71.
London, United Kingdom
April 3rd, 1945
As much as making the speech at the memorial makes Isabel feel better and gives her some sense of closure, she still can't seem to make herself leave London and go back to Brooklyn. She receives a letter from her parents responding to the news of Bucky's death, and they are understandably shocked and devastated. Winifred begs with Isabel to come home, but there's no mention of the fall of Steve. Presumably, they sent back about Bucky before they knew about Steve.
Isabel writes back straight away, promising that she will return home after finishing up some lose ends. She's still working with the Howling Commandos, making sure that all of the Hydra bases have definitely been taken down. They'd hate to leave one in operation and have the entirety of Hydra rebuild under their noses. They've been running through intel for weeks, ensuring there's been no resurgence, but so far, there's been none. Some of the Allies out on the front have come across members of Hydra and taken them down, mistaking them for German soldiers, which makes their job easier.
Isabel receives another letter a few weeks later after her parents have apparently found out about the loss of Steve, and they are once again devastated. Isabel cries as she reads both letters, but more so on this one, as her parents note that they've lost two sons within a few weeks, and they fear they may have lost their daughter, too. Isabel has no way to know if they've lost her, but she certainly doesn't feel like the person she used to be. Her parents do, however, thank Isabel for her words in the memorial, which they'd listened to on the radio in the living room to a lot of tears and a few laughs, and mainly a great sense of relief that the two boys from Brooklyn have been represented and remembered correctly by someone who loved them most in the world. Isabel smiles at that, relieved that her words not only put Peggy and the Commandos at ease, but also her family back home.
Over the days as they search, the Commandos stay at the London Strategic Scientific Reserve base as they search radio frequencies and company intel for any more signs of Hydra, trying to track down the final strings of the organisation and take them down before they can grow back into a strong branch and possibly rebuild Hydra from the ground up. It's a boring task of searching, listening, translating, sending out agents to chase leads, and coming out empty handed. However, as frustrating as it is, they know they're doing good and ensuring their job is over before they pull the plug. They haven't even begun, however, searching for Hydra bases in other countries. Even though Hydra began in Germany, they find it hard to imagine that with their firepower, they wouldn't have grown out to become somewhat global. However, they've been scouring information and have SSR agents positioned all over the United States, Asia and Australia, and they've found nothing thus far. They aren't exactly out of the woods, but for the moment they're in the clear. It will be the Strategic Scientific Reserve's task to monitor any resurgences of Hydra once the Commandos have cleared them out of Europe.
The Commandos are sitting in a small communications room with a radio and telegraph, scouring the radio frequencies in search of any coded messages from Hydra. Coded messages are almost impossible for them to decode, but they send anything suspicious to the professionals, not that they've found anything anyway. After hours of searching and listening, Morita grows impatient and leaves the room to go to the mess hall, returning after a while and sitting in the corner of the room with a muffin. He peels of the wrapping, stuffing most of it into his mouth at once. Jones frowns at him for his eating habits, and Isabel barely bats an eye because after all, she has brothers. Had. Dammit, she'll never get used to saying that.
Suddenly, Peggy Carter bursts through the door to the room they've stolen for their search, her face ever stoic. But in her hands is a dossier file with intel, and there's a hopeful gleam in her eyes.
"We've intercepted information regarding a final Hydra base," she tells them, taking a seat opposite Isabel.
"I thought the last one we took was the last?" Morita asks.
"Apparently not. I have a feeling they're going to continue popping up for a long while. But let's hope this is the last one."
"Well then, Carter, what is it?" Dugan asks, looking rather jovial.
"You remember when we were in the Hydra fortress in Austria, the last base, and there were all those empty vaults that had been left open?" Peggy asks, jogging everyone's memories.
There had been vaults deep underground at the facility that had been emptied out, the doors left open and unlocked when the Commandos came along to investigate them as they cleared out the base. It was obvious, especially to Peggy, that they'd been emptied because there had been large patches on the ground that were missing dust compared to the rest of the place, and there were footprints moving throughout the room. Whoever had cleared out the base had moved it out recently and quickly, likely just before the Commandos came, or whilst they were raiding the factory. They hadn't thought much about the contents of the vault at the time since there was no way to track it, but they knew it must have been important for Hydra to move them so suddenly.
"We've received word that those rooms contained some extremely rare and dangerous artefacts that Hydra was going to use following their victory with the Valkyrie and the Tesseract. Likely, they're weapons," Peggy continues. "Once the Red Skull was killed and we were moving in through the base, one of Hydra's operatives, Werner Reinhardt, was charged with moving the artefacts to a more secure location to preserve them and retain them within Hydra's possession. They moved them out fast, within minutes, and took everything from the facility before we got down into the basement levels. We must have just missed them."
"Sneaky bastards," Dugan hisses.
"What are these artefacts?" Isabel asks quietly. "Are they like the Tesseract?"
"They decoded the names of them, and Stark tracked them all down. True to Hydra style, some of them are from mythologies like the Tesseract is, but they serve different purposes. There was only one we couldn't find; it's called the Obelisk and it isn't in any mythology. The only thing we know about it is what Zola told us in one of his questionings, and that is that it holds the answer to death itself."
"How can an artefact do that?" Morita asks.
"How can the Tesseract teleport? We don't know," Peggy counters. "What we do know is that Hydra has been experimenting with it on captured Allied soldiers and villagers near one of their facilities that's popped up in Austria. That's where our intel came from, a group of British soldiers were passing and found the villages disturbed, many killed. We need to get to the facility, fast, to ensure that Reinhardt doesn't move the artefacts again. We know where they are now."
"Well, we'll follow you, Carter," Dugan says with a smirk. "Lead the way."
?, Austria
April 4th, 1945
Being back in the forests of Europe is somewhat familiar to the Commandos, since they've spent the last year and a half or longer of their lives split between the base and the forests. The rustle of the leaves in the trees above, the crunch of their boots on the dirt and gravel and twigs, the jingle of packs and dog tags, the clinking of rifles and canteens - it's all familiar.
It feels almost good to be back where it's all familiar, where they can just lose themselves in the nature. But it's also a little unsettling because they're walking much more exposed than they ever used to. Without Steve there, they're missing their literal human shield. Steve acted as a large deterrence to anyone who may have ambushed them. He had super-soldier hearing and eyesight, so he heard and saw movement long before any of the others did. He was the difference between life and death many times, and without him, it feels a little unsettling. They're also missing their best sniper, and possibly the best sniper in the entire United States Army, who could hit any target first shot. Their own relative inaccuracy is a little off-putting.
Isabel walks along beside Dugan and behind Peggy, who leads them all through the dense greenery. Peggy walks confidently, a rifle in her hands, whilst the rest of them look alert and unsettled, wide eyes scouring the trees. Every movement, every twig snapping, has them all flinching and spinning toward the noise, only to find nothing or some poor, innocent animal making its way through the forest. They breathe a sigh of relief and spin back around, continuing to trudge quickly through the woods.
It's warming up as this part of the world moves toward summer, and spring is heavy in the air. The wind is fresh, the air clean, the smell of pollen and flowers heavy. The sun is warm above the trees, warming the canopy below. The forest is not only green, but also a bursting of colours, lots of pinks and yellows and purples as flowers bloom and plants grow. It's nice to see the colour when they're so used to green and grey and red. So much red.
Ahead of them, the woods quickly disperse and reveal a high concrete wall that runs right around the perimeter of a facility inside, like a fence. There's a large wooden gate at the front of the fencing acting as the main entrance. It's closed, blocking their view of the inside. Above the gate, bent into the wrought iron, is the Hydra symbol, the octopus watching out into the woods like a watchdog.
As the Commandos approach the edge of the forest and duck down behind the trees to scope out the situation, they're immediately aware of how instantly the beauty of the nature ends, replaced with the harsh monstrosity of the small facility and of the Hydra cars parked all around along the dirt road. It's also relatively loud, both from the chatter of voices inside the grounds, but also from planes that constantly fly overhead, Allied and Axis. The war is coming to an end, the final actions being employed by both sides to see the end of the fighting and the battle. The planes are flying all over delivering information and materials to ensure the war can be won.
Peggy, Falsworth, Dugan and Morita move toward the front of the others, leaving Isabel, Jones and Dernier a few trees back. Jones sets up a radio in order to contact base once they've taken the facility. Isabel whispers in hurried French with Dernier, filling him in for what the others are planning to do.
Falsworth smokes a cigarette as Peggy and Dugan scope out their surroundings. They watch from their crouched positions as a few guards come and go, entering and exiting the facility, driving in and out in their cars. The facility doesn't seem to be very heavily guarded. Most likely, there's a few devoted Hydra soldiers left running it, including Werner Reinhardt, not wanting the ideals of Hydra to die. Isabel wonders whether Madame Hydra may make an appearance as well, the last of Hydra's leaders to escape their clutches.
Peggy checks that the coast is clear of any patrols before her and Dugan race up to the edge of the fencing, pressing themselves up against the concrete wall, hidden behind one of the parked cars. Peggy tells Dugan to keep watch and to shoot if they're approached as she climbs up onto the vacant car, onto its roof, and peers over the concrete wall on her tip toes, just tall enough that she can see over the edging to the inside of the camp.
In the middle of the courtyard stands who Peggy assumes is Werner Reinhardt, wearing the German uniform with a hat perched atop his head and round glasses on his nose. He's speaking to another officer, a younger man who looks slightly unsure. They're speaking quietly, their voices undecipherable apart from a low mumble.
Peggy ducks down again when a man with a mask and thick black suit walks out of the building. She peeks back up carefully in time to see that the masked man brings with him on a tray an oddly-shaped metal object, looking somewhat like a modern statue. The Obelisk, Peggy realises with a silent intake of breath. She doesn't know what she was expecting, but nothing so... modern. The Obelisk looks more like a sculpture from the art museum. Zola had said it was a new invention, but she hadn't been expecting that.
"I thought the stockpile held only artefacts?" The younger man asks, watching as Reinhardt takes the tray carefully admiring the Obelisk. Apparently, he's thinking along the same lines.
"Not everything we dug out of the vaults was an antique, my friend. Some of it was quite advanced," Reinhardt says, and Peggy strains her ears to hear his deeper voice.
"Is this the reason these men…?" The younger asks, turning to stare at a limp body behind him that sits up against the wheel of one of the trucks. Peggy looks too to see what the man is referring to, her eyes widening when she sees the body, which she hadn't noticed before, and that the dead man's skin has been tinted a dark blue, as though he'd been drained of life.
"Hmm? Ja (yes)," Reinhardt says distractedly, still staring at the Obelisk. "The Red Skull said it may hold the answer to death itself."
Peggy jumps down from the truck, motioning for the Commandos to attack. It's time to put a stop to this nonsense. Immediately, everyone jumps into action. Morita and Dernier sprint up to the front gates of the factory and plant one of Dernier's explosives to the wooden doors before diving away behind one of the nearby cars. The blast ignites after a few dragging seconds, smashing through the thick doors and sending a blast of smoke into the facility.
Before the smoke has cleared, the rest of the Commandos have moved from their hiding places and stand beside Peggy, rifles raised. Peggy leads them all into the factory, and they appear through the thick white smoke, holding in their coughs to ensure they look intimidating. The smoke clears as they enter the gates and into the facility's courtyard. Peggy walks extremely confidently at the front of the group, looking immaculate in her brown leather jacket, her eyebrow raised as she looks around at the inside of the facility as though she hasn't just been watching for ten minutes.
All of the Hydra men stare in surprise and defeat as the Commandos walk inside. Only one Hydra soldier jumps into the action, the man wearing the mask and thick suit, and attempts to rush them. Dugan slams his rifle into the side of the soldier's head, and he slams into the truck beside him, landing to the ground with a thud.
"I'll give them an A for effort," Dugan allows, moving forward into the courtyard.
"That's generous," Isabel retorts so that only Dugan can hear, making the man snort out a laugh.
"Alright boys, nice and calm. No sudden moves, or we'll tie a blasting cap to your–" Morita pauses, thinking. "Hey, Jones, what's the German word for "nuts"?"
"I don't know, Jim," Jones responds.
"Tie a blasting cap to them, I'll bet we'll hear it," Dugan tells them with a smirk.
Isabel holds in her snort of laughter, whilst Peggy's face remains stoic, having a stare-off with Reinhardt. Peggy motions with her chin to the Obelisk on the tray in his hands.
"Put it down," Peggy tells Reinhardt firmly. The man just stares at Peggy from behind his rounded glasses, sizing her up. Isabel glares hard at the man, giving him her most disapproving face. His eyes flick to her before back to Peggy, but he still doesn't move. Peggy raises her rifle, pointing it at his head. "Down!" She says more forcefully.
Reinhardt slowly kneels to the ground and places the Obelisk on its tray in the dirt, his face pulled into a tight glare.
"Clever man," Falsworth's British voice speaks up from behind Isabel, sarcastic as ever.
"These assets are now under the protection of the Strategic Scientific Reserve," Peggy informs the men, her tone tight and leaving no room for argument. "They'll be relocated and hidden out of sight, indefinitely. As will you." There's a small smile on Peggy's face as she informs Reinhardt of his fate.
"Cut off one head, two more shall grow in its place," Reinhardt says mechanically. He's not even got any sign in his expression that he's been uncovered or that he'll spend the rest of his life imprisoned. Any normal man would be frightened, humiliated, panicked, but not Reinhardt.
"Then I guess we'll just keep cutting them off," Peggy snarks back, smiling slightly.
Dugan steps behind him, slamming a pair of handcuffs onto his wrists and binding them behind his back. Falsworth and Jones also step forward and arrest two of the other Hydra soldiers, including the younger man who'd been speaking to Reinhardt earlier about the Obelisk, who looks absolutely terrified.
Dugan walks Reinhardt forward and pushes him into the waiting arms of Dernier. "Get them out of here," Dugan tells him, as well as Falsworth and Jones who've handcuffed the two other. The three men don't hesitate to take their captives away, locking them in the back of one of the Hydra trucks they'll steal to get away. Dugan turns back to the rest of the Commandos who wait for orders. "All right, boys and ladies, let's pack it up."
From then on, the Howling Commandos work tirelessly to recover all of the assets and artefacts Hydra is hiding in the facility. They take photographs of every item from multiple angles, seal them in bulletproof cases, and paint item numbers on the outsides with a stencil and white paint so that they can be properly identified.
Peggy hands Isabel a clip board and tells her to be a scribe as she walks around the base, finding the objects. She describes them to Isabel, and if she recognises it's use, she tells her. Isabel dutifully writes away, ensuring her handwriting is legible, and follows Peggy around. It isn't the first time they've cleared out a Hydra base of their possessions, only normally they clear out weaponry or prisoners rather than important and dangerous artefacts. It's much the same process, however, only with a lot less injuries.
"What's going to happen with Reinhardt?" Isabel asks.
"He'll be questioned, see if we can get anything else out of him about Hydra. He'll probably want to strike a deal, get recruited by the US Government to work with them. So long as I live, that won't happen. The man's almost as crazy as Schmidt."
"And then?"
"As I said, he'll be suspended indefinitely. Solitary confinement, if I can force it."
Once everything has been identified and marked, the Commandos begin to move it from inside facility to the trucks outside to be taken back to the SSR Headquarters. It's a hard, back-breaking task as some of the containers are extremely heavy, but working together, they eventually manage to clear out most of the base. It would have been much easier with their two super soldiers, however.
Finally, the last objects left are the Obelisk and a larger crate that they'll need more hands to move. Inside the crate is the blue-skinned deceased man, his body affected by the Obelisk. No one's seen the body except Peggy, who carefully moved it inside the crate before anyone else could see it and closed the lid to hide it.
Dugan and Morita come back inside the facility to pack up the last two objects whilst the rest of the men stand guard by the gates and keep an eye on their prisoners. Morita brings the tools to safely pack away the Obelisk, and Isabel moves to help him. Meanwhile, Dugan waits beside the crate, which Peggy, Morita and Isabel will help him carry.
"Agent Carter, what the hell is all this stuff?" Dugan asks, lifting its lid curiously to reveal the blue skin of the arm of the man but nothing more, because as Peggy passes him, she slams the lid back down, very nearly closing it on Dugan's fingers.
"Dangerous," Peggy says easily. She continues walking past. "Right now, we need to make sure everything is contained and get it out of enemy territory. Mister Stark wants to go through it tonight. He's docking right about now for a refuel."
"These are the last two things. Everything else is in the truck," Dugan informs her, looking slightly put out he couldn't see inside the crate.
Peggy comes to a stop standing over Morita, who's very carefully attempting to manoeuvre the Obelisk into its own case without touching it. Isabel's watching next to him, looking at the Obelisk in curiosity. "And that, we must never touch," Peggy says.
Morita looks up with a worried expression, clutching the Obelisk with a pair of large tweezers.
Peggy sighs and looks around at the facility around them, at the Hydra insignia in the metal above the gate by the entrance. "This is the last Hydra site we know of. Every other lead has been futile. There's nothing else in Europe. I think we've finally beat them," she says, her voice resigned and partly solemn.
"You don't sound thrilled," Dugan notes, watching as Morita grabs the Obelisk securely with the large tweezers and transfers it from its tray to the containment box, settled carefully among a lot of shredded newspaper and a foam container to keep it steady.
"Well, there could be other bases elsewhere around the globe. We just have to have faith that the Strategic Scientific Reserve will track them down. As for these artefacts, well, these things can't simply be boxed up. Someone needs to establish a permanent unit during peace time."
"To keep the dangerous technology contained?" Morita asks, sealing the Obelisk's container with a small explosive that runs around the seam and melts it shut so it can only be pried open with tools.
"What kind of permanent unit?" Isabel asks curiously.
"An organisation to monitor these people and the artefacts, and to watch over people like Stark who are toying with them. To look over the… supernatural, shall we say? The world is turning into a more scary and different place than we ever thought it was, and we need people to control that," Peggy explains easily.
"I thought the SSR kind of did that?" Isabel asks quietly.
"Not exactly. The main goal of the Strategic Scientific Reserve was to fight Hydra however we could. Namely, to create an army of super-soldiers that could defeat anything the Axis powers had on the battlefield. We only got one man, but he was an army in itself. With that goal met, the SSR can either dissolve or evolve. If we're going to be fighting other threats and monitoring these artefacts, we're going to have to evolve."
Isabel nods at that, seemingly satisfied. Peggy walks over and picks up the discarded camera, fiddling with the settings.
"Until then, all we can do is box it up, lock it up, and dedicate our lives to making sure it never sees the light of day," Peggy says, taking a photo of the contained Obelisk within its box, the number painted on the top.
London, United Kingdom
April 7th, 1945
Peggy walks into the solitary room within the Strategic Scientific Reserve detainment facility. She closes the door behind her, leaving her and Werner Reinhardt alone in the echoing, concrete room. Reinhardt looks up expectantly. He looks slightly dishevelled, still wearing his Hydra uniform, having only been captured by the Commandos less than twenty-four hours ago. On the table in front of him lies only a pen. Just a pen.
"Werner Reinhardt," Peggy says easily, greeting the man.
Reinhardt looks down at the table and then back up to her with a smile. "That was a neat trick."
Peggy frowns as she takes a seat opposite him. "I'm sorry, I don't follow, doctor."
"The pen," Reinhardt reiterates. "You wanted to see what I would do with it. After all, there are so many uses, no?" Peggy looks down at the pen she'd purposely left on the table in front of Reinhardt within his reach. "Escape, confession, homicide… suicide," Reinhardt continues easily, as though rattling off his weekly grocery list.
"It's true. I wanted to find out what kind of man you were," Peggy allows. "You didn't use the pen, so now I know."
"Pens are also used for signatures."
"You want a deal. How terribly shocking," Peggy deadpans. She'd only just said to Isabel how Reinhardt would attempt to strike a deal for his freedom.
"The US government has recruited many German scientists…" Reinhardt continues, unfazed.
"They'll send rockets into space. Maybe they can strap you to one of them," Peggy says with a devilish smile.
"They'll show you parlour tricks. Giving me a second chance could save all of humanity," Reinhardt argues.
"I've seen all of your home movies," Peggy says sourly, referring to the film reels they'd found inside the final Hydra base that showed Reinhardt's experiments on innocent people using the artefacts he'd collected. "The bodies you left in your wake, the girl you caged up. There'll be no second chances for you."
Reinhardt gives Peggy a sly smile, and her stomach turns. She shows no sign of his outwardly.
"You and the other Commandos must be dying to understand all the items you recovered. They're fascinating, no?"
"I don't suppose you'll tell me where they came from?"
Reinhardt sits forward slightly in his chair, resting his elbows on the table. "There's a story," he says. "A myth from the East of a star that fell from the heavens…of blue angels who came bearing a gift for all mankind, meant to save the world."
Peggy raises an eyebrow. While before the war she would have been sceptical, she can't dismiss his tale at all. Most of the things the Red Skull had raved about had turned out to be true, with the Tesseract and Norse Mythology. "You don't strike me as a believer," Peggy finally says.
"Oh, I've based my whole life on it. History just has the details wrong."
"Then set history straight," Peggy pushes. There's a story behind the Obelisk and Peggy needs it to be revealed if they have any chance of working out what the artefact is and what it can do, and maybe even most important, where it came from.
"These visitors, they didn't come to save the world. They came to conquer it."
"You'll need to be more specific, Doctor Reinhardt, or I'm afraid there'll never be a deal," Peggy warns.
"And I'm afraid I cannot explain to the close minded. You'll never appreciate it for what it truly is. In light of that, I'd rather keep it to myself," Reinhardt says stubbornly.
"I know plenty of people who'd believe you. People who've seen the things that Johann Schmidt spoke about with their own eyes. People who'd believe every word you speak. Are you sure you won't speak to them?" Peggy pushes, not outwardly showing any of her hope.
"I won't, because there won't be anyone. As long as they are on your side, they are in no mental state to listen to me and understand the things I speak of. I am not interested." Reinhardt looks away then, not planning to offer anymore.
Peggy holds in her sigh.
Peggy steps back into the room after a long meeting with Colonel Phillips. She's frustrated that she couldn't get anything else out of the doctor, not anything about Hydra or the artefacts. They're no closer to understanding them than they had been before.
"So, curiosity brings her back. Have you come to make a deal?" Reinhardt asks calmly, watching Agent Carter walk further into the room.
"With the devil?" Peggy asks slyly, before shrugging. "I've considered it. As you've said, the skies might open up one day." Peggy steps closer to Reinhardt, nearly bumping into the table. "Your work will be valuable. But if that day comes, I know who I'd want by my side."
Reinhardt smiles smugly and nods his head, looking up at Agent Carter's face, which she's morphed into one of utter trust, looking at the man. She leans over the table toward him.
"That person isn't you."
Reinhardt's smile falters, replaced momentarily by a frown and a click of his jaw, but he rebounds quickly. "We could learn so much together."
"Instead, we'll forget – forget you, forget your work. When I leave, no one else will come. No one will hear your stories, study your deadly artefacts. You'll be buried," Peggy practically snarls, looking extremely smug with her decision.
Reinhardt will be locked up indefinitely in solitary confinement as punishment for his work with Hydra, for his experimentation on human subjects. There'll be no trial, no deal, no working for the United States government. He'll be left to rot in jail for the rest of his living life, so long as Peggy has a say in it.
The smile completely wipes from his face as he stares at Peggy with almost horror. He tries to once again rebound but this smile seems extremely forced. "I seriously doubt that," Reinhardt tries, but his voice lacks confidence. "Nothing stays buried forever."
"For as long as I have a say, you will. Farewell, Doctor Reinhardt."