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James Buchanan Barnes was weak for a woman in uniform.
He didn’t know what triggered it in him: the novelty of women in the workforce over the past few years, ever since the war began; the fact that pretty girls were such a commodity for deployed soldiers, except on a long-awaited furlough; or the knowledge that he was putting his life on the line for a future with a beautiful dame someday, white picket fence ‘n all.
Probably a mix of all three.
He’d always had a particular fondness for secretaries, so primed, primped, and dolled up for work and play. By the time he shipped out to Europe, cheesecakes were all the rage: photos of scantily-clad women that he and the other GI’s pinned up to the wall. Rosie the Riveter was a particular favourite amongst the 107th.
But the nurses.
Christ, those beauties – strong, beautiful women who saw more blood and gore than him, radiant flowers in a hellish wasteland. The brutality of war was a horror better left unseen, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make for what was right.
You were, too.
The two of you met in Azzano.
In October of 1943, a large portion of the 107th had either been killed or taken prisoner. Wounded soldiers who made their way back were tended to by your gentle hand, but the imprisoned men rescued in November were in far worse condition, having been experimented upon by the enemy in an act of savagery.
He was one of them.
Physically, he wasn’t too bad off. Just a couple of cuts and bruises, nothing to write home about. Predictably, he hammed it up, whined that it hurt and asked, “Gonna kiss it better, sweetheart?” when you were done bandaging him up. You’d heard it all before. Soldiers liked to flirt.
But those eyes. His eyes were the softest blue, almost like a dream.
The kiss he pressed to the back of your hand made your heart flutter in your chest. His skin was calloused and rough against yours, chapped and dry from constant scrubbing.
As for his name:
Bucky, he said it was. Bucky Barnes.
Over the next few days at camp, he visited you in between his briefings and kept you company during your breaks. In the beginning, you’d been reluctant. It wouldn't do you any good to get attached here, but you did anyway. He bribed you with coffee, which the two of you shared outside the makeshift hospital. Coffee quickly turned to cigarettes and laughter.
Bucky Barnes was a bad influence – a bad influence with a penchant for making you blush.
There was a certain innocence in the time you spent together. More than once you were forced to take shelter from the rain in the nearby storage tent, just you and him, stifling and sweet all at once. Despite the awful things he'd been through, he always offered you a weary smile and a kind shoulder right when you needed it most.
But time was fleeting, and all too soon, he was granted furlough. Back to London. Back to normality.
A ration of chocolate was his parting gift to you.
Red lipstick on his cheek was yours.
The next time you saw him was in France, on New Year’s Eve.
There were no festivities, for the small town had been bombed a few days prior and only a handful of structures remained. Your nurses’ station was one of them, a ramshackle setup in one of the few remaining buildings, the safest: three reinforced stories made of stone.
Everywhere he went, he looked for you. He wasn’t sure why. If he was honest, it was wishful thinking – you’d never see each other again. War had a tendency to end friendships before they could even begin, not to mention lives.
Somehow, he found you anyway. Amidst the death, there you were, a beacon of light in the darkness. Unforgettable.
The smile on your face when he tapped you on the shoulder made his heart warm. Your eyes almost seemed to glow in the moonlight, and for the umpteenth time, he was rendered speechless.
The two of you soon found yourselves on the rooftop, sharing a cigarette like you’d done so many times before. Your soft laughter spilled over the ledge until you peered out at the ashes and rubble below, a harsh reminder of where you were. Europe. Not home. The front lines were just a few clicks up the road, where he’d be headed in the morning.
Time was fleeting.
At the stroke of midnight, Billie Holiday came on the radio, achingly beautiful in the otherwise silent night. He pulled you up for a dance, slow and sweet, and for a moment everything was right in the world. Just for a moment.
I'll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you
He caught another glimpse of you in early March of 1944.
Spring had arrived in Monte Cassino. The flowers were just starting to peek through the melting snow, but the battle raged on.
He'd been heading out of town on the back of a truck full of his fellow soldiers, but the moment he saw you in the crowd, he jumped up and shouted your name loud as hell. Copped a few looks from it from Steve and the boys, but he didn’t care.
You heard him plain as day, but you didn’t spot him until after a small bundle of letters landed on the ground in front of you. When you looked up, you found him waving with a grin on his face so contagious, you couldn’t help but smile back.
Letters. He’d written you letters.
He just hadn’t known where to send them.
There was one for every week you’d been apart. Eleven letters. Eleven ways to show he cared, and with each one you fell for him just a little more. He wrote to you about his travels, about the things that got him through it all: a field of wildflowers, one of which he’d dried and placed inside the envelope; a quiet farm in Italy, seemingly untouched by the war; Valentine’s Day spent in a cold, wintery trench, made tolerable only by how much he wished you were with him, keeping him warm.
By some miracle, he’d given you an address on the off-chance you wanted to write to him, too. By some other miracle, you did. Whenever he received one, his fingers traced your curly script.
Dear Sergeant.
Dear James.
Dear Bucky.
The one constant was that you always signed your letters with love.
It wasn’t until the 5th of June that you saw each other again, when you opened the door to a bouquet of flowers.
You’d been relieved of your duties for a week – furlough, in a way. London wasn’t bustling like you expected it to be, but bombed and weary. So were your fellow nurses, a handful of whom you’d met before. The all-female dormitory should have allowed you to decompress, but you couldn’t relax at all knowing what was happening to the world.
The moment you saw those soft blue eyes peeking over the bouquet, however, your worries ceased to exist.
For the first time, he was able to take you on a proper date. The sweet scent of your shampoo helped him forget that he’d be heading back out in the morning, to yet another Hydra facility. It was his duty to serve, but what he really wanted was to serve you.
He couldn’t entertain that thought knowing that he might not come back.
He did anyway.
You were sure that the movie was enjoyable, but all you could focus on was the warm, heavy weight of his arm around your shoulders. If only you’d met in peacetime, then maybe your blossoming relationship would have a fighting chance of survival. As it was, there was no guarantee that either of you would make it through.
You couldn’t let yourself hope.
You did anyway.
All the tension fell away after the movie, when he took your hand and laced your fingers together, like it was the most natural thing in the world. In some way, it was.
Although you couldn’t have walked any slower on the way back to your doorstep, time was fleeting and all too soon, it was time to say goodbye. The two of you could hear the other nurses giggling as they peered out the windows, waiting for what you both desperately wanted, a kiss – but he was a gentleman.
He knew how unlikely it would be for him to survive Normandy, so he let you go.
In the morning, you woke far too early in hopes that you’d be able to see him off. The trucks were already on their way out of town by the time you got outside – noisy, just like your heartbeat in your ears as you anxiously searched for him amongst the other soldiers.
The gleam of a brightly-coloured shield was what caught your attention, and there he was sitting next to it amidst a heated discussion with the rest of his team. At your shout of his name, his eyes swept over the crowd until he spotted you right in front, waving. You quickly tossed him a gift, a little something wrapped in a delicate floral handkerchief.
He caught it easily. You had impeccable aim.
What he found hidden inside the fabric was a ration of chocolate just like the first time he’d said goodbye, along with a little note in familiar script:
You come back to me, Bucky Barnes.
And he did.
August 25th. The waning edge of summer. The weather was lovely, bright and sunny to match the jovial mood throughout the encampment. Paris had been liberated at last – a small victory, but a victory nonetheless and one step closer to ending the war.
In your hands was a bag of bread, which fell to the ground when you saw him there, standing right in front of you like nothing had changed. Before you could even react, his lips were hot on yours, a searing brand of love and passion and months of pent-up adoration.
James Buchanan Barnes took your breath away.
“I love you,” he told you over and over again, pressing kisses to your face, your cheeks, your forehead – as if he could never kiss you enough. “Love you too damn much, sweetheart.”
In between his kisses and your happy tears, you couldn’t help but smile.
It didn’t matter that time was fleeting.
You loved him, too.