Lady Liberty |1| The Liberty Saga (An MCU Fanfiction)

Chapter Nine: The Breakable Johann Schmidt

When he went to their room later that night—her room, damn it, hers—he found it deserted. He walked in slowly, hesitant to disturb the air that probably hadn't shifted since Bucky had last been there, and a creaking floorboard made him turn in an instant.

Well, he might have been faster and stronger, but he had no desire to hurt her and she was fierce in her grief. Before he knew it, she had him pinned against the wall, her forearm against his throat and her knife against his jaw. "I am going to kill Johann Schmidt or die trying," she snarled, her accent thick with tears, her jaw trembling. "And you are going to help me."

Steve simply met her gaze, not offering up even the mildest attempt to defend himself. "Yeah," he agreed. "I am."

A heartbeat passed, and then two, and then she was dropping the knife and sinking into his arms. "I'm sorry," she sobbed, burying her face in his shoulder. "Two years ago I'd never even heard his name, and now I can't live without him. I never thought I would feel this way again after Heide. It's as though all I can do is to scream or to destroy, and I can't... I can't breathe."

"I know," said Steve, wrapping his arms around her. And he truly did know. "I know."

***

At dawn, the remaining Howling Commandos had assembled in the SSR's London headquarters, along with Peggy Carter, Colonel Phillips and Howard Stark. When Steve and Elke had entered, each with a face like thunder, the room had quietened in an instant. You could have heard a heart beating.

They could only hear the ones that weren't.

The spell broke somewhat when they took their seats at the head of the table, opposite from a single, untaken chair. Nobody dared touch it. Even Phillips elected to stand as he called the meeting to order.

"Johann Schmidt belongs in a bug house," he began. "He thinks he's a god, and he's willing to blow up half the world to prove it—starting with the USA."

"Schmidt's working with powers beyond our capabilities," Howard added, brow furrowed. "He gets across the Atlantic, he will wipe out the entire Eastern Seaboard in less than an hour."

"How much time have we got?" Jones asked.

Phillips tilted his head. "According to my new best friend, under twenty-four hours."

That was a sentiment that never failed to quieten a room. "And where is he now?" Dugan asked.

Peggy tacked a photograph to the map on the wall, tapping it sharply. "Hydra's last base is here, in the Alps. Five hundred feet below the surface."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Morita asked, looking daunted by the impossibility of the task. "I mean, it's not like we can just knock on the front door."

The room went silent. After a long moment, Elke spoke for the first time. "That is exactly what we are going to do."

Falsworth stared at her, stunned. "But... that's a suicide mission."

"No," said Steve, and he looked just as serious as she did. "It's the only way we win."

***

The thing about Hydra was that they could be very predictable at times. Wave a red rag in front of a bull and it would charge. Drive through Hydra territory in the middle of the Alps with a terrakinetic widow riding pillion and a vibranium shield on her back, and the suckers would chase you.

Well, he couldn't really blame them.

By the time they'd got within a mile of the base, they had eight soldiers on their tail, each of them armed to the teeth and firing indiscriminately. Howard had equipped their own bike with plenty of kit to handle that sort of thing, though; one trip wire, two blasts of a flamethrower and a couple good shots later, only two soldiers remained. Steve drove the bike through a narrow gap in the trees, losing them for the barest of seconds, and fell back to let them pass. Then, as he accelerated between them, Elke reached out and plucked the pin from one of their grenades.