The mission in Belgium doesn't change anything, at least not for the better. It might even make things worse.

Colonel Phillips gets hauled up before the upper brass to explain himself, seeing as how no one had authorized him to send Captain America into the field. Stevie gets her own 'interview' with Allied Command, a three-hour debrief that Bucky isn't allowed to attend.

(He spends that whole afternoon pacing a rut into the hallway outside, ignoring the curious looks from the MP's guarding the area. He never hears any raised voices, and he's not sure if that makes him feel better or worse.)

The Commandos end up with an official reprimand, delivered by a very stern US Army captain who seems torn between mindlessly reciting the lecture he'd been assigned to give them, and asking for their autographs. Stevie, with her higher rank, gets yelled at by a full-blown brigadier general who—according to the story she told Bucky when she came back—seemed more embarrassed than anything at having to discipline a woman in uniform. She also gets a black mark on her spotless record. Colonel Phillips is warned by somebody even higher up not to sidestep his chain of command. They manage to avoid any suspensions, although that's probably because they're not cleared for field duty anyway.

If they think Captain America is going to stand for that, though, they clearly haven't been paying attention.

"How bad is it, really?" Stevie asks.

The whole team, plus Phillips and Peggy and a few of the other SSR aides and analysts, are crashing in the corner of a local bar. It's after midnight, and the place has shut down around them. They're the only ones here, besides the woman who runs the place, and she's not paying them any attention, busy at the bar wiping down glasses.

"Allied Command has revoked our mandate to go after HYDRA," Phillips tells them, idly spinning a whiskey tumbler between his hands. "They're looking for a new team to take over."

Peggy rolls her eyes so hard Bucky is briefly worried she's going to fall off her bar stool. "That will end well," she says primly.

Jim snorts in agreement. "Who besides us is crazy enough to volunteer for this?"

"How many men will it take, do you think?" Monty asks quietly. "How many will they lose before they understand that we're right?"

"Serves 'em right," Dum Dum says. "They want to be idiots, they're going to pay the price."

"No." Stevie shakes her head. "Listen. Stopping Schmidt is all that matters, now."

Bucky stares into the drink he isn't drinking, just like another night at a bar a lifetime ago. "You're thinking about going rogue," he says flatly. "Aren't you?"

There's a surprised murmur from several corners, although not from Phillips or Peggy. They had already known. Was it because they had gotten good enough to read her like he could, or because she'd told them?

Stevie sighs. "The intelligence we brought back from the base in Belgium ... it's not good."

Everyone's attention snaps to Colonel Phillips. He shoots Stevie a glare, but leans back in his chair and announces, "Schmidt is planning an attack. From what our people have been able to make of the bits and pieces left behind, he's reaching the final assembly stage on a massive bomber. One that's capable of reaching every Allied base in the European theater, and even crossing the Atlantic with a payload."

"Is that even possible?" one of the analysts asks.

"We've already recalled Stark," the Colonel answers. "Until he can take a look, though, we've got no choice but to treat it like a very real threat."

There's utter silence.

"The bombs are based on the same tech as those blue energy weapons," Stevie says quietly. "If Schmidt gets a chance to drop them ..."

"Yeah," Gabe says quietly. "We get it."

"We're tracking the materials as he moves them, as best we can," Peggy says, her crisp voice cutting through the anxiety in the room. "But our intelligence assets are thin on the ground, east of Berlin. That's Russian territory, and they don't care for our interference."

"We need to find that last base," Phillips tells them. "Schmidt's final hiding hole. That's where the attack will launch from."

Stevie nods. "If we can destroy that plane before it gets off the ground, HYDRA will be effectively disarmed. Schmidt won't have the resources or the time to try again, not with Allied troops knocking on Germany's front door."

In the weeks since the Normandy landings, the original beachhead has become a stable landing zone. Rebuilding has begun on the port at Cherbourg, to act as a gateway for new troops and supplies. A second wave of landings in southern France is underway, and Marseilles will soon be in Allied hands. There are rumors of uprisings and open rebellion in Paris, with Allied troops so close to liberating the capital for good.

Bucky's not naïve enough to think the war is anywhere close to finished. It's a long march still to Berlin, and that's what it will take for Hitler to surrender. The Germans are bound to defend their home territory with a little more urgency than they've shown in France, and sooner or later there'll be a counteroffensive. If they can hold the lines when that final push comes, though, then it will all be over but the details. Assuming Schmidt doesn't manage to wipe them out before that, of course.

"Did you mention the danger, to Allied Command?" one of the analysts asks, confused. "Did you explain how important finding Schmidt was?"

The Colonel nods. "Very slowly, and in small words," he says, scowling. "They said they would handle it, without Ca—without our help."

Stevie's smile is weary, sad, and crooked on her face. "You can say it, sir," she says tiredly. "It's not your help they have a problem with."

Phillips shakes his head, refusing to acknowledge it.

Bucky will never like the man—Bucky is fundamentally incapable of liking anyone whose job is to send Stevie out to risk her life, no matter how aware he is that she'd do it anyway—but he respects him for that, at least. The entire SSR Special Operations Division has chosen their side. Bucky has a sneaking suspicion anyone who protested was either convinced otherwise or encouraged to transfer.

"How far are you going to push this?" Bucky asks quietly, breaking the tense silence.

Stevie sits back in her chair with a deep breath. "I'm going after Schmidt," she announces. "With or without permission."

"Oh, good," Monty says flippantly. "I was afraid life was about to get boring."

"You don't—" Stevie starts to say.

"So help me God," Bucky interrupts her, calmly, "if the next words out of your mouth are You don't have to come with me, I will shoot you. And not in the shield, either."

There's a round of forced laughter, but neither Bucky nor Stevie are smiling.

"Bucky," she says quietly.

"Don't," he says. "We're not having this conversation again. We are all going after Schmidt, together."

Of course, it's not as easy as that. For one thing, they don't have a target. Not even Stevie is brash enough to just drop them into Austria or Poland somewhere with no idea where to start looking. Like it or not, they have to wait for word from Peggy's MI6 contacts and the Colonel's OSS friends, which is an exercise in patience. (And bureaucracy. Apparently the red tape is actually worse in the intelligence agencies than it is in the army, which Bucky wouldn't have thought was possible.)

Most of the intelligence officers don't seem to take Schmidt very seriously, with his radical science and his tendency toward megalomania. It's an uphill battle to convince them to devote resources to finding him. It's not until after Stark returns from the States that they get any real traction; no one else understands enough of the HYDRA tech to grasp how much of a threat Schmidt's bomber really is.

In the meantime, Captain America and the Howling Commandos do what they can for the war effort.

In September, they spend some time in liberated Paris, doing parades and parties. There are cameras everywhere, and for the first time the world sees footage of Captain America in her new costume, instead of a modified WAC ensemble. (Stevie says that she feels a little ridiculous wearing the red, white, and blue everywhere, but she also feels like wearing the WAC uniform is disingenuous, somehow; she never earned the right to wear it, and it seems disrespectful to the women who did.)

In October, they get sent to the front lines in Aachen, one of the anchors of the German defensive line. Their orders are to be seen in the city (and, more importantly, be caught on camera in the city) without actually participating in the fighting. The nature of the urban warfare makes that difficult, though. Once, they're visiting a unit guarding a supposedly secure block only to end up having the fighting swing unexpectedly in their direction.

Thankfully, not even Allied Command is stubborn enough to send them into Germany without live ammunition, so they jump into the fray to help. Stevie takes charge automatically, and in the chaos nobody remembers that she's not supposed to have any real authority. It's the first time since Belgium that they've seen real action, and it's almost a relief to be doing something, again. They wouldn't have made it long as Howling Commandos if they were the kind of men who could be content watching everyone else fight.

The American lieutenant whose squad they'd saved shows them his report, later, and it's a glowing recommendation for allowing Stephanie Rogers to fight. (Not all of his men feel the same, despite the fact that they'd have been overrun without Captain America's presence, but some people simply can't be reasoned with.) It doesn't change anything, not by itself, but it's a step in the right direction.

That isn't the only time it happens, either. After the third incident of Captain America seeing combat when she's supposed to be kept away from it, Allied Command pulls them out of Aachen (just a few days before the Germans surrender the city) and sends them to Hürtgen Forest, instead. It's still German soil, still prime for propaganda footage, but out in the open where the lines are more clearly established. The theory seems to be that a more traditional battle will make it harder for Captain America to "accidentally" see combat.

The month of November is harsh. The weather is unforgiving, cold and wet. The dense forest makes artillery fire inaccurate, when it's available at all. Morale, which had been at an all-time high just a few weeks earlier, plummets in the face of unexpectedly fierce German resistance. It seems like every square inch of the landscape is heavily fortified, with pillboxes, minefields, and heavy gun emplacements every other yard.

"We have to do something," Stevie says bitterly, one afternoon in late November. "I don't care what. Just—anything. I'm useless, here."

She, Bucky, and Peggy are hiding from the cold weather in a tent, three miles from the front. They can hear the roar of the big guns and the sporadic fire of the artillery, but that's as close as they've been allowed to get. They're alone, for now; Stevie had asked the Commandos to do a round of the field hospital at camp, trying to cheer up the wounded. They can do more good without her there to incite trouble. (Bucky, of course, isn't going anywhere near a hospital, field or otherwise, when it's not a life or death situation.)

Peggy had just arrived a few hours ago, ostensibly to bring sensitive communications to the local commander. In reality, she's here to give them an update on the technically-illegal SSR search for Schmidt's secret base. She doesn't bring good news; MI6 is finally taking the HYDRA threat seriously, with Stark's endorsement, but not enough to risk pissing off the Russians. Getting spies into the area is a long, careful, excruciatingly slow process. They think they're getting close, but they haven't found anything, yet.

"Like what?" Bucky asks. His toes are frozen in his boots and he wants a cigarette, but he has no intention of leaving the relative warmth of the tent to go smoke one.

Peggy is frowning. "You'll only get one chance to go after Schmidt," she says reasonably. She's got her hands cupped around a mug of tea, but judging from the lack of steam rising from it, it's gone cold. "There's nothing to be done until we find him."

"We're running out of time," Stevie insists. "If he gets that bomber operational …"

"We know," Peggy says softly. There are dark circles under her eyes that her impeccable makeup only somewhat hides. Bucky's never been exactly sure what her job entails—he's under the impression that his security clearance isn't high enough to know—but whatever it is that she's doing, she's working herself ragged. "We're doing the best we can, Steve."

"I know you are," Stevie says, rubbing at her forehead. "I'm sorry."

She's exuding frustration, like it's leaking from her pores. She knows she can help, but no one will let her. Instead she has to sit here, day after day, and watch the men around her go into battle and come back broken and bleeding, or not come back at all. She couldn't have stood for that even when she was ninety pounds of attitude with nothing to back it up; now, when the serum has given her the power to make a difference, it's killing her not to use it.

"What we need," Bucky says thoughtfully, "is something they can't ignore."

Stevie and Peggy both look at him.

"Well, it worked before," he says, shrugging. "No one wanted Captain America, stage performer, to fight. Not until he proved he could, beyond a shadow of doubt."

"We tried that," Stevie says. She's rubbing at her face, tired. It's not due to physical exhaustion, but rather mental and emotional strain. "Remember? We got back from Belgium and all we got was a reprimand."

For a little while, there's only a sullen kind of silence in the tent.

"I wonder …" Peggy says eventually.

Stevie turns to her with barely suppressed desperation. "Please tell me you have an idea," she begs.

Peggy puts her tea down and sighs. "It's insane," she says. "I wouldn't even consider it, under normal circumstances …"

Bucky perks up slightly. "You've got a mission for us," he guesses. "Don't be shy, Margaret. Share with the class."

Peggy gives him one of those looks of hers that could curdle milk.

Bucky just grins at her.

She rolls her eyes. "We lost contact with some of our men," she says. "Over half a battalion, actually. We think they're trapped behind the German line, but a blizzard is making it difficult to figure out what happened."

Stevie's whole face brightens. "A rescue mission," she says. "That's perfect, Peggy."

"You'd never get authorization," Peggy says, brushing her dark hair back over one shoulder. "You'd have to fight your way through a—a blockade, just to reach them, and then turn right around and fight your way back out. In the middle of a storm."

"If we pulled it off, though …" Stevie looks suddenly hungry. "They wouldn't be able to say I couldn't fight, then."

"Steve," Peggy tries again. "I don't think this is a good idea."

But Stevie isn't listening. "Give Bucky the details; I'm going to go round up the Commandos."

She gives Peggy a quick kiss on the way out, and then she's gone. Bucky can't help a chuckle at the look on Peggy's face as she watches her leave.

"Was she always like this?" Peggy asks.

"Since she was eight years old," Bucky answers.

"That's … a terrifying image, actually."

Bucky snorts. "You have no idea."

Peggy sighs. "Do you have a map handy, James?" she asks. "I'd better give you their last known position."

Eleven days later, Captain America walks out of German territory with over a thousand rescued men and almost half that number of captured Nazi troops. The cameras are rolling, and they capture what will become the iconic image of Captain America for decades to come: Stevie, her new uniform streaked with mud and blood, battered shield on one arm as she watches a long column of German troops walk past, hands in the air.

Allied Command rushes to back-date orders authorizing her to attempt the rescue mission. That allows them to conveniently get some of the credit, as well as sidestepping the issue of having to court-martial her for going AWOL. The president subsequently gives a speech thanking Captain Rogers for her efforts on behalf of the American people and the families of the rescued men. Public opinion swings almost overnight in her favor; in the papers, she goes from good-intentioned imposter (at best) to tragically underappreciated hero, all in one fell swoop.

The Captain America comic books that had been suspended since July are even rushed back into print, this time with a woman front and center on the cover. The issue had been hastily redrawn from a previously written but unreleased story, so—to Bucky's surprise and relief, when he sees it later—there's no damsel in distress moments or overwrought romance angle shoe-horned in.

(Those will begin to appear, sporadically, in later books, but with a couple of exceptions it's Bucky being captured and subsequently dramatically rescued, complete with flowery declarations of love and Hollywood-worthy kisses. When he grumbles about it, especially when it becomes more and more frequent, the Commandos are quick to point out that it happened exactly like that in real life, so he can't really complain.)

Two days later, the United States Army logs an official exception for Captain Stephanie G. Rogers in their regulations against women in combat, to stay in effect until the end of hostilities in Europe and the Pacific. The day after that, SSR Special Operations is given back their mandate to deal with HYDRA; they're also promised whatever resources, manpower, and support they need to ensure they can finish the job.

Colonel Phillips takes great pleasure in officially ordering Captain America and the Howling Commandos to take down Johann Schmidt, immediately and by whatever means necessary.

"Find him for me, Peggy," Stevie says, face grim amid the cheers that greeted this announcement. "It's time to end this."

/~*~/

On a March evening in 1942, Bucky checks the mail at their apartment, just like he does every day. He walks up the stairs, humming absently to himself, sorting through it in his hands. (Post card from Herbert Dunleavy, who's been shipped to the West Coast on his way to the Pacific. Bill. Note from Bucky's Ma about dinner next week. Bill. Set of coupons to the local drug store.) He's distracted, thinking about work; with the entry of America into the war, half of the men on his floor at the factory are gone.

He goes up the stairs with a bounce in his step all the same. Stevie's been back (home) since Christmas, but it still feels like a gift every day when he enters their apartment, knowing that she's going to be there when he opens the door. Part of him understands that the year and a half they spent apart was probably good for them, in the long run, but he can't deny that he hated every second of it. He never wants to go more than a day without seeing her smile, ever again.

Bucky has just reached their door when he flips to the last piece of mail, eyes scanning the label as his free hand fumbles with his key and the doorknob. That's when he sees it, just as the door swings open. United States Selective Service.

It's like getting punched in the gut.

"Hey, Buck," Stevie calls. It's her turn to make dinner, so she's in the kitchen. Bucky can vaguely hear the soft rumble of boiling water, which not even Stevie can mess up, usually. "How was work?"

Bucky walks forward on numb feet. He doesn't close the door behind him. The rest of the mail falls to the floor, making a soft flapping sound on the way down.

"Bucky?" she calls again. She still hasn't turned around, stirring the pot as steam rises in front of her face. She's got her ink-stained sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and she's standing in her stocking feet. Her hair is a messy ruffle on top of her head. "Dinner's in maybe half an hour, if you want to wash up."

Bucky finds his way to the couch and falls into the cushions. The letter ends up in his lap, held in shaky hands. He should open it, he thinks. That's what you do with letters, even ones you don't want. You open them.

"Buck? You okay?"

Bucky opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.

"Bucky?" Stevie's voice sounds worried now. She appears in the doorway from the kitchen, leaning against the frame. Her face is just barely pink, the blood pulled to the surface by the heat from the stove. "Are you okay?"

Bucky drags his eyes away from her and down to the letter in his lap. Such an innocuous thing, a few sheets of paper and a little glue to hold it shut. How is it that such a little thing, almost weightless, can knock his whole world off tilt?

"Bucky, what is it?" Stevie asks. She's gone from worried to frightened. She appears in front of him, kneeling on the hardwood between his knees. "What's wrong?"

Bucky lifts the letter and hands it to her. "I can't," he whispers. "You open it."

Stevie takes the letter, frowning. Bucky knows the instant she sees the stamped label in the corner, because her eyes widen and her mouth narrows. It seems to take an eternity for her to break the seal and get the paper out of the envelope. When she unfolds it and holds it up in front of her, Bucky can just barely see the blocky, official type through the paper.

Slowly, Stevie lowers the page and looks at him. She doesn't have to say a word; the look in her eyes is enough to confirm his fears: James Buchanan Barnes has just been drafted by the US Army.

Bucky closes his eyes.

"Hey, no," Stevie says immediately. He feels her moving around him, hears the fluttering sound of the letter hitting the floor, and then she's pressed up against his side on the couch. For once, she's warm, a little bundle of heat borrowed from the kitchen. "It's going to be okay."

Bucky lifts one shaking hand to his forehead. "God damn it," he whispers, but there's no heat in it. He'd be lying if he said he hadn't thought this would happen, sooner or later. They're sending troops to fight two wars at once on three continents, and they need every single healthy body they can find. "I never wanted this."

"I know," Stevie tells him, desperately. "But you're going to be fine, Bucky. You will."

"This is your dream, not mine," he snaps, suddenly angry without knowing why. His voice comes out as a croak, hoarse and tight. "I never wanted anything to do with fighting a war!"

Stevie recoils slightly, as if he's hit her. "I know," she repeats. She sounds like she's crying. "I know, Bucky. But it will be okay. You'll have basic, first, and that takes time." Her arm slides carefully around his shoulders, tentative, like he's a wild animal that might maul her for trying to help. "It'll be late summer, maybe fall, before you even get there, won't it? Maybe it won't be so bad, by then."

Bucky lowers his head until it's cradled in his hands. "You're not that naïve," he says softly. "So just … don't. Just don't."

Stevie crawls closer on the couch, until she's practically draped against his side. She puts her head down on his shoulder. "It'll be okay," she whispers. "I'll—I'll go back to the recruitment center. I'll go to every recruitment center in the city if I have to. I'll make them take me."

"Stevie …"

"We'll go together, all right?" she says fervently. "You and me, Buck. We'll do it together. It'll be okay."

"You can't," Bucky says. "Stevie, you can't. Them getting me is bad enough; they can't take you, too."

Stevie grips the back of his neck with one hand and makes him look her in the eye. "I am not letting you do this alone," she says.

Bucky finally turns and puts his arms around her. She's so tiny that he can pull her right into his lap and tuck her head under his chin with almost no effort at all. He's absurdly grateful, just then, that she's here. He can tell that she's scared. He needs that, right now, because it gives him something to focus on. He's always been better at taking care of her than taking care of himself.

"Yeah," he says, voice still hoarse. "You'd better come with me. Can't leave you here by yourself, can I? Who'd keep you out of trouble?"

She chokes out a laugh, like he's startled it out of her.

(They both know it's wishful thinking. The army is never going to take her.)

Bucky holds her tighter and closes his eyes again. In the kitchen, the water is boiling over and hissing angrily as it scalds the stove, but neither of them care.

Bucky Barnes is twenty-five years old, and he's going to war.

/~*~/

Peggy doesn't find Schmidt. Instead, she finds Dr. Arnim Zola.

"It's tenuous," she says, handing over the typed communique. "But we're sure. It's him."

The Commandos, Peggy, Phillips, Howard Stark, and almost all of the SSR Special Operations Division personnel are crammed into a tight knot around the briefing table at headquarters, tense and excited. Six months of looking, and they've finally got a lead.

Stevie scans the print out, frowning. "What was Zola doing in Munich?"

"We don't know," the Colonel admits. "But we do know that he's purchased a ticket for that train. It's a false name, but we got eyes on him. He's headed for Austria, first thing tomorrow."

Bucky sits very still at the table, in his spot at Stevie's right hand. He takes a deep breath and concentrates on the familiar, comforting weight of his rifle on his shoulder.

"Well," Stevie says, looking up from the paper. "Unfortunately for him, he isn't going to make it."

They can't drop into Munich; even if they caught Zola there'd be no way to get him out. Their best bet is to let him get on the train, get out of Germany, and take him once he's in Austria. Normally, they'd just pick a spot and blow the tracks, let gravity and momentum do the rest, but they need him alive. He's their ticket to finding Schmidt.

Trying to take the train at a station is risky, though. It'll take time to fight through the local authorities, and if Zola gives them the slip he'll blend into the populace much better than they will. Their best bet might be to get agents on that train, try to follow him when he disembarks or changes lines. Gamble that he'll put himself in a situation where their spies can grab him and smuggle him to friendlier territory.

That still risks losing him. Finding him in the first place is a lucky break; they might not get a second chance. The discussion goes around in circles for nearly twenty minutes before Stevie ends it.

She's got that gleam in her eye, the one that means she's just come up with a fantastically stupid idea that no one else would even consider.

"How do you feel about jumping onto a moving train?" she asks the room at large.

Gabe bursts out laughing.

Stevie raises her eyebrows.

"Oh, my God, you're serious," Gabe says.

"I believe we have a volunteer to be your third man, Captain," Monty says, grinning.

Nobody bothers asking who the second man is. (Bucky feels his hands clench into fists under the table.)

It takes nearly half of another hour, pouring over the map, to locate their target point. They finally settle on a gorge in the Austrian Alps that has a long stretch of straight track to hit. Bucky is uncharacteristically silent through the entire planning process, only nodding his approval when prompted.

"When's our plane leave?" Jim asks, when the plan—such as it is—is mostly hashed out.

"Six hours," Phillips replies. "Get your gear together, gentlemen. You have an appointment with Dr. Zola tomorrow."

"This is a limited window," Peggy reminds them. She pretends like she's addressing the entire room, but her eyes are on Stevie. "Don't miss."

It doesn't take six hours to pack. They've been Commandos so long now that every single one of them is ready to move at a moment's notice. Bucky is ready to go in about fifteen minutes, which is a problem. He has nothing to do after that except think about what's coming.

He sits down on his cot, puts his head between his knees, and breathes. There's no one to see him, because the rest of the team is already gone on their traditional pre-mission bar sweep. They're too professional to get drunk, but it will let them relax and loosen up, which they sorely need before doing something high-pressure like this.

Eventually, Bucky notices voices in the hall outside.

"—be ridiculous, Steve."

It's Peggy. She's talking quietly, but people always seem to underestimate Bucky's hearing, these days.

"You know I wouldn't usually—"

"Steve," Peggy says again, cutting her off. "He needs you more than I do right now. Just go."

Footsteps, coming closer. Bucky lifts his head.

The barracks' door opens, and Stevie comes inside.

"Hey," Bucky says, aiming for casual. "You got a deck of cards or something? We've got four hours to kill."

Stevie doesn't say a word. She just shuts the door behind her and walks forward, watching him. After a moment, she sits down beside him.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

Bucky laughs. "If I had a nickel for every time you've asked me that in the last two years …"

"This is different," Stevie says quietly. "This is going after Zola."

Bucky turns his head away, staring at the wall. "It's no different than any other mission."

"Don't do that," Stevie says. "Don't lie to me, Bucky."

Bucky runs his hands through his hair. It's getting long, unruly. He'll need to put something in it, get it to behave, before they leave. Otherwise it's going to be a mess by the time they get to Austria. At least Stevie has the excuse of trying to grow hers back out, after almost ten years of having to keep a boy's haircut. He's never wondered before, if she missed her long hair when she became Steve, but she stopped cutting it the moment she no longer had a secret to keep. It's down to her ears, now.

"Bucky, maybe …"

"No," he says instantly. "You are not doing this without me."

She's silent for a long, long moment, leaving Bucky to count his heartbeats and his breaths in an effort to control both. He's not that surprised when it doesn't work.

"He hurt you," Stevie says eventually, barely louder than a whisper.

Bucky closes his eyes. "That's why I have to go."

"Bucky—"

"You don't understand," he says. "I need to face him."

Stevie hesitates. "You still have the nightmares," she reminds him. "You don't scream anymore, but I can still tell."

Bucky's mouth is dry. "So maybe I always will," he says, shrugging. "It doesn't change anything. If anybody is going to put that son of a bitch in chains—" His voices breaks.

Stevie's hand settles, broad and strong, on his back. "Are you sure?" she asks.

Bucky doesn't hesitate. Not even for a fraction of a second.

"Yes," he says. It comes out almost a snarl. "Yes, I'm sure."

"Okay," she says. "Okay, then. Let's go get him."

"Together," Bucky says, because he needs to hear it, needs to know that he won't be alone.

"Yeah," Stevie says. "We'll go get him, together."

/~*~/

The morning that Bucky leaves for basic training, he very nearly misses his train.

The guys from the factory—the ones who are still left, who haven't caught their own trains before his number ever came up—take him out drinking the night before, to do a proper farewell. He goes along, knowing that it's more for them than it is him, but he doesn't get drunk. He dances when he's approached, but doesn't make a serious move on any of his partners. It's still early when he begs off for the night, mumbling something about an early start and some last minute packing.

"Oh, I know that look," Emil had said, laughing as the whole lot of them had toasted him with their beers. "James has got a girl to send him off!"

Bucky just smiles and goes home as fast as his feet can take him.

Stevie is waiting for him on the couch, sketching with tense hands. She looks up as he comes inside, trying to smile and pretend this is just like any other night. They've already agreed; it isn't a big deal. It's just basic training. There's a very good chance that he'll be back for at least a couple of weeks, afterward, before he gets his orders to ship out.

(Neither of them are willing to consider the alternative, that he'll go straight from boot camp to a boat somewhere. It happens—they know it happens—but it won't happen to Bucky. He'll get one more chance to say goodbye. He will.)

"Did you have fun?" Stevie asks him. Her voice is aiming for cheerful and misses by a mile.

Bucky opens his mouth to make a joke, and finds it stuck in his throat. He turns instead, shutting the door behind him and shrugging out of his coat.

"Bucky?"

He pauses, standing there in the living room of their apartment like it's suddenly foreign territory. He doesn't know where to go, what to do, how to get past the sudden tenseness in the room. Ever since that first afternoon, when he got the draft notice, this has been easy to ignore. It hasn't seemed real.

Now, suddenly, it's real. In less than twelve hours James Buchanan Barnes is going to be a soldier, whether he wants to be or not.

(He has a sudden urge to run. Only how could he, when Stevie keeps trying to volunteer? Is she right about him? Is he really that much of a coward?)

"Stevie?" he asks, and her name comes out broken and lost. He doesn't even know what he's asking.

Maybe she does. She's off the couch, across the room, and in his arms in the space of a heartbeat. "Bucky," she says again, and she's crying. Her hands make fists around the fabric of his shirt, over his heart.

Bucky picks her up, only knowing that he wants her to be closer, as close as possible. She doesn't hesitate, just wraps her legs around his waist to anchor herself and moves her hands to his shoulders. He steadies her, trembling, but it's not from her weight. She's slight, easy to hold. She's taller than him, like this, suspended in his arms.

She presses her forehead to his, eyes closed, tears on her cheeks. "It's going to be fine," she whispers.

"Promise me," Bucky whispers back.

"It's fine," she tells him again. "It's going to be fine, Buck. I promise."

She kisses him, desperately, and it's like a dam breaks. They've been so careful with each other, since December, drifting back together in a slow, easy spiral. They didn't want to rush anything, mess something up by trying too hard to get back what they had before.

None of that matters, now. They leave a trail of discarded clothing on the ground and the furniture behind them; half of it will need repairs before it can be worn again. Stevie's feet never touch the ground as they cover the distance from the living room to Bucky's mattress. Between kisses they keep whispering to each other, unable to stop.

"It's okay," Stevie says, over and over. "I love you. It's going to be okay."

"I'll come home," Bucky says. "I'll come home. I promise."

A sleepless night probably isn't the best start to his basic training, but Bucky suspects he won't be the only new soldier suffering from one. Even if he wanted to fall asleep, he doesn't think he could. As it is, sleeping is the last thing he wants. He wants to have every second of this that he can, something to hold onto in the weeks and months ahead. Something to remind him what he has to lose.

Dawn finds them curled together, so intertwined it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

"I have to go," Bucky whispers.

"I know," she says.

Neither of them move.

"It's all right," Stevie tells him. Her eyes are red and swollen from a lack of sleep and too many tears. "It's—it's not goodbye. Not really."

"Of course not," Bucky says. "It's just basic training. We're being silly, both of us."

"Completely silly," Stevie agrees, but she doesn't let him go, and he doesn't pull away.

He waits until he's probably already going to be late to get up, dressing in a flurry. Stevie flits around the apartment—wearing nothing but his ruined shirt from last night, which is an image Bucky intends to keep with him in the next however many lonely weeks—trying to make sure he isn't forgetting anything. (He won't notice until much later, unpacking at the training camp, that she's slipped one of her sketches into a pocket of his bag. It's a picture of herself, a self-portrait, which she never does. She's made an exception just this once, to give him a piece of her to take with him.)

Then there's no more time, and he's at the door with his bag over his shoulder.

"Stevie—"

"Don't," she says, and hugs him on her tiptoes. "Don't say it. This is not goodbye."

Bucky kisses her forehead. "I'll come home, Stevie," he promises. "I'll come back to you. I will."

"I know," Stevie tells him. "I'll be waiting."

/~*~/

The Alps in December are a sight to behold. If it wasn't so damn cold it would be beautiful, but Bucky's not in the mood to appreciate it. Or maybe that's just the knowledge that he's about to jump off a cliff in the hopes of landing on a moving train, so that he can come face-to-face with the scientist who's been a main feature of his nightmares for most of the war. That would take the shine off of pretty much any picturesque landscape.

Jim is on the radio, listening for the final all clear. Dum Dum, Monty, and Jacques are doing the final prep work before they head down to set up their extraction, which is scheduled for an hour. It gives them a tight window for the mission, but they can't risk staying in Austria any longer than that. Getting caught by the Russians won't be much better than getting caught by the Nazis.

"Last chance," Stevie says quietly, coming up behind him. "You still want to do this?"

Bucky turns without taking his eyes off the sheer drop in front of him. "Want probably isn't the word I'd pick," he admits.

Stevie's face softens. "I can take Jim instead; he's nearly as good a shot as you are in close quarters—"

Bucky shakes his head, and it's enough to make her fall silent. They've had this discussion six times in the last twelve hours; they're not having it again.

"Message coming in," Jim says. He holds the receiver out. "Gabe, it's in French. Help me out."

Gabe jogs over and takes the headset, pressing it to one ear. He closes his eyes to hear better, against the wind. After a moment, he nods. "Zola's on the train," he tells him.

"Show time," Dum Dum says, rubbing his hands together in excitement.

"Yeah, yeah," Gabe says. "Bet you wouldn't look so happy if you were going to jump."

There's a joke on the tip of Bucky's tongue, something about crazy plans or Stevie picking a particularly stupid approach just to mess with him, but he can't quite make it come out. He's got a bad feeling and he doesn't quite know why. The looming prospect of seeing Zola again has him rattled, maybe. For whatever reason, though, he grabs for her hand instead as Dum Dum and Jacques finish getting the line secured.

"Hey," Bucky says. He rubs circles on the back of her palm with one thumb.

"Yeah, Buck?" she asks. She's tense, impatient, gearing up for the fight, but she doesn't pull away. They have maybe two minutes before a mission with a tight window of opportunity, but she stops to listen to him anyway. She trusts him.

Suddenly Bucky knows what he wants to say.

"Marry me," he says calmly, like he's asking her to pass him the salt at lunch. "When the war is over, and we get to go home. Marry me."

Stevie looks shocked. "You …" She cocks her head. "You're serious."

"You said once that you'd be my wife, if you could do that without giving up everything else." Bucky reaches out and corrals her hair where the wind is making a mess of it. "Did you mean that?"

Stevie swallows. "I did," she says.

"The whole world knows that Stephanie Rogers is Captain America," Bucky says. "Do you really think anyone can take that away from you now?"

Stevie blinks, still obviously in shock. "But Peggy—"

"Will make a beautiful maid of honor," Bucky interrupts. "Convince her to move to the States after the war, and she can live with us." He shrugs. "I mean, I'd say we could stay in England, but I don't think Captain America can get away with living on foreign soil."

"People will think—"

"No one will bat an eye," Bucky says immediately. "She can pull off being our eccentric British aristocrat; no one will care if she turns into an old maid, stuck living with her war buddies."

Stevie chews on her bottom lip, and the familiar sight makes an involuntary smile creep across Bucky's face. For just a moment, it's almost like they're still the same two kids who met in that alley eighteen years ago.

Bucky catches her other hand and brings them together, so that he's cradling them, almost like he's about to start dancing with her. "Marry me, Stevie," he repeats. "Please."

She stares at him, still apparently unable to give him an answer.

Bucky sighs. "Well, I can marry Margaret and you can be the old maid, I suppose—"

"Yes," Stevie says in a gasp.

"Oh," Bucky says. "You like that option better?"

"No," Stevie says. "I mean, yes. We have to talk to Peggy, but yes, Buck."

"Yes?" he asks. He'd be embarrassed at the way his voice catches, if he cared about anything at the moment except for the look in her eyes. "As in, yes, you'll marry me?"

She smiles. "Yes, James Buchanan Barnes, I will marry you when the war is over."

"Well, it's about damn time," Dum Dum says flatly.

"Hey, Sarge, which one of us gets to be your best man?" Jim asks, grinning.

Stevie groans theatrically. "Did you have to ask me in front of them? The whole damn Army is going to know by morning."

"Incorrigible gossips, the lot of them," Monty says loftily, as if he isn't the source of at least half the rumors about the Commandos that make the rounds through the grapevine. "It's a shame, really."

Jacques says something in French. Bucky isn't sure what it means, exactly, but he's smiling and waving his arms about in a friendly sort of way, so it's probably his wholehearted approval, or something.

"Congratulations," Gabe says. "Really, I'm happy for you. But we've only got a ten second window, and there's our train."

"Right," Stevie says, suddenly professional. "Me first, then Buck, then Gabe at the rear. We'll get inside, search the compartments for Zola. Gabe, you stay up top and head for the front, take control of the engine so we can get out after we have him."

Bucky secures his rifle for the jump and takes one last look over the edge at the approaching train. "You ready for this?"

Stevie steps up and grabs the handle on the line. "I sure hope so," she says. "If not, it's too late now."

She gets the signal, and steps off the cliff.

He's a heartbeat behind her, following Stevie—not Captain America, but Stevie, the woman who just agreed to marry him—exactly like he said he always would, back when this began. In that moment, suspended in midair in the most beautiful mountains he'll ever see, Bucky Barnes smiles.

If his story ended here, perhaps it could still be called happy, despite everything.

/~*~/

Instead, he falls.

/~*~/

In September of 1942, after entertaining both his own date and Stevie's for the evening, Sergeant James Barnes comes home to their apartment on the last night before he ships out for Europe.

There are a lot of things that he doesn't know, yet. He doesn't know that he'll never set foot in this apartment again. He doesn't know that Stevie's guilty look as she apologizes for ditching him isn't just because she left, but because she's already met Dr. Erskine and signed up for the super soldier program, and isn't telling him about it. He doesn't know that, by all rights, this should be the last time he ever sees the woman he loves, and that only a strange twist of luck or fate will grant them their second chance. He doesn't know that the next time they meet, they'll both have been touched by the war in ways that will never go away.

There are some things that Bucky Barnes does know, however. He knows that he's going to war, and that there are no guarantees. So, like all the soldiers before him and all the ones since, he pulls the person he loves most in the world into his arms one last time.

"You still my girl, Stevie?" he asks her.

"Always, Buck," she says. "Be careful out there."

"Don't worry," he says, knowing that she will anyway. "I'll come home, Stevie."

Bucky Barnes knows that it might be a lie.

What he doesn't know is that it's true, albeit in a way no one could have ever predicted.

/~*~/

It takes more than seventy years for Bucky Barnes to keep his promise.

When he does, against all logic, Stevie is there to keep hers.

/~*~/

I'll come home, Stevie. I'll come back to you.

I know. I'll be waiting.

/~*~/