Coffee, Courage and a Captain

Chapter Nineteen: Tanks and Termination

"Charlie!"

Howard strode into Charlotte's section of tent early one November morning, flipping the girl out of the camp bed that she had been using for the past few weeks since they had arrived in Italy.

After several months in London working with Peggy and Phillips, they had been sent to Italy to analyse some activity and several captured tanks that had appeared in their briefings. Peggy had remained in London to tie up a few loose ends but was expected to appear any day.

HYDRA had left several weapons in the field that had deactivated during a battle, and both Howard and Charlotte had been tasked by the SSR to determine HYDRA's fighting capacity using it. Their days were spent analysing a deactivated tank in the centre of a torn-up field in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a few armed guards.

Their nights were spent poring over the new data they had retrieved over a cup of tea- coffee had been somewhat difficult to get a hold of- and then retiring to their respective tents.

Being one of the very few women at the camp on short notice- and with limited supplies- meant that one of the tents used to house a portion of the 107th had the back sectioned off and a new entrance made so that Charlotte had a place to sleep and a modicum of privacy. At the given moment, she had almost the entire tent to herself, seeing as the 107th- including Bucky within those ranks- had been sent to Azzano a few weeks earlier. She had just missed him and was expecting to see his face amongst those who were slowly returning from the mission.

"Howard, what?" Charlotte groaned, rolling over on the cold damp soil that instantly made her feel sticky, and realising she was unprepared for the cold morning air to hit her. Her pendant, which had been exposed to the night air, gave her a shock as she slid it under her nightshirt and the cold metal came into contact with her warm skin.

He threw a paper at her, chuckling as she squinted at it in the dim morning light.

"This is last week's paper," she said, raising an eyebrow at him.

"It came in this morning," he responded. "Page three."

She flipped to the relevant page and paused when she saw the photo and the headline. 'CAPTAIN AMERICA VISITS EUROPE'.

Captain America. The new American hope- the personification of what it was to bleed red, white and blue- was none other than Steven Rogers. Her Steve.

His letters had told her that he was enjoying it. As much as it pained her to watch him be nothing more than Brandt's bond-signing machine- and that she knew he had little respect from the soldiers she had interacted with- she couldn't help but be happy that he felt like he was doing something. It was better than being Phillips's lab rat, but she couldn't help but think that he deserved to do more.

She knew he could kick ass, and if it were up to her he would be in the field, doing the work the serum was designed to enable him to do. But Phillips called the shots, and rarely even held a conversation about the weather with Charlotte, let alone a conversation about battle tactics.

"There's no way they'd risk that, not with our current intelligence," she stated, glancing up at her boss, who vehemently shook his head.

"I would have thought you would be more excited Charlie, seeing as I catch you staring at that locket at least once a day."

"I do not!" she protested, Howard's patronising eyebrow raise informing her that he didn't believe her for a second.

She glowered at him, before lowering the paper. "Wait, this is from last week?" she asked. "That would mean-?"