Gold to Airy Thinness Beat

Chapter Eighteen

Stephanie had little time to dwell on her newfound, very complicated, revelation as they arrived in London shortly after. The signs of the destruction visited on the city were apparent immediately, buildings reduced to rubble or heavily damaged, scorch marks and craters in the ground from exploding bombs that still hadn't been filled in.

As they pulled into the station, Stephanie could see signs that it had been repaired, repeatedly from the looks of it.

"It's a fairly regular target," Peggy said, seeing her taking notice. "We're lucky we were able to use it at all."

"Now you tell us," Bucky said dryly. "Always nice to know you spent a leisurely trip where any second a bomb could have dropped on your head."

"The risk was considered acceptable," Peggy answered, pushing to her feet as the train slid to a smooth stop. "Schmidt suffered a setback with the loss of his weapons facility. It's important we strike back quickly, before he has time to recover."

She moved off down the aisle, squeezing through the crowd of soldiers moving about as they prepared to get off.

Bucky leaned back, his hands clasped together on the table in front of him. "So," he said casually. "You ready for whatever the future holds?"

"I thought I was," Stephanie said. "Now I'm not so sure."

He grabbed her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "You'll do fine."

"I guess we'll find out," Stephanie murmured, her eyes going back to the hastily repaired destruction outside the window of the train car.

Bucky's only answer was another squeeze of her hand.

***

"The fifth one was here in Poland, right near the Baltic and the sixth one was about here, 30, 40 miles west of the Maginot Line." Stephanie finished making the final mark on the map spread out over the table and straightened to face Agent Carter, who stood on the other side. They were in the headquarters of the SSR, located under the streets of London. Not exactly what Stephanie had meant by getting to see the city, but she'd take what she could get. Particularly given the shape the city was currently in as well as the fact that sporadic bombings did still happen. Underground was the safest place to be for the time being. Peggy had already shown her the living quarters located several levels further down, small and cramped but warm and dry which meant they were a huge step up from what she'd been dealing with on the front lines. After putting her meager belongings in the room assigned to her, Stephanie had followed Peggy up to the central command area where they were currently. It was a massive room filled with tables, maps, easels filled with writing and charts and a veritable army of people rushing about in a great hurry.

Peggy straightened and indicated Stephanie should follow her to another, larger map spread out over a different table. Phillips joined them as they reached it. Markers had already been put on the map where Stephanie had said there were facilities and Phillips nodded toward them.

"These are the locations we know about. Sergeant Barnes said parts were shipped to another facility that isn't on the map."

Stephanie hid the jolt she felt at the name and felt a burst of pride at her restraint. Bucky, she told herself firmly. Bucky, Bucky, Bucky Barnes. She was not going to think about James right then. It was neither the time nor the place and she just...was going to ignore that whole thing for the time being.

Phillips moved away, motioning for them to follow yet again and Stephanie wondered why things couldn't be a little more centralized in the giant room. As they walked, Phillips spoke to Peggy, telling her to coordinate with MI6 and other allied forces to try and locate the final Hydra base.