[ 1944 ]

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Mornings at work were tiresome the majority of the time, but (Y/N) was forced to get rid of any signs of sleep in her body because there was a high stake at large, and if she didn't concentrate enough, it would have serious consequences. She was glad that she didn't drink anything last night at the bar, because she was told to come in around 0800 hours for equipment testings. She wasn't sure why she needed to be there so early in the morning, but there was no discussing it.

"Had a rough night?" Howard's obnoxiously smug voice rang in her ears as she came through the door of the laboratory. "Could've invited me."

"Don't," (Y/N) warned, trying to swallow her yawn. She should've resisted when Bucky convinced her to have one last dance the night before. Now she had to suffer the consequences. "I slept late."

"Well, you might want to wake up now, darling," Howard stuffed his hands in his pants' pockets. "I have some presents for you."

(Y/N) gave him a quizzed look, not knowing what he meant. "Like what?"

"I was hoping you'd ask that," the grin on his face grew ten times bigger, if that was even possible. He made a gesture with his hand. "Follow me."

(Y/N) trailed after Howard in the laboratory, where he stopped nearby a table that had small, golden tubes displayed in a line. She was genuinely curious to see what they were, only to frown when she saw that they were lipsticks. She looked back at him with raised eyebrows, waiting for a logical explanation.

"Lipsticks?" she said with an incredulous tone, crossing her arms. "If you wanted me to give Hydra soldiers a makeover, you could've said so."

"These are more than just 'lipsticks', Dewitt," Howard confidently responded. He held one in his fingers, wanting her to take it in her palm.

(Y/N) took it from his hands and read on the side of the stick the words, '101 Sleeping Beauty'. She opened the product and saw a standard cherry red lipstick, nothing else standing out.

"A weapon that doesn't stand out in plain sight," Howard explained. "It contains a sleep inducing drug that activates when the product has contact with the human skin."

(Y/N) was now interested on the product. Her mind went back to the first words she'd been told about when first joining the organization. They were recruiting women that wouldn't stand out in an undercover investigation, and this was a prime example of that.

"That doesn't sound so bad," she tossed it in between her hands. "Hard part would be getting up close to the guards, you know."

"With a face like yours, Dewitt, it won't be a hard task," Howard told her with a wink.

(Y/N) rolled her eyes at the comment but decided against retailing to it. "What else you got?"

"In that lipstick, you're also holding a concealed 4.5mm pistol, capable of firing a single 1.77-caliber round."

(Y/N) stopped toying with it and now held it as if it burned her fingers. She gave Howard a stern look. "You should've started with that!"

"I like to be dramatic," he shrugged.

"Sure you do."

"Now, don't lose interest yet," Howard crossed his arms. "I have more stuff that might aid you with your already outstanding undercover work."

(Y/N) stared at Howard like he had grown two heads. She knew it was the bare minimum to have him compliment her work, but the serious tone in his voice when he said it was what made her pause. There were few men that tried, but always ended up being backhanded compliments.  Howard didn't seem to notice her shift in behavior since he walked toward another table without a single thought in the world.

Howard pointed to the next table, where a couple of wristwatches were placed in. "Pick-Lock Wristwatch."

"Let me guess, it picks locks?"

"You spoil my fun, darling," Howard placed a hand in fake offense on his chest. "But yes, it's a mechanism designed to crack the combination to any safe."

(Y/N) hummed in response and hovered a hand over the wristwatch before reaching out for it. Howard nodded her forward, so she grabbed the watch from the table and placed it on its rightful spot on her hand. She adjusted the straps so it wouldn't fly off her wrist and turned her hand around to check every angle. Once she was satisfied by the new accessory on her wrist, she turned her attention back to Howard, who had been watching her small actions with a patient look on his eyes.

(Y/N) cleared her throat. "Proceed."

Howard smirked once again and gestured to the last table near him. "I saved the guns for last."

She flickered her attention to the table, finding several guns displayed on it. Some were larger and others had the firearm chamber a lot more visible than others and (Y/N) didn't have a single clue of which one to choose, but Howard had two specific models for her in mind.

"A Thompson submachine gun," Howard pointed at the larger gun on the table. Then gestured to the smaller model, a simple semiautomatic gun. "And your standard Walther PPK."

"I must say, I'm impressed, Stark," (Y/N) moved her attention back to him.

"Are my ears deceiving me or did you just. . .compliment me?"

"I want to take it back now."

"No, no. You can't retract it," Howard shook his head. "No take backs. None. Wait 'til Peggy hears you just gave me a compliment."

"Oh, put a sock in it, Stark."

(Y/N) was about to walk away from the lab and from this conversation, but her steps came to a halt when Steve's larger frame placed himself in front of her. She nearly jumped back at the unexpectedness of this act, and raised her eyebrows in question by the urgency behind Steve's eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"What's 'fondue'?" Steve blurted out.

(Y/N) had to cover her mouth with her hand to muffle the sudden laugh that threatened to leave her lips, trying to disguise it as a cough. She asked him what brought him to have this question, and Steve filled her in on his personal conflict. Sure, it was hard to picture Peggy angrily interrupting a kiss between Steve and the front desk lady Lorraine, but (Y/N) had to stay quiet until Steve finished retelling the moment. According to him, he had countered back to Peggy's argument with a wrongful accusation without knowing what the word 'fondue' actually meant.

Howard, who had been alert to the conversation, moved to stand in front of (Y/N) and stuffed his hands back in his pants' pockets before answering with full confidence. "Fondue is just cheese and bread, my friend."

"Really?" Steve frowned. He had thought it meant something completely different. "I didn't think — "

"Nor should you, pal," Howard reassured him. "The moment you think you know what's going on in a woman's head is the moment your goose is well and truly cooked."

"What does that even mean?" (Y/N) gave him a look.

"It means that I, concentrate on my work, which at the moment is about making sure you and your men — " he paused at a loud clearing of a throat. "And woman do not get killed."

"Carbon polymer," Howard gestured to the artifacts displayed on the tables. "Should withstand your average German bayonet. Although Hydra's not going to attack you with a pocket knife."

Steve trailed after him as Howard walked next to a table filled with different shields laid out. Some were rectangular, some were square, and others were in other shapes.

"I hear you're kind of attached," Howard tapped the halfway destroyed shield that Steve had used for his shows.

"It's handier than you think."

"I took the liberty of coming up with some options," Howard began. He showed off the different models he had displayed on the table. "This one's fun. She's being fitted with electrical relays that allow you to — "

Steve's attention trailed to one shield on the bottom shelf, too caught up in its shiny and round design. "What about this one?"

"No, no, that's just a prototype."

"What's it made of?" Steve asked as he pulled it off the shelf and turned it around to see it from both sides. He held it in both hands, realizing it wasn't that heavy in his hold.

"Vibranium," Howard explained. "It's stronger than steel and a third the weight."

Steve slipped his hand through the straps, squinting his eyes as he saw the details on the metal and decided if he wanted to keep it or not.

"It's completely vibration absorbent."

Steve passed his fingers through the ends of the circle. "How come it's not standard issue?"

"That's the rarest metal on Earth. What you're holding there, that's all we've got."

"You quite finished, Mr. Stark?" Peggy walked into the room, her heels clicking behind her. "I'm sure the Captain has some unfinished business."

Steve, oblivious to the hidden meaning behind Peggy's words, turned to her with a smile and held the shield up high. "What do you think?"

'Oh, bless his innocent soul', (Y/N) thought in her mind. Peggy, without a word, grabbed a gun from the table and aimed it directly toward Steve. He had no choice but to duck his head under the shield to protect himself from the rain of bullets, which fell to the ground flat without causing a damage to the shield. The metal reverberated, and the scientists who had taken cover because of the gunfire dared to lift their heads up.

"Yes, I think it works," Peggy flashed a smile.

She placed the gun back down and headed toward the exit, passing right beside Steve with a glare. (Y/N) made a sound by smacking her lips together, being surprised by Peggy's actions after not seeing her pull a stunt like that in the three years she's worked along side her.

Steve's eyes never left Peggy's disappearing figure as he reached out for a wrinkled piece of paper. "I had some ideas about the uniform."

"Whatever you want, pal," Howard responded out of breath, eyes identically wide.

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"Are we almost ready?"

A series of nods and blended answers to Steve's question were heard in the small aircraft the squadron will be using to fly into the enemy line. (Y/N) isolated herself from the huddled group of other men, trying to mind her own business in reloading her gun's chamber. She could feel their heavy gazes on her, though she tried hard in not letting it bother her. It saddened her to admit that she was used to it, though she shouldn't have to.

"Do I have something in my face, gentlemen?" she decided to cut the tension with a knife. She placed her small gun back on its holster.

The men jumped, startled at her straightforwardness but didn't have the guts to respond to her question. (Y/N) found this satisfactory and she pressed her lips together in a thin line. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"We're leaving in five."

Steve, who had been busy discussing details about the flight with the pilot up in the cockpit, turned around the face his team. He had the freshly painted shield strapped on his back and the new uniform on, and it's colors were enough to draw the attention of the others inside the aircraft, but it wasn't enough to cut the tension inside it.

"I see you already met," Steve cut in uncomfortably. "I wanted to introduce you formally."

"(Y/N), meet Private Morita," Steve firstly gestured to the man standing furthest from him. He had black, tussled hair and a cap over it. Steve gestured to every other man besides Morita in order. "Montgomery, Jones, Dugan, and Dernier."

(Y/N) could see how all of them straightened their postures once Steve named them, and how guilt ridden they looked. She crossed her arms over her chest and maintained an emotionless expression, eyes scanning the small things that might difference them from each other. If (Y/N) was going to work alongside them, she might as well know how they function, right?

"Gentlemen, this is Agent Dewitt," Steve then turned to (Y/N) with a much relaxed look. "She'll be joining us on this operation."

"Nice to meet you all," (Y/N) commented with a sickly calm tone. She was sure she could see one of them swallow down their saliva. "It'll be my absolute pleasure fighting alongside you."

"Now, now, doll, you're scaring the poor guys," Bucky swooped into the scene, falling into place right beside (Y/N). He placed a hand on her shoulder in a friendly manner. "Wait a day or two before you give them a real reason to be scared."

(Y/N)'s lips formed a smile. "Mm-hmm."

The aircraft's door was shut close from the outside, followed by a pat to the side of the metal. This was a sound to indicate that it was prepared to fly off, and it was immediately followed by the igniting sound of the engine. (Y/N) had to take a step backwards to glue herself down and not lose her footing as the aircraft began to move.

Steve knew they had counted time before they arrived their destination, so he clapped his hands together. "Everybody gather around."

"We need a plan to take down every HYDRA base there is."

had to cut this chapter short to leave the action AND a certain scene in the next one. i'm sorry for almost abandoning this book but i promise i'll update more frequently.

also i had to do a lot of research on the gadgets, even inspired myself from some actual spy gadgets from that time period.

-see you soon, bex <3