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It was the middle of the night, flying thousands of feet above the ground, with turbulence shaking the aircraft every now and then, which had (Y/N) gripping onto the material of her pants to reduce the nerves. This extreme fear of being inside an aircraft was relatively new, something she never had a problem with until she flew back home after the war. She didn't know what had happened — or more accurately, she didn't think that would be the reason — to make her suddenly anxious about every move or jolt that the aircraft did in its journey.

She wasn't the only person to have this problem. When she flickered her attention to Thompson sitting across from her, she saw him clasping his hands together and his eyes shut tightly.

"Relax," Peggy broke the silence. "You'll sprain something. It's just as you remember it."

"You a mind reader, or is that your woman's intuition speaking?" Thompson opened his eyes to stare at her, rubbing his hands together.

"How's this for woman's intuition?" she asked before continuing, reaching out for her gloves. "This is your first jump, isn't it?"

"Ninth," he replied. He stared down on the ground before lifting his head back up. "Eight training jumps."

"You've infiltrated hostile territory before. You'll be fine," she answered. "Just follow our lead."

"Thanks, Carter, but I already have a mother."

"Prepare for drop."

"What I need right now are soldiers."

He took the initiative by standing up, falling back into the tough-guy facade, which wasn't following Peggy anymore. (Y/N) looked away to take a deep breath before standing up, not wanting to prove Thompson and his men right in that she shouldn't have come with.

"Let's go, boys!" Thompson yelled, completely dismissing them. "It's go time! The drop will put us ten kilometers from our rendezvous with our tac team, assuming they're where they're supposed to be."

Li and Ramirez stood up from their seats and lined up behind (Y/N), who had already taken the spot after Peggy. She made sure the straps on her parachute were tightened up correctly and the helmet on her head wasn't loose.

"Oh, they'll be there," (Y/N) looked up at Thompson with a challenging glare. It was one thing to doubt her and her abilities, but to doubt old partners of hers when they weren't there to defend themselves made her blood boil.

He smirked at her and placed his goggles on. "They better be."

He walked over to the already opened hatch and didn't hesitate in jumping out into the cloudy night sky. For a short moment, it gave (Y/N) a sense of deja vu, which disappeared as soon as she blinked again. Peggy must've watched her blink rapidly, since she looked back at her before jumping after Thompson. It happened so fast that (Y/N) hadn't realized that it was her turn to do the same. She felt Li's and Ramirez's eyes glaring at her back, and she inhaled a deep breath, placed on her goggles and jumped out into the night.

It was all a blur. (Y/N) wasn't able to distinguish anything as she fell toward the ground below her at such unimaginable speed. She did as instructed and pulled on the string that freed the parachute, allowing her to slow down in midair and was now descending towards the ground. She spotted an open area in between the thousands of trees in the forest and could make up the silhouettes of both Peggy and Thompson around the same spot.

Her feet touched the ground once again and (Y/N) felt like she could finally take in her breath of fresh air in a long time. She took off the parachute and in a matter of minutes, Li and Ramirez reached them too. To avoid getting spotted and to erase any trail of them being here, they all picked fallen tree branches and piled them up on top of each other to cover up the open parachutes.

"We're eight klicks east of the RV," Thompson stated. "I'll take lead. Dewitt, you're in back. Stay tight."

(Y/N) nodded at the instruction and trailed after Ramirez in the line. She removed the strap of her submachine gun from around her body, holding now in between her hands in case she needed it. It was practically impossible to see a thing in the dark, even though her eyes were fully adjusted to it now. The team was only able to take several steps into the forest before the sound of a branch snapping alerted each of them.

"Don't move," Thompson immediately raised his own gun.

"Emu," a voice in the dark called out.

Thompson was caught off-guard. "What?"

"'Ostrich', man," a second voice argued. "'Ostrich'."

"Shut up. Emu."

(Y/N) took a second to recognize the voices, but once she did, she let her guard down and shook her head in disbelief, stepping out of the line.

"Dewitt, Carter," the second voice whispered. "Dugan forgot the password again."

(Y/N) saw a figure stepping out from the trees in front of her, as well as hearing others shuffling out of their hiding spots all around them. She recognized the person walking up to her as Dugan, his classic mustache being visible still in the dark.

"Password is 'eagle', you baboons," she stared at Dugan with an incredulous look in her eyes.

"Oh, hi, (Y/N)," he flashed her a sheepish grin, which didn't falter when she recognized the woman beside her. "Hi, Peggy. Fellas."

"Thompson, that's Dum-Dum Dugan," Li eyed him with a hint of impression in his tone.

"Jack Thompson, Mike Li, Rick Ramirez," Peggy presented her team to the others. "this is 'Junior' Juniper, 'Pinky' Pinkerton, 'Happy Sam' Sawyer, and you seem to know Dum-Dum Dugan."

"The 107th, our tactical team."

"You guys are the Howling Commandos," Ramirez's voice was filled with admiration.

Sawyer shook his head behind him. "Yeah, I hate that name."

Juniper's eyes flashed him an offended look. "I came up with that name."

"That you did."

"Dugan, you fought side by side with Captain America, didn't you?" Ramirez asked with insane interest, staring at the leader of the group.

"Yeah," Dugan nodded, a solemn look flashing his eyes for a brief moment before turning back to (Y/N). "But not as long as she did."

(Y/N) gave him an appreciative smile, which he responded with a pat in the back.

"Agent Jack Thompson," he reached out his hand to shake it with Dugan's. "I'm running point for the SSR. We head East till we hit the border."

"We'll hit a wall of Reds before we reach the border," Dugan told him. "Let's head up into Lithuania, cross over into Russia at Ashmyany."

"You planning on walking halfway across Lithuania," Thompson stared at him like he had grown two heads, obviously not agreeing with his plan.

"Well, you can if you want."

Dugan patted Thompson in the shoulder as he walked past him, heading toward the path where the team had come from. Everyone followed him with interest to see where he was taking them as he pushed through the trees.

"But me? I'm taking these."

He gestured to the two large trucks parked on what seemed to be an abandoned road.

"(Y/N), let's go!"

(Y/N) turned around to face her team, mostly because she wanted to see the looks in their eyes after proving her point to be right. She marched up after Dugan and he helped her climb into the back of the truck, completely empty besides the benches that didn't look that comfortable.

The truck shook from side to side due to the rocks and unevenness of the road, making (Y/N) bump shoulders with Dugan every now and then since they sat side by side.

"Did you bring what I asked for?" he turned to her with a pleading look.

(Y/N) reached into the bag with the rest of her supplies and pulled out a bottle of bourbon from it, completely full. "From Peggy's private stash."

"Ah, attagirl," he smirked with pride. Dugan grabbed a pair of canteen cups and poured the bourbon inside.  "See, the Germans are geniuses when it comes to beer, but no one knows bourbon like the U.S. of A."

He handed (Y/N) one cup and kept the other, raising it to clink against hers. "Cheers."

"Cheers," she smiled.

She watched him take a swig from the bourbon as if it was water. She, on the other hand, didn't take a drink from it and placed it on the other side of the bench.

Dugan finished his own drink and placed it down too. "All right, so, tell me, what's the story with Stark and these Leviathan jerks?"

"The SSR is convinced that Stark selling technology to enemies of the United States," she explained. "And they believe that Leviathan is a potential buyer."

"And you disagree?"

"Stark isn't selling weapons to anybody," she told him firmly. Despite still being angry with him, she knew where he stood. "He may be a complete idiot, but he is one of us."

"So you think the whole deal is a trap," Dugan guessed before sighing. "It's always a damn trap."

"That why we have the guns," (Y/N) pointed out. "But if Leviathan is trying to lure us in with the promise of capturing Stark, what do they truly want?"

"Maybe it's just the pleasure of your company."

Dugan pulled out a cigar from his pocket and placed it in between his teeth. He didn't have the chance to lit it up since (Y/N) grabbed it from him and threw it out the window.

"Hey!"

"You already smell bad enough."

"And you used to be fun!"

"Yeah, they say time changes a person."

(Y/N) flashed him a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes and then adverted her attention somewhere else. She figured that if she stared at him for one second longer, she'd be hit with the dozens of memories that she'd buried for her own good.

"Yeah," he seemed to understand. "I miss him, too."

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They decided to camp out for the night in a secluded area away from the road where they had come from, but not that far to lose the trucks. A fire was started and while some offered to take a look around the perimeter, the others sat around the campfire to eat dinner. In total irresponsible behavior of them all, Dugan began telling jokes that made the others loosen up too, laughter erupting within the group.

"Hey, go easy on those beans, okay?" Pinkerton told Peggy with a laugh.

Peggy stopped halfway through her plate of cooked beans to laugh at his words. Sawyer, Pinkerton and Dugan were all drinking bourbon from the bottle (Y/N) had brought along.

"Coast is clear," Thompson announced in a monotone voice, the complete opposite of the atmosphere around the campfire. "Li and Ramirez are on the night watch. We should be good to go at first light."

"Which means we stand relieved." Juniper spoke out as he sat down next to (Y/N).

Peggy lifted her head from her plate to look at the youngest member of the group. "You see any abominable snowmen like the one in Tibet?"

"I. . ." Juniper flushed in embarrassment. "I never said, 'abominable snowman'."

"In fairness, he did specify 'yeti'," Sawyer corrected with a laugh.

"Yeah."

Dugan decided to join in on the teasing. "Sorry, it was a little hard to make out words in between all the sobbing."

"Shut up. It was scary."

Thompson, who had been hearing to the entire conversation, scooted next to Juniper with a frown. "So, what is the difference between a yeti and an abominable snowman?"

"One's real and one isn't."

"I'm pretty sure they're the same thing," (Y/N) responded with a laugh. This made Dugan and Peggy laugh along with her too, the laughter increasing when Juniper's eyes widened at the new information.

(Y/N) saw Thompson feeling left out on the edge of the circle, and decided to change the subject. "So, supposedly, they have mermaids in Japan. You see any of them when you were out there?"

"Yeah, story time," Juniper turned to face Thompson with an interested smile.

"I got nothing you guys ain't heard before," Thompson said with a quite nervous laugh. "Did a lot of ground work, dug a lot of trenches."

"They don't give out Navy Crosses just for digging trenches," Peggy pointed out.

He inhaled sharply at that. "The Navy Cross."

He nodded to himself and seemed to be in an inner debate about whether or not he should tell them about it.

"All right." He sat up straight after a while, preparing himself to tell the story. "1945. Tsuken Island. Nothing detail. I fall asleep on the night shift. I wake up. . .Six Japanese soldiers walking into my camp, just waltzing in the dark. One of them bends down over my sleeping CO. One more second, he'd slit his throat. Snapped too. Shoot him in the back. Shoot them all. Before they even knew I was there. Before my last man was even awake."

Everyone's eyes adverted were either on Thompson or on ground, as if some found his story quite relatable. (Y/N) stared at the far off look in Thompson's eyes with intrigue, feeling guilty about having changed the subject on him.

"Truth be told, I like the kid's yeti story better," Thompson tried to uplift the mood.

Juniper handed the bottle of bourbon for Thompson to take and serve himself another drink. Dugan raised his cup in him with a smile, meanwhile (Y/N) stared at her old colleague, a person who she'd absolutely despised from the very beginning, with fondness in her eye.