Chapter 9 - November 2, 1943 - Italy
The sky over the camp was a steely gray, low clouds brooding over the makeshift stage. Since Stevie had come to Italy it had rained almost every day, and she had gotten used to sleeping on cots, travelling in jeeps, and always being slightly damp. Stevie looked out at the sea of soldiers' faces that was her audience, searching, as always, for Bucky. He wasn't here either.
"Alright," she said brightly into the round, silver microphone. "How many of you are ready to help me sock ol' Adolf on the jaw?"
It wasn't that Stevie had never had a bad show - especially at the beginning, when she was about as dynamic as a block of wood - but this crowd was beyond apathetic. The soldiers watched her with a silence that was downright hostile.
"Okay," Stevie bolstered her faltering smile. "I need a volunteer."
"We already volunteered," someone called from the back of the crowd. "How do you think we got here?"
Sarcastic laughter rumbled through the crowd like distant thunder. Behind her smile, Stevie felt a tingle of panic.
"Hey," another voice called. "Why don't you do a little dance for us, like the other girls?"
"I don't really…" she began nervously.
"Yeah, sweetheart - show us your stuff!"
"Dance!" Someone shouted, and then the men started chanting. "Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance!"
"Fellas…" she stammered. How had she lost control of the situation so quickly? She cast around for some way to make a graceful exit. Bring in the other girls? Did they know any routines other than the "Girl with the Star-Spangled Heart"?
Suddenly, a voice called out stridently over the chanting.
"Show us your tits!"
The men roared. Stevie felt her face redden with embarrassment and anger.
"That is uncalled for…" she began, but Sal stepped between her and the microphone.
"Let's hear it for Captain America!" he said, clapping all by himself. "And now, the Liberty Belles have a special encore, just for you!" He gestured frantically at the wings and the girls ran out to cheers and whistles. Sal put one hand firmly on Stevie's shoulder and steered her offstage.
"Don't worry," he murmured, patting her on the back. "Next time will be better, you'll see. It's just these yahoos."
Stevie sat out the rest of the performance under the backstage tent that protected all their costumes and props, and stayed there in a fine funk while the girls fluttered off and the stagehands got everything ready for the next show. The rain that had been threatening all day finally arrived, and pattered down onto the canvas above Stevie as she sketched, drawing herself over and over - as a chorus girl in a short skirt, as a clown with a painted face, as a trained monkey riding a unicycle.
She had been so excited to travel overseas and help the troops - see them face to face and let them know that what they were doing meant something. She had even entertained the crazy hope that she, like Peggy, would get that one-in-a-million chance and be discovered by some general, chosen for a special secret mission. How absurd it all seemed now - she was more useless than ever. The men held her in contempt.
A familiar, soft, British voice interrupted her moping. "Hello, Stevie."
"Hi, Peggy," Stevie said automatically, and then jerked her head up. "Peggy! Hi!" As if thinking about her had conjured her up, there was Peggy Carter, looking just as polished as she had in New York all those months ago, even if she was slightly dampened. Stevie jumped to her feet and hugged the smaller woman, sketchbook still in one hand.
"What are you doing here?" Stevie asked, releasing Peggy and holding her at arm's length. And how do you get lipstick and bobby pins in a war zone?
"Officially, I'm not here at all," Peggy replied enigmatically, taking a seat on a crate of prop missiles. "That was quite a performance."
"Yeah," Stevie said, her brief joy evaporating. She sat down heavily next to Peggy and opened up her sketchbook again. "They really loved me; I could tell."
"I heard you were America's new hope." Peggy said. "How's that going?"
"Bond sales take a ten percent bump in every state I visit," Stevie said, scratching away at the her-as-dancing-monkey picture, trying to keep all the bitterness and envy she felt out of her voice. "And women's recruitment is up five percent nationwide."
"So that was Senator Brandt's idea."
"At least he let me do something," Stevie snapped, glaring at Peggy. "Colonel Phillips would have stuck me in a lab!"
Peggy didn't return Stevie's anger. Instead, she looked sad. "Are those your only options? Lab rat or," she gestured at Stevie's sketchbook, "Dancing monkey?"
Stevie looked away again, chewing on the inside of her lip to keep from retorting. I'm sorry I couldn't get anything better than a circus act. I'm not smart enough. I'm not you.
Peggy put a hand on her shoulder. "You were meant for more than this," she said softly.
Stevie kept staring out into the rain. A handful of soldiers were walking across the camp, on their way to or from some inscrutable, military task. With her new, improved eyes, she could see their faces clearly, even at this distance. They looked tired, empty, beaten down - as if the rain were dissolving them back into the earth. Her heart ached for them - ached to be able to do something for them.
"They look like they've been through hell," she murmured.
"These men more than most," Peggy replied. "They met Schmidt's forces at Azzano. Of their entire company, two hundred men, only fifty returned. The rest were killed or captured. Your audience contained what remains of the 107th."
Stevie felt like someone had opened up her chest and poured ice water into it.
"The 107th?" she said, her voice a weak puff of air.
"What is it?" Peggy asked. "You look like someone walked over your grave."
"That's my friend...Bucky...that's his unit."
Peggy had to run to keep up with Stevie as she strode to the command tent. She told Stevie all the information she knew on the way - the men who hadn't been killed in the battle had been taken to Austria. Allied agents had tracked them to a facility near Kreischberg - some kind of factory was their best guess. Prisoners were trucked in; tanks came out. Survivors of the battle reported Hydra using weapons of terrible power - rifles and tanks that fired blue bolts of energy, vaporizing anyone in their path.
Stevie's mind chattered to itself all the way across the camp, a litany of worst-case scenarios. Bucky's dead. He's been captured. He's wounded horribly, lying in a ditch somewhere, bleeding into the mud. She shook her head as if trying to shake her thoughts loose. Surely this was all a big mistake, and Bucky would walk up any minute, laughing at her for being so worried.
But he didn't.
In the command tent stood none other than Colonel Phillips, the last person Stevie wanted to see when she was soaking wet and dressed in star-spangled tights. He consulted a piece of paper in his hand through a pair of half-moon spectacles.
"Mrs. Williams," the Colonel dictated to a young aide at a nearby typewriter. "We regret to inform you that your son," He glanced at the paper. "Louis...was killed in action on the twentieth of October...Oh, just continue with the usual."
Colonel Phillips took off his glasses briefly and pinched the bridge of his nose. His hair was grayer than the last time Stevie had seen him, his face more lined. He looked very old, and very tired, and for a moment, Stevie felt a stab of sympathy for him. Then, he saw her, and his face hardened.
"Well," he said. "If it isn't the Girl with the Star-Spangled Heart."
The intervening months had not improved his opinion of her, apparently. Say whatever you want, Stevie thought. Insult me, berate me, I don't care anymore. There was only one thing she cared about.
"Colonel Phillips," she said. "I need to see the casualty list from Azzano."
"You may be a celebrity, Miss Rodgers, but you don't give me orders." He beckoned, and a nearby MP took Stevie's arm to escort her away. She shook off his hand.
"I just need one name. Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th. Please, sir…" Her voice broke. The MP moved in again, but Colonel Phillips held up his hand to stop him.
"Please tell me if he's alive." Stevie continued. "It's Barnes, B-A-R-"
"I can spell," the Colonel interrupted sharply, but he looked back at her with something approaching compassion.
"I've signed more of these condolence letters today than I care to count," he said, sounding bone-weary. "But the name does sound familiar. I'm sorry."
Stevie nodded. Peggy was patting her back, saying something she didn't hear. I was so close, she thought. A week - two weeks maybe. I would have been able to stop it. I would have been able to stop him from...she shied away from the thought.
"What about the others?" Stevie asked. "Are you planning a rescue mission?"
"Yeah," The Colonel snapped, sympathy gone from his voice. "It's called winning the war."
"But if you know where they are, why not…" Why not send someone. Why not send me?
"They're thirty miles behind the lines, through some of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe. We'd lose more men than we'd save." The Colonel's voice was thick with anger and despair. "I don't expect you to understand that, because you're a chorus girl."
The Colonel's contempt would have stung her five months ago, but now Stevie was quietly furious. He wasn't willing to listen to her, wasn't willing to consider her. Well, that was just dandy. She'd rescue the soldiers herself.
"I understand fine," she said.
"Well than understand it somewhere else," he said, turning back to his list of the dead - and his aide at the typewriter, who had watched the entire exchange while looking increasingly uncomfortable. "If I read the posters correctly, you have somewhere to be in thirty minutes."
"Yes sir," she ground out through her teeth, and strode out into the rain again.
"Stevie," a voice came from behind her. "Stevie!" Peggy had followed her from the command tent, and was trotting briskly to catch up with her. "You're planning something aren't you?"
"Yes," Stevie replied briefly, not slowing down.
"You're planning to break them out."
"Yes."
"What are you going to do," Peggy sounded frustrated, "Walk to Austria?"
"If that's what it takes."
"And what if the Colonel is right, and your friend is dead?"
Stevie stopped and turned to face the other woman.
"You don't know that," Stevie said quietly. "And besides, it wouldn't matter."
The rain fell between them. Peggy's hair was plastered to her face, and she was breathing hard from trying to keep up with Stevie.
"What you said to me earlier," Stevie said. "That I shouldn't give up, that I was meant for more than this. Did you believe it?"
Peggy nodded. "Every word."
"Then don't try to stop me." Stevie turned to enter the backstage tent. There were things she needed - she couldn't raid a prison in her costume, that was for sure.
"I can do more than that," Peggy said, a steely note in her voice. "Meet me at the airfield in five minutes."
"More" turned out to be an airplane and Howard Stark. Stevie found herself unsurprised to see him here - after all, the last time she had seen Peggy and the Colonel, Stark had been there. It was a natural continuation of their last meeting - broken by a hiatus of five months. Stark's plane was sleek, silver and sporty - very much like Stark himself, who was also sleek and sporty in a brown bomber jacket and white knit turtleneck, still pristine even in all this mud. Peggy had exchanged her skirt and heels for trousers and boots, with a pistol on her belt.
"I hope you're not planning to tell me some nonsense about staying behind," she said as she and Stevie boarded.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Stevie lied.
"Because I am an expert in infiltration and extraction," Peggy continued, handing Stevie a pistol of her own, that she buckled onto her thigh.
"I know that, and believe me I'm glad to have your help" Stevie said. "But won't you be in a lot of...trouble? With Colonel Phillips?"
Peggy snorted. "I'm already in trouble by this point. 'Might as well be hanged for a ewe as a lamb,' as my father used to say. Besides," her face turned serious. "I'm sick of sending men off to die while I stay behind. I don't know how the Colonel stands it."
The sun was sinking as they flew north, glinting off the little rivers and snow-capped peaks below, burnishing the bottoms of the clouds pink and gold. The trio in the plane sat in silence, Stark flying and the women thinking.
After Peggy had run off, Stevie had gone into the backstage tent and thrown a set of men's khaki fatigues on over her costume. She kept the red leather boots, because she doubted her canvas sneakers would be of much use in an Austrian forest. She had unpinned her hair and was braiding it sloppily when Doris burst in.
"God, I need a smoke," she said, hunting through her things, then, seeing Stevie, she frowned. "What are you doing? We're on in ten minutes, and you've ruined your hair!"
"Doris," Stevie had said, finding it unexpectedly hard to speak. "I won't be in the next show."
Maybe not any more shows, if she were court-martialed.
"There's...something I have to do."
Doris had looked at Stevie for a long moment, taking in her change of clothes, deducing what that meant. Doris had always been a sharp one.
"You're going to try to play the hero, aren't you?" she said. "You big dummy."
Stevie nodded sheepishly. "Tell Sal I'm sorry to leave him in the lurch like this," she said.
Doris quickly rummaged in a pile of costumery and emerged with the helmet that she wore in one of the numbers - military surplus, painted blue with a white "A" on the front. She reached up to put it on Stevie's head and buckle it under her chin.
"Here," she said. "If you're doing what I think you're doing, people might try to shoot you." She gave Stevie a quick hug, her head barely coming to the taller woman's chin.
"Be careful, for Christ's sake" she said, then ducked away, dabbing her eyes carefully so as not to smudge her mascara. "I never saw you, ok?"
On her way out of the tent, Stevie had seen her shield leaning up against a dressing table, and on a whim, she took it with her. Holding made her feel safer, stronger - it made her feel like Captain America.
The sun had gone down while Stevie had been thinking. Now they flew in the dark. They were getting close. My first time on a plane, Stevie thought. And soon I'll be jumping out of it.
"What's the plan?" She asked Stark, speaking loudly to be heard over the roar of the engines. "Where will you be dropping us off?"
"You see those two mountain ranges?" he said, pointing off into the darkness, where the mountains were black shadows against the night sky. "The facility is between them. Gentleman that I am, I'll take you girls right to the doorstep."
Stark reached into a pack on the copilot's seat, producing a palm-sized metal box with an antenna and a button on one end.
"This is your transponder," he said, holding it out to Stevie. "Push the button when you're ready - it'll lead me right to you."
Stevie's hand brushed Stark's as she took the box. As well-manicured as he was, his hand was rough - nicked and callused from all the work he did. He looked into Stevie's eyes and gave her a slow grin, all white teeth and dimples.
"And then," he said a bit more softly, "We can stop over at Lucerne for a quick fondue."
Stevie flushed. Fondue? Was that some kind of…? Was he propositioning her? Right here? In a plane? In front of Peggy?
"Mr. Stark," she said with careful dignity. "I'm not that kind of girl."
Stark looked confused for a second, then chuckled. "No, no, 'fondue' is…"
At that moment, there was a bone-shaking boom and a red-orange flash - anti-aircraft fire.
"We've been spotted!" Peggy yelled, buckling on her parachute.
"Looks like we'll be getting off here" Stevie told Stark as she tucked the transponder in her shirt pocket and pulled her own parachute on. "As soon as we jump, turn this thing around."
He protested, but the next explosion put a neat line of flak punctures through the plane's sleek hull, with a noise like hail rattling off a roof. He changed his mind after that. Peggy pulled the door open and the wind hit Stevie like a slap in the face.
"Ready?" Peggy yelled.
"Am I ever!" Stevie replied - and the two women, one after the other, leapt into the darkness.
Thanks for reading, everyone!
Plot note: In this chapter, Peggy goes along to free the prisoners, because she is a trained field agent, so there's no reason not to. I never understood why Peggy, who has more field experience than Steve at this point, would stay behind. Is it a gender dynamic thing?
Next week - a dramatic rescue!