What would have happened if the Howling commandos learned about Bucky having been brainwashed by Hydra, and if maybe nobody but Peggy, Howard, and Phillips knew Zola had been hired, so the commandos would have learned about both at the same time
Well the problem there is you'd have to come up with a reason why they're not in SHIELD too, if there were Nazis involved. Because you have to think they would've blowed the fuck out of that whistle if they had come on board and seen Zola wandering around the bunker.
So maybe Peggy & Co went out of their way not to invite the Howlies on board, to prevent that scenario.
And maybe the Howlies would've objected to SHIELD on principle 'Steve wouldn't wanted an alphabet agency named after him / you shouldn't be pretending you were close to him / stealing our valour to make you look good.'
Like there are definite ways you could explain their absence and apparent ignorance, why there would've been schisms between them and Stark etc.
But the problem is that by the time the reveal comes they would've been either dead or very, very old (remember, they were all older than Steve and Bucky so the chances of them even still being around are slim to none.)
Like I do have a headcanon of post-WS tracking the Howlies down for visits and finding that not only does he not remember them, but they're so old they don't remember him.
(Plus Steve's horror when he is informed that SHIELDra lied to him and, actually, all his friends were still alive when he woke up in the future, but have since died / become too frail to remember him, and Steve needn't have been alone from the beginning.)
(Althought I did once have a fun idea for a The Last Hero style fic, where all the Howlies are still alive and compos mentis and living in the same old folks home when Steve wakes up in the future.
So when they see on the news that Cap is back, they all escape the home to go and help him fight the aliens (whom they keep calling 'Nazi Scum' out of habit.) And Bucky as the beefy exasperated care home worker who has to chase after and recapture them while they're trying to steal guns and fight aliens. Cue: Bucky saving Steve from an alien by using an old man in a wheelchair as a battering ram. 😂)
Another thing to consider, if we're really giving the Howlies the best antifa backstory they deserve, is... what have they been up to in all the intervening years?
Because there is a possibility they would've discovered SHIELD's fascism in their own terms, and probably been killed for it.
Like: Gabe surely would become a prominent figure in the Civil Rights movement, right? You know Hydra would've been involved in assassinating those kind of people. What if Gabe was killed? What if TWS was the one sent to do it? Or maybe Gabe was attending, eg. the speech Malcolm X was delivering in NYC when he was assassinated, and saw someone who looks just like Bucky shoot him?
As fun as the idea of them all being still alive is, age aside I just can't visualise a scenario where they'd all have survived long enough to find out about Bucky. Not if we're doing right by them as individual characters. 🤔
