Hello, lovely readers! Here's another chapter I didn't intend to write. I wanted to get right to the action - but the characters wanted a chance to say goodbye. Hope you like it.

Chapter 26 - March 1-3, 1945

"Hopefully, you won't have to use this."

The device in Stark's hand was about the size of a silver dollar, with six small prongs coming out of one side and a tiny blue light on the other.

"But," he continued, smile quirking up one side of his mouth. "If you do end up boarding the plane, it'll make your life much easier."

With some encouragement from Colonel Phillips, Zola had given them the details of the Red Skull's final plan. A huge bomber, the Valkyrie, would carry eight smaller planes - each targeting a different city along the East Coast, each equipped with a miniature A-bomb. It would be something of a Pyrrhic victory for Schmidt, given how much of his infrastructure he had already lost - but he'd get to lord it over an atomic wasteland, and Stevie guessed that for him that was good enough.

Zola had given them more than just warnings - he'd sketched maps of Hydra HQ in Austria, even a set of blueprints for the Valkyrie, which he helped design. Maps and blueprints that now lay on a huge table in SSR headquarters, yellow in the lamplight. She'd spent almost every waking moment with the Colonel, and Peggy and the other Commandos, planning attacks and contingencies. Plan A was to storm Hydra HQ and seize Schmidt before he could escape, keep the Valkyrie from ever lifting off the tarmac. If Schmidt did get to the plane, Plan B was to board it and take it down, using whatever means necessary.

That was where Stark came in. He couldn't join the assault - he was no soldier - but he was doing his best to give Stevie the benefit of his mechanical expertise. She had flat-out refused to talk to Zola. However practical it might have been, she knew she couldn't look at that sniveling toady without wanting to smash his teeth in.

"Walk me through it again," Stevie said.

"Every interior door has a control panel," Stark said, running a hand through his hair, uncharacteristically disheveled from long days and late nights of endless planning. "It's a security redundancy. Remove the panel and attach this to the underlying wiring."

Blueprints, sketches and diagrams were heaped between them on the conference table. Stark tapped his little device on one that showed a cutaway of a wiring schematic.

"Here, and here. This little beauty will override the central control mechanism and seal all interior doors."

That way she wouldn't have to fight a crew of sixteen men before getting to the Red Skull himself. At the thought of him, Stevie's fists clenched in her lap. The man who had caused so much death. Who had caused Bucky's death. After so long being one step behind him, she'd finally confront him in person. She couldn't wait to slam that ugly face into the ground.

"Stevie?" Stark asked.

"Hmm?" She returned to the present with a start.

"You looked miles away."

"Sorry," she said. Her fingernails were digging into her palms, and she forced her hands to unclench. Tried to smile. "It sounds perfect. Let's go over cockpit controls."

She started hunting through the sheets on the table. Howard put his hand over hers.

"You haven't been sleeping much, have you?" He asked.

Every time I try, I see my best friend falling to his death.

"As much as you have," she responded.

"Touché." He smiled wearily.

Stark had been different since coming back from his mission in Finow. No longer the smooth, charming inventor - he was haggard. Shaken. Driven. Forgetting to shave, working at all hours - up with her now at...Was it one in the morning? Stevie would have felt guilty for keeping him awake, except that he seemed desperate to avoid having even a moment alone with his thoughts. He tried to cover up the change with the usual quips and flirting, but she could see the cracks in the facade.

Maybe because I'm all cracks, myself. Held together with string and determination.

Stevie turned her hand over, her palm to his.

"What happened at Finow?" She asked, gently.

"I trusted someone I shouldn't have," Stark said. He sighed, rubbed his face. In that moment, he looked years older than the last time she'd seen him, when they'd danced in the gazebo. Before she realized she was in love with someone else. Before they'd been slapped around by their respective tragedies.

"I won't do that again." He smiled sardonically, as if mocking his own weakness. "But I'd rather not talk about it, if it's all the same to you."

She nodded. "I understand."

Stark's face turned serious again. "I'm sorry about Barnes. We weren't friends, but he was a good man. Everyone knows that."

He squeezed her hand.

"If you ever need to talk...I'm always up late these days."

"Thanks," she said. Maybe if she were more generous she'd have embraced him, let him cry on her shoulder. But she couldn't, so she just gave his hand an answering squeeze before pulling hers away.

"I'll keep it in mind."

Howard gave a resigned little sigh. "So. Control systems?"

"Control systems."

He shuffled through the blueprints until he found the one she'd been looking for, a rough sketch of the Valkyrie's cockpit - ridiculously large.

"The plane's power source is the Tesseract itself," Stark said. "There's nothing else with enough power to get a plane that size off the ground. Zola says its control housing is in the cockpit, here."

The sketch showed a cylindrical containment chamber rising from the center of the floor. Stark smiled wolfishly.

"I'd say that's a definite weak point."

Stevie felt a fierce joy at the thought of smashing the blue cube, sending the plane down into the sea.

You won't get away from me this time, Schmidt.

"Are you sure this is the best plan?" Dugan asked.

"Look at the map," Stevie said. "What do you see?"

He took off his hat, scratched his head, and put it back with a disgruntled sigh. Dugan, Morita, Dernier, Jones, Falsworth, Peggy - they'd been cooped up for hours in an office that was too small for so many people - the same office that Stevie was practically living in these days. This morning, it smelled like sweat and bitter coffee.

"One entrance," Stevie continued. "Fortified. Dug into a mountain. It's a choke point; they can throw troops at it all day. But…"

She pulled another map from a pile on the long table, slapped it down over the one they'd been studying.

"What about here?"

"There? The Red Skull's office?" Morita's voice climbed with incredulity. "With a panoramic view of the alps because it's carved into a fucking cliff face? We'd need to fly, Captain."

"No," Jones interjected, excitement rising in his voice. "It could work. With Stark's sticky grapple, like we did at…"

He hesitated, glanced at Stevie to gauge her reaction.

"Like we did at the train." She nodded, keeping her face neutral. Calm and strong. That's what a captain is.

"Oui!" Dernier pushed his way past Dugan to lean over the map. "Magnetic mines to blow the windows. Then we come in on a cable...ici."

"Exactly!" Stevie slapped the map on the desk. It was all coming together. The last plan. The last push.

"But for all this to work," Falsworth said. "There would need to be one hell of a distraction."

"And that's me." Stevie smiled.

"If I might summarize," Peggy pushed off from where she leaned against a wall, paced as well as she could in a small space filled with seven people. "You will get yourself captured in a solo frontal assault, hope that they take you to Schmidt's office instead of shooting you, and then we break in through the window and save the day?"

She raised a brow. "Am I missing anything?"

"You've got it," Stevie said. "But you'll be with the assault on the gate - the real one, once I blow the doors. We can't just take Schmidt down, we have to make sure that plane doesn't take off, no matter what else happens. If one of those warheads reaches the East Coast…"

She trailed off. They all knew the risks - the Valkyrie was a weapon of unprecedented destructive power, and they were all that stood between that weapon and the lives of millions.

"At this point, we can't afford to wait," She continued. "We can't afford caution. It's do or die."

She looked at each one of the others, stopping with Peggy. In their faces, she saw the same things she felt. Determination and grim resolve. She was so proud of them she felt a lump in her throat.

"We're with you, Captain," Peggy said. "Let's get this son of a bitch."

Stevie laughed in surprise, and the Commandos let loose a raucous cheer.

They were in a final frenzy of preparation. Schmidt's plan was going into effect - he planned to launch the Valkyrie in less than twenty-four hours. Stevie had never been part of such a large force - her team had been small and agile. Here, people were running and hauling and equipping all on top of each other while Peggy shouted at them.

Stevie was loading ammunition onto the transports when she heard someone clear his throat behind her.

"Captain Rogers. A word?" It was Colonel Phillips.

She put down the crate she was moving. "Sir?"

"I wasn't very kind to you back at the beginning, was I?"

She must have looked as surprised as she felt, because Phillips laughed, a dry chuckle.

"You've proved me abundantly wrong! But thank you for being so gracious about it."

"You're...welcome."

"Do you think you might be...too close to this operation?"

Stevie felt a dizzy rush of fear. He couldn't take this from her. Not now. Not after everything.

"Sir." She worked to stop her voice from trembling. "If you think my plans are unsound…"

"No, no." He waved his hand. "They're as good as they're gonna get at this point."

He sighed, his wrinkled face seeming to sag even further.

"Rogers." He sounded tired when he spoke. "As you may have guessed, this is not my first engagement. I've seen men lose friends. I've lost some myself, as it happens. It can make men...reckless. They start taking risks. Chasing death."

He gave her a piercing glance under his grizzled brows, brown eyes sharp.

"How old are you?"

She stumbled over the unexpected question. "Um...twenty-six."

"Twenty-six. God help us." The Colonel shook his gray head.

"It doesn't feel like it now," he continued. "But there's a lot ahead of you. Don't throw it away."

He clapped her on the shoulder and left, already bellowing at someone else.

Chasing death.

Stevie turned the phrase over in her mind, thought of her contingency plan, the Valkyrie plunging from the air. Bucky, falling from the train.

No. She shook herself a little. That's not what I'm doing. I wouldn't do that unless I had no other choice.

Would I?

In part, this chapter is inspired by something I read about Steve's character - that he takes ludicrous risks after Bucky dies, including crashing a freakin' plane, because he's experiencing near-suicidal depression. I wanted to address that more explicitly, as someone who has experienced depression myself. As always, feel free to tell me how I did in the comments.

Next time - Definitely the climactic battle and probably also the last chapter - finally, you guys!