Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Snow Like Glass
August 1944, HYDRA facility somewhere in Estonia...
Bucky shivered.
It was enough to let him know that he was still alive, even though his world, his conscious thoughts, and everything that he could feel, felt like he was on fire. Agonizing jolts of pain lanced up and down his muscles, sharpening to acute stabs that seemed to wake him up even further. There was a jangling sound that seemed to ring a little too loudly in his ears as he felt a chill pass over him; his body involuntarily shivering yet again.
As he slowly, painfully opened his eyes, his world became less dark, less blurry, and sharper with each excruciatingly painful breath that he took. Sharper edges became more prominent, relief of stone, and what little light streamed through into where he was, greeted his sight. However, as he looked around, his eyes became riveted to what he saw a few feet away from him, towards his left.
Steve was chained to a chair; hands seemingly bound tightly behind him. Thick bands of silver-black chains wrapped around Steve's body several times, with even more strapping his legs to the legs of the chair. The chair itself was chained to the wall on a leash that looked to be taut.
Steve's head was hung down, hair ratty and matted with a few patches of blood stuck to the crown of his head. Bucky could see mottled bruises covering Steve's face. It was interspersed with split skin that was healing over scabs and dribbles of blood.
However bad Steve looked, Bucky felt worse, as he involuntarily shivered yet again, jangling the chains he was bound to. His arms had already gone somewhat numb, and his boot-covered feet barely dragged against the floor, providing little relief. He was naked from the waist up; his captors having just barely enough decency to keep him clothed from waist down and prevent him from freezing to death in a faster manner. Though the chill surrounding him was intolerable, it was just enough for him to feel lancing pain shoot up and down his body.
The noise made by his movements seemed to be loud enough to wake Steve up, as Bucky blearily saw him raise his head, blinking. “Bucky?” he heard Steve croak out.
“Y-yeah?” he huffed out; it still hurt to breathe, much less talk at the moment.
“I'm sorry...” Steve began. “I shouldn't... I shouldn't have—”
“N-not your f-fault, p-punk,” he said, with the chill he felt coursing through him caused him to stutter almost every single word. He couldn't even control the involuntary shaking of his body from being so cold. “R-remember... w-with you, until t-the end...”
Silence answered him, and for a moment, Bucky wondered if Steve had passed out again, as he saw him bow his head down to his chest. That silence was broken though, as he heard the faint movement of the chains around Steve shifting. Moments later, Steve lifted his head again, and rather than remorse and worry, Bucky saw absolute determination in those blue-green eyes.
“We're going to get through this,” Steve said, as Bucky saw him strain against the chains – chair and all. “Just hold on, Buck. Hold on. I'm going to get you free—”
The sound of Steve exerting every ounce of his enhanced strength against the chains binding him echoed in the cavernous cell, but after a few long minutes, it seemed it was all for naught. None of the chains around Steve budged more than an inch. Whatever those chains were made out of, they were impossibly strong enough to hold Steve to where he was.
“It's... it's a-alright S-Steve,” Bucky stuttered slightly, drawing and hissing at the same time as another violent chill passed through him. It exacerbated and inflamed the acute pain he felt. “We'll—”
He didn't get to finish his reassurance to Steve, as the cell door – a wooden door reinforced with iron bars – opened. A man dressed head-to-toe in all black with what looked like an executioner's hood, walked in, fiddling with a ring on his finger of all things. The man was followed by HYDRA officer who wore a black variant of the Nazi uniform. The two stopped in front of him.
Bucky drew in a shaky breath, even though it was painful for him to, as his eyes immediately fell from the two men and onto the whip that the HYDRA officer carried with him. Other HYDRA soldiers had punched him with their gloved fists, beaten him earlier with tools, or kicked him with their booted feet. The welts and bruises that the others had left would heal, but this... scars from being whipped—
“Leave him alone! Don't you dare touch him!” Steve shouted, straining against the chains once again.
“Will this work, Doctor?” Bucky read the lips of the HYDRA officer holding the whip, as Steve's yelling drowned out anything that could be heard by him.
The question had been asked in English, and he knew that it was designed to continue to spread fear in him – and continue to anger Steve. Whether the mysteriously black-clad person said anything in return or not, all Bucky saw was the continued twisting of the ring on the finger.
A moment later, the HYDRA officer stepped back and unfurled the whip, drawing his arm back. The other person stayed where he was, but Bucky was no longer staring at him or the strange, almost hypnotic movement of the ring on the man's finger. His eyes had focused onto the HYDRA officer, and the long snake-like movement of the whip flying towards him—
* * *
Earlier...
“Nervous, Carter?” Bucky asked, nearly shouting his words over the roar of airplane engine and open door that was ready for them to jump out of. It was Stark's airplane that was carrying them to the drop zones.
“Hardly, Sergeant,” Peggy answered. Bucky glanced down the line of either side of the airplane and saw the rest of his fellow Commandos grinning at Peggy's confident words. “This is not my first time jumping out of an airplane.”
“Oh, really?” he asked, as a couple of the Commandos also looked as surprised as he did.
Unfortunately, she didn't get a chance to elaborate on when exactly was the last time – or how many times for the matter – she had jumped out of an airplane, as Steve returned from his brief talk with Howard in the cockpit. “Time to go?” Bucky asked, as it looked like Steve was not going to sit down again.
“Jump in thirty seconds,” Steve answered.
Bucky got up and did a brief check on Steve's chute, straps, and accouterments. Once verified to be secured and ready, he double-tapped Steve on the side of his right arm – the signal for 'ready'. Pinkerton had done the same to him, though the former detective-turned-soldier sat down after the verification and signal. Bucky then followed Steve to the edge of the open fuselage door.
“Night jumps are the best,” Peggy leaned over slightly and shouted to both of them. “I'll tell you the story when both of you return.”
“Okay!” Steve answered, even though Bucky knew that his best friend had no idea why Peggy was describing night jumps out of an airplane as being the best. Bucky knew that it was an indirect way of telling them – Steve especially – to return safe and sound.
“Good hunting—” Peggy began just as the light next to the door turned from red to green.
At nearly the same time, anti-aircraft rounds began peppering the skies all around them, drowning out whatever else Peggy was going to say. The airplane rocked, but a second later, Steve was already leaping out of the airplane, and Bucky quickly followed.
Pulling the chute as soon as he counted the seconds past clear, his fall down to the earth jerked to a halt. He turned ever so slightly towards his right to look beyond where Steve was floating down near him, to see Howard turning the airplane around to get out of the dangerous airspace. The distraction and drop had been successful; he and Steve were the distraction, dropping into the heart of enemy territory. They were not going to assault the HYDRA facility by themselves though – a Soviet strike team was already in place, waiting for them at the rendezvous site.
The rest of the Commandos, along with Peggy, were going to drop in a relatively safer zone. Their job was to infiltrate the HYDRA facility and find as much information as possible about what was waiting for the Soviet battalion just outside of Kronas and possibly elsewhere in the region. The Soviets needed to take Kronas and a few other towns after that, in order to help the rest of their countrymen secure Narva.
It had not been local intelligence that had caused the SSR to get involved with the messy and bloody aftermath of the start of the Leningrad-Novgorod Offensive. Rather, it had been the unusual report of a fierce August blizzard whipping up and covering the entire region in less than six hours, that had drawn the attention of the SSR. What little information they could get from the region pointed to a possible HYDRA base somewhere in the region, along with a supposed super-weapon unlike anything that had been seen before.
Even with the bone-chilling cold and heavy winter snow in the middle of summer upon them, along with the reputation of the Soviets successfully starving and driving out Nazi and Nazi-allied forces in Operation Uranus, there was only so much a regular army could do against HYDRA.
Because of the scarcity of information, along with a possibility that the Soviet offensives could grind to a halt because of the rumored weapon, Colonel Philips had personally set up a temporary command base in the field. The forward command base and its skeleton crew of personnel, were a good few miles and safely away from the facility that the Commandos and Soviet strike team were about to invade.
Bucky grimly smiled and focused back on the landing – especially since the dense forest and the snow-topped trees made it extremely difficult to land without possibly ripping the chute or cords apart. Whatever this HYDRA facility was, whatever information it was trying to hide, it would not be successful – not against the Howling Commandos backed by an elite Soviet strike team.
* * *
Present, at the temporary SSR Field Headquarters...
“You tell that son-of-a—”
“Dugan!” Peggy admonished sharply, even though he was saying the words she desperately wanted to translate directly into the faces of the Soviet battalion commander and his adjutants.
“Lieutenant Dugan, take a walk,” Philips ordered, as Peggy folded her arms across her chest and shook her head slightly. She saw the bowler-hat wearing Commando glare at the commander of the battalion one last time before leaving, muttering under his breath. Most of the other Commandos, left with Dugan, but only Major Falsworth remained; still silent but standing now with his arms folded across his chest.
As soon as the flap to the tent closed, Philips returned his attention to the commander, saying, “I apologize for the rudeness of my men. I hope that you will be able to put it aside, as we have many more things to discuss with what we have found.”
Peggy dutifully translated Philips' words into Russian, and watched as the commander nodded before gesturing to the map. It was a laborious process, translating what she and the other Commandos had found in the HYDRA facility, as none of the materials had been written in English. What little they had brought back after being discovered and nearly overwhelmed by HYDRA forces, was written primarily in German with a few Russian documents thrown in .
Emily Hattersfield and Darin Townsend, the two code-breakers and analysts who had been hand-picked by her to be here, were still working on translating and decoding the German materials, which had been under a different cipher than what governed the German Enigma machines. Peggy had decoded most of the Russian documents, since she was the only one out of the three who knew Russian, though she was not completely fluent. Emily and Darin knew German better than she did – Emily especially was fluent enough to be considered native. The young woman was able to speak with the various accents and dialects of the German language.
At the present though, the Russian documents was what she, along with Philips were presenting to the commander and his adjutants. As she translated Philips words and the Russian commander's answers – back and forth – she couldn't help but allow her eyes to stray across the map to where a 'H' flag had been pinned against the map. It was situated in the middle of the dense forest. She had to keep the worry from her expression and her voice though; as she wanted to go with the Howling Commandos right at the moment and back to where the 'H' flag was.
Steve and Bucky had been captured during their diversion assault on the base. It had only been though the lone survivor of the elite Soviet strike team that the Soviet commander had sent to assist the two, that she along with Philips and the others, had found out what had happened. After HYDRA had discovered Peggy and the other Commandos sneaking around, and had driven them away with sheer overwhelming force, she could only assume that HYDRA had turned to do the same to Steve and the Soviet soldiers.
The lone survivor was currently being tended to in the small medical tent within the field headquarters. However, Peggy had seen that his fellow soldiers had wanted to bring the young man back to their camps that dotted the perimeter. It wasn't that the Soviets didn't trust the SSR as much as the SSR could trust the Soviets – it was that the two forces were only working together because of mutual circumstances.
Thus far, the SSR had been able to prevent most of HYDRA's weaponry and machinations from being spread into and throughout the European front. Destroying several bases and production facilities certainly helped, but Peggy knew that it was mainly because the 107th were everywhere in Europe. The 107th had struck at so many HYDRA targets all at once that it was enough to force Schmidt to focus solely on fighting them, instead of attempting to take over the world.
Now, there was a weapon that none of their intelligence feelers, field agents, and informants had picked up – and it was threatening to halt the forward march of a somewhat ally of the Allies. Peggy felt that what little information they had found about Kronas had not been worth the fact that Steve and Bucky had been captured – nor was it worth the massacre of an elite Soviet strike team.
It was about an hour later, after the information had finally been passed on, that the battalion commander asked for a brief few minutes to confer with his adjutants alone. Philips granted the request, and held his arm out for Peggy and Falsworth to leave before he did.
Outside, and before Peggy could get a word in after the tent flap had closed, Philips turned to both of them, saying, “Whatever you're going to say, Carter, save it. You as well, Falsworth. I'm in no mood to be entertaining the notion of a rescue mission, not until the Soviets give me their answers.”
“Sir—” Falsworth began, but then shut his mouth, wisely not saying another word in response to the glare that Philips had thrown him.
Philips walked away, but even before he was out of earshot, Falsworth had turned to Peggy, saying, “We'll get him back; we'll get both of them back, Peggy.”
“I know,” she answered, as she allowed him to guide her away from the tent and to where the other Commandos were, sitting around a campfire to keep the cold and light snow storm at bay. “It's just,” she began, sitting down next to DumDum, while Falsworth took the empty spot on the log next to her, “Colonel Philips is right – we're going to need help assaulting that facility.”
“So we do it without the Russkies' help,” DumDum said, handing her a tin mug of coffee. “We get on the horn, let Simon and Chavez's teams know we need their help, and wait for them to get here. I mean, I think they're the closest teams to where we are.”
“They're needed where they are,” Peggy stated, shaking her head before taking a sip of the coffee, letting the hot liquid warm her up. “And we don't have replacements to fill in their spots.”
“Philips' request got denied by the top brass again?” Morita asked, frowning slightly.
“Well, I wouldn't even put someone that green in Simon or Chavez's deployment area,” Falsworth commented.
“Goddammit,” Peggy heard DumDum whisper in frustration. “How the hell did such a facility not show up on any of the reports? Especially with such an overwhelming amount of HYDRA soldiers swarming it?”
“Whatever the facility is, besides providing us with what's in Kronas, it must have been important enough that only Schmidt knew about it,” Peggy surmised, rolling the tin cup between her gloved hands.
She fell silent and looked at the swirling dark brown liquid within the cup for a few long minutes, watching the snowflakes melt into it as they fell. She knew that Philips was correct to not entertain a rescue, and she knew that she could not ask Howard to fly the Commandos and her back into the area – not without serious consequences. This was not like when Steve had dropped into Azzano to get the 107th and other prisoners out; this was a facility that had more HYDRA soldiers than anything the Commandos had encountered before.
Azzano had worked because of the advantage of surprise, and the fact that they had more prisoners held there than there were guards or soldiers in the facility. They had neither here, and the Allies' super-soldier was a captive held behind enemy lines. None of them knew if Steve was gravelly injured or not, or if even him or Bucky were still alive. All she and the others had known was from the lone survivor: that Steve and Bucky had been captured, and that the Soviet strike team had been massacred.
Peggy knew that the Soviets were wanting to push into Kronas and the town's surroundings before the advantage they had over HYDRA was lost. The Commandos' help to subdue and destroy the possible HYDRA super-weapon in Kronas was needed. There was also a good possibility that the HYDRA forces within the facility would have begun to move towards Kronas or other towns – and again, the Commandos were needed to help fight against that.
It was a hopeless situation to Peggy. At the moment, all she wanted to do was not cry, but to go find and rescue Steve. Yet, she heard his voice inside of her; the willingness to sacrifice something personal for the greater good. She knew that if he were in her shoes at the moment, he would have focused on making sure the HYDRA super-weapon was no longer a threat to the Soviets or Allied forces – not go off on a half-baked rescue mission with almost no chance of success.
All she could do at the moment was hope and pray that Steve survived – that both he and Bucky survived – until they could go rescue them.
* * *
HYDRA facility...
The whip had left him unmarked.
It was the first thing Bucky had noticed as soon as he had jolted awake to the clinking sounds of Steve shifting ever so slightly within his chain-bound chair to the wall. His own screams of pain, mingling in with Steve's anguished bellows for the HYDRA officer to stop torturing him, still rang in a ghostly manner in his ears. Bucky own sudden movement caused louder jangling sounds that accompanied a fresh wave of pain shooting all over his body before it dulled to an ache.
He wondered just how long he had been out. It seemed that it had been long enough for his older bruises to begin to fade as the open and split wounds on him had also begun knitting themselves together again.
The noise was enough to startle Steve awake as well, as Bucky saw him blink several times before suddenly look up at him. “Bucky—!” Steve began.
Bucky saw confusion spread across Steve's face. He shook his head at his best friend, finding the movement not as painful as it had overwhelmingly been before. Neither of them could figure out just what had happened after the HYDRA officer had flung the whip at him. Bucky had felt the acute searing pain of the whip cutting into and through him several times until he had blacked out.
Now, there was nothing. No red welt or mark on his body, his shoulders, or even cutting into the trousers he wore. All he felt was the bone-numbing chill continuing to crawl up and down his body, along with the dull, persistent ache of pain from his somewhat healed wounds.
What had he felt, and what had Steve seen?
“What... the hell?” he heard Steve whisper, seemingly unable to say his words any louder. Bucky could only guess that Steve had screamed for them to stop until he could scream no more.
“T-that ring?” Bucky hoarsely suggested, feeling a rawness within his throat that Zola's super-soldier serum had not yet healed. He could only surmise that whatever he and Steve had been through with the all-covered man and the HYDRA officer had to do something with the strange ring.
Neither of them said anything any further as the cell door opened again. This time, four HYDRA soldiers wearing the usual black outfits, sans helmets, walked in. Bucky did not like the smiles on their faces, nor the gleam in their eyes.
“<Should we let Captain America watch, or blind fold him and just let him hear the screams?>” one of the HYDRA soldiers asked in German, sauntering over to where Steve was while swinging a long piece of black cloth in his hands.
“<Let him watch. Let the bastard feel even more helpless than he is now.>” another answered.
“<Watch it is.>” the HYDRA soldier standing next to Steve said, before suddenly pushing Steve and the chair he was bound to, over. Because of how it was chained to the wall, Steve didn't fall, but rather he was tipped over just enough that the chair – and Steve – was balanced on the two left legs. Derisive laughter filled the air.
“Hey!” Bucky growled, forcing the rawness that he felt in his throat as far away as he could.
If there was one thing that he did not want to hear ever again, it was Steve howling in pain. The sound had been excruciating to Bucky's ears, and all it had done was make him feel completely helpless in the hands of his captors.
The other three HYDRA soldiers slowly stopped laughing at Steve's predicament with Bucky's exclamation. He still did not like the cruel smiles on their faces as all four of them turned their attention fully onto him and surrounded him in a semi-circle, nearly blocking his view of Steve.
“<Lower the chains on him. None of us can reach with him strung up like plucked chicken.>” the soldier to Bucky's left said, nodding to the one on his right.
“Don't touch him—” he heard Steve begin, trying to yell his words.
One of the soldiers in front of him abruptly turned and closed the distance to Steve. A wad of cloth was stuffed into Steve's mouth before the black cloth that was supposed to have been a blind fold was bound across. The soldier returned, just as Bucky saw the soldier on his right comply with the order.
Keys that the guard held clinked and clanged at each other, but Bucky wasn't paying too much attention to the noise. What had briefly caught his attention was the fact that the other soldier who had stood next to the one who had gagged Steve, was now standing behind him, having pushed him slightly forward. The hungry, menacing look on that soldier's face made him uneasy, more than it made him angry.
The chains holding him to the wall was slackened so quickly that Bucky didn't even have the strength to keep himself on his feet. He collapsed onto the ground, but just as he fell into a heap, the chains were pulled taut again. What blood had come rushing back through his arms, sending a wave of pins and needles through him, was enough for him to react and twist his wrists around both of the chains, grabbing the chains with his hands.
The chains were plain iron.
HYDRA had chained him in simple irons. These soldiers in the facility did not know that he had been augmented by Zola – they did not know that he had as much strength as Steve had with his Erskine-based super-soldier serum. Whereas they bound Steve in some sort of chain that didn't seem to be made of iron, they had thought of him – Bucky – as a simple soldier of the 107th.
“<Look at that, he's bracing himself. I think he knows what's coming.>” one of the soldiers taunted.
“<I shall enjoy hearing him scream like the whores up river.>” another viciously and gleefully stated, causing the others to briefly laugh.
Bucky didn't even get a chance to pick himself up off the floor, as one of the soldiers' meaty hands grabbed him by his hair and yanked him up to his knees. He didn't dare make a sound of pain – it was nothing compared to the beatings he had suffered through earlier. Instead, he glared, putting as much anger, venom, and malice he could into it.
The sounds of what seemed like clothing rustling from the soldier behind him, followed by the more clearer sounds of a belt being unbuckled, alarmed Bucky. However, he managed to keep it from showing on his face as he continued to focus, to glare at the other three in front of him – one of whom was still grasping him by his hair.
He heard more clothes being rustled behind him, but it was when he felt a too-warm hand press on the back edge of his trousers and bare skin, he acted. Using every single ounce of what strength he had, never mind that pins and needles still crawled up his arm, Bucky pulled at the iron chains in his hands.
The popping and pinging sound coming from above all of them caused the soldiers to pause for a moment before they could get far enough in their physical assault upon him. It didn't last long, as Bucky continued to pull and with one last effort, finally yanked both chains out of the walls.
The soldiers didn't even get to finish their expletives in German as stone and sharp spikes of iron that held the chains and loops to the wall came flying down. It was half-luck, and half-anger that Bucky had deliberately yanked the ends of the chains in both of his hands directly into the soldier who had tipped Steve's chair over.
Dead from being stabbed by the spiked ends of the chains, Bucky lashed out, kicking and sweeping his foot to the right to down the second soldier. For the third soldier, he was already yanking the chains out and threw the end on his right hand out towards the third soldier – who was scrambling away. The chain wrapped twice around the soldier's neck, and Bucky pulled – hard.
The snap of bones echoed in the cavernous cell, as he took the spiked end of the chain on his left hand and stabbed it into heart of the second soldier on the ground in front of him. Ignoring the flecks of blood that sprayed up, he pulled the spike back out and turned to face the final soldier.
The soldier – naked from the waist down – hadn't even moved to run from where he had been when Bucky had freed himself. Instead, all the soldier had done was slide down against the wall to sit dumbly on the ground, with his uniform's pants pooling at his ankles. The soldier was staring at him wide eyed with fear, and was muttering something in German that Bucky could not catch.
Instead of killing the man right then and there, Bucky coolly closed the distance and crouched in front of the soldier. He deliberately glanced down, staring at the soldier's manhood, before looking back up, while bringing his right hand that held that chain's spiked end to hover over it. Sweat broke out over the HYDRA soldier's face.
“I don't appreciate being assaulted,” he growled. “Especially by a pig like you. Neither did those women up river, or anyone else you've touched with your filthy hands, you fucking snake.”
“S-sorry,” the soldier stated in a heavily accented English, sweating profusely as Bucky saw his eyes follow his right hand holding the spike. He deliberately lowered his hand a few inches, watching those fearful eyes of the soldier move some more.
“Not fucking sorry enough, asshole,” he hissed, and slowly slashed across the soldier's neck with the spike in his left hand.
Blood began to dribble out of the wound, with the soldier trying to stymie it with his hands. By the time it started to gush, Bucky had already turned and stood back up, ignoring the dying clawing attempt by the half-naked soldier. It took some effort, since his strength was nearly gone with what he had done in a matter of seconds to the four soldiers, but he managed to get the irons binding his wrists off of him as he walked away.
As the clanking sounds of the chains fell to the floor, Bucky looked around for the keys that had been dropped. He deliberately avoided looking at Steve, as he found the keys a little ways away from where the guard who had had his neck snapped by the chains, had fell down dead. Picking the keys up, he made his way over and crouched next to Steve, tipping him back up. It was only then, that Bucky finally looked over at him.
Understanding and relief, not anger, shone through Steve's eyes.
“Come on. Let's get you free,” he murmured turning away from those mesmerizing blue-green eyes of Steve's. He untied the gag over Steve's mouth and yanking the wad of cloth out. As Steve coughed and took a few deep breaths, Bucky was already searching for the chain lock around the chair.
“Are you all right, Bucky?” Steve quietly, but still hoarsely asked, as Bucky found the tiny but strong lock that held the chains together, and began to test the various keys out on it.
There was so much weight, so much concern that radiated through that simple question. Bucky knew that Steve was not just asking about what had happened in the fight, but before that – and what had happened to him since they had been captured. His body still ached, but the adrenaline running through him had pushed most of the pain away.
He remained silent as the second to last key in the ring turned out to be the one that broke the lock. Quickly setting it and keys down, he unwound the chains around Steve, as Steve shook himself loose and stood up. Standing back up, he took a step towards the door to their cell, but it was Steve gently grabbing his right arm that stopped him for a moment.
“Bucky, at least strip that soldier over there of his shirt. You're going to freeze to death if you don't put something on,” Steve said, gesturing with with his chin towards the soldier whose neck had been snapped. “I'll recon.”
“Y-yeah,” he answered, feeling his instincts to fight die a little, as he realized that Steve was not going to keep pestering him about if he was all right or not.
Bucky knew that he wasn't, but they needed to escape first. He had to push aside whatever ill-hell he felt about that attempted assault – to the side. It hadn't happened; it had only gotten as far as that jackbooted HYDRA thug pulling down his own trousers, not Bucky's. It hadn't happened to him, but it had happened to others before him – others who could not defend themselves.
The four soldiers in the cell deserved to be killed in the manner that they had been killed by his hand; no more, no less.
* * *
SSR Field Headquarters...
“We appreciate the information that you have recovered, Colonel Philips. Given the necessity of surprise, we have elected to push forward in the assault on Kronas,” Peggy translated.
Peggy saw Philips nod in affirmation at the Soviet battalion commander before saying, “The Howling Commandos will be supporting your men. What time do you intend to launch it?”
She translated the words, before glancing over at Falsworth, who was standing at the corner of the table, studying the map. The Englishman looked up, catching her eyes, but she couldn't read him at the moment. At the answer that the battalion commander gave, Peggy returned her attention to Philips and said, “He says dawn, sir.”
“You have a go, Major,” Philips stated, turning his attention to Falsworth. “You're in charge of the Commandos. Brief them on what was discussed here, and request whatever you need from Stark. If that weapon exists and is in Kronas, it must be destroyed at all costs.”
“Yes, sir,” Falsworth stated, nodding, though Peggy could see a reluctance to assume leadership of the Howling Commandos weighing upon him. “And after we've destroyed the weapon, sir?”
Peggy knew that the Englishman was waiting for Philips to give them a go on getting back to the HYDRA base to go rescue Steve and Bucky. Yet the affirmation did not come as Philips shook his head, saying, “One battle at a time, Major. We can't have HYDRA potentially escaping with the weapon.”
“Understood, sir,” Falsworth reluctantly answered, as Peggy caught his eyes on her again, apologetic.
There was nothing else she could say, or even do at the moment – not when the SSR had committed themselves to neutralizing the greater threat. No one knew how long it would take to drive out the enemy forces in Kronas, or what else would be waiting for them besides the slim intelligence they had picked up. Steve and Bucky – if they were still alive – would have to find a way to escape on their own.
* * *
HYDRA Facility...
For an HYDRA facility, the fact that they were sneaking through the halls of a stone castle, was a little eerie and a little frustrating. The eerie part stemmed mainly from the fact that since they escaped their cell, neither he nor Steve had run into anyone. That had included HYDRA soldiers and scientists – at least Bucky presumed that there were scientists in this facility; the strange black-clad man with the equally strange ring on his finger not withstanding.
Bucky saw Steve suddenly hold up a fist to halt, before pressing himself against the right wall of the stone laced hall that they were traversing through. Though there were modern amenities like strung lights hanging across the ceiling, the tapestries, knights armors, and various portraits that they had passed in their traversal of the castle, made it feel more medieval and ancient.
He pressed himself up against the same wall, but did not peek out as he saw Steve turn his head slightly towards the adjacent hall on their right that intersected the one they were currently in. Exhaustion from torture and being so cold was catching up to him, as he had not heard anything coming down that hall. Briefly closing his eyes, he tried to summon the energy to continue – they were no longer in the cell; they had to escape, no matter what.
Steve's warm, weighty hand on his shoulder a few moments later had him opening his eyes and looking over to see Steve still pressed against the wall, but his head turned towards him. There was a silent question of worry in Steve's eyes, but he did not say a word. Bucky did not want to continue to worry Steve and nodded as best as he could in reassurance.
The sooner they escaped from this hell hole, the faster they could get back to safety and a place for him to recover.
Steve didn't look convinced by Bucky's nod, but lifted his hand from his shoulder a few moments later. Silent gestures to indicate the direction they were headed were given by hand signals, and Bucky acknowledged them with another nod of his head. A second later, they were on the move again – this time, down the hall adjacent to the right of where they had been.
About fifty feet later, it seemed that whatever hunch had been guiding Steve was right; the stone hall that sloped down ended into a more 'modern' looking facility. It seemed that an annex of sorts had been built adjacent to the castle. Bucky surmised that this must have been the 'kitchen shed' that he, along with Steve and the Soviet strike team had seen through their binoculars. This was where the Soviet strike team and the two of them had tried to hold the line against HYDRA.
There was still no sign of guards or otherwise as they paused at the first closed door they could find. Naturally, it was locked, but Bucky kept watch as Steve pressed his ear against the door, listening for any sign of anyone beyond and in the room. A few moments later, he saw him step back before putting a hand on the iron handle and pushed hard in an inward manner. The simple lock on the door broke with a small crack, and Steve opened the door.
Bucky slipped inside after Steve, closing the door behind him. It was a room of sorts, that looked like it used to be a classroom. There was a desk near the door, with a coat stand in the corner. In the center of the room was a large table that held a diorama of what looked to be a miniature of the facility, the extremely thick forest that the facility was housed in, and the surrounding towns. Leaning against one of the legs of the table was Steve's shield. Bucky saw Steve make his way over to the model map, picking up the shield and slipping it into its usual place against his left arm.
Bucky headed over to the desk. Papers upon papers, folders, and various amounts of paraphernalia were strewn about the messy desk. As he rifled through the first few leaflet, hearing Steve do the same to whatever was lying on top of the model map, he couldn't help but frown. The first few pages were written all in Russian—
“Oh, God,” he heard Steve softly exclaim, and looked up to see him staring at a particular scrap of paper in his right hand, while his left hand hovered over the representation of Kronas.
“We gotta move, Buck,” Steve said, looking up at him, eyes wide with worry. “It's a trap at Kronas. They've planted mines deep underground from the center to a three kilometer radius beyond edge of the town. That super-weapon, it's real and they've got it rigged to blow with the mines.”
Bucky softly swore, but a faint, feminine voice calling out in German interrupted them. Both he and Steve turned towards the source of the voice, which sounded as if it was coming through the closed door on the other side of the room. Steve immediately put the papers he had been reading down, and approached.
The faint noise of a woman crying for help came again and Bucky saw Steve break the lock on the door much in the same manner that he had done to get into this room. Bucky was already stepping out from behind the desk and half-way to help Steve, when Steve turned back and waved him back down. “I'll get her free, Bucky. Go get the documents.”
Bucky nodded, and returned to the model map, collecting everything on the table as best as he could, together. It was all in German – most of it that he couldn't read, as he only understood German and couldn't speak it as well as Steve had grasped the language. It had been a brief moment of hilarity between the two of them when they had discovered that Steve had the same problem he had with German, except applied to Russian.
There originally had been no need for Steve to learn Russian as the SSR rarely ran into Soviet forces in the field, and there still really wasn't – not when Bucky was the one within the Commandos able to translate. Bucky did not mind translating the orders given back and forth, but since this whole debacle with a formerly undiscovered HYDRA base cropping up, he had been extremely conscious that he put an American accent into his Russian. No one, not even Steve, needed to know that the Russian he grew up with was strictly from Petrograd – or Leningrad as it was now known.
Bringing the documents back to the desk, he placed it on top of the pile of Russian documents he had found. He rummaged around the drawers of the desk, trying to find a briefcase of sorts, but settled on a satchel instead. Hauling and stuffing every single document, folder, and piece of paper he could find into the satchel, he hoped that he was not missing anything else as he took one last look around.
The German documents were their immediate concern, but the Russian ones worried him as well. He was no doctor, but there were a few words he had roughly translated from Russian that stood out when he had briefly skimmed the pages, namely: unconscious thought, manipulation, and subversive implantation. Whatever those words indicated, it was clear to him that it was something that the SSR should be made aware.
He looked up as the sounds of Steve and whomever he was breaking out from the other room, returned to this room. The woman that he was helping walk forward was wearing a dirtied white blouse with what looked like dark-colored bloomers for pants. As unkempt as she looked, she didn't look terribly injured and only seemingly shaken, given that Steve was not carrying her.
Bucky slung the satchel over his shoulder and stepped over to take the black trench coat with the HYDRA shoulder insignias off of the coat rack. It felt a little lopsided in terms of weight, but he quickly ripped the insignias off of it. Reaching into the left pocket, he fished out a Luger before walking the coat over to Steve and the woman.
Steve took the coat from him, but Bucky did not miss the slightly puzzled look that Steve gave him, as Steve draped the coat around the woman. He had noticed what Steve had seen: the woman, despite having smudges of dirt all over her face, looked incredibly similar to Lorraine. As unsettling as it was, it was only because they had more pressing issues to contend with that he did not say a word.
“T-thank you, s-sir,” the woman stated in halting and stuttering English that was heavily accented.
“I'll take point,” Bucky said, even though exhaustion was still nipping at him. He had to focus, as it was no longer just Steve and him trying to escape. Whatever or whomever HYDRA had captured or kept captive of this woman, they needed to keep her safe until they could get to safety.
“I...I worked...here,” the woman said, drawing the coat tighter around her as she looked up at him, eyes imploringly sad. There was some pain that Bucky could read, radiating through those blue eyes of hers, but she seemed to draw strength by the fact that Steve was standing protectively around her.
“S-school... governess to the c-children,” she continued.
“There are children held captive here?” Steve asked, drawing in a sharp breath as he looked in alarm at Bucky.
He knew what his friend was thinking about, as the same appalling thoughts had crossed his mind as well. The last time the Commandos had encountered children had been in a town near a HYDRA outpost; all had died from starvation or exposure before the Commandos had even gotten there.
“N-no,” the woman said, shaking her head slightly. “F-family...they escape before borders closed. I s-stay behind... lure.”
Bucky clenched his jaw tight for a moment as he briefly caught Steve's glance over at him, before Steve focused back on the woman. The woman had stayed behind to divert HYDRA or whatever Nazi forces' interest, allowing the family who had lived here to escape before they could be captured.
As disheartening of a story as it was, the fact that HYDRA had kept her here as a captive made it even worse. If those four dead soldiers in the cell were anything to speak of just how brutally hideous HYDRA was, especially of what they had tried to do to him, he could not imagine what they had done to the woman.
“What is your name?” Steve gently asked.
“Marta,” the woman answered, looking at them anxiously.
“I'm Steve,” Steve said, pointing to himself. “And this is Bucky,” Steve continued, pointing at him. “We're going to escape Marta. We have friends and allies who can help you; reunite you with your family and get you away from here. Do you think you can be brave and escape with us?”
“Y-yes,” the woman answered, nodding, as she flicked her eyes over both of them. “Yes,” she answered after another moment in a stronger voice. “I-I know where t-they keep vehicles.”
“All right,” Steve said, as Bucky caught his nod towards him, and made his way to the door. He listened carefully, but could not hear anything beyond the door. Slowly, he opened the door, the Luger pointed in front of him and leading the way.
The hall was empty and he slipped out, hearing Steve and Marta follow behind him. “Take r-right at end,” Marta's murmur behind him was barely heard, but Bucky acknowledged it with a nod of his head.
Slowly and carefully, the three of them crept down the halls of the castle with Marta guiding them to where the vehicles were. They encountered no one until just before the final area that led out into the shed-like area where the vehicles were kept. It was the shadow cast by the lights in the shed, of a guard that caused Bucky to immediately lean back and press himself against the wall.
The guard walked by the entrance without incident, but Bucky dared not breathe out loud. As soon as the guard walked past, he counted five seconds before carefully peeking out.
There was no one else in the shed, but it was woefully bereft of any sizable vehicles that they could quickly make their escape with. Only a single motorcycle, along with another that had a sidecar attached to it were left in the shed. With what lights that had been strung up in the shed, it was clear to him that tracks on the dirt ground in and out of the shed indicated that there had been heavier vehicles parked in the shed. Bucky could only guess that the HYDRA forces that had been stationed here had moved out – most likely to intercept or ambush Soviet forces in Kronas.
He leaned back and handed Steve the Luger before making the appropriate hand signals. He got a single nod in return, and a worried look from Marta. Hoping to put her worry at ease, Bucky flashed her a confident smile before waiting another five seconds for the guard to return and pass by them again.
Silently slipping out, he crept up to the guard and swiftly pounced. Wrapping his hands around the guard's face from the back, he wrenched the guard's head to the side with a quick pop. The guard fell down dead, and Bucky stripped him of his weapons, skittering the rifle towards the entrance into the castle while taking the combat blade for himself.
As exhausted as he was, Bucky forced himself to listen carefully for any sounds of any other guards in the area. There was one directly above them, walking around the shed's rooftop. He needed to get rid of that guard.
He quickly slipped out of the shed, and climbed onto the rooftop of the shed. Bucky caught a glimpse of Steve slipping out with Marta, headed towards the motorcycle with the side car. It was Steve's job to make sure Marta was safe, as the two would be riding double on the motorcycle.
Pausing for a moment before he completely hauled himself up onto the rooftop, he waited for the second the guard on the shed's roof turned. He couldn't afford to be quiet as the three steps he took to close the distance between him and the second guard was noisy enough to alert the guard. However, the guard didn't get to even raise his rifle up or shout an alarm as the combat blade flew from Bucky's hand.
There was enough force behind his throw to pierce into and through both the helmet and skull of the guard's forehead. The guard clattered onto the rooftop in a heap, just as the low rumble of the motorcycle with the sidecar filled the air. Bucky wasted no time as he ran and snatched up the rifle, wrenching it from the dead body.
Just as Steve sped the motorcycle out of the shed, Bucky leapt and dropped directly into the empty side car. The rig wobbled slightly, but Steve compensated for the additional weight easily before continuing on, pushing the speed of the vehicle higher and higher. Marta was sitting in front of Steve, directly behind the shield that Steve had placed in front, acting like a metal windshield.
Shouts and alarms trailed after them, as Bucky turned and looked behind them for a moment. Up on the balconies of the castle, there were several HYDRA guards – those left behind, and they were already raising the alarm. Bucky couldn't do anything about them – not with the type of rifle he had, and certainly not with the speed that Steve was continuing to pour into the motorcycle.
“Brace!” was all the warning he got from Steve as he glanced back towards the front and immediately ducked.
They crashed through the bars that kept the road that led to the castle closed. Nevertheless, that became the least of their worries as the headlight from the motorcycle shined through the darkness and showed them what exactly was waiting for them. A company of HYDRA motorcycle riders, most likely the last of HYDRA's forces from the facility making their way to Kronas, were directly in front of them.
Bucky readied the rifle in his hands, but he knew that between what he and Steve carried, they did not have enough bullets to take out an entire company.
~*~*~*~