𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐃 was utterly silent. Most jaws were tightened into a disapproving glare while a few other soldiers had a jeering grin plastered to their faces. As the star-spangled poster boy stood on the stage overlooking the group of soldiers just five miles from the Italian front lines, David pinched the bridge of his nose as a result of second hand embarrassment.

Introduced as Captain America, Steve cleared his throat, hoping to ease the tension. His hesitation to continue didn't go unnoticed either. "How many of you are ready to help me sock old Adolf on the jaw?"

David sighed and muttered under his breath. "If I'd known this was gonna follow me out of the country, I might never have left Brooklyn..."

From beside him, Jonathan Juniper scoffed in bemused agreement. "You just might wanna do yourself a favor and smother yourself 'neath your pillow tonight."

David rolled his eyes at the snide comment from the soldier who'd grown on him over the past few weeks. When they'd first been introduced to one another as bunk mates during their initial training, he'd been less than thrilled. However, it was hard to picture any waking moment without the soldier by his side. He was the only person who'd actually tried to console him once he learned of his brother's disappearance. The rest of the infantry had understandably told him to suck it up and move on, lingering in worry would only get him killed.

Steve continued to stumble over his words, revealing how uncomfortable he was standing before the public eye, no matter how much he'd previously tried to fake confidence. "Okay—uh—I need a volunteer."

"I already volunteered! How do you think I got here?" A heckler somewhere in the heart of the crowd shouted to be heard, additionally egged on by the laughter around him. "Bring back the girls!"

The crowd cheered in agreement and Steve faltered again. "I think they only know the one song. But um—let me—I'll—I'll see what I can do."

"You do that, sweetheart," the heckler jeered.

A second joined the first as the rest of the crowd turned on the super-soldier. "Nice boots, Tinker Bell!"

A hurt look crossed Steve's face, visible even from the back of the crowd. "Come on, guys. We're all on the same team here."

He looked out into the crowd, looking for some sign of support. His hopes rose as he made eye contact with David, but they were immediately dashed as the lad averted his eyes, directing his gaze toward the ground as if embarrassed.

"Hey, Captain!" Another heckler called for his attention, standing on the shoulders of some of his pals. He pulled down his pants, flashing the captain with more than just a shred of indecency and no sign of shame. "Sign this!"

The crowd turned and their hostility increased as they started to throw things at Steve ranging from rotten vegetables from last night's dinner to bits and pieces of their own uniforms. The crowd shouted in dissonance. "Bring back the girls!"

The dancers were ushered back onto the stage as the performing captain took his leave. Juniper failed to hide a pitied laugh as he nudged David's shoulder. "Can't believe you know that guy, Barnes."

David's mouth twisted into a soft frown as he quietly uttered. "I'm not quite sure I do anymore."

His silence fell into lingering bitterness as his eyes drifted toward the side stage where Steve had snuck off, to hopefully go find his dignity. It had been the first time that David had been exposed to Steve's makeover, and he was less than impressed. If he had some sort of so-called enhanced power, he certainly didn't see it because while his brother was missing, Steve didn't appear fazed. The opposite in fact, he appeared to be doing well for himself, and the thought of someone else thriving while he was floundering was infuriating.

Thunder echoed across the skies overhead and most of the soldiers scattered around the camp to either find shelter or something productive to do. David had thought of pursuing Steve to maybe knock some sense into his head, but Juniper called him away to help cover up a couple boxes of ammunition before the storm hit. Unfortunately, the supplies that would keep them alive were more important than dealing with whatever messed up family issues he had.

It was only once the weather cleared up that David found Steve, but he still couldn't find a clear opportunity to speak with him as the captain entered the Colonel's strategic tent without a care for his own well being... at least he was starting to act like himself again.

David propped down behind a few boxes to eavesdrop. He understood that he had no business listening to the conversation, but old habits die hard. As his name was called, the Colonel looked up from his plans with a sarcastic question. "Well, if it isn't the Star-Spangled Man With A Plan. And what is your plan today?"

"I need the casualty list from Azzano." Steve was quick to make his request, failing to either notice the sarcasm or he just simply didn't care.

The Colonel's amusement immediately ran out with a scoff. "You don't get to give me orders, son."

"I just need one name." Steve tried again. "Sergeant James Barnes from the hundred and seventh."

David suddenly understood the sudden change. It's the way things had always been whenever his brother's name was uttered. If he was honest with himself, he envied the bond the two possessed. The conversation within the tent continued while he was lost in his own thoughts. He only snapped free of his own mind when Steve stormed away, bristling with hostility.

The colonel lifted a hand, addressing Agent Carter who had remained behind. "If you have something to say, right now is the perfect time to keep it to yourself."

The corners of her mouth downturned and she turned on her heels, following after Steve. His curiosity forced him to follow at a distance. It was clear the old Steve had returned as he threw some supplies into a backpack, slung the bag over his shoulder, then walked toward where he knew the Jeeps would be parked. Agent Carter was less than thrilled by his lack of a plan. "What do you plan to do? Walk to Austria?"

"If that's what it takes." Steve nodded his head with a radiating fresh grit of determination.

"You heard the Colonel, your friend is most likely dead."

Steve shook his head, insistent that she was wrong. "You don't know that."

"Even so, he's devising a strategy." Carter's eyes nervously glanced back toward the strategic tent. "If he detects—"

"By the time he's done that, it could be too late!" Stev interrupted her, but paused, facing her with a genuine question. "You told me you thought I was meant for more than this. Did you mean that?"

"Every word."

"Then you gotta let me go," Steve said as he climbed into the jeep. But stopped as Carter took his head, shaking her head while providing an alternate plan.

"I can do more than that."

The last thing David expected to do that evening was stowaway in the cargo hold of a paratrooper plane, but that's what his life looked like now. It wasn't his fault really, he had terrible role models to look up to when it came to following the rules. The only downside to hiding was that it was impossible to hear the debriefing over the engine of the plane and the bombing around them. Even though Steve and Carter began to shout at one another, he still couldn't make out what was said. But as Steve leapt out the side of the plane, he recognized that his window of opportunity was closing. With a deep breath, he tightened the straps of his chute and sprinted toward the door that Carter had stepped back from to allow Steve the proper space to jump. If he wasn't terrified out of his own mind, the look that crossed her face as he leapt after Steve might have been amusing.

His descent was quick and it was honestly a miracle that he wasn't shot out of the sky. Simply landing on the ground with all of his limbs attached, although inelegant and now a bit bruised, was saying a lot. Steve had wasted no time discarding his chute before sprinting through the undergrowth; however, David called out after him in a harsh whisper. Whether Steve liked it or not, they were stuck with one another until the plane was recalled.

"Wait up!"

Steve froze. He slowly turned around, raising his prop shield as a warning before recognizing the face of the boy. His eyes widened with horror as he hissed, "What the hell are you doing here?!"

"He's my brother." David crossed his arms to close off his posture and establish a baseline of stubbornness despite how out of breath he actually was. The desire to bend over and hold his knees while catching his breath was strong, but he pushed the feeling to the back of his mind to refrain from showing weakness.

"This is no place for a kid," Steve retorted, his frustration growing more evident. "How did you even get here?"

"I saw you were going after Bucky." David shrugged nonchalantly as he explained, briefly forgetting that they were still standing out in the open of enemy territory. "I couldn't just let you go alone. You see I tried to talk to the Colonel earlier, but he was busy—Hey, I'm not a kid anymore, Steve. I'm eighteen."

"Oh, so that makes it alright then," Steve asked sarcastically. He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head while muttering under his breath, "Buck 'll kill me if anything happened to you."

"It's no different than you being out here all on your own," David protested.

"It's completely different!" The volume of Steve's harsh whisper increased. He quickly checked his shoulder, but seeing the coast was clear, he continued to berate the younger soldier. "I've specifically trained for excursions like this."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Tinkerbell," David apologized, sarcasm dripping from his tongue venomously as he rolled his eyes, then snapped, "I wasn't aware they taught you how to infiltrate enemy lines on top of your tap dance routine at theater camp."

Steve's jaw tightened as a warning. "We'll finish this later. Stay close and don't get shot."

"Very helpful." David rolled his eyes, but had to increase the pace of his jog to catch up with Steve.

Steve elected to ignore him as they made their way through the woods onto the man road. Although the captain was probably devising a plan in the midst of the silence, David acted on instinct, sprinting after a passing truck. Steve stood still in a moment of shock before following after the boy who was proving to be more trouble with each passing second.

He muttered several complaints under his breath as he jumped onto the back of the truck, reacting to the immediate danger of a pair of guards, one of which had his gun trained to the back of David's head.

"Fellas." Steve's voice was pained and slightly out of breath as he greeted the guards before knocking both unconscious. His flare was met by David's sheepish smile and uncomfortable laugh that ended with a sigh of relief. As the truck rolled up to the base of operations, he was forced to remain quiet rather than correcting the young soldier's behavior as he would have liked.

He was forced to keep an even closer eye on David as they snuck past the guards into the facility. It was blatantly clear that the younger had even less patience and restraint than the older. It was such reckless behavior that would get them caught, so Steve was cautious to keep the lad within arms reach. Whenever the kid began to step forward even an inch too much, Steve pulled him back by the collar of his shirt. However, he couldn't stop him from using his sticky fingers.

"What is this thing?" The whispered question came out of the blue as David held up a shining blue cartridge.

Steve's eyes widened and he quickly glanced over his shoulders to make sure they hadn't been compromised. "Where did you get that?"

"Nabbed it off one of the tables we passed." David shrugged, unaware that he'd done anything wrong. "What is it?"

"I don't know," Steve replied then warned, "Don't play with it."

David rolled his eyes, but listened as he remained close by Steve's side, slipping the cartridge into his pocket. They carefully crept forward through the weapons laboratory until they reached a set of stairs that Steve assumed led to the prison cells. Together, Steve and David took out the pair of guards keeping watch before approaching the cells, keys in hand.

Jones raised an eyebrow as the two approached. "Who are you supposed to be?"

Steve hesitated, but eventually provided an answer. "I'm Captain America."

"I beg your pardon?" Falsworth asked as if he hadn't heard correctly.

"You decided to go with your stage name?" David's nose wrinkled as he recalled the name plastered across posters hung up around the campsite.

"And what are you?" Dugan scoffed, looking David over skeptically. "His sidekick?"

"I'm no one's sidekick." David seethed, crossing his arms as he looked over at Steve defiantly. "Maybe we should just leave 'em."

"We're not leaving anyone," Steve replied as he unlocked the cells.

The doors opened and the soldiers poured out of their cells; however, some were less open to the idea of bringing everyone along than others. Dugan gestured to the Asian soldier beside him as he asked, "What, are we taking everybody?"

Morita frowned and pulled his dog tags out from under his shirt to prove his point, insult poorly hidden from his face. "I'm from Fresno, Ace."

Steve looked around, scanning the faces of the released prisoners. Dissatisfaction settled over his countenance as he came to the same conclusion as David: they were still missing Bucky. "Is there anybody else? I'm looking for a Sergeant James Barnes."

"There's an isolation ward in the factory," Falsworth replied then added with caution, "but no one's ever come back from it."

"Alright." Steve nodded his head, glancing over his shoulder as if eager to leave, but stopped long enough to provide instructions. "The tree line is northwest, eighty yards past the gate. Get out fast and give 'em hell. I'll meet you guys in the clearing with anybody else I find."

"Let's go." David tugged on Steve's jacket while turned to head back toward the factory at the heart of the facility.

Steve quickly shook his head and jumped to grab David's shoulder. The young soldier turned in confusion, raising an eyebrow with concern. Steve nodded his head in the direction of the freed one-o-seven troops. "I want you to go with them."

David frowned, yanking his arm away as he spoke between gritted teeth. "I don't need a babysitter."

"But they might," Steve whispered playfully. "Besides, you know the way out of the facility."

"Fine..." David slowly nodded his head, begrudgingly accepting the responsibility while remaining bitter that Steve had successfully found a way to hand him off to someone else. However, his expression briefly softened. "... just bring back my brother."

"I will," Steve confirmed and turned to leave.

"Wait!" Jones called after him. "You know what you're doin'?"

Steve nodded his head and nonchalantly shrugged off the tension concealed in his shoulders. "Yeah. I've knocked out Adolf Hitler over two hundred times."

Steve ran off, but David froze in his tracks, suddenly slack-jawed. He quickly turned his head and shouted incredulously after the captain. "None of that was real though!"

Rambeau raised an eyebrow and glanced between David and the open space where Steve once stood. "Should we be worried?"

David didn't exactly answer the question as he sighed, shaking his head with disbelief as he gestured toward the exit. "This way."

The escape through the compound was rushed and sloppy which many of his superiors would have seen as a huge mistake, but it was the last thing on David's mind as he ducked down to avoid the oncoming gunfire that rained down on them. Dernier was the first to pick up one of the fallen guard's bizarre energy-powered guns, summoning a cautious look of concern from Morita.

"You know how to use that thing?" Morita's eyes widened as Dernier fired the weapon and blew out the wall in front of them. Morita raised his hands defensively, immediately returning the lost confidence. "Okay."

Seconds later, a series of alarms blared over the speakers, giving up what little element of surprise they had left. Dugan and Jones focused their efforts on overtaking one of the small tanks. David considered following, but elected to stay below on the ground as the fight only grew more intense.

"Keep moving!" Morita shouted over the explosions to be heard. "Grab those grenades!"

David nodded his head, receiving the order with hesitation and reached out to take one of the small explosives; however, his hand was blocked. He looked up, incredibly inconvenienced while Rambeau chuckled. "Hold on a minute, Skippy, before you blow your arm off."

David huffed, but his frustration was ignored as Rambeau took the grenade, pulled the pin, and chucked it over into the enemy lines. Dirt from the earth flew into the air from the impact of the blast, disrupting their balance as they stumbled to regain their footing.

David frowned. "I could have done that."

"We prefer to keep our rookies in one piece," Morita joined the conversation as the grenades were passed out to the others within the group.

The ground shook as if a massive earthquake had cracked open the core of the world. The soldiers didn't hesitate to take the opportunity of confusion to finally retreat. The facility burst into flames as chunks of the building were expelled outward. It wasn't until they reached the edge of the first that they actually caught their breath allowed the tension from the shoulders to relax.

"Did we all make it out?" David released a laugh of disbelief as he looked around.

Dugan clapped him on the back, making the lad stumble underneath the blow. "Did you have any doubt, kid?"

"You're kidding, right?" David raised an eyebrow as he asked his rhetorical question. "I think my life flashed before my eyes half a dozen times."

"I think I'm still hallucinating, Steve." David froze and slowly turned around at the sound of his brother's voice. Bucky looked concerned as he explained what he saw. "Because I swear that's David standing in front of me."

David ignored the look of disapproval plastered to his brother's face as he sprinted forward and pulled him into a tight embrace. However, at the whispers echoing around the crowd, David grew self-conscious and placed some space between them, clearing his throat to regain the lost moment of masculinity.

Steve stepped out to the front of the group, taking the lead as he motioned for the others to follow. "It's about time we get these soldiers to safety."

No one contradicted him nor stopped him from leading the group. They were instantly greeted by a crowd of cheering soldiers as they led the freed prisoners within the confines of the base camp. Colonel Phillips and Agent Carter soon joined the group as well. Steve saluted.

"Some of these men need medical attention." He then paused before adding, "I'd like to surrender myself for disciplinary action."

The Colonel shook his head. "That won't be necessary."

"Yes, sir." Steve slowly lowered his hand as the corners of his mouth upturned into a small smile.

Agent Carter folded her arms as she stepped closer. "You're late."

Steve held up the broken transponder. "Couldn't call my ride."

Their eye contact lingered just a moment longer before Bucky broke the silence while addressing the crowd of soldiers. "Hey! Let's hear it for Captain America."

The crowd erupted in cheers louder than before. David couldn't help but laugh with relief, finally free from the anxiety that had burdened him earlier in the week. Even if it was just for a moment, things had turned around. Surely the tides of war couldn't be too far behind.