Hello everyone! I did it! I wrote a chapter in two weeks! Of course, it isn't the chapter I thought I was writing...Yes, I did it again. The chapter got longer and longer until it split in two, and all those things I said were coming up in this chapter won't happen until Chapter 18. I'm sorry! The characters made me do it!

Some pre-chapter notes:

One of you was concerned that the "unusual train heist" that is still upcoming would be the Austrian train sequence in which Bucky meets destiny. It is NOT that train sequence. It's a different train scene. You'll like it; I promise.

Another commenter mentioned really liking a particular image from the previous chapter and wanting to "borrow" it. If anyone wants to borrow an image, a character backstory, a line, or whatever from this fic, please do! I'd be very flattered. Just give me a shout out somewhere. :-)

Comic Con was awesome. I met Colonel Tighe! He's really nice in person.

Again, thanks for all the comments, follows and likes! They keep me going through times of writer's block.

Chapter 17 - January 17, 1944 - Brussels, Belgium

Peggy had only recently learned of Falsworth's...extracurricular activities...but she had to admit the man was a master of his craft. As they walked down the Avenue Louise, his arm around her shoulders, he was the very image of a doting husband. He wore a long, double-breasted wool coat, a matching gray fedora. She wore dark fur, a diamond bracelet, a neat little hat pinned to her hair...and a six-inch foam-rubber cushion strapped around her waist.

Everyone else on the street was hurrying by with their collars turned up against the cold, not paying any attention to the well-to-do couple ducking into a small jewelry store, just a block or two from number 453, the Résidence Belvédère - Gestapo headquarters. A little bell chimed as they entered.

"Madame, monsieur, welcome." The shopkeeper was a trim woman in a blue dress, blonde hair artfully pinned back. "How can I assist you?"

"I'm looking for a gift for my wife," Falsworth said, as if he had spoken French all his life. He beamed down at Peggy, hand resting lightly on her back. Everything about him was different from the Falsworth she was used to. Instead of a straight-laced British lord, he was clearly nouveau riche - loose posture, broad smile and a very expensive watch.

"Ah, of course," the shopkeeper said. "If you don't mind me asking madame, how far along are you?"

"Seven and a half months," Peggy said, smiling shyly, hand on her padded belly. "It's our first."

"How wonderful." The other woman smiled back. "What sort of piece were you thinking of? Something for everyday? Perhaps something dramatic for the evening?"

"Oh, money is no object," Falsworth interjected. "My darling will have whatever she wants."

The shopkeeper didn't need more encouragement. She took Peggy right to the most expensive things in the store; matched sets of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings - sapphires, rubies, and gleaming, ice-white diamonds. She probably had trouble moving pieces like this in such turbulent times. Peggy almost felt sorry that they weren't actually going to buy anything.

"Oh!" Peggy cried out and clutched her stomach.

"Madame?"

"Darling!" Falsworth rushed to her side. "What's the matter? Is it…?"

"No, no," Peggy said. "Nothing as serious as that. The walk here was just a bit much. Is there somewhere I can sit down?"

The blonde shopkeeper ushered them solicitously into a cozy back room with a worn armchair and a small window that looked out on the alley behind the shop. Falsworth helped Peggy sit down, and she leaned back, breathing deeply. The other woman brought her a glass of water which she sipped as Falsworth rubbed her back, brow wrinkled with restrained worry. In the other room, the bell chimed.

"If you'll excuse me," the shopkeeper said.

"Of course."

After a moment, a gruff voice came from the shop. "I have some things to sell."

It was Dernier; that was their cue. Peggy nodded to Falsworth and set down the glass, and they leapt quietly into action, removing their coats, hats and shoes and stacking them neatly on the chair. Falsworth helped Peggy remove the cushion from around her waist, and took what looked like the pieces of an odd rifle from a pocket in the side. He slotted the gun together with a series of soft, metallic clicks, as Peggy removed the rest of the cushion's hidden contents - two pairs of rubber-soled mountaineering shoes, a stethoscope, a set of lockpicks in a leather pouch, and a tiny camera. Peggy slipped the tools into a special pocket in her dress, the shoes on her stocking-clad feet.

Falsworth had finished assembling the gun - it held what looked like a harpoon, connected to a reel of wire mounted on the side. The wire ended in a carabiner that Falsworth hooked to a harness around his chest.

"How do I look?" He asked, lacing up his rubber shoes.

"Not very fashionable, but needs must, I suppose."

He opened the window and leaned out, sighting along the barrel. When he pulled the trigger, it sounded like a champagne cork being popped, and the grapple embedded itself in the edge of the roof with a soft "thunk." Falsworth gave the line an experimental tug.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Oh, yes."

Peggy held tight to his waist as he pushed a stud on the side of the rifle stock, and with a loud whirr, they were yanked upward. The stone was ice-cold under her hands as Peggy scrambled up onto the roof, already thinking longingly of her fur-trimmed coat, neatly folded downstairs. She and Falsworth ran in a half-crouch, keeping the slope of the roof between themselves and the street, moving as fast as they could on stone and shingle made treacherous by new-fallen snow. Ahead of her, Falsworth leapt a four-foot gap between two buildings; Peggy followed. She soared smoothly over the alley, but as she landed, the wind caught her skirt, pulling her off-balance. For a heart-stopping second, she teetered on the edge of a five-story fall.

Peggy dropped to her hands and knees, catching herself on the gutter just as her feet slipped out from under her, one knee banging painfully into the stone. She hissed between her teeth. Falsworth half turned, but she waved at him to keep going. Dernier would only be able to give them a few minutes. There, that crenellated roof, that was number 448. The russet brick, that was 450, and there, finally, tan sandstone - number 453.

Falsworth hooked the grapple to the edge of the roof and, Peggy's arms around his neck, pressed another stud on the rifle stock to lower them slowly down to a small window tucked under the eaves. It opened as they approached, and they clambered inside, helped by a young woman with curled, dark hair.

They were in a storage room, the type that had to exist in any large organization - full of furniture no one needed and old cans of paint. Falsworth unclipped the grappling rifle from his chest, and Peggy hugged the woman, kissing her on both cheeks.

"Dear Helene," she said, in French. "How are you?"

The other woman shrugged; she was pretty, with a pert little nose and mouth that smiled easily, but she wasn't smiling now. "François is a double agent."

"Not François! Didn't he recruit you to the Resistance?"

Helene nodded. "It's going to be a tricky, keeping him off my back, along with everything else. But I'll manage." She peeked out the door, checking to the left and right. "Let's go."

The woman led them down a cramped service staircase to a richly carpeted corridor and the office of Constantin Canaris, the Commander of the Gestapo in Brussels. She moved to unlock the door and Peggy grabbed her wrist. As Helene looked on in confusion, Peggy knelt to pick the lock, making sure to leave some subtle scratches around the keyhole. That was essential.

The office was richly appointed - large, gleaming desk, oil paintings on the walls that had probably been looted from the Musée Royale. Helene carefully removed one of them and set it aside, revealing a steel safe with a combination lock. Peggy handed Falsworth her camera and lockpicks, and he got to work on the desk drawers, propping the rifle beside him. Peggy pulled the stethoscope from her pocket and planted the diaphragm just above the combination dial, where it stuck to the metal. Good old Howard Stark, Peggy thought. She shook out her hands, which tingled and prickled as they recovered from the cold. She'd need them to be steady. Helene stationed herself just inside the door.

Peggy took a deep breath, and let go of everything - the pain in her knee, her mental clock counting up how many minutes they had already spent, her ever-present fear of discovery. People said captured Resistance members were tortured in this very building, in the basements below the street. Maybe Constantin Canaris was interrogating some poor sod at this very moment. Deep breath. Let it go. Peggy began to work on the lock.

It was almost impossible to describe the process of safe-cracking - how you knew what was the right number and what wasn't. There was an almost imperceptible sound, more of a feeling really, when the circles clicked into place. But your mind had to be perfectly still and quiet, or you'd miss it. Peggy spun the dial slowly. Click, click, click...there. That was the first number. Click, click...the second. The third was trickier, she hovered between two numbers, 89 and 90, back and forth. A bead of sweat rolled down her brow, stung her eye. What was that noise? A footstep from the hall?

Pull yourself together, Carter, she thought. She had to choose - it was one of the two. Maybe she should just guess? Wait...the first two numbers had been 4 and 20...Peggy smiled to herself and turned the dial to 89, rewarded by a soft "clunk."

The Fuhrer's birthday. How original, Herr Canaris.

Peggy stowed the stethoscope and pulled the safe open. There were stacks of francs and reichsmarks; a small, black velvet bag full of diamonds - Quite a rainy day fund, Peggy thought - and a book. Jackpot.

She took it to Canaris' desk, where Falsworth was busy photographing the contents of several dossiers with a Stark-Minox camera smaller than Peggy's palm.

"Found the code book," she said.

"Well done, Carter," Falsworth replied, as Peggy held open the book so he could get a picture of the first few pages. "I don't think you were more than five minutes."

"You flatter me."

"Hssst!" Helene was waving to them from the door. "Someone's coming!"

Falsworth tossed the camera to Peggy and she stowed it away, along with the lockpicks. As Falsworth quickly slotted the files back into the drawer, Peggy replaced the code book - on the opposite side of the safe from where she got it. That was important.

Helene ran over to them. "It's too late!" She hissed. "He's right outside!"

Falsworth had the grappling gun, but there wouldn't be enough time to go out the window.

"I'm sorry, Helene," Peggy said.

Helene nodded. "Do it."

Peggy punched Helene in the jaw.

She barely had time to squeeze herself under the mahogany desk. Falsworth took up entirely too much room - and far too much of him was elbows. The door opened, and Peggy heard a heavy, boot-clad tread.

"Fraulein Schmidt!" A man's voice exclaimed in German. Rapid footsteps as he hastened to Helene's side. "What happened?"

There was a groan of pain. "Heard something…" Helene's voice was weak. "Door...unlocked. He hit me…"

"Who?"

"He had a mask...I tried to stop him, but…"

"It's alright, Fraulein, it's alright." Unsteady footsteps, as he helped Helene to a chair. "Did you see where he went?"

"No...but he can't be far...Oh!"

"Don't try to get up, just sit here. I'll send for a doctor."

"Are you..going after him?" Helene's voice was full of perfectly crafted worry. "Oh, be careful, Herr Canaris!"

"I'll be alright, just sit back, and try to relax."

The footsteps left, swift and forceful, and Peggy heard the man's voice shouting in the hallway for his subordinates. Helene's bruised face appeared around the side of the desk.

"It should be safe to go."

"Thank you, Helene," Peggy said, unfolding herself with a wince. "When he comes back, can you say that the man had a tattoo - something like an octopus?"

Helene raised an eyebrow, but nodded.

"You're a dear."

Falsworth had opened a window and set up his grappling gun, and with a pop, a whirr and a yank they were on the roof again. The trip back to the jewelry shop was less eventful that the trip over, thank heavens, and Peggy and Falsworth managed to get their coats and shoes back on before the shopkeeper returned.

"I am so sorry, Madame, monsieur - that man would not stop talking…" the neat, blonde woman looked at them, flushed and disheveled from the cold wind, and stopped short, blushing.

She probably thinks we were... Peggy looked down as if embarrassed, concealing a grin.

"Mademoiselle, I am so sorry," Falsworth said. "My wife needs to go home. We will come back again another day."

"I understand," the woman said, graciously. "I look forward to seeing you again."

Peggy let Falsworth "help" her out of the shop - it wasn't hard to pretend; her knee was beginning to throb where she had banged it on the roof.

"You mixed up Canaris' files I hope?" She murmured when they were safely on the street.

"I put a few back out of order. And I made sure to scratch the locks. All very subtle."

Constantin Canaris was not a stupid man - he was beginning to suspect the truth, that Hydra had insinuated themselves into Nazi operations. Hydra, who had attacked the German army at the Battle of Azzano, after Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull, had executed two members of Nazi High Command sent to bring him to heel. Already paranoid and distrustful, Canaris only needed a little push to begin a full-blown witch-hunt. A push that Peggy and Falsworth had just provided.

January 29th, 1944 - Brûly-de-Pesche, Belgium

The Hydra broadcast station sat in isolation among the pines outside Brûly-de-Pesche. Morita had driven the worst roads in Belgium, walked until his feet were a mass of blisters, slept rough in the snow, and listened to Dugan talk about his daughters until he could have recognized them on sight, although he kept envisioning them all wearing bowler hats. Now he almost felt disappointed that their goal was basically a concrete box with an antenna coming out of it.

"Alright," Morita murmured to Dugan as they crouched in what he thought might be a holly bush. "The relief crew isn't due for days."

"Hmmm," Dugan responded.

"Should be a team of four in there, but we have the advantage of surprise."

"Hmmm."

"So...kick down the door?"

Dugan grinned fiercely. "You're speaking my language, Jimbo."

The door was made of solid steel.

"Gonna be harder to kick in than I thought," Morita said. He was glad the station didn't have windows, so the Hydra agents wouldn't see them awkwardly hanging around.

"Looks like we'll need a little help from Mr. Nobel."

Dugan had pulled a brown-wrapped cylinder from a pocket, marked with a round seal and the words 'Nobel's Explosive No. 808.' It looked for all the world like a roll of nickels, but was, in fact, green putty that he applied around the lock.

"Do you smell almonds?" Morita asked.

"Yeah, it's the plastique. Weird huh?"

Dugan poked a pair of silver-tipped wires into the green lump, paying them out as he walked backwards around the corner of the building. Morita joined him.

"Now, I'm not Frenchy," Dugan said. "But that should add a little zip to our knock."

He plugged the wires into a detonator.

"Little pig, little pig, let me in." Dugan chuckled. "Might want to cover your ears."

Morita did not need to be told twice. Dugan pressed the button and a jet of yellow-orange flame shot from the door with a noise like a thunderclap. The bolts destroyed, he kicked the door open with ease, Morita right behind him, M3 at the ready.

They burst into what looked a soldiers' sitting room - camp chairs, folding tables, even overturned teacups. The men inside were stumbling, wide-eyed and dazed, away from the sudden explosion. One had fallen and was scrambling away, crab-wise, across the floor.

"All right!" Dugan roared, although Morita wondered if they could even hear him. His own ears were ringing after that blast.

"Everyone stay put and no one will get hurt!" He followed up in broken German. "Sitz still...keine Schmerzen."

The three Hydra agents raised their hands nervously.

Wait...Morita thought. Three...Where's the fourth?

He heard a door open on his left and turned in time to see the fourth man burst out in an ill-advised charge, boot knife in his hand. Morita cried out, and Dugan seized the back of the nearest chair and slammed it into the man's face.

"What did I just say?" He asked the man, who lay on the floor moaning weakly.

Broken jaw, Morita thought, before he could help himself. Concussion - possible skull fracture.

They secured the men to various pieces of furniture and went on into the broadcasting room. Banks of dials, headphones, a silver microphone, a Magnetophon - though small, the station was well-equipped. Dugan whistled softly.

"That's a lot of...dials."

"Not too different from my days at KXSC," Morita said, removing two rolls of magnetic tape from his rucksack and popping them into the Magnetophon.

"You were a DJ?" Dugan laughed. "You really are cool, aren't you, Slim?"

Morita checked the dials, turning them, changing the broadcast frequency. For this mission, it would have to be close to what German intelligence used. Just close enough so they could pick it up, just far enough that it would seem like an accident. He connected the Magnetophon, started the tape playing - a recording that Jones had made. Sometimes Morita felt like everyone could speak perfect German except him. Well, him, Dugan and the Captain. The message was encoded, just a string of numbers for Canaris' men to crack, but Morita knew the gist:

"Mission successful. Canaris suspects. Permission to act."

Now they just had to wait for it to play a few times. Make sure the right person heard it.

"So, Sonny Jim," Dugan began. "You got anyone special back home?"

Morita shrugged.

"Ah, come on! A young medical student...future doctor...radio DJ...gotta be some women interested in that."

"Well, there was one…"

"I knew it! Let me guess - sweet girl, very patient, keeps all your letters in a little box, tied with a ribbon..."

"She's in Manzanar," Morita said. Dugan stopped mid-flow. "Along with my parents, my brother, my sister-in-law and one-fifth of my graduating class. Ironic, huh? I'm here to liberate prisoners, and my family is locked up in a relocation camp."

He smiled bitterly to himself. "You know what my old man did? He owned a greenhouse. Grew snapdragons. Some threat to national security, huh?"

Dugan clapped him on the shoulder so hard he coughed.

"I'm sorry I said you'd stab Cap in the back. I didn't mean it." His voice was thick with emotion.

"That was ages ago." Morita said, feeling decidedly uncomfortable with this, emotional Dugan. The only things Dugan normally got choked up about were football and large weapons. "It's no big deal; forget I said anything."

"No." Dugan squeezed his shoulder with a paw-like hand. "It isn't fair, it isn't right, and when we get back to HQ I'll - "

The heartfelt assertion was interrupted suddenly by someone pounding at the door. Morita had locked it automatically when they entered, and now he was very grateful he had done so.

"I thought the relief crew wasn't due for days!" Dugan said, rummaging in his rucksack.

"They must be early!" This door was only padded wood. It wouldn't last long if someone really tried to get in. There were no windows. We're trapped. Morita readied his gun.

"What do you think, charge them when they breach the door?" He tried to keep the fear out of his voice. If this was how he'd go, he'd take as many of them along as he could.

"I like your style, Fresno," Dugan said, still crouched by his rucksack, putting something together it looked like. "But I think we should just use the back door."

"Back door?" Morita asked. "What back door?"

He turned to see Dugan raise a shoulder-mounted bazooka and aim it at the rear wall.

"Oh shit!"

He dove for cover, and the wall exploded in a shower of rubble and choking concrete dust.

"Woo-hoo!" Dugan pulled a slightly dazed Morita to his feet by his collar. "We'll have to be quick if we want to lose them. Look alive, Jimmy!"

February 26, 1944 - Cologne, Germany

Quick and clean, Bucky thought, sighting down the scope of his Springfield sniper rifle.

He lay face down on the roof of EL-DE Haus; a five-story, red stone building that served as Gestapo headquarters in Cologne; waiting for Constantin Canaris. It had been in the works for weeks, a meeting between the Brussels Gestapo chief and his boss, Heinrich Müller. As soon as Helene had gotten word to Peggy, Bucky had left Brussels and gotten a position as a janitor in EL-DE Haus. Going by "David Petersen," he wore his hair lank around his face and let his beard grow out. He slumped to disguise his height; he acted slow and pretended not to notice the insults and "good-natured" pranks the Gestapo thugs directed at him - and he snuck in his Springfield piece by piece in a leather toolbag. In the end, it had all come down to this moment on the roof, watching for Herr Canaris' car.

A light, stinging snow began to fall, flakes melting on Bucky's black leather driving gloves. Good, he thought. It would help him judge the wind.

Word was that Müller was calling his subordinate onto the carpet for his "paranoia" - operations in Belgium were at a standstill while he hunted for Hydra agents in his own ranks, arresting and interrogating his own men. It was whispered that Müller might even be planning to remove Canaris from his position - but if the man was gunned down on the doorstep of the Gestapo's stronghold in Cologne, then it would be a different matter. Then all his crazy suspicions would be proven correct, and paranoia would spread through the German Gestapo like a virus, handicapping them and Hydra alike.

There, turning down Mahrenstraße, a black Opel Admiral. Bucky trained his scope on it, and saw Canaris' strong-jawed profile in the back seat, behind the driver. Bucky took a deep breath and let it out, releasing all emotion and thought. The car turned onto Elisenstraße, coming closer. He took another breath. Time was spreading out, each heartbeat farther from the one before. Another breath. Let it all out. There was a moment at the end of the exhalation, when everything - the snow, the car, Bucky - came together in a moment of perfect stillness. Calmly, smoothly, Bucky squeezed the trigger.

The rifle's kick was like a hard shove to Bucky's chest, and a moment later the shot pierced the front passenger side window to strike Canaris in the temple. There was a red spray of blood, and the driver lost control of the car, brakes squealing. Everything sped back up - Bucky came to a crouch, broke down his gun with practiced efficiency and stowed it in his toolbag. He hurried down the service stairs to the first floor janitor's closet - not the basement. That was where the cells were, and other people cleaned up after what happened down there. In the cramped closet, among leaning mops, and bottles of sharp-smelling cleaners, Bucky exchanged his gray coveralls and shapeless cap for the uniform of a junior officer, slicking his hair back under a shiny-brimmed black hat. A quick shave in the closet's little sink, a jaunty walk, and no one would recognize him as "David Petersen" - at least, not if he left quickly enough, while people were still disoriented.

Sirens were sounding outside the building. Police, already? he thought. But they were too loud. Not police. Air raid. As if on cue, there was a distant explosion and the building shook around him.

How funny would it be to succeed at my mission and then get squashed flat by an Allied bomb? He doubted that Stevie would see the humor in the situation.

Bucky transferred his rifle from the toolbag to a slim, black attaché case, the better to coordinate with his new disguise. Just as he straightened, the door to the closet opened and someone backed in, bumping Bucky into the sink.

"Move, you moron, it's an air raid." It was Anton Anders, a tall, blond, brutish Obersturmführer, with a reputation for beating confessions out of unfortunate prisoners.

"I didn't want to be packed in downstairs with the rest, but if I'd known I had to crowd in here with you… and what were you doing in here all by yourself anyway, playing a little game of 'five against one'?"

Anders chuckled at his own joke, then turned to see "David the idiot" transformed into a junior SS officer. For a moment, he stared in confusion. Then Bucky took hold of his collar and slammed him into the sink.

There was a crunch as the other man's nose hit the porcelain, and then Anders hurled himself backward, driving Bucky into the wall-mounted shelves behind them. One hit him in the small of the back, an explosion of pain. At that moment, another bomb went off, closer than before. The floor heaved under Bucky's feet; the shelf above him came loose from its brackets and fell, dumping bottles and brushes on top of him.

Anders pulled free and whirled around, fumbling for his Luger. Bucky grabbed the first thing that came to hand, a heavy wire brush, and brought it down hard on Anders' wrist like a club. There was a crack, and he cried out, dropping his gun.

Finish it, Bucky thought.

He aimed a backhanded blow at the other man's head, but as he swung, his foot came down on a fallen bottle and he crashed to the floor. Anders, not one to waste an opportunity, kicked him savagely in the ribs - once, twice. When he came in for a third kick, Bucky seized his foot and twisted.

As he fell, Anders' knee connected with Bucky's jaw, and his mouth filled with the coppery taste of blood. Then Anders was on him, one huge hand around his throat, cursing. Bucky choked; he clawed at the man's arms, thrashed and kicked - but even down one hand, Anders was implacable, squeezing tighter and tighter, blood from his broken nose turning the lower half of his face into a red mask. Bucky's heart was pounding in his ears, his vision narrowing to a gray tunnel.

No.

Something welled up inside him - something born in the lab in Kreichsberg - something made of pure, animal panic and rage. Bucky stopped struggling. In one smooth motion, he drew his boot knife and drove it into his attacker's eye.

The pressure around Bucky's throat eased and he gasped, Anders now a dead weight that he scrambled to heave off of him. The other man's remaining eye stared, blue and blank, as Bucky knelt to remove his dagger. For a moment it grated against bone, and Bucky thought he'd be sick, but he ruthlessly quashed the weakness.

The sight of himself in the mirror as he cleaned his knife almost made Bucky jump out of his skin. His jaw was already swelling, and he had a cut on his forehead that he hadn't noticed, even though it was bleeding into his eye. The building shook again and Bucky steadied himself against the sink.

At least, in the middle of an air raid, no one will notice another beat-up, bleeding man.

He left through a service entrance he unlocked with his janitor's keys. The streets were in chaos - police trying to herd fleeing civilians to safety, planes roaring overhead, bombs screaming as they fell. It wasn't hard to escape notice.

By the time he reached the rendezvous point, Bucky could feel every injury that the excitement of the fight and escape had kept him from feeling - his jaw, the back of his head where it had hit the floor, his ribs. He groaned. He had three hours in the trunk of someone's car before he reached safety.

The driver was well-trained, despite his youth. He didn't ask Bucky anything, despite his battered condition and the irregularity of the assignment - as a rule, the Comet Line smuggled people out of Belgium. When they arrived at the safehouse in Schaerbeek - a country house belonging to a nurse named Monique de Bissy, the young man hauled Bucky out of the car and held him up for a minute so he wouldn't collapse onto the drive before he regained feeling in his legs.

Bucky shuffled into the dark kitchen like an eighty-year-old man, every muscle tight, ribs throbbing with every breath. He wondered if he'd have the energy to clean himself up before collapsing on one of Mademoiselle de Bissy's spare beds.

At the kitchen table, a match flared.

"How'd it go?" It was Stevie. She wasn't supposed to know about this assignment. She wasn't even supposed to here; she was supposed to be out blowing up bridges with Dernier and Jones.

"Who squealed?" Bucky said, sitting stiffly in a wicker-bottomed chair. "Peggy or Falsworth?" His swollen mouth made the words slur together drunkenly.

"Nobody," Stevie said, lighting a paraffin lamp. "I guessed. All of you should have known better." When the golden lamplight revealed Bucky's face, she blanched.

"Gonna read me the riot act, Captain?"

"I was considering it," Stevie said. "But since you look like hell, we'll postpone it. Stay there."

She got up and clattered around in the bathroom for a bit, returning with iodine, gauze and a bowl of water that she set on the scarred table next to Bucky.

"Good Lord," she murmured. "Peggy told me it'd be quick and clean."

"It was," Bucky said. "This came later. You should see the other guy." He tried to grin, but his face hurt too much.

Stevie removed his cap to clean his forehead and Bucky grunted as it bumped the bruise on the back of his head.

"You have one hell of a goose egg back there," Stevie said.

"Yeah, I noticed."

She cleaned the cut on his forehead gently, left hand steadying his head. Bucky closed his eyes and let himself lean into her a little.

"You should have told me, Buck," she said, voice quiet but firm. "I'm not just a girl anymore - I'm a Marine. And I'm your commanding officer."

Maybe we underestimated her, Bucky thought. They should have known she'd figure it out. Stevie had devised the initial strategy - setting Hydra and the Nazis against each other with a targeted misinformation campaign, crippling both forces with one stroke. They should have expected she'd see where the plan would lead in the end.

"We thought you wouldn't approve," Bucky said.

"I'm not naive." She had finished with his forehead and moved on to his jaw. "I read The Prince. This is a war. We have to do things we'd rather not do. I know that, Buck."

He opened his eyes. Stevie was rinsing the cloth, wringing it out. The water in her bowl had turned pink with his blood. Her eyes were older than Bucky had ever seen them - full of knowledge that he would have done anything to take away from her.

"You're used to looking out for me," she said, pouring iodine onto a pad of gauze. "But you don't have to anymore. Now it's my job to look out for you."

Bucky's heart gave a little lurch at her words. But then what will I do? He thought.

"Who knows?" Stevie continued. "I might even be bulletproof. Not that I plan to test that," she added, seeing his expression.

"Of course I have to look out for you," Bucky said. "If you had the sense God gave sliced bread you wouldn't be here in the first place."

She made a face at him. "Sit still," she said, and dabbed at his cuts with the iodine. He hissed at the sting.

"Oh, don't be such a baby."

"Sorry, sir."

"And don't keep secrets from me anymore." She taped a bandage over his forehead.

"I won't," he lied. "I promise."

Thanks for reading! Hope you liked it! I wanted some under-utilized characters to get a moment in the sun. Some historical notes about this chapter:

Joining the Historic BAMF Club this week are Helene Moszkiewiez and Monique de Bissy.

Helene Moszkiewiez was a Belgian Jew who got a job in Gestapo headquarters with a bogus identity and used her position of trust to steal valuable information and save lives during the war. The man who recruited her did turn out to be a double agent, but she prevailed. After the war, she helped identify collaborators and bring them to justice. She wrote a book called "Inside the Gestapo."

Monique de Bissy was an agent of the Comet Line, a network who smuggled downed Allied airmen and others out of Belgium. She was arrested in March 1944, but, despite being tortured, she did not give up the names of her comrades. After being liberated in August 1944, she jumped right back into action, enlisting as a nurse in the French army.

Speaking of BAMF's, our favorite WW1 BAMF Henry Johnson was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor on June 2nd. About damn time! Is this coincidence? Does it mean that President Obama reads this fic? You can't prove he doesn't!

Next time - Stuff happens - hopefully the stuff I promised you would happen last time, but no guarantees.