Hello all! Thank you for reading! And thanks for the nice reviews you sent me this week - they really brightened my day. Some of you - well, one of you - mentioned liking my notes at the end of the chapter. (I'm a huge nerd, so I like to show my work.) You'll be happy - there are some interesting notes at the end of this chapter, too.
I have an apology to make. Last week, I said there would be an explosion in this chapter - and there isn't. This chapter kept getting longer and longer until it split in two, and the explosion ended up in Chapter 15. Here's what this chapter will contain:
Stabbing!
Shooting!
Punching!
Hallucinogens!
So I think you'll still enjoy it.
*I just updated this chapter to correct my French, with help from Aleera GiacoRavenne. Thank you!
Chapter 14 - Dec. 3, 1943 - Magny-Danigon
In the summer, the hills outside Magny-Danigon would be lush and green, surrounding a valley quilted with orderly little fields and farms. The only green left this time of year was pine and holly. Stevie and Bucky crouched behind the bare trees, ankle deep in snow, the shield - now decorated in patriotic red, white and blue - a reassuring weight on Stevie's back. She wore the body armor Stark had made for her, the white star poking out from under a tan mountain jacket, because it might stop a knife but it sure didn't do much against the cold. Below her, the mineshaft was a black shadow surrounded by an arch of dressed, gray stone. The two men guarding it wore goggles rather than the full face masks Stevie had seen on Hydra guards before, and white clouds of steam puffed around their heads as they chatted to each other.
"You take left," she whispered to Bucky as softly as she could, her voice barely a breath in his ear. "I'll take right."
He nodded. It was essential that they get into the mine quickly and quietly. The bulk of the Howling Commandos would be down the hill, liberating prisoners, leaving only four to take the mine itself - Stevie, Bucky, Dernier and Private Jones. If the two guards called for help, they could be outnumbered very quickly.
Stevie gave the signal and leapt down on her guard from above, knocking the rifle from his hands before he could raise it. He swung at her, but she seized his arm and twisted it behind his back, her left arm around his throat. Bucky had jumped an instant after her, and as Stevie watched, he plunged his dagger into the second guard's back.
The guard fell without a sound, as Stevie's own prisoner struggled futilely in her grip. She knew she could snap the man's neck with ease; kill him like she had killed the three men at Kreichsberg. Her arm tightened around his throat and he froze. Somehow it seemed different to kill a man who was already defeated. Colder. Crueler.
Bucky had already cleaned his knife and sheathed it in his boot. He was looking at Stevie expectantly, waiting to see what she would do. She released the guard, who fell to his knees, coughing.
"Tell him to take us in," she said, cocking her head at the guard.
"You sure?" Bucky asked.
"It's probably a maze down there," she said. She was justifying herself, making excuses after the fact, and she knew it. "Tell him he can lead us to the weapon, or he can join his friend."
The guard agreed quickly enough once Bucky had explained the situation, getting to his feet with a shaky "Ja" while he eyed Bucky's pistol nervously. He stood rubbing his throat with one hand as Dernier and Jones emerged from hiding, each carrying three of Stark's mines in an olive-drab backpack.
"Ready to make some noise, gentlemen?" Stevie asked. In their faces she saw what she herself was feeling; excitement, determination, and just a dash of anxiety.
"Oh, yeah," said Private Jones, his smile dazzlingly white in his dark-skinned face. "Born ready."
Even Stevie couldn't see more than a few feet into the shaft, but she could definitely smell it - a combination of cold earth, damp stone and stale air. She turned on the flashlight clipped to her jacket, Bucky barked something in German, and together, the four commandos followed the guard into the tunnel.
Of their party, Dernier was the oldest - at least fifty. His first name, Stevie had found out, was Jacques. On their way to Magny-Danigon, she had taken every chance to talk to him and improve her rusty, high-school French.
"Vous...avez de la famille?" She asked. They were sitting next to a campfire, the warm red light accentuating the wrinkles on the older man's weathered face.
He smiled. About a head shorter than Stevie, he sported a perpetual five-o'clock shadow of grizzled stubble. Despite his area of expertise, he was perhaps the gentlest of all the Howling Commandos, the one who made friends with every stray dog they met and greeted every sunrise with a Latin prayer.
"Oui," he responded. "Une femme à la maison à Rouen."
"Et des enfants?"
"Nous avons trois garcons et une jolie fille."
Dernier had left his home and family when he joined the Resistance, and he hadn't seen them in three years, but talking about his children filled him with serene joy. He wanted the war to be over quickly, he said, of course he did. But more than that, he wanted to give his children a France free of oppression.
If Dernier was the oldest of the Commandos, Private Gabriel Jones was the youngest - a few months shy of nineteen. The Frenchman had taken Jones under his wing, perhaps because he spoke fluent French, perhaps because he reminded Dernier of one of his sons. The young man became his unofficial assistant, Dernier sharing his vast expertise in all matters explosive. Whenever they were camped for the night or hiding out in abandoned barns, Jones would practice; agile, brown fingers assembling mock-ups of all Dernier's favorite lethal devices with certainty and grace.
"You're a quick study," Stevie said one evening, sitting down across from him at a rough table. They were all squeezed together in an old, half-ruined forest cabin while outside, a cold rain was turning into sleet.
"Thanks," he said. "I've always been good with my hands. You should see me play the piano."
"Oh yeah?"
"You are looking at the youngest cat to ever tickle the ivories at the Café Society on 7th Avenue."
Stevie whistled. "Classy joint. They must have been sad to see you enlist."
"Oh, they were. Many tears were shed. But my daddy wouldn't have had it any other way - he was a Harlem Hellfighter. Earned the Croix de Guerre in Séchault."
"Sounds like quite a guy."
"Oh yes." Jones shifted on his rickety stool, gesturing with a pair of needle-nose pliers. "One time, he and his buddy Roberts were surprised by a German patrol. Two men against twelve. When his ammunition ran out, he used his rifle as a club. They called him The Black Death."
Jones' hands stilled, his eyes looking somewhere far away - at images conjured from his father's stories.
"When his unit came back, the parade was seven miles long. Even Governor Smith was there to welcome them home." He came back from his reverie, smile fading. "But that didn't stop a bunch of yahoos roughing him up when he took the wrong seat on the train."
"That's horrible," Stevie said, quietly.
"That's why I'm here," Jones said briskly, returning to the intricate sprawl of wiring in front of him. "I heard some fathead was tearing up Europe because people didn't have the right color hair. Stupidest thing I'd ever heard, and I've heard some real humdingers. No one should have to be afraid because of who their parents are."
That last sentence was soft and serious, a simple declaration covering what was probably a lifetime of insults.
"I'm sure your father must be very proud of you," Stevie said.
Jones' smile came back like a sunrise, lighting up his whole face.
"You bet he is; I'm fighting beside Captain America! He's gonna go crazy when he finds out - he loves that new comic book."
"The one where I punch Hitler?"
"That's the one. I might have to get your autograph. Hey Barnes!" Jones called to Bucky, who was keeping watch just inside the door, a cigarette in his mouth, the collar of his blue wool jacket turned up against the rain.
"You're in there, too, aren't you?" Jones said, mock-innocently.
"Yeah," added Dugan, ginger moustache curving around a wide, wicked grin. "In tights!"
"Screw you, Aloysius," Bucky replied, aiming a rude gesture Dugan's way. "None of you assholes are getting my autograph."
He looked back at Peggy, who was sitting on an upended bucket, trying to avoid the ceiling's many drips. "Sorry, ladies."
"Oh, no offence taken," she said airily. "I've heard much worse, believe me."
Stevie raised her hand. "Does that mean I can get your autograph?"
Bucky's response to that was not very polite at all.
The mineshaft plunged deep into the hills, sloping sharply downward just beyond the entrance. Stevie, Bucky, Jones and Dernier - and their prisoner - followed a set of rail tracks that used to take carts of coal to the surface, back when the mine was still active. The lights clipped to their clothes made the shadows on the rough-hewn walls flicker and dance, as if they were alive. The path split, and the guard said something in German.
"He says it's on the left," Bucky translated, then replied brusquely, shoving the guard ahead of him.
They went left again, then right. The tunnel proceeded, still sloping down. Stevie could almost feel the weight above them, all that earth and stone. Passages began to branch off on their right, but they didn't take any of them.
We'd have been lost in here without the guard, Stevie thought. Sparing him was the right decision.
Then why did she still doubt herself?
At the next side passage, the guard stopped and pointed.
"He says there's a cavern this way," Bucky said. "And a bit farther down, there's another. This is where they make and store the weapons."
"Two caves, and four of us," said Jones. "Should we split up?"
"If he's telling the truth," Bucky said darkly.
Stevie nodded. "We have to destroy both. Bucky, you and Jones take this one. Dernier and I will take the next one."
"And him?" Bucky pointed at the prisoner, who was looking back and forth between them nervously.
"I'll take him," she said.
"Dernier," she continued in French, "why don't you give Jones the detonator? That way our friend here can't trip the mines early." She switched back to English. "We'll regroup here and leave together. If Dernier and I take longer than fifteen minutes…"
"Not gonna happen," Bucky interrupted.
"Yeah, Cap, we don't leave without you," Jones said.
"Alright...well, be careful."
"Same to you," Bucky said, and, with one final glower in the direction of the prisoner, he led Jones down the tunnel until their flickering flashlights were lost in the darkness.
Now it was Stevie's turn to hold their prisoner at gunpoint as he led the way down the mineshaft. The tunnel seemed to stretch out in front of them forever, and Stevie wondered if the guard had lied, had split them up and led them into a trap, or was trying to get them lost down here under the mountain.
After passing several tunnels branching off from theirs, the guard stopped and pointed to a passage on their right, that, soon after the junction, opened up into a long, rough-hewn chamber. Two rows of huge, shining steel vats marched down either side of the cavern, looking for all the world like something you'd find in a brewery.
"Mon dieu," Dernier breathed.
"What the hell are they making?" Stevie said.
They walked cautiously down the center aisle, from one end of the chamber to the other, before Dernier chose two spots where Stark's mines would have the greatest effect. Although the ceiling was low, Stevie had to lift Dernier for him to place the mines, watching the prisoner warily the whole time. He waited stiffly but silently, hands up, eyes on the pistol at Stevie's hip. Could it be that he wouldn't try to make any trouble?
They had just finished placing the second mine when Stevie heard the scrape of footsteps against the stone floor.
"Merde," Dernier whispered, and the prisoner immediately began shouting.
"Sie sind hier! Sie sind hier!"
Stevie clubbed him across the back of the head, knocking him out, but the damage was already done. The sound of shouting came from somewhere to their right. She and Dernier just managed to dive behind one of the vats before the room lit up.
"Merde!" Dernier whispered again.
There must have been another passage into the room, one they had missed in the shadows behind the other vats, maybe one that led to another access shaft entirely. The sound of running, booted feet grew louder as the two commandos scrambled, crouched, between the vats and the wall, ducking from one shadow to another.
"Da sind sie!"
The shout was followed by a burst of machine gun fire. Stevie pushed Dernier behind the curve of a metal drum and shielded him with her body. Bullets ricocheted off stone and steel, and, as Stevie and Dernier cringed against the wall, an unlucky shot punched through the side of the vat right in front of them. A cloud of white gas exploded from the bullet hole, and Stevie rolled away, coughing, trying to stay behind cover as much as possible.
Was that mustard gas? She thought, covering her mouth with her sleeve and trying to breathe as little as possible. The gas was still hissing out of the puncture. Where was Dernier? He must have rolled in the opposite direction.
It can't be mustard gas - mustard gas smells like onions.
That was what Mr. Durham the grocer had told her when she pestered him about the War. You would smell something like onions or garlic, and then your eyes and nose would start to burn. She breathed slowly. No burning. If anything, the gas smelled sweet - but that didn't mean it was safe.
Another staccato burst of gunfire. Stevie pressed her belly to the floor, peering beneath the raised bottom of the nearest vat. Three sets of boots were approaching cautiously down the center aisle, pausing to check behind each vat. If Stevie stepped out of her hiding place they'd shot her, but there might be a way to get the jump on them while keeping herself behind cover. Smoothly, carefully, with as little noise as possible, Stevie drew her pistol and unslung her shield from her back, calculating the angle between her, the row of vats across the aisle, and the approaching soldiers. It just might work - if the shield was as perfectly balanced as it seemed.
Here goes nothing.
She stepped into the gap between two vats and hurled the shield across the aisle, as hard as she could. The guards barely had time to look up before the shield rebounded from the vat behind them with a clang like an enormous gong. It smashed into the group from behind, catching one of the guards square in the back, knocking him into a second and taking both to the floor. The third brought up his gun, but Stevie was faster - she shot him twice in the chest, then ran to the second guard and kicked him in the face before he could regain his feet. The first guard lay face down on the floor, unconscious - or dead. Stevie approached him cautiously, then crouched to retrieve her shield from beside him and sling it onto her back. He didn't move.
When she stood up the whole room lurched to one side.
Whoa.
She stumbled and righted herself. The chamber, impossibly, was swaying from side to side like a ship at sea. She stood still until it stopped.
I guess that gas wasn't so harmless after all.
"Dernier," she called softly.
They had to get out of here - the guards might have radioed for help before entering the chamber; Bucky and Jones could be in danger. Stevie blinked. Something was wrong with her eyes - the bulbs hanging from the ceiling all seemed to have little rainbow halos. She shook her head and immediately regretted it as the room started rocking again.
Stevie heard something and whirled around as quickly as the swaying room would allow. There was Dernier, crouched in the shadows next to the wall. He was breathing hard, clenching and unclenching his fists.
"Jacques? Tu vas bien? We need to get out of here."
When he turned, she almost didn't recognize him, his face was so twisted with rage.
"Wha-" she began, and then he flew at her like a wild animal.
Surprised and off balance, Stevie fell backward, and then he was on her, like a cat, screaming and clawing at her eyes.
"Dernier, stop!"
Stevie dropped her gun and tried to shield her face with her hands. He scratched and pummeled at her forearms, got a hank of her hair and yanked, almost ripping it out. If she fought back, she could seriously hurt him, but if she didn't do something, he would really hurt her. She got a leg under his chest and heaved him off to the side, rolling to her feet.
"It's me," she said, holding her hands out in front of herself as if to ward him off. "C'est moi, Stephanie!"
Dernier shook his head from side to side, beating at it with his fists as if trying to drive something out.
"That's it - fight it! Fight it, Dernier!"
For a second, Stevie thought she saw his eyes clear, awareness return. Then the moment was gone and he rushed her with a roar like a charging bull. She sidestepped and punched him in the jaw, dropping him instantly.
"Oh, God! I'm so sorry!" Stevie cried as she knelt over Dernier's unconscious form.
He was still breathing, thank goodness. She had tried to pull that punch, but her body didn't feel like it was entirely under her control. Taking her shield in her right hand, she hitched him up over her left shoulder like a sack of flour. It took three tries before she could stand up. Maybe this was what being drunk felt like. If so, Stevie didn't really understand the appeal.
Whatever drug was in that gas turned the tunnels into a nightmarish labyrinth. Stevie was having a hard time remembering how to get out; she felt like she was passing the same junctions and passages over and over. The flickering shadows on the walls turned into ghastly specters at the edges of her vision - huge black birds with teeth, spiders with human faces, men with empty eyes and gaping mouths.
It's not real. It's not real. She repeated to herself over and over, trying to slow her breathing. It's not re-
There, in front of her, was another Hydra guard, this one wearing a full gas mask. For a second, she thought he was another hallucination, the mask giving him the look of a monstrous, humanoid insect - but then he raised his machine gun. Reflexively, she flung her shield at him. It was an awkward throw - her reactions were off, her body sluggish and woozy - and the shield bounced harmlessly off a wall and clattered to the floor. She fumbled for her pistol, only to remember that she had dropped it in the cavern when Dernier had attacked her. She had nothing. The guard was going to shoot them.
And then, out of a side passage came a cry of rage, and Bucky Barnes tackled the guard to the floor, ripping off his gas mask.
"Don't touch her! Don't you touch her!" He roared, hitting the guard in the face again and again.
"Bucky," she said. The guard wasn't moving, but Bucky was still hitting him, over and over, with a noise like someone tenderizing meat with a hammer. "Bucky!"
He scrambled to his feet and stumbled to her.
"Are you alright? Did they hurt you?" He touched her arms, her face, as if searching for injuries. The guard's blood was on his knuckles, a spray of tiny droplets on his face.
"No one hurt me." Except for Dernier, that is. "I'm fine."
"I heard you screaming. I thought they had you."
"I wasn't screaming," Stevie said, confused.
Bucky didn't seem to have heard her. He was breathing quickly, looking over his shoulder at the shadows from which he had come, his pupils so large that his green eyes looked black.
"He's here," Bucky whispered.
"Who?"
"Zola," he swallowed nervously. "He was there, in the room. He said he had you, he said…" Stevie realized that Bucky was on the brink of panic.
"Bucky!" She interrupted sharply.
She took his arm with the hand that wasn't holding Dernier and squeezed, anchoring him to the present rather than whatever nightmares were in his head.
"I'm alright, but Dernier is...injured...and we need to leave. Where's Jones?"
"Guards surprised us after we mined the chamber. Dropped some kind of gas grenade on us. We got separated."
Bucky took the guard's gun and tossed Stevie's shield back to her. She tried not to look at the red ruin of the man's face, considering instead the tunnels around her, trying to remember where they were. She had to find Jones; he trusted her, he had followed her here and she would not, would not, leave him down here in the dark.
As if Stevie's determination had cleared the fog from her brain, her mental map suddenly snapped into place. There - they just had to go back a little and turn right twice. That would be the first chamber, where they had split up; as good a place to search as any.
Stevie went in first, Bucky so close behind her that she would bump him if she turned around. He was twitchy, jumping at every noise, while Stevie was still off-balance, stumbling like a drunk if she moved too quickly. The chamber, long and low, like the one Stevie had just left, was filled with crates and pallets like a stockroom. There were hundreds of boxes, stacked from floor to ceiling - filled with warheads and grenades, weapons to carry the gas they were making in the other room. Stevie imagined Hydra dropping the grenades into platoons, the warheads over cities.
They'd tear themselves apart.
"You said you placed the mines, right?" She asked Bucky.
"Yeah, all three."
That was good. If absolutely everything else went to hell, they could still blow this place up and keep the weapons from ever being used. At least, if they could find Jones and the detonator.
It felt like it took forever for them to search the room. Normally, she and Bucky could have split up and done the work in half the time, but Stevie didn't want him out of her sight - alone with whatever demons the gas had awakened. About three quarters of the way down the chamber, Stevie heard something. It sounded like someone... crying?
Following the noise led Stevie to the shadow of a large crate, where she found Jones, on his knees next to the bodies of three Hydra guards, weeping as though his heart would break.
"Private Jones," she said. "Good to see you."
He looked up at her with dark eyes full of despair, as hopeless as Stevie had ever seen anyone.
"Captain," he said. "What are we doing here?"
"We're leaving, Private," she said, trying to keep her tone light, a smile on her face. "Just a walk in the woods and we'll be kicking back in a Swiss chalet."
Jones stared down at his hands. He was holding the detonator. Bucky tensed beside her and Stevie put her hand on his chest to stop him from moving forward.
"But what good are we doing?" Jones continued. "People just keep hurting each other, killing each other. Why?" His face crumpled.
"Why?" He asked more softly. "Nothing will ever get any better."
Stevie could barely breathe. Jones was staring at the detonator, lightly running his thumb over the device that could collapse half a mountain on their heads. She put down her shield and crouched next to him - as well as she could with Dernier still slung over her left shoulder.
"Private," she asked. "Do you trust me?"
He looked at her through his tears. "Of course I do. You're Captain America - you saved my life."
"Would I ever lie to you?"
He shook his head. "No. I don't think so."
"Good." She held his eyes with her own, sky blue meeting mahogany brown. "Private, I personally guarantee that we will put an end to this war, but first we have to get out of this damn cave." She held out her hand. "What do you say?"
Jones hesitated, looking from the detonator to Stevie. Finally, he put the little metal box in her hand, and she breathed a silent prayer of thanks.
"I'll hold onto this," she said, and put it in her jacket pocket. This time, she could stand up on the first try. "Let's get out of here, boys."
Yay! Howling Commando action! It is my favorite thing.
As always, I apologize to any speakers of French and/or German if anything said in those languages doesn't make sense. Feel free to drop me a line with corrections. I think most of the non-English text is clear from context, but, if not, Dernier has a wife and four kids in Rouen, three boys and one girl. The Hydra guards are pretty much saying "There they are!" as per usual.
And now, the notes!
Pretty much everything Private Jones says about his father is based on actual stories of Black soldiers in WWI - yes, including fighting off twelve Germans with an empty rifle. The soldier who really did that was Henry Johnson, and he actually fought off twenty-four Germans. That's right - I toned his story down to make it more believable. In a superhero fic. That guy was the bomb. Sadly the "getting beat up by White guys upon their return" thing was also true.
The gas that Stevie and the rest get drugged with is 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, or BZ. The military ran some experiments with it in the 1960's. Interestingly, it would effect everyone differently, causing hallucinations, paranoia, aggression and delirium. In the end, it was deemed too unpredictable for combat use, but man is it great for a writer.
Next week - an explosion, a message, and an unexpected kiss. Stay tuned!