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You sleep buried in a cornfield,
it's not a rose, neither a tulip,
that watches over you from the shadows of the ditches,
but it's a thousand red poppies.
It gets rougher and rougher and Bucky isn't sure when it'll happen.
He doesn't even know what day it is, he just knows that almost all of his men are dead and that he has no idea on how to go on.
Along the banks of my stream
I want the silver pikes to come down
no more the corpses of soldiers
carried in your arms by the current
Everyone relies on him 'Sarge, you'll find a way out.' and he finds it such an ironic thing how he's leading other people towards nothing, because he has no idea what the hell he's doing.
But they rely on him because he's a great shooter, could take some one from a mile away with a pistol and take him in the chest, but it's also because of his charm.
It's mostly fake, started it when he was young because he wanted to have his way with people to get favours and it just stuck because of his crippling fear of rejection and abandonment.
But people seem to buy it for some reason, it's like there's a magnet that attracts everyone to this personality that Bucky has built for himself which makes it hard for people to actually see how much of a shitty person he really is.
You said so and it was winter
and like the others that go towards hell
you go as sad as one should
the wind spits snow in your face.
He has seen so much shit, so many corpses, so many fucking dead bodies and the only thing he can think about now is how much they stink when they start rotting.
Stop Piero, stop right now
Let the wind blow over you some more
You carry the voice of the ones dead in battle
those who gave their life had a cross in return.
It hasn't always been like this. Sure, Bucky hasn't always been compassionate or caring, no matter how much his bestpal had tried to feed him that shit in the past, that little dirtbag didn't even realize he has only ever cared about him.
But you didn't listen and time went on
along with the seasons at Javanese pace
And you came across the border
On a nice spring day
And while you marched with your soul on your back
You noticed a man at the bottom of the valley
That had your exact same mood
But a different uniform's colour.
But Bucky remembers his first time, the first time he has held a gun, when he pointed it at some other man and he noticed his same expression mirrored on him, except Bucky had brown hair and the man had a Swastika on his uniform.
Bucky remembers himself hesitating, he can remember because the man in front of him did the same, but then Bucky realized what he was there to do.
Shoot him, Piero. Shoot him right now,
And after that shot shoot him again
Until you see his corpse bloodless
Fall to the ground to cover his own blood
There was blood everywhere, Bucky is sure he saw pieces of actual brain somewhere on the ground, laying against the white of the snow, and he took a moment to watch into the man's eyes.
And if you shoot him in the forehead or in the heart
He will only have time left to die
But I will have time left to see
See the eyes of a dying man
They were open, wide open, and Bucky saw the horror, the fear in them, and he realized that holy fuck, it could have been me.
That guy died at such a young age because he wasn't born in America, he was born in Germany and you can tell Bucky all kinds of bullshits on Nazi's, but that kid surely didn't look proud of having a swastika on his uniform neither did he look proud of what he was doing.
When he went back to the camp the only thing he receieved was a pat on the shoulder and probably the worst thing that could have ever been said during a situation like that.
'You kill like you were made for it.'
And now Bucky is a machine, he kills and tries his best not to think about it because he knows he needs to go home, Steve needs him to go home. Bucky is sure that he has been doing terrible without him, he knows it because it has been the same for him as well.
Bucky kills because he knows that if he will kill enough people then maybe he'll keep the only thing he cares about safe, and that's fine by him.
He knows it'll get him too, eventually. He knows he will die during this war, no matter how much he tries to feed himself the 'I'm coming back home to Steve' bullshit he tells himself so that he can stand up when they plant a bullet to his leg and there's only two men who can help and one of them has a sprained ankle, or when it's been days since he has had an actual meal and he would want some water but it's finished so he tries to smiluate saliva he can gulp down.
Bucky knows he won't die home but he's not afraid of death, sometimes when he's laying down and jumps at the slight sound and can't seem to sleep he even dreads it.
But then he thinks of Steve and of what he will do if he'd loose Bucky too so then Bucky would take one of Steve's letters and hug it to his chest. He used to breath in and try to smell him, to smell the ink of his favourite pen, or to smell the wood of their kitchen table where he knows he likes to write his letters. He has done it so many times, though, that the smell went away, and all Bucky can smell now is his own sweat mixed with dirt and blood, the saltness of his own tears but he still likes to pretend.
When Steve comes, everything changes.
Everything Bucky used to fight for is now dead because if Steve is here then who will he come back home to? The moths eating their cupboards? If Steve has a gal what will Bucky come home to? Just the ghost of what he himself used to be and the new shadow of a tortured broken man who only has war on his mind.
Bucky doesn't have a goal anymore, no more mantras to keep repeating when he feels the end is coming near. But he can't leave because what if Steve gets hurt? What if he will need Bucky's help and of course he would, because it doesn't matter whether he's super enhanced or something, he will always be the biggest dumbass punk of all times and will always try to find a way to get himself in troubles, Bucky knew it when he found that kid trying to fight four well built guys on the schoolyard and remembers it when he sees him storming a Nazi basement all on his own just to save Bucky.
When Bucky's time comes he realizes it gradually, he has had a bad feeling about that mission ever since the colonel told them about it, and when he saw that train he straight up almost shat himself for some reason.
They say you get a sort of sixth sense after years of holding your breath in for minutes and learning how to tell if someone is nearby by the sound of the wind.
He didn't want to panick when he noticed how close he was to falling off a train and hitting the ground,didn't want to alarm Steve because Bucky didn't want to make it any harder on that fucker.
And while you offer him this care
That same man turns and he's scared
And taken up the artillery
doesn't return your favour
But Steve was red in the face, he was yelling and trying uselessly to postpone what would have happened eventually.
You fell to the ground without making a sound
And realized in a single moment
That time wouldn't have been enough for you
To ask forgiveness for every sin
When he holds Steve's hand on the train he knows that this is his end, and the moment he lets go he thinks about all the things he has done in his life, mostly wrong ones.
Like the fact that he used to steal his sister's cookies and blame it on the dog, or the fact that he used to wish on his father's death and when that finally happened he was left with a blank feeling that has maybe accompanied him throughout his whole life. Thinks about the fact that he has only pretended to like women for half his life and suppressed his desire for men, and that it has lead him nowhere, because he knows he has had a guaranteed one way ticket to hell ever since he was born.
You fell to the ground without making a sound
And realized in a single moment
That your life ended that day
And that there would have been no return.
And he thinks about Steve, how he hid himself to him as well, never told him how he felt and he knows he did the right thing because Steve would be tiring himself over it, he would have maybe fucked up the only chance he has at being happy and having a family just to respect Bucky.
My Ninetta, dying in May
takes a lot, too much courage
Pretty Ninetta, I would have preferred going straight to hell in the winter.
Bucky remembers telling Steve how he would have preferred having his body buried where trees would have grown, not in the cold of the wind and the snow but as he takes his last breath, he knows it's just perfect for where he's going.
And as the corn listened to you
in your hands you were holding a rifle
In your mouth you were holding words, far too frozen to melt in the sun.
There's so many things he would have wanted to tell him as well, how his life has been pretty much a lie ever since he opened his eyes, how he has only ever been truthful to Steve only but even then not fully, just to protect him.
He has never been a religious person, has never believed in hell or heaven, but as he he takes hist last breath he regrets never being a good person, because he'll never go to heaven to say goodbye to Steve properly.
You sleep buried in a cornfield,
it's not a rose, neither a tulip,
that watches over you from the shadows of the ditches,
but it's a thousand red poppies.