𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐓 𝐀 table with her sketchbook open in front of her while Steve was at another table, marking the map that lay on top of it.
"The fourth one was in Poland, here," he said and Grace looked over to see him circle a section of Poland. "Not far from the Baltic..." Peggy glanced at Grace and smiled. "And the last was outside of Strasbourg, say thirty, forty miles west of the Maginot line." He looked up and saw the two women watching him. "I only got a quick look."
"Well, nobody's perfect," Peggy told him, patting his shoulder. Grace chuckled and the two joined her at her table just as Howard walked up to them with a blue Hydra cartridge in his hand.
"Hey." He looked at Steve who was standing behind Grace's chair. "Aren't you supposed to be picking up a medal right about now?"
"Didn't you hear?" Grace asked, looking up from her sketch. "He's not a dancing monkey anymore."
Steve chuckled when Colonel Phillips walked in. "Rogers!" he called and both he and Grace looked up. "You just embarrassed a senior senator in front of a dozen reporters and ten members of Parliament."
"And that upsets you, colonel?" Grace asked.
He shook his head and handed him the medal. "Hell no. You should get a medal just for that."
Grace chuckled before taking the medal out of the box and pinning it to Steve's jacket. He looked at her and she smiled. "You earned that medal. Apparently in more ways than one. You deserve to wear it."
Steve smiled and they both turned when they heard Colonel Phillips' voice. "Either of you figure out what this is, yet?" he asked Howard, gesturing between the two siblings.
"If you believe Rogers, it's apparently the most powerful explosive known to man," Howard replied, holding up the blue bottle.
"If?"
Howard frowned. "Well, either you're wrong or Schmidt's damn near rewritten the laws of physics."
"Well, I certainly hope that's not the case," Grace said as her brother walked to his lab. "Howard's rather fond of physics..."
"Are these all of Hydra's factories?" Phillips asked, turning to the large map that stood in the middle of the room.
"The ones we know about," Steve replied with a nod. Grace followed him while Peggy eyed the two of them. "Sergeant Barnes said Hydra shipped all the bombs to another facility. And that wasn't on the map."
Phillips let out a breath, studying the map before walking toward his office. "Agent Carter, coordinate with MI6," he said, gaining the English agent's attention. "I want every Allied eyeball looking for that main Hydra base."
"What about us?" she asked.
"We're going to light a fire under Johann Schmidt's ass," he replied before turning to Steve. "What do you say, Rogers? It's your map. Think you can wipe Hydra off it?"
Grace glanced at Steve who looked surprised but also determined. "Yes, sir. I'm going to need a team."
"We've already started lining up the best men—"
"All due respect sir," Steve interrupted. "So have I."
Phillips shrugged and nodded before walking into his office. Peggy left to coordinate with MI6 per her orders and Grace walked back to her table to finish her designs. Steve looked at her before following.
"What is it you do for fun around here?" he asked her. She looked up and chuckled.
"It seems that serum gave you some confidence, Captain," she said, smiling. "I usually stay at home."
"Not tonight," he told her and she raised her eyebrows. "Any chance you'd come out for a drink?"
She blushed and shrugged. "Depends who's asking."
"If it was me?"
Grace looked up at him. "Maybe."
⸻ ~~~ ⸻
𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐓 𝐀 table in the bar. He had just told the group he had saved from Hydra about his plan and the blonde — Dum-Dum — looked at him.
"So let me get this straight." He leaned against the bar stools. "We barely got out of there alive and you want us to go back?"
Steve nodded. "Pretty much."
The men all look at each other before Falsworth chuckled. "Sounds rather fun, actually."
"I'm in."
Steve looked at the Frenchman who nodded. "Je combattrai jusqu'à ce que le dernier de ces bâtards soit mort, enchaîne ou bien qu'il pleure comme un nouveau-né!"
"J'espère tout les trois!" Jones added, laughing. When they both look up, they see the rest of them staring at the two, none of them knowing French. "Oh, uh, we're in."
Dum-Dum set down his glass, a line of foam on his beard. "I'll fight," he said. "Hell, I'll always fight. But you gotta do one thing for me."
"What's that?" Steve asked.
"Open a tab," he replied. "And tell me how to get that cute inventor girl to talk to me."
"I can open a tab."
Dum-Dum nodded. "Good enough."
Steve collected all of the glasses and brings them to the bar where Bucky is sitting. "Another round?" he asked the bartender.
"Where are they putting all this?"
Steve shrugged before sitting beside Bucky who chuckled. "That was the easiest battle of the war."
"What about you?" he asked his best friend. "You gonna follow Captain American into the jaws of death?"
"Hell no." Bucky shook his head before looking over at him. "That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight, I'm following him." Steve smiled and Bucky looked at the poster behind them, now with a sign that said 𝙋𝙀𝙍𝙁𝙊𝙍𝙈𝘼𝙉𝘾𝙀𝙎 𝘾𝘼𝙉𝘾𝙀𝙇𝙇𝙀𝘿 — 𝙉𝙊𝙏 𝙏𝙊 𝘽𝙀 𝙍𝙀𝙎𝘾𝙃𝙀𝘿𝙐𝙇𝙀𝘿 across the middle. "But you're keeping the outfit, right?"
"I do seem to have a designer," Steve replied with a shrug.
"So who's the girl?" Bucky asked, taking a gulp of his beer. "The one who you couldn't take your eyes off of when we got back."
"Grace Stark."
"Howard Stark's sister?"
Steve nodded. "Yeah. But just Grace."
Bucky looked at his best friend and smiled. "Look at who has a crush. I've never seen you smile when you talk about a girl."
"A girl has never talked to me," Steve corrected.
Bucky shook his head. "This is different," he said. "You like her."
The blonde soldier shrugged. "Maybe I do."
The men behind them were drunkenly singing but slowly stopped at the sight of a person walking into a bar. Steve and Bucky looked over and saw Grace in a dark red dress, standing beside the bar.
"A martini, please. Thank you."
She looked next to her and smiled when she saw Steve. He was looking at her, a faint blush coming to his cheeks. Usually, whenever she was working, she was wearing a navy blue jumpsuit with a scarf either around her neck or keeping her hair out of her face. Now she was in a dark, off-the-shoulder red dress that brought out her eyes. Her hair was swept to the side and over her right shoulder.
"You're staring," Bucky whispered to the man beside him before smiling at the brunette. "It's nice to meet you. I'm—"
"You're Bucky," Grace finished, shaking his hand with a smile. "The one at my brother's expo who looked shocked that I was talking to Steve."
Bucky blinked at the woman before nodding. "Yeah. I guess that's me."
Grace smiled. "Are you feeling better, sergeant? You took quite a hit in the field."
"Oh, yeah, they patched me up good."
She nodded. "That's good to hear." She looked over at Steve. "Cat got your tongue, Captain?"
"You look nice," he complimented and she looked down at the dress. "It's nice to see you out of a jumpsuit."
"That sounded weird," Bucky commented under his breath.
Grace smiled. "Thank you." She eyed the soldiers behind the two. "I see your team is prepping for duty." The bartender slid her drink over toward her. "Thank you." She picked out the olive and slid it off the skewer. "So long as they're not drunk when you're taking down Hydra."
"I can confirm they won't be," Steve told her and she nodded.
"Alright, then." She finished her drink and placed a few bills on the counter. She pulled out a folded piece of paper and slid it toward Steve. "Meet me in the lab tomorrow morning. I have some equipment for you to test out."
"I'll be there."
She nodded. "It was good to meet you, Bucky. 0800, Captain."
"Yes, ma'am."
Bucky looked at Steve once Grace had left the bar, but not before she paid for another round of drinks for the soldiers.
"You like her."
Steve let out a breath. "Yep."
⸻ ~~~ ⸻
𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 armory, her heels clicking with every step she took. She hugged a clipboard to her chest while several people around her continued to work on the prototypes she and Howard had designed.
"Captain," she said as Peggy disappeared from view, a frustrated look on her face. "Right on time. We've been working hard ensuring you and your men don't get killed."
She gestured to the table to their right. "I've done several designs for this uniform you need. Carbon polymer." She smiled. "You're welcome. Should hold its own against your average German bayonet."
"Of course, Hydra's not likely to come at you with a pocket knife," Howard told him from behind his sister.
"Not necessarily, Howard," Grace countered. "Try not to get shot," she said, looking at Steve. "It does not repel bullets. At least not yet."
She moved on to the next table where Steve's bullet-filled shield lay. "Now, I hear you're rather attached to it?"
"It's handier than you might think."
"So's the hotel chambermaid, but I wouldn't take her into battle," Howard said.
Grace glared at him. "Shut it, Howard. Bring in the cart." She turned back to Steve. "We took the liberty of coming up with a few options."
Howard nodded, picking one up. "This one's fun. It's fitted with transistorized relays."
Steve bent down, seeing a plain, round one on the bottom of the cart. "What about this one?" he asked the siblings.
"Oh, that's just a prototype," Howard said, waving it away. "Now this one—"
"What's it made of?"
Grace let out a breath. "Vibranium," she answered, resting a hand on the table beside her and leaning to the side. "Stronger than steel and a third of the weight." Steve slipped it on his arm. "It's completely vibration absorbent."
"Should make a bullet feel like a cotton ball," Howard added.
Grace furrowed her brow. "Interesting analogy..." she muttered.
"How come it's not standard issue?" Steve asked.
"It's the rarest metal on earth," Grace told him, taking a paper from someone in the lab. "What you're holding is all we got."
She looked down at the paper and signed at the bottom, looking up when Peggy arrived, staring coldly at Steve. Grace glanced between them, confused by Peggy's expression.
Steve lifted the shield. "What do you think?" he asked the agent. She looked at him before picking up a gun and firing at his chest. Grace flinched as he blocked the bullets with the shield.
"Yes, I think it works," Peggy said before walking away. Grace watched her go and looked around.
"What the hell just happened?" She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Now for the fun part. Let's turn you into an overly patriotic hero, shall we?"