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Somewhere between Monaco and Genova, Bucky had started to hear Steve’s voice.
It had started small. Little things. Like Steve reminding him to check his twelve, or to drink some water.
It had escalated. Full conversations while trudging through the marshy pits of Mediterranean Italy, living through hell, but Steve always had a joke to make.
But Steve isn’t here. Thank god for that. But Steve isn’t here, he has to remind himself, convinced he’s gone round the bend, Steve isn’t here.
His troop makes camp on a hill in the deep forest, 4 miles due South of Azzano, D-3. Only 72 hours before they met the Italians head on.
His troop is scared. They probably won’t make it home. He knows that, and Lieutenant Lou knows it. And there’s about 200 other scared American men in the woods around them, dreaming of making it out.
Bucky doesn’t know what to do.
Something in his brain is beginning to fail. He can feel it. He’s supposed to be a leader to these men but… but…
The forest is dark, clear of hostiles, at least for now. There isn’t a lot of ground engagement in this AO, choked too much by the dense, tangled nature of the landscape.
He wonders if bombs would shatter their cover. He wonders if he would welcome it.
C’mon, Buck, you givin’ up so easy?
Oh, Stevie, if you’d seen the things I’ve seen. The things I’ve done.
A flash of golden hair, tangled and filled with thorns and blood. A face so pale you’d never think it had lived.
He’s staring off into the distance. He feels some of the troops eyes on him as they chatter, getting the camp ready for their short, short 72 hours.
Boy, Stevie, I’m so tired you wouldn’t believe it.
A hand lands on his shoulder.
“Still with us, Sarge?” It’s the lieutenant. Lou looks just as tired as Bucky feels.
“Yes, sir.”
“You want to join us?”
“I’m scopin’ the terrain, sir, but I’ll divert course if that’s your—“
“I’m not pulling rank with you, Barnes,” Lou interrupts. He sounds strained. And sad. “I’m just trying to see if you’re… well, after yesterday.”
The yesterday that blew the last sense of honor he could’ve felt into smithereens. He’d come to this war to fight Nazis, protect his people, protect the American way and now… killin’ people ain’t so easy as the pictures show, even if their uniforms are the wrong color.
Lou clears his throat. “You didn’t have any other choice. You had to make a call and you made the call to save lives.”
He knows a skinny shit head in New York’s ears just perked up like Bugs Bunny.
Don’t listen to him, Buck, we’ve always got a choice. All of us.
Stevie would’ve made the right call. Steve would’ve known what to do.
“He was just a kid,” Bucky grinds out. “And now a he’s dead kid because I shot ‘im. Enough said.”
“A Nazi kid with a live grenade,” Lou counters. “War’s full of choices, compounding choices, ones that end and save lives.”
And he had killed a kid. Couldn’t have been older than fifteen. That was his choice.
It had been a small scouting party which had descended on them and Bucky was the watch, and their guns were active. He had cleaned up each of them with precision, right through the temple, before his men had even been able to scramble to their feet.
Through the scope of his sniper, he had seen the thin limbs crumple like a paper doll into the dirt just like the rest of ‘em. Then the grenade had gone off, only 5 meters from their camp.
When had he learned to do that? To take so many out so quickly? What right did one man have to choose the end of so many? What right does he have?
And he had seen that kid, pale and little as anything, and god he had looked so much like Steve dead in the dirt of some foreign land with blood dripping down his face. And then the boy had blown himself up. And then he had turned and projectile vomited down the trunk of the tree he was perched in.
Bucky lurched as he was bodily shuffled to face the squadron, forced away from the memory.
The fellas were laughing, quietly, one of those moments where they could pretend they were just some guys camping in the countryside. None of them were scared. At least, they had 72 hours to pretend they weren’t scared.
“They’re alive because of you, Sarge,” Lou says. “They’re your men, our men. Keep them company, at least just tonight because you and I both know what’s coming soon. See the bigger picture. Sure, you killed that boy, it hurts, but ol’ Adolph’s killin’ millions of innocents and we’re here to stop it. Capeesh?”
He scrubs a hand down his face. With a defeated sigh, he acquiesces to Lou and joins the rest of the troop.
He regrets it instantly.
“Come on, handsome fella you are, there can’t be nobody waiting on you.”
“There isn’t.”
“Then who you always writin’ to?” Lou asks.
“Nobody.”
Harley laughs, kicking at Bucky’s shin and says, “A nobody named, hmm? Could she be a nobody named… Stevie?”
Bucky freezes up, completely caught, tries not to let it show but the boys immediately jump on his silence with a never ending tirade of japes and rude gestures.
They had all been talking about their sweethearts left behind when Lou had finally gotten Bucky to join them. They were pulling out photographs and letters and lockets with locks of hair, each taking their turn lovingly explaining their doll with proud shining faces.
Bucky was content to share in the simple joy of pretty dames when suddenly, all of the attention had flown toward him, apparently the only one to have never shared details of his love life. Go figure.
“I knew it!” Harley caws. “You write those letters every damn day you really think no one never once saw your girl’s name?”
“Dear Stevie, I miss you ever so much,” Gonzales croons. “Oh, my dear Stevie, I may be sweet on these Italian girls but not nearly as sweet as I am on you!”
“Hey, quit it, that’s not what they say—“
Bruno cuts him off swiftly, saying something for the first time that night, “ But they do say something! I even heard him talk ‘bout her in his sleep, just mumblin’ her name over and over-“
“Stevie’s not-“ Bucky swallowed, throat suddenly dry. “It’s not like that.“
“But there is a lady!” Lou insists, the usual voice of reason completely turning against Bucky. “Now what kinda woman could get our stone cold Sergeant stutterin’ like a schoolgirl?”
Bucky punches down his pride, knows that this is just in good fun, knows that they need the morale, that they want to dream of a girl instead of the bombs that could drop at any moment.
“She isn’t- But she’s not-“ Bucky can’t think of what to say which gives rise to more laughter. But she’s a fella— and he’s not even my fella. “It really isn’t like that.”
Harley swoons and faints towards him, expression demure and eyelashes fluttering. “Oh, Sergeant Barnes, you know just what to say!”
Bucky lets him fall to the ground.
“Hey!” He complains from the dirt. “That ain’t no way to treat a lady! What would Stevie say you did that to her?”
Bucky rolls his eyes. “Trust me, ol’ Stevie wouldn’t appreciate bein’ treated like a lady.”
Wolf whistles and cat calls instantly arise and Bucky’s face flushes red when he realizes how it sounds.
“No, really, I swear—“
“C’mon, Sarge,” Gonzales groans, “You gotta give us something to work with!”
He tries to think of some of the broads he saw around town, the weekend dates and evening dances, and then he sees Steve standing there as if he were in the tent with his knowing, shit headed smirk.
You’re takin’ all the stupid with you.
To hell with it. Stevie always said he could be a writer, might as well try it out if he’ll die in 72 hours.
“Well, alright. Fine, fine. She’s— uh, she’s got these blue eyes,” Bucky’s suddenly swept up in the image and a shockingly sharp pang of longing settles in his chest. “Bluer than the sea. Blonde hair, pale, and this big toothy smile. Loud laugh, too loud but I’d never tell ‘er. She’s- she’s-“
The Steve in his memory throws punch after punch after punch. The Steve in his memory doesn’t know how to quit, eyes storming with righteous anger. The Steve in his memory sits on their counter with gritted teeth and a busted nose while Bucky admonishes him, patches up his split knuckles, dried red paint under his nails washing down the drain along with the blood.
“She’s what, sarge?” One of them calls.
Another calls, “Yeah, you can’t stop there!”
“Hold your damn horses, privates,” Bucky snaps, but continues nonetheless after some thinking. “She’s- She’s spitfire as they come, Ol’ Stevie’ll. She’s got a mouth on her, damn near beats out any Navy boy I know. Hell of a joker. I never know what’ll come outta her next and she’s got an independence streak fiercer than anything.”
Harley, who had long since propped himself on Bucky’s knapsack like a pillow, sighs wistfully.
“Stevie’s got- she has these skinny wrists and ankles and I’d never tell ‘er but I’m always worrying they’ll break,” Bucky says, quieter, and he vaguely wonders why he can’t stop talking now that he’s started. “She could see something just the once and paint it, or draw it, could be days later and she could still remember it perfect. She’ll go to school for it and make a killin’.”
The camp had gone completely quiet, all hootin’ and hollerin’ set aside, but Bucky still can’t stop.
“Can’t cook for nothin’ but she loves my Ma’s Matzo soup. And y’know, she’ll always be on the right side of things, doesn’t know how to pick her battles so she can win ‘em but picks ‘em anyways because she says no one else will. Promised me she’d stay safe while I was gone but I never believed her. Honestly, I’m always… always…”
Always thinkin’ of you, Stevie.
Suddenly he’s lost in thoughts of a small, mildewy apartment in Brooklyn with wallpaper peeling and a sagging ceiling.
War has him realizing things, things he never thought of before.
Aw, shucks Buck, you talk up every dame you’re sweet on like this?
Only the handsome ones, Stevie.
Good thing I’m no dame, then, because that was sappy as shit. You got some cough syrup to go with it?
Anything you want, Stevie.
“She sounds swell, Sarge,” Lou says, voice light but his eyes are full of pity. “You, uh, you marrying her when you get back?”
When you get back.
It’s a fine idea, a mocking thought, cruel to the bone in its simplification.
Not the if they all know it is, not the if the bombs don’t blow ya to bits or if a bullet don’t knock your lights out, if the Nazis don’t catch us and pick ya to pieces until you’re not close to human.
He thinks of the way Steve’s strong hands on those skinny wrists glide across crisp white paper, the way his tongue sticks out when he’s thinking, the way he picks fights with anyone he thinks is a bully and never backs down.
Bucky thinks of the blond boy dead in the dirt.
He clears his throat. “Don’t think she’s the marrying type.”
There’s a long stretch of silence where no one says a peep and Bucky wants to kick himself. What a way to boost morale, way to go, Sergeant Barnes! A real American hero. But then—
“Say, Sarge,” Harley laughs a little breathlessly. “You wax on about me like that, I might just become the marrying type! You got room for another broad back home?”
Bucky is extremely grateful to the little snot nose as the rest of the boys laugh and then continue about their business, passing the photos of their sweethearts around to each other.
He finds sleep fitfully, listening to the sounds of artillery blasting on a camp ten miles away. He’s getting good at knowing how close the threats are.
War’s made me realize some things, Stevie, made me think some things through.
Impressive, Buck, didn’t know you knew how to think at all.