Coffee, Courage and a Captain

Chapter Thirty-One: Knock On The Front Door

Charlotte sat down at the large briefing table that Phillips had set up in front of the whole table for their meeting.

The Howling Commandos had arrived at the bunker that morning, to little fanfare from the technicians in the bunker, which is why they were able to sneak up on Charlotte and Howard working in their lab. 

Falsworth and Jones had actively sought Charlotte out to express their condolences, whereas Morita and Dugan gave her nods. Dernier had given her a hug and then darted out of the room.

Steve had simply taken a seat at the head of the table and waited patiently for the meeting to start. He'd given Charlotte a brief smile when she'd sat down beside Peggy, and they'd had silent exchange in asking whether the other was okay.

She held two mugs in her hands, placing the one with coffee in it on the table in front of her, and she slid the mug of tea across the table to Peggy- who sat to her left. The agent accepted it with a smile and took a sip, turning her attention to where Phillips stood at the front of the briefing.

"Not you too, Red," Phillips groaned as he saw her. "I thought I made it clear to you and Stark that one of you was to remain in London."

"With all due respect, Colonel, this is the final push, and we are arming many people with experimental weaponry. Charlie and I are both needed in the field, to mitigate any undesirable effects," Howard answered.

"Plus, you know, I designed half of the equipment they are using- which means I know it better than most," Charlotte replied dryly.

Phillips glared at Charlotte for an uncomfortable length of time. "Well, I guess I'll allow it," he mumbled.

"Thank you, Colonel," Howard responded scathingly. "But she was placed on the team at the request of Senator Brandt, which means that it's not up to you."

Phillips and Howard engaged in one of their infamous stare-offs as they glared angrily at each other.

Charlotte rolled her eyes. "Can we get on with this?" she asked, leaning back in her seat and taking a sip of her coffee.

Phillips moved his gaze back to the woman. "If you are both done?" he muttered.

Charlotte and Howard shrugged in unison. "Yes," they both chimed.

"Great," Phillips said sarcastically. "Now, Johann Schmidt belongs in a bughouse. He thinks he's a god, and he's willing to blow up half of the world to prove it, starting with the USA."

"I know this sounds stupid to ask," Morita began. "But why the USA? Why not somewhere more achievable, like London?"

"He knows we are prepared to shoot him down in London," Falsworth answered. "The USA is- dare I say it- woefully underprepared when it comes to air raids."

"Thank you, Captain Falsworth, for that enlightening insight into our defensive systems," Phillips snapped.

"Schmidt's working with powers beyond our capabilities," Howard piped up, directing the conversation back to the topic at hand- the annihilation of the American public and eventually the world. "He gets across the Atlantic, he will wipe out the entire Eastern Seaboard in an hour."

A small gasp from Charlotte- who was seated two places down from Steve- as she straightened in her seat and began looking at the notes in her book caught his attention.

Steve watched Charlotte do the relevant calculations in her head, her eyes widening as she began scribbling something down in the notebook she carried with her- the one that Bucky had gifted to her for her twenty-first birthday as a replacement for the one from the previous birthday. She had filled it within months.

"That means that he has enough force to- oh my God," she muttered, her eyes meeting Howard's across the table. Peggy leaned over and her brow furrowed.

"That's a lot of damage," she murmured.

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

Phillips grimaced. "According to my new best friend, under twenty-four hours," he answered.

Charlotte clenched her mug tightly as she raised it to her lips, her hand shaking as she thought about who Phillips was talking about. Arnim Zola had been captured during the mission that had cost Bucky his life, and Phillips had cut him a deal that allowed him freedom with his cooperation.

He'd given them some new information to work with- how the blue batteries were created using a legendary cube that they called the Tesseract, where Schmidt was heading to next- but that hadn't stopped Charlotte from finding her Phase Two weaponry she and Howard had been developing with the sole intention of using Zola as a test subject. Howard and Jones had stopped her from going in, and Peggy had coaxed the weapon from Charlotte's hand while the woman sobbed.

"And yes Red, I know what you did. It took a lot of smoothing over to get him to tell me the rest of the information after that," Phillips said sharply.

"Funny," Charlotte responded sardonically. "I would have thought that would have been enough of a threat that he would want to cooperate."

"It was not. We have to respect his rights," Phillips admonished.

"He is a war criminal. He killed thousands of soldiers for his own vision. Where was the respect for them?" Charlotte hissed. Her eyes flashed dangerously, glowing from within as she narrowed them at Phillips. The colonel seemed unnerved.

"He has given us reliable information, Red. I don't want to hear any more," Phillips said gruffly.

Charlotte fumed silently in her seat.

"Where is Schmidt now?" Dugan asked, his eyes sliding over to where Charlotte sat briefly before returning to Phillips up front.

"HYDRA's last base is here," Phillips stated, pointing to the photographs that the reconnaissance teams had managed to get a few months earlier. "In the Alps, five hundred feet below the surface."

He tossed them onto the table, directly in front of Morita, who picked them up and began inspecting them.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Morita asked, throwing them down. "I mean, it's not like we can just knock on the front door?"

Steve looked up from the papers, speaking for the first time since he had got to the bunker that morning. "Why not?"

The whole table turned to look at him, and Charlotte smiled softly upon realising Steve had a plan.

"That's exactly what we're going to do."