced with anxiety. Steve nods, turning away and pulling his helmet on as he goes, clipping it under his chin.
Bucky, meanwhile, looks unsure, scared even. He locks eyes with Isabel, who still looks frightened. Isabel hands him his handle that he'll use to zipline, which Bucky takes and turns over in his hands, looking unsure, his mouth pursed into a thin line. It feels all too familiar, like they're just two kids standing back on the docks in Brooklyn again as Bucky left for Europe on the boat, trying to act confident and cocky in his dashing new uniform whilst he was really crying on the inside from fear and terror, knowing he may never come home again.
"Buck, if you aren't sure, don't go," Isabel says quietly, watching her brother with a critical, wild eye. "You don't gotta go. Steve will understand."
Bucky looks up then, his face steely but his eyes terrified. He sighs quietly, internally, only noticeable by the movement of his shoulders. He's got to do this. He's got to be the one who brings in Zola, along with Steve, as revenge for everything the doctor's done, and not just to him but to his sister as well. He's got unfinished business with the man, and he isn't going to stop before he completes the mission, no matter how unsettled he feels.
"Come here, doll," Bucky says, pulling Isabel in for a tight hug. She hugs back immediately, squeezing him as though she isn't going to let go. "I'll see you soon, okay," he promises, pressing a kiss to her forehead. He pulls away but Isabel still looks frightened, even as though she may cry, her eyes stinging with tears. "Come on, smile for me, doll. You got too many smiles left in you to be so sad."
Isabel manages out a laugh and a wet smile for Bucky, smirking up at him. Bucky smiles back, satisfied, before moving off into position behind Steve at the edge of the cliff.
"We've only got a ten-second window. We miss that window, we're bugs on a windshield," Steve says, grabbing his own handles and flinging them over the telegraph wire, tugging on it to ensure it will take his weight.
"Better get moving, bugs!" Dugan tells them.
Dernier stands right by the line, looking down at the approaching train. "Maintenant! (Now!)" He yells.
Steve steps off the side of the mountain, grasping the handles tighter as he flicks through the air, gaining speed as he moves further down the line over the open expanse, the ground metres below him. Bucky steps off next, flying through the air after Steve, followed by Gabe, just as the train appears beneath them, crawling along like a lazy snake. Once all three of them are safely hovering over the top of the train's roof and lined up for a safe landing, they let go, landing low to the roof of the train in a crouch.
Isabel watches them go from the top of the mountain, that feeling in her gut growing stronger with every second that passes, a weight on her shoulders as though every snowflake that settles in her hair weighs two hundred pounds.
The wind is powerful, like a slap in the face that threatens to push them off the train.
As the train winds around the track, the side of another mountain blocks their view of the cliff they'd ziplined off. Bucky looks back for a second, hoping for one last glimpse of his team, but they're already gone, replaced by a mass of rock and snow.
Steve leads, running low to the ground and keeping himself small to limit the wind resistance. They hurry along the roof of the train against the immense wind, falling to the roof every now and then when they feel themselves sliding off to drag themselves back on and get their footing. Bucky feels the burn in his legs as he forces himself forward.
They near the front of the carriage they'd landed on top of and there's a ladder leading down the side of the train to a door. Steve hurries to it, grasping the metal in his gloved hands and climbing down onto the side of the train. Bucky follows after him, gripping the metal until his knuckles are white so that he doesn't slip off. They leave Jones sitting in a large groove in the roof that secures him and ensures he won't fall, the man's gun loaded in case they're attacked.
Steve hits a button on the wall and the door slides open to deposit them inside the cabin. Steve jumps inside, Bucky flinging in behind him just as the door slams shut again, plunging them into silence from the howling wind. They can only hear the train clunking below them along the tracks.
The carriage is made entirely of metal, the middle of the carriage filled with shelves that are full of cartridges of Tesseract energy, ready to be loaded into the barrel of a canon or a very large machine gun. Steve and Bucky walk down either side of the shelving to the end of the carriage, rifles raised in preparation, approaching the open door leading to the next section with care. Steve pauses, looking back into the carriage they started in to make sure they're going the right way before continuing through the doorway, pistol in his right hand and shield secured in his left.
As Steve makes it through the join between the carriages, emerging from the darkness into the next cell, the door between them slides shut. Bucky shouts out, grabbing the edge of the door but unable to stop it before it shuts. Steve turns and hurries back, slamming his hands on the door that separates them. It may as well be a whole ocean by how far apart it posits them.
Bucky hears a noise behind him and turns, spotting the black suit of the Hydra agent emerge from the other end of the carriage. He begins to shoot immediately, ducking down behind one of the crates to the side as cover.
Steve hears a noise as well as turns, eyes widening as a man in an exo-suit walks toward him, its feet thumping on the metal floor. He hears the tell-tale whir of its guns as it charges up the energy, prepared to shoot at him. Steve shoots, but only gets one bullet out before the suit sends a blast of blue energy at him. Steve ducks behind the shield and rolls to the side, the energy whizzing past him and hitting the door behind him.
Bucky's eyes widen as more Hydra soldiers approach from the other end of the cabin on the opposite side of the shelving. He dives across to the crates on the other side, shooting at the men and taking out three of the four, their bodies hitting the metal with a thunk. He ducks down to reload, a fray of bullets hitting the wall of the train just above his head, sparks flying toward him. He reloads, clicks the mechanisms into place, and then jumps back up to shoot again at the last remaining agent, who dodges the bullet easily.
Meanwhile, Steve fires repeatedly at the exo-suit from the safety behind the metal casings as it sends blasts of blue toward him, forming a charred hole in the wall behind him. Steve waits until the suit runs out of energy, hears the sound of it recharging, before he charges at the suit. He grabs hold of a pulley on the ceiling, flying down the carriage with his shield in front of him. He slams into the suit with his feet, sending it onto its back just in time for Steve to bring the edge of the shield down on its face, smashing the glass. The man inside's eyes are closed, his mouth slightly ajar. Steve grabs the arm of the suit and aims it at the door, shooting a massive blast at the door and leaving it open for him to get to Bucky.
Bucky puts down his rifle, out of ammo, and pulls a pistol from his pocket. He shoots as he crosses back over to the other stack of boxes, attempting to hit the man who still evades his shots. He slams into the wall and slides down again as the shots return above his head. Bucky shoots and shoots, ducking behind the crates just in time for the bullets to scrape past his head, when suddenly his pistol clicks out of ammo. He hurries to hide, leaning heavily against the crates. He pats his pockets, but he's out of ammo for this weapon too. Out of ammo for everything. He's terrified, leaning into the wall as if he wished he could disappear into it, resigned to the fact that this is how he'll die. He's run out of ammo, has no way to fight back. The Hydra soldier will work it out and advance on him, taking him out with one shot. Isabel had had a bad feeling and she'd been right.
Suddenly, the second door separating Bucky from Steve slides open, and Bucky's wide eyes snap to it. Steve's standing there against the wall. He motions with his hand to Bucky, a loaded pistol in his grasp, and then he throws it to Bucky who catches it easily. Steve powers into the cabin with a yell and slams into the casings lined up along the shelves. It creates a domino effect that sends the very end casing flying off the shelve, straight toward the Hydra guard that hides behind it. He jumps to the side to avoid it, right into the path of Bucky, who takes him down with a single, powerful shot.
Bucky takes a deep breath of relief, standing up a little straighter. "I had him on the ropes," he says.
"I know you did," Steve replies easily, mimicking their old conversation with reversed roles.
Suddenly, from behind them, Steve hears that noise again of the blasters powering up. He turns with apprehension, and the exo-suit is standing in the doorway again, guns aimed right at them.
"Get down!" Steve yells, pushing Bucky behind him and the shield.
The trooper takes aim at Steve and it's one of the most powerful blasts Steve's ever encountered. It knocks into him hard, rebounding off the shield with enough force to loosen the shield from Steve's grasp and send the super soldier flying into the wall of the train, knocking the air from his lungs. All of a sudden, he's that skinny kid from Brooklyn again having an asthma attack and unable to breathe.
The rebounded energy from the shield bursts a hole in the wall of the train with a massive explosion, sending smoke billowing out into the snowy air. The metal wall is bent and crooked, leaving a large gap from the roof to the floor.
The shield clatters to the floor in front of Bucky. As the suit powers up again, Bucky dives expertly to the floor and picks it up. A blast flies over his head and hits the already frail wall, ripping off a large chunk and sending it flying down into the cavern below. Immediately, a massive blast of freezing air fills the cabin, whipping them all wildly, the wind howling loud enough to pierce their eardrums. Outside, the jagged ravine whips past in the glary light, white with snow.
In the engineer's booth, Doctor Zola watches on a monitor as the trooper swoops in on Sergeant Barnes. Quickly, he leans into the microphone. "No! Finish the other one. Spare the sergeant!"
The trooper complies, turning back to Steve as the Captain gets to his feet, clutching his stomach from where the shield had hit him hard enough that he knows it will bruise. The trooper aims a blast at the star on Steve's chest, but the line of fire is blocked once again by the shield, Bucky having picked up the shield from the floor and leapt in front of his friend.
"Bucky, no!" Steve yells, but it's too late.
There's a loud bang and the canon fires, rendering it spent of its energy. The blast hits Bucky square in the middle of the shield. It blows Bucky backward, the shield dropping from his grasp, and sends him straight through the hole in the wall. Bucky's body whips violently in the wind, but a last-minute grasp sees him get a hold on a flimsy pipe hanging from the jagged metal edging.
Steve watches, horrified, as Bucky disappears from view. In another burst of animalistic rage, Steve grabs the shield and throws it at the exo-suit hard enough that it lodges in the metal of its body, through to the man inside, and throws it backwards into the other cabin.
Steve undoes his helmet and throws it off in one swift movement, eyes darting around for his friend. "Bucky!" Steve screams, hurrying to the edge of the train where Bucky hangs out into the white world outside. "Bucky! Hang on!"
Bucky flaps uncontrollably in the wind, his chest aching and bleeding and his ears ringing, his head and heart pounding. He can't even scream he's so terrified, any sound clogged thickly in his throat. The pipe he clings to for dear life jolts downward, slipping from its spot on the wall, and Bucky clamps his eyes shut, thinking he's done for.
Suddenly there's a hand grabbing his own, tight on his wrist.
Bucky snaps his eyes open, locking eyes with Steve's petrified baby blue's. Steve's leaning halfway out of the train, clinging to another flimsy edge of the wall, and he's lunged for Bucky's slipping hand at the last second, just grabbing hold and refusing to let go.
"Just hang on! I've got you!" Steve promises.
Bucky feels a rush of relief, allowing Steve to bodily pull him back up into the train. Steve's slowly pulling him up, aware of Bucky's possible injuries and the unstableness of their handles, not wanting both of them to fall.
Suddenly, there's another loud bam from inside. The trooper has gotten up, resilient.
"No!" Steve yells, caught unguarded, half hanging out of the train with both arms pulling Bucky up. A shot now will send them both off the edge–
The trooper fires again. The blast is a poor shot and misses Steve, the supposed target, but just manages to hit Bucky's arm, vaporising it into a blue mist.
His hand in Steve's disappears into thin air as if it had never existed.
Steve screams, reaching out in anguish to grab Bucky's other arm, head, anything as Bucky falls away from him into the bright white below.
Steve very nearly falls himself in his haste, and his fingers just brush back of Bucky's other hand that shoots out toward him but then Bucky's too far away, too far below.
Steve stares in horror as Bucky's body whips away, tumbling into the bottomless gorge below until he's so small, Steve can't make him out anymore.
His falling is paired with a sickening, frightened scream that resounds through the ravine and echoes through Steve's mind, permanently engraved there for the rest of eternity.
"Bucky!"
The only response is the wind and the clatter of the train wheels against the tracks.
Time seems to slow right down as Steve watches his friend disappear over and over, replaying like a broken record across his eyes.
He thinks about jumping after Bucky, he really does. But by the time the thought crosses his mind, Bucky is already just a screaming dot in the distance of his vision, and then he's disappearing, blending in with the grey of the mountain and jagged rocks. And then he thinks of Isabel, losing both of them to the same fate instead of just one. Him being there won't make it any better, won't help the fact he didn't catch Bucky, but losing both of them would be the end of everything. His hand holding onto the railing very nearly lets go for him, following his brain's orders to follow Bucky. But it doesn't listen to his head, and its grip stays tight around the rail. It listens to his heart, his gut, and it makes him stay there on that damn train, alone...
Steve's thoughts are interrupted by the thud of a footstep behind him. The trooper takes another step. Steve turns toward it, the shield still lodged into the front of it. He's enraged, blinded by a rage he's never felt before.
Steve thunders toward the exo-suit, ripping the shield from its casing before the guns have entirely powered up. Every emotion Steve is feeling, and there are a lot of them, are channelled toward that poor son of a bitch in that exo-suit.
The trooper fires and this time, Steve holds on to his ground, somehow managing to knock the blast away with the shield despite the close range. He advances and the trooper fires again with orders from Zola. Steve deflects it and keeps coming as the bot steps away from him rapidly, retracting it's advance, the man inside with a look of terror on his face. Steve rushes the trooper's exo-suit like an enraged bull. He throws his shield at the trooper before pouncing on it, smashing the glass and strangling the life out of the man before he can retaliate. Steve squeezes harder than he intends to, feeling the give of the windpipe and the voice box before he lets go, the suit's arms clanging loudly to the floor as the man inside passes on.
No one else enters the compartment. Steve is left with nothing but the clattering of the train and the rustle of the wind. He drops the shield and slowly edges back toward the hole in the train, standing the hundreds of metres above the ravine. Bucky's long gone, some hundreds of metres back down the track by now.
Steve stares down at the river below, considers jumping down now to find his friend. He goes to take the step, to take the leap, but his other foot doesn't seem to want to cooperate, doesn't want to let go of the floor of the train. Instead, Steve sinks down at the edge, clinging to the jagged metal even though it digs into his palms through his gloves. He lets out a strangled sob that quickly turns into hyperventilating, honest-to-God wailing. He sobs and cries and screams out, his words a jumble of wailing and swears and words to God and of Bucky's name, his face soaked with tears. It makes his eyes sting and his head clog and his chest ache.
Still, it aches no more than his heart.
In the engineer's booth, the camera attached to the exo-suit freezes as the connection is lost, the last image being of Captain Rogers' grief-striken, angry, heartbroken face above the man inside, his teeth clenched in a growl as he strangles the life out of the agent.
Zola swallows, frightened. He saw that animalistic rage from the Captain only one other time when Madame Hydra had put Miss Barnes in the chair. Of course, last time had been different. There'd been a door and an exit, and he'd been able to escape that rage before it turned on himself. He hadn't seen the end of the rage, hadn't seen the Captain free the Barnes girl from her restraint, hadn't even seen them escape from the burning factory, as he, Herr Schmidt and Madame Hydra had been herded into a car and driven away long before the Commandos would have even left their cells.
Now, Captain Rogers seems to be staring right at him through the screen, that rage directed at him, those hands clasped around his own neck–
The Doctor turns for the train controls, intent on stopping the train to escape, when there's a click right by his ear and the cold metal of an A.45 presses into his temple. He turns, confronted with the murderous expression of who he's come to know as Private Gabe Jones. Behind him stands Lieutenant Falsworth, almost unrecognisable dressed in a stolen German army uniform, and Agent Peggy Carter, who's brown eyes stare in confusion at the screen and at Steve's expression.
"He doesn't make that face very often," Falsworth notes, frowning too at Steve on the camera screen.
Their eyes flick to one of the other screens beside Zola, a different image from one of the security cameras perched in the corner of the compartment. Peggy gasps. They see Steve crumpled by the edge of the train before a massive hole in the wall, the snow and ravines and mountains rushing by him. He's crying, sobbing, shouting.
Most notably, though, he's alone.
"Bucky," Peggy whispers, staring wide-eyed and horrified at Steve on the camera.
Seconds later she disappears through the door to the engine room, running through the carriages and doors toward the crying Captain. They watch her come into view on the camera, her wide eyes desperately searching for the Sergeant. Her hand comes up to clasp her mouth. Steve notices her and looks up, his heart shattering again, and then he punches the ruined wall hard enough to leave a fist-sized dent. Peggy runs to Steve and he collects her up in his arms, the both of them falling to the floor in a mass of tears and sobs. They can just see Steve's mouth moving, and it takes them a couple of seconds to realise he's repeating I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, over and over into her hair.
Gabe looks away from the screen, eyes screwed closed to keep it all in, before he glares at Zola. "You got no idea what you've just done," Gabe threatens, his own features stricken with a grief that he attempts to hide.
Zola gulps again. He thinks he may have some idea of how he'll pay for the loss of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.