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They're about ten klicks or so out from the Potomac and the Triskelion when the receiver implanted in Sophie's ear sparks to life. "Right, so welcome back. Sitwell was compromised. Cap knows about Insight."
There are times Sophie appreciates Melody's succinctness; this is not one of them. She holds back the vicious curse, but only just. She can manage a low murmur without the others on the jet hearing, but a scream of frustration they just might notice. Since the strike team she's returning with is entirely comprised of Hydra, it wouldn't do for them to realize anything's amiss. Especially not anything that lets them know that she's perfectly aware of who they are.
Ten thousand feet and descending rapidly is hardly an optimal location for a melee.
Sophie sighs instead, murmuring a quiet, "Pull him" in the same breath.
"Already have." Melody hesitates, but to her credit it's only a second before she continues with, "Barnes' presence confirmed. The Soldier was sent to kill Sitwell. Saw him myself."
It's not a surprise, so Sophie has a moment's confusion at the apprehension she can hear lurking in Mel's voice. They were expecting the Soldier for this. They were counting on it. She tamps down on the frustration, reminding herself of the Hydra operatives at her back. "And?"
"I wasn't the only one. He came face to face with Rogers. Cap saw. He knows."
Damnation. There's no chance of keeping him out of Normandy's way now. Not even the slightest.
Well then, it's to be another one of those operations. Not that they ever particularly have them any other way, but it would be nice just the once.
And since that is absolute impossibility for anyone amongst their number; that's the moment that Steve Rogers' voice breaks over the intercom for everyone and their mother to hear.
"Oh hell." Sophie flicks on the autopilot. "Melee it is."
*
If there's any kind of advantage to be found in crashing a plane into the Potomac, doing so with three others keeping it company is not it.
She doesn't know which of the helicarriers is the one that hits them, but they get hit early and hard. Shield's auto-piloting capabilities are more robust than their civilian cousins, but even they don't stand up against the impact.
Half the plane is sheered away in the strike and takes a good chunk of the strike team with it. The suction pulls Sophie from the plane, throwing her up into the air and then down to river.
For anyone wondering?
Ow.
*
She wakes up. That's a win. She's floating on her back in the river. That's even better. Everything hurts in a way she hasn't felt since the first time Grandma Dottie taught her and the other girls how to fight.
It is, on the whole, much better than she'd anticipated.
Raising her hand hurts like hell, touching the node in her throat hurts even more, but the transmitter activates with a little buzz.
"Falsworth, checking in."
It's as much as she can manage right now, and it's a bare whisper at that, but it's enough. Melody's voice floods her ear a second later. "Thank fuck, you're all right, Soph. We saw the plane go down. We're closing in on your signal, just hang tight."
"Surprisingly difficult to hang on to anything in a river," Sophie laughs, "but I'll try."
*
It's actually disheartening to see how easily the Commandos slip through the chaos of SHIELD's fall. She's retrieved from the water and spirited out of the city long before anyone from the government thinks to see whether or not she's alive.
She is, but Victoria isn't. That's a problem. The Commandos have never dealt with outsiders particularly warmly, but Victoria Hand defied that particular reality quite nicely. Sophie's quite certain that won't happen again and certain measures must be taken.
As a certain previously deceased SHIELD agent can attest, there are methods against such things. The Commandos have no access to the TAHITI program, but they need none. Over the decades, they've picked up a few of their own. While most are not as traumatic as TAHITI, none are particularly pleasant.
*
Victoria finds them infinitely more preferable to death, however. "Peggy did warn me about this possibility," she says, over a cup of tea and the report on her resurrection. "Still, I never expected that we'd be needing it. It's a damn mess, Sophia. An absolute damn mess."
There are reports littered all over the desk between them. Casualty lists. Asset lists. The all important list of newly-identified Hydra agents.
Calling it a damn mess is something of an understatement.
"Certainly not the outcome we'd been hoping for," Sophie agrees. "The good captain does have a talent for mucking up the works." She'd been one of the voices in favour keeping their distance. "It might be time to admit that I made a mistake in advising against involving him."
"We all did," Victoria sighs. "Avoiding Rogers was an unmitigated disaster. I suppose we'll just have to try working with him instead. Time for a family reunion, Falsworth. Arrange one, please."
*
They wait until the dust has, mostly, settled and then she sets off, Victoria's orders ringing in her ears.
She finds him at his apartment in Brooklyn. Specifically, at the coffee shop down the street. He looks better than she would have expected. Better than she suspects he feels that he has any right to. She empathizes. It's maddening when your body refuses you the time your mind needs to heal.
One of the things that Erskine, and all those had followed him, had failed to consider.
"Captain."
It's almost amusing the reaction that follows. He's only met 'Kristin' a few times, but enough that the woman behind the lie generates more than a little confusion.
Confusion that swiftly turns to anger, then resignation, then a wry smile. "Let me guess, you were another one of Fury's bodyguards, right?"
She smiles, shakes her head, and takes an unbidden seat across from him. "Wrong. I was up for the assignment, but Sharon drew the short straw." And the complaints she'd gotten over the course of it had been hilarity at it's finest. Neither of them liked playing possum, but Sharon liked it even less. Her fury at her cover story ("A goddamn nurse, Soph. They're modelling my cover on his mother.") had been memorable, to say the least.
"Kristin was an invention of mine that Director Fury was kind enough to indulge."
Though not without some sort of future cost. Fury had never liked the autonomy of the Commandos within his ranks and any chance to get in a foot in the door was one that he would take.
Steve flips his sketchbook shut, drops his pencil on it, and looks at her. "Why? What'd he get out of it and who the hell are you, really?"
It's an unsettling thing to have the entirety of Captain America's attention focused on you and Sophie realizes she's fighting the urge to back up. She'd rather face down the entirety of Hydra with a broken staff than be right where she is.
There are many legends in the world blown far out of proportion. Steve Rogers is not one of them.
Good.
She takes a deep breath and throws caution to the wind. "He did it because there are certain advantages to the Howling Commandos owing you a favour."
"What."
He's not asking. His voice has gone completely flat. If possible, she's even more nervous than she was before.
"My name is Sophia Falsworth." Introducing herself has never, ever been so fraught, but then she's never introduced herself to the hero of the childhood fairytales. "You knew my grandfather in the war."
He actually looks thunderstruck by the revelation and she freezes with him. They should have made one of the Dugans do this. She is utterly terrible with emotion. They're merely terrible with explosives.
"We wanted to.." she exhales. "We really didn't know what to do to be honest. We thought that when they gave you the files that you might..."
"Never got past the first page of any of them," he interrupts, albeit numbly. "It never really sank in that they had lives...families." Something that's almost a smile flicks over his face. "You have his chin."
She rubs it, reflexive. "So I'm told."
"Why now? What are you doing here?"
"Going upstairs, I hope. This is hardly something to be discussed in the street." She can't resist a smile as she stands, spreading her hands in a disarming gesture. "I solemnly swear my intentions are pure."
"Forgive me if I don't take you at your word," he says, but he does stand. "You did spend months lying to me. You commiserated about the Mets and now I find out you're English? You probably don't even like baseball." And, of course, that would be the thing that seems to offend him most of all.
"Had to," she shrugs. "It was necessary to survival."
"How is baseball necessary to your survival?"
She smirks over her shoulder and starts for his apartment building. He'll either follow or kick her to the curb. It's his choice now. "I didn't say it was my survival. I spend a great deal of time in the company of Dugans. I either learned to love baseball or kill the entire Dugan family and I like them too much for that."
Stopping, she turns around to face him . "If you still aren't sure, however, put a call through to Romanoff. Or did you think she really was that concerned about your sex life?"
Steve's eyebrows rise. "That is what she was doing?"
"I apologize if this sounds overly familiar at this point, but we're the closest thing to family that you have left." Sophie waits until he opens the door, ushering her into his building before adding, "She wasn't particularly impressed with our reticence and, well, the Widow went off mission. If not for your stubbornness, she might have succeeded."
Steve keeps her ahead of him as they climb the stairs together—she can't blame him for forgoing the elevator—but she has his interest now. "Speaking of missions, what precisely does the Commando mission entail?"
"Same as it was in your day."
"Hydra."
"Got it in one." She takes off her jacket and surrenders it, watching him search the pockets and come up with her staff. "Careful. That expands."
She mimes the action and he echoes it; the staff instantly snapping into place. "Impressive." He hefts it in his hand then gives it a twirl. "Your design?"
"Hardly," Sophie shakes her head, laughing. "Tony's. Don't worry, I won't tell him that you liked it."
"Please. I'll never the end of it." He hands the staff back and watches as she collapses it back with a flick of her wrist. "So why the lie? Why go through the trouble?"
"Insight." Sophie walks the length of the apartment, peering out the window at the street below. "You have some difficulty with subtlety, so it was decided to keep you at arms length until the matter was settled."
He, at least, has the grace to blush. "I'll take that to mean I got in your way?"
She lets the curtain fall into place again and offers her most self-deprecating smile. "Well, that is a mild understatement to say the least, I assure you. If I'd run into you on the day of, this might have gone in a very different direction altogether."
Steve looks like he might laugh at that, but gives her a considering look instead. "That would've been interesting."
"I was on approach to the Triskelion when you gave your little speech," she says. "My SO and the strike team with us?"
"All Hydra?"
"Mmmhmm. It got awkward. You weren't the only one they fished out of the river that day." She sighs. "Not exactly how we'd planned Normandy to go, but then as the boss said, the well-laid plans of mice and intelligence agents are frequently derailed by equally well-intentioned supersoldiers."
"You mean you're not the one in charge?" Steve tips his head. "I feel oddly insulted."
She imagines this meeting with Victoria and only just holds back the burst of laughter. "She's otherwise engaged at the moment. We've been doing our best to secure the more interesting of SHIELD's facilities since the fall. Most of them were ours anyway, but we need to be sure. Hydra's got a wishlist and there are some rather terrifying things on it."
Like Bucky, but that's half the reason she's standing here right now.
"So, why didn't you take Insight down earlier? Would've been a hell of a lot easier than waiting until the last minute."
"Yes, it would've been, if that were our only objective."
Sophie can see the moment that he works it out for himself. "Bucky." His voice sounds empty and hollow, worse than a sucker punch, and she can't help taking a step closer to him. "This was a rescue mission."
"Yes, we've known about him for a while now." She chews the inside of her cheek for a moment before admitting, "Since the night Howard and Maria died. Our parents tried to get to him then, but Hydra had already realized their mistake. They kept the Soldier as far away from the Commandos as they could for the next few decades. We've had barely a handful of sightings in that entire time—Natasha's included."
She settles on the arm of the sofa, watching his face as he processes the information. She's never known any life but this; tales of extraordinary feats, monsters, legends, and yet somehow it's still so difficult to believe that this man was actually frozen in ice for seventy years.
Somewhere, she's sure, one of the Dugans is saying, 'Our lives are fucking weird, Soph.'
"What's that look?"
His voice draws her out of the thought and she's smiling before she can really think to be nervous. "I remember, from time to time, how utterly bizarre my life is. Do you realize there are people out there for whom their greatest concern is paying the mobile bill?"
Steve blinks. "I..."
"Haven't," she finishes, nodding. "SHIELD handled that before and Tony has since." Well, strictly speaking, it's been Tony the entire time, but she doubts that he'd want her to share that fact. "You're hardly alone on that last, so don't feel the need to be huffy about it. He handles all our communications as well. Hydra can't tap what they can't find."
"Thought of everything, haven't you?"
"Not everything," she says, "we didn't think of you." She chooses not to say anything else, hoping he never realizes that their caution has come over time and with a lot of blood. Uncle Dum Dum always said that Steve blamed himself for everything that went wrong and never took credit for the things that didn't and she's not going to add to that today.
"You're not the first." Steve sits on the edge of the coffee table and meets her gaze. "So, now that I've blown Normandy apart and Bucky's in the wind, what's your plan and why now?"
"Natasha was right. We should have done this a long time ago." It is something of a miracle that none of the Dugans have broken ranks before now. Perhaps there's something to them being terrified of her after all.
It should disturb her how pleasing that is.
Should.
"We don't want to force you into anything, but the offer is there if you wish to take it." Sophie leans forward. "We aren't the Commandos that you left behind, but if we have to watch you mope about the place for one more minute, I cannot promise the Dugans won't abduct you in the middle of the night."
She waits for him to stop laughing before adding, "Again, as presumptive as it sounds, you're family. We don't leave family behind. We're going after Bucky and so are you; it will probably go faster if we work together."
"Yeah, Cap,"Jimmy says, leaning in the window while Tim says, from the bedroom door, "Howling Commandos and Captain America together again."
Steve looks from one to the other with a smile that could be called astonished.
"Captain Steve Rogers, meet Jimmy and Timmy Dugan," Sophie says on a sigh. "Boys, we've discussed breaking and entering."
"It's not breaking," Tim says, while Jimmy beams, "I'm not even entering."
Steve is openly grinning by this point. "They like this all the time?"
"Only when Soph's here," Tim wraps an arm around her shoulder and only a look stops the smacking kiss on her cheek.
"Unfortunately, he's right about that," Sophie agrees, resisting a smile as it would only encourage them more.
"And the rest of the time?" Steve prompts.
All right, perhaps, she's smiling just a little when she says, "Dear Uncle Dum Dum would be proud."
It's worth all the mayhem that the twins' whoop of glee promises to watch Steve Rogers waffle between laughter and horror.
He'll get used to it. That's the frightening part.