Modern Howlies
Okay, I know it’s really unlikely and unrealistic and what not but I don’t care
Just imagine: The Howling Commandos alive in modern times. Not through science or serums or cryofreeze, those stubborn assholes just won’t die. They are mildly crotchety old men who wave canes at family reunions and play bingo on weekends and still try to be involved with espionage whenever possible because their retirement home is just so BORING. (Whenever possible is limited to when Gabe and Peggy’s grandson Antoine and their niece Sharon bring them little pieces of ‘classified’ information and asking for advice, and it’s a far cry from their commando days but it’s something so they’ll take it. One more game of scrabble and someone is getting punched) (yes they are all in the same retirement home. Practically attached at the hips they are, especially now that most of the families have spread and moved onto their own lives.)
Then one day Sharon comes in, jittery and more excited than they’ve ever seen her and tells them that They. Found. Cap! Alive! That night the nurses find out that 90 year olds can still be as rowdy as twenty year olds if they are excited enough.
Golden haired fucker doesn’t visit them till after aliens invade New York and for that Dernier repeatedly sacks him upside the head with his cane when he does finally come. (They’d never missed being in the action so much as when they had to watch Cap on the tv, fighting fucking aliens without them to watch his six. And maybe they are a little jealous of these Avengers, but sue them, he was their Captain first.)
All is well, though the rest home gets a few interesting stories because even now they can convince Steve to do some ridiculous shit if they push hard enough. It’s entirely worth the property damage to see him grinning like he hasn’t since before Sarge fell. (And that’s still a gaping wound in all of them, especially now when they are almost all together again. But it’ll never be all of them because Bucky is never coming back)
Then DC happens and they see SHIELD fall on the news (HYDRA, fucking HYDRA the whole damn time and Gabe grips his chair so hard his knuckles turn white because where are Antione and Sharon, are they okay?) and most importantly they see a dead man trying to kill Steve and what the fucking FUCK!?
SARGE!?
WHAT THE HELL SARGE!?
Then hydra’s Intel hits the web and well.
Now it’s war. (It was before, but y'know. Fucking personal now, that’s their Sarge)
So they pour over every piece of Intel they can get their hands on (which is everything the black widow put out their because they may be old but they are the god damn Howling Commandos and their captain and their Sargent need them) and they pull up bases for Cap to tear apart. On her good days Peggy is on the phone helping them and it’s almost like old days and it’s the most purposeful they’ve felt in years
But their most important mission is finding Bucky and bringing him home. And like hell they are sitting this one out. Fuck that, that’s their boy out there somewhere. So they get their leads, they fear up as best they can and they set out. It really does feel like they old days then. Dugan still wears that damn hat and he still has that fucking mustauche. Monty still wears his beret and Dernier still shouldn’t be allowed near explosives (or maybe he should, if you ask Dugan his opinion.) and speaks mostly in French so he and Gabe can have private conversations just to annoy the others. Peggy makes them promise to bring him to visit her when they find him and sends along a letter addressed to Sargent Barnes of the Howling Commandos.
It takes a while, and Steve rants at them to get back to the home before something happens nearly every day on the phone but sorry cap technically we don’t need to take orders anymore, but finally they find him in some old safe house that really is a house in Europe.
Bucky looks out his window one day and see a group of old men standing on the walk staring at him and just feels confusion and familiarity and then - are those the men from the museum? Yes, yes they are! Holy shit it’s the fucking commandos! How are they here, they are ancient, what the fuck guys!?
He sneaks out the back and the chase begins.
They follow him across Europe yelling at him to come home every time they get close no matter who is around (to damn old for this shit, get your punk ass home you little fuck, don’t give a damn who can hear us) and Dernier keeps lecturing him in French. They nearly choke on their coffee the first time he responds in perfect French, something snarky and oh so Bucky and the fucker takes that opportunity to disappear into the crowd. Asshole.
There are close calls and sarcasm and somewhere along the line Morita shanks somebody and Gabe beans a hydra agent over the head with an IV pole and Dugan knocks another one out with his walker.
Just, ninety something year old howlies chasing Bucky across Europe and despite his winter soldier training managing to keep getting the drop on him.
