Chapter 1: Surge
July 7, 1943
Turns out, getting shot fucking hurt.
But Bucky didn't have time to think about the pain in his arm and the way it shot straight down into his hand any time he moved. He had his men to think about, and the guys in front of him that he had to gun down before they got him first. He was lucky the round had landed in his arm instead of his chest, where the dead Nazi on the other side of the trench originally aimed. Him or me, Bucky thought to himself. He had to repeat that mantra every time he took a life, because otherwise he'd be buried under the weight of all the death he caused. This was war, and in a time of war, there was one thing to do - win.
Though the gunfire around him had ceased, there was still a steady staccato of it echoing from down the hill. He ignored the pain in his arm and the gross sensation of blood soaking into his sleeve, shouldering his gun and running straight across the uneven ground to an overlook he'd spotted earlier. Between the quickly coming night and the absolute bedlam down below, he'd be more effective from this angle. He unslung the large rifle from his back, quickly sprawling out next to a large tree and adjusting so he had the perfect view. He hoped it was big enough to hide his position long enough for him to take out the guys manning the giant machine gun. He took a deep breath, and then another for good measure, trying to lower his heart rate and get the adrenaline out. What good was a marksman if he was all hopped up?
Adjust for the wind, click-click-click. Adjust for the elevation, click-click. Sight. Breathe in for four, out for seven, squeeze. Boom.
Hit.
One man fell, sending the machine gun careening to one side, dirt flying up where the bullets dug into the hillside. His counterpart grabbed the handles, using his entire weight to shift it wildly in an attempt to fell the sniper. Bucky quickly adjusted again, click, click-click, hold breath, shoot. Boom.
Miss.
"Fuck!" Bucky yelled, pounding the ground in anger and regretting it immediately as pain flared in his arm. He couldn't wait for the guy to run out of bullets, he needed to take him out now. He was the only thing keeping this battle going. He reset his gun, his position. He slowed down this time, doing everything how he was supposed to. Breathe in for four, out for seven. Squeeze. Boom.
That bullet found its home, and a blanket of silence covered them as the machine gun was left unmanned. He let out something between a sigh and a groan, leaning his head against the rough bark of the tree as the last of his adrenaline seeped out. With the natural anesthetic fading, the pain in his arm came back full force, as well as the realization that his pinky finger was starting to go numb. Shit, that couldn't be a good sign.
He refused to look down at his arm, knowing that if he did then the pain would increase at least ten fold. And as he stumbled down to see who was left of his men, he ignored the feeling of blood dripping from his hand, telling himself that the drops hitting the ground were just rainfall from the trees. The lightheadedness he felt was just fatigue from battle; he'd be right as rain as soon as they got back to camp and he got a strong cup of that shit they called coffee. The rifle carelessly slung over his back (did he remember to flip the safety?) clattered as he searched his men for signs of life, his heart in his throat as he tallied each death that he would carry home with him. Jameson, Thompson, Holmes, Frazier. Four more on the tally; four more strikes against him, four more sets of dog tags into his pocket. They told him in the brief, half-ass command training that the names didn't matter, but to Bucky, it did. Each tally was a man that trusted him, and a man that would not return home.
"Sarge, you're bleeding." Camp remarked, his own breath a rattle as Bucky pulled the man's arm around his shoulders and heaved him to his feet. He tried not to be sick at the limp, broken way his leg hung from his hip, only praying to whatever god that probably couldn't hear them from this low that he would survive the amputation.
"I'm fine. 'S'not mine, mostly." he replied, using his good arm to latch onto the soldier's belt and heaving him towards the rendezvous point. It was a lie, of course, but he wasn't about to complain of his bullet wound to a guy who was about to suffer much worse. He also wanted to tell him not to call him sarge - he wasn't really a sergeant, he'd just fallen into the role when a few superiors caught a bad case of the deads.
"I got him, Sarge. Harrison needs you." Williams interrupted their trek, taking Camp by the arm and pulling him away before Bucky had a say so. He opened his mouth to protest, to remind the Corporal of his rank, but one look silenced him. He knew what that look meant: Harrison needed him because Bucky was the one of the few who'd been dragged to church more than twice a year as a kid, even if it was by Steve and his ailing mother. Bucky nodded, relinquishing his last hold on the private before going in the direction Williams directed, hoping that he wasn't too late.
It was hard to find Harrison amongst the bloody and broken bodies, and Bucky would've missed him entirely if it weren't for the gurgling wheeze of him trying to breathe. The private was sprawled across two dead Nazis, their arm bands stained with the blood draining from the wound in his abdomen. Bucky didn't know how the kid was still alive with a wound that size, but based on the look on his face and the pallor of his skin, he wasn't going to stay that way for long.
"Hey, hey Harrison." Bucky said, collapsing down next to him. He tried to reach for his hand, but found that his arm was not willing to cooperate; never mind that, he still had the other one. Harrison grasped his fingers weakly, blood seeming to cover every part of him. "You're gonna be okay, kid."
"No'm not, Sarge." he gasped out. He coughed, blood spurting from his mouth and dripping down his chin. "But that's okay. I know w-where I'm goin', and-"
"Shut up, save your strength." Bucky interrupted. It didn't matter how much strength the kid saved, he was going to die. But if he talked anymore, then Bucky was going to break down, and that was not what he needed to do right now. Bucky didn't actually know any sacraments or spiritual doctrines, as he'd forgotten them long before he was drafted into the Army. "Any confessions you wanna make?"
"Nah, God and I already had a-a talk-" he was interrupted by another bout of coughing, blood spraying over the front of Bucky's uniform. It didn't disturb him, he just idly thought that now he wouldn't be lying to Camp about whose blood was soaked into it. Harrison's grip suddenly grew stronger, his eyes bright with fear. Bucky held his hand tightly, knowing in the back of his mind that this was the surge before the flame went out. "Tell my-my ma…"
"I'll tell her how brave you were. How you killed more Nazis than killed you." Bucky said, making the kid give him the weakest smile. "I'll tell her about how you were an exemplary soldier, and a brother in arms, and a goddamn national treasure."
"Forget all that, Sarge." he whispered. His fingers were starting to loosen now, his breaths coming shallower. His eyes were no longer focused on Bucky, instead looking somewhere past him, somewhere he couldn't follow. "Just tell her I love her."
"I will. I promise I will." Bucky said, his voice steady and sure. It wasn't calmness, it was numbness, the kind associated with a complete loss of hope in a situation. Nothing he did was going to change this. Harrison nodded, though the movement seemed to hurt, and the kid couldn't even manage to close his eyes before death stole him away. Bucky let out a long breath, letting go of the kid's hand before leaning over and finally giving in to his desire to vomit. It was mostly bile and shame; shame that he had to do this, shame that he couldn't save him, shame that while Steve had said time and again how much he wanted to come over here and serve, Bucky had tried his damndest to avoid it until his number was drawn.
He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, wondering exactly what else smeared across his face. With a calm he didn't know he could possess, he reached out and tugged the dog tags from the private's neck and collapsed down next to him, not noticing or caring how damp the ground was with blood and sweat and whatever else was there. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and wedged it between two bloody fingers, ignoring the pain it took to perch his arm on his knee so that he could light it. He took a long drag from it, letting the smoke drift away into the night sky. He should worry about his arm, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it.
"Hail Mary," he whispered, his throat raw with emotion. He took another drag to steady himself, even if no one was around to hear the shaking in his voice. "full of grace…"
Harrison. Another strike.
Once he finished his prayer and his cigarette, he tucked the dog tags into his pocket with the others, their jingling with each step reminding him how he wasn't fast enough, how his bullets weren't accurate enough. And now, five families were going to answer the door to a man in uniform who was going to hand them the tags and a letter of condolence with all the sympathy the Army could pack onto a piece of parchment.
He joined the stragglers at the back of the pack as they all limped back to base camp, their bodies worn and weary from battle. Some had to lean on others to make the trip, but they stubbornly kept on, unwilling to give in to the Reaper just yet. The light was quickly disappearing, the muddy road starting to blend with the inky black of the trees around them. They just had to take their parade a couple more kilometers, then they could collapse. It was dark and silent when they made it back, meaning they were the first platoon to do so, but as soon as they passed through the makeshift gate the base seemed to come to life. Lights flicked on in every tent, and medical staff ran out of the large field hospital to take the wounded, assessing them with record speed. Camp (the man) was practically thrown onto a stretcher, his injured leg flopping around as two nurses manned either end of it and ran him in to the infirmary. Bucky needed to follow him, he knew. But he also knew that the Major would want to talk to him first. He used his right hand to pick up his left, his fingers barely awake enough to grab on to the straps of his gun. There. Now he was casual.
"Sergeant Barnes." the Major greeted him without looking up from his paperwork. Bucky saluted anyway, just in case. "Report."
"Five dead. Still calculating wounded. Eliminated all enemy threats." he said concisely. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could get some goddamn coffee and some morphine for the pain. That is, if the new nurses would give him any. They'd switched out the night before, as well as the physician staff, and he hadn't gotten to meet any of them yet.
"So you got the machine gun?" the Major asked. Bucky was silent, long enough that the Major's pen paused and he looked up at him, anger simmering in his gaze and his voice eerily calm. "You did bring back the machine gun, didn't you?"
"We were low on man power, Camp couldn't even walk on his own-" Bucky tried to explain, tried to cover for his brothers-in-arms, but the Major wouldn't hear it.
"That was your main objective." he interrupted. Bucky opened his mouth to snap back that no, that hadn't been the main objective, the main objective had been to kill all the fucking Nazis and prevent them from advancing further. "And now, if we don't waste our time and resources to send out a second team, they're gonna recover the massive weapon that could shred us all."
"Apologies, sir." Bucky responded through gritted teeth. What, did the Major want him personally to go back and get it? As if he could hear the sarcastic response in his head, the Major sighed in the tired and passive aggressive way of a mildly disappointed grandmother, shaking his head.
"Go find Birdwell and send him to me. Then get that arm looked at, it looks like shit." he said, dropping his eyes and carrying on his paperwork as if he was bored with the conversation. That was the closest thing to a dismissal Bucky was going to get, and he was going to take it. He gave a half-hearted salute (not giving in to the temptation to give it with one finger), turning on his heel and marching out of the tent to the mess hall. Usually at this time, Birdwell was sitting down to cards with the kitchen staff, a fact which would help Bucky kill two birds with one bullet. He ducked into the large tent, nodding in greeting to the few of his men that had made it in for whatever food was there. He could see their eyes taking in his bloody appearance, see the question on their lips - shouldn't you be in the med tent? - but he ignored them, going instead to the back where Birdwell was chewing on a cigar and sitting on a crate, laughing maniacally over the cards in his hand.
"Now boys, there's no need to be mad about - Barnes." his thought was interrupted by Bucky's entrance. Bucky smirked, leaning against the post in what he hoped was a casual manner. It definitely wasn't because of the lightheadedness, not at all.
"There's every need to be mad about me." Bucky replied, nodding at one of the kitchen guys when he pointed to the coffee pot on the stove. "Major wants to see you."
Birdwell groaned, his gaze skyward. "What did you fuck up now?" he asked, throwing his cards onto the makeshift table. Bucky took his time answering, instead taking the cup of coffee from the kitchen kid and taking a long sip of it, savoring the burnt, stale taste before facing his fellow again.
"Apparently, he's pissed that I can't single handedly roll back a fuckin' Nazi gatling gun." he responded, taking another drink of the coffee for good measure. God this stuff was horrible.
"But you'd need a tank to do that." Birdwell said, his brows furrowed.
"Exactly." Bucky responded. Now that he had a bit of a caffeine fix, he could really use another cigarette.
"Did you have a tank with you?" he asked.
"Nope." he replied, popping the p on the end of the word.
"Of course you didn't." Birdwell said with a sigh, pushing himself up and grabbing his fatigue shirt from where he'd tossed it over the back of a chair. "Fine, Barnes. I'll go clean up your mess. Meanwhile, you should get that arm checked out. It looks like shit."
"Yea, I'm aware." he said. Birdwell did up his buttons and tilted his hat in farewell to the boys, the breeze as he passed by enough to make Bucky's arm throb. He figured that he was out of excuses now, and he needed to go ahead and go to the medical tent before he ended up like Camp - a day late and a limb short.
The makeshift hospital was a bustle of activity when he arrived, nurses running every which way to tend to the soldiers lined up on the beds. Most of them bit on sheets and sleeves to keep their groans of pain quiet, not wanting to disturb those in more severe situations. A sickening crack reached Bucky's ears as one of the physicians reset a broken bone, the soldier screeching in pain until it overwhelmed him and pushed him into unconsciousness. In the far corner, a surgeon and two nurses worked on Camp, who was a lucky enough bastard to get some sort of sedative while they tried to save his leg.
"What's wrong with you?" a man asked sharply. Bucky jumped, which brought a new wave of agony through his arm, and turned to see a grey-haired physician blinking at him through thick glasses.
"Got shot." he replied, unable to verbalize more than that. The hospital was overwhelming him, reminding him that no matter what he did, he wasn't going to be able to save everyone. The physician looked at the arm, roughly poking two fingers through the bullet hole in his sleeve and ripping the fabric apart. Bucky hissed, but otherwise hid the discomfort, allowing the man to assess the wound. Surprisingly, it wasn't really bleeding anymore, just seeping uncomfortably.
"You'll be fine. Just need stitches." he said, letting go of him and calling to one of the nurses.
"Wait, just stitches? You're not gonna take out the bullet?" Bucky asked, surprised. It certainly felt like he needed more than just stitches. The physician didn't look at him, instead barking at one of the nurses to see to him. A young, mousy looking girl scurried over, her hands shaking as she gathered a suture kit from the shelves. Oh, no. That wasn't a good sign.
"Hi, um, I'm Angela." she said, putting a tentative hand on his back and directing him to a table. She barely touched him, and Bucky wondered if it was because of shyness or because he was covered in blood and filth. She patted a chair so lightly that he didn't hear it, and he was lucky to know the gesture was meant to tell him to sit down. She situated his arm using just her fingertips, making sure to put it in the least comfortable position before dragging over a lamp and settling on the stool on the other side of the table. "Now, let's see what we got here."
Trembling hands cut his sleeve further, exposing his arm from shoulder to elbow. She carefully washed her hands and donned gloves before opening the suture kit, reverently placing each piece of it on the sterile field. She took gauze and some sort of cleaning solution to his arm, but her touch was so light that she was barely scrubbing away any of the impurities. Bucky sighed; if she didn't pick up the pace, they were going to be there all night.
"You're not gonna hurt me, Angie." he said. She looked up at him like a deer caught in headlights, her hands going still. God, she looked so young. He gestured for her to continue. "Just get in there and clean it. I got shot, I can handle this part."
"Okay. Um, yes, Sergeant." she said, trying to be official. He gave her a confused look, wondering why in the hell she was addressing him so formally, and figuring that this was the poor thing's first assignment. She started cleaning a little more fervently, though just barely, and Bucky distracted himself by watching the surgeon and nurses operate on Camp. The man's leg already looked dead, the skin pale and grey under the lamps. He couldn't see exactly what they were doing, but he could hear the sounds of the tools, and the low murmurings as they worked. Angela kept her eyes on his arm, using an intense amount of focus to clean before finally, finally, picking up the suture needle. She stopped, needle poised over his skin, and seemed to be having some sort of internal dialogue about whether or not she could do this.
"Get on with it, Angie. The anticipation may kill me before the Nazis do." He meant to say it as a joke, to lighten the mood, but even he could hear the slight edge to his voice. In another life he would have flirted with her and made her giggle until she was more comfortable, but he was tired, and hungry, and ready for this doe-eyed nurse to get on with her job so he could get on with his. She jumped and audibly squeaked, which would have been endearing if they were in any other predicament, before taking a shuddering breath and digging the needle into his skin.
As far as stitches go, they weren't the worst he'd ever had. No, that award still went to the time he split his eyebrow open and his kid sister insisted that she could fix it for him (he still had scars from that experiment gone wrong). But they were, by far, not the best. He didn't know why he expected Angela to work quickly, but he was somehow surprised by how slow and precise her movements were. He was happy she was taking great care in this, he really was, but he'd aged seventy years since she sat him down in the chair and the end was barely in sight. He grit his teeth against the pain, knowing if he said anything else it would really throw the girl for a loop, and tried to focus on literally anything else to pass the time. He could feel the needle biting into his skin, cutting through the layers, curving through to poke out the other side of his wound, and he wondered briefly if this was what getting a tattoo felt like.
A clattering from across the room snapped him and Angela to attention, the latter forgetting she had a needle and thread in her hands and essentially cinching up the bullet hole in his arm like the mouth of a drawstring bag. He couldn't stop the cry of pain at that, and marveled that somehow the thread didn't completely shred his skin. In her surprised, Angela dropped the needle, allowing enough slack in the thread for the pain to dull just slightly. At the other end of the hospital, the physician and nurses working on Camp were scrambling, pulling equipment and gauze every which way as his body convulsed. Their previously crisp, white uniforms were now splattered in blood, the sheets underneath him quickly turning red as well. One of the nurses crawled onto the table, placing her hands on Camp's residual leg and using her entire body weight to staunch the bleeding. She looked up, her green eyes piercing through Bucky from all the way across the room.
"Angela!" she snapped, her voice strained as she tried to maintain her hold. "Are you done yet?"
"Um, I-" Angela turned back to Bucky, finding the thread and needle still hanging from his arm. She jumped at the sight, turning back to the other nurse and calling, "I'll be just a second!"
"I can tie it off, if you need." he said, but Angela just shook her head in response. Her hands weren't trembling gently now, but instead full on shaking as she tied the thread. Every movement sent pain through his bicep, but at least some feeling was coming back to his hand.
"Angela!" the blonde nurse called again, short of breath as she tried to hold down the convulsing Camp on the bed. Angela finally finished the knot and cut off the excess, dropping the needle onto the bed and promptly forgetting about Bucky as she ran to assist the others. There were now so many personnel around Camp's bed that he could no longer see him, just the growing puddle of blood under the gurney, and with one last look at his arm, he figured he was free to go.
He contemplated staying to see if Camp was okay, but when he stood up and could finally see the man's face, he decided against it. His skin was pale, his eyes searching without seeing anything, and his mouth was grimacing in a silent scream. No, this was not where he needed to be right now. He held onto the wall, the mix of blood loss, morphine, and memories of his friend's face making him lightheaded, and followed it to the door of the hospital, pushing his way past another round of soldiers coming in and finally finding the clean night air. It was so much quieter outside that room, and for a moment he got to forget everything that happened that night.
The cold night air blew, sharply cutting through the torn sleeve of his uniform. He needed to get cleaned up and changed, and then he could collapse into his cot and hopefully avoid any of this for at least a couple days. He rounded the side of the hospital, heading towards the barracks at a slow pace. He was hungry, but he'd wait until morning mess for food. He was too tired now to eat. As he rounded the back, he could hear the muffled voices of the nurses and physician, probably still trying to save Camp's life. Maybe he couldn't stomach watching them do it, but he could at least sit here so that Camp wouldn't be alone. He kicked up an empty box and lowered himself onto it, determined to wait until his friend was stable or dead.
The sounds of chaos continued for what felt like hours, a mix of surgical tools and unknown metallic sounds and the cacophony of voices as the medical staff snapped at each other. The pain in his arm was now just a dull ache, and with a sigh he pulled his last cigarette from his pocket, hoping it would last until everything quieted.
As soon as he lit up, the bedlam behind the wall faded. He paused with the smoke still in his lungs, listening for any sign of the outcome. Was Camp alive? Or was he another strike on the list? He slowly exhaled, waiting for an answer and slowly accepting that he probably wasn't going to get one. He couldn't understand the voices, and couldn't make sense of any of the noises he heard. He was just going to have to wait until the morning, it seemed.
A sliver of light spilled out in front of him, only lingering long enough to make his vision sparkle as the darkness returned. The gravel crunched next to him as someone walked out, stopping abruptly as they spotted him. He looked up to see the blonde nurse from earlier, her white uniform covered in blood and her hair all knocked loose from her rolls. She didn't look happy to see him there, but seemed to worn to care, instead just sitting down on a crate a few feet away from him and looking off into the night. The moon made her hair ghostly white, and when combined with the bloodstains, she looked like she'd fit right in at the neighborhood Halloween parade.
"Got another one of those?" she asked, her voice cracking as if she were losing it. Bucky eyed the cigarette in his hand before grimacing.
"Nah, but you look like you could use it more than me." he said, stretching his good arm out to her. She eyed it like a dangerous animal, her arm not moving.
"What's the price?" she asked stiffly. Cigarettes were a commodity; surely this soldier would not give away his last one without some sort of payment.
"Nothin'. Think of it as a thank you, for trying to save Camp's life." he said, jerking his head towards the building. She hesitated for a moment longer before reaching out, careful not to touch him as she took it from him. He let her take one deep drag from it before asking, "Did he make it?"
She took her time in answering, unable to bring herself to look at him and instead analyzing the ground in front of her. She flicked the end of the cigarette, though there was no extra ash attached at the moment. A nervous tick. "No." she said, her voice softer this time.
"Not your fault." he said automatically. Instead of sadness or anger, he simply felt numb. Her eyes snapped to his, the darkness drowning out most of the green he'd noticed earlier.
"How do you know that?" she asked, making him balk. What a weird question to ask.
"You tellin' me it was your fault?" he challenged. If they were going to play the blame game, he was locked and ready. She didn't like that response, sitting up straighter and inflating with anger.
"No. I did everything I was supposed to. Everything I could." she stated, and he couldn't help but let out a humorless laugh.
"You know, that's twice that you've asked something and then been offended when I answered." he pointed out. She opened her mouth to argue, but ended up clamping it shut, eyeing the chevrons on his sleeve. He went to pull again from the cigarette, only to remember too late that he'd given it up. The nurse deflated then, letting her gaze wander into the middle ground again. She was very pretty, he realized, even covered in gore. Not that he'd ever do anything about it. His goal was to live through this war and get back home, hopefully in one piece.
"I'm sorry about your friend." she spoke up, offering an olive branch in the form of his half-smoked cigarette. Maybe he wouldn't try to bed her, but perhaps it wouldn't be bad to make an ally outside of his platoon.
"Thanks. Me too." he replied. She nodded, and he wondered if she counted her strikes just like he did. He hoped not, because as bad as the game was for him, it would probably be even worse for her. "What's your name?" he asked, interrupting her thoughts. She looked at him again, spotting the rip in his sleeve and the poorly stitched bullet wound.
"Lucille." she said shortly. Then, with more emphasis, "You should get that looked at."
"This is after it got looked at." he said, shaking his head and experimentally moving his arm. Shit, still hurt. "I just think it's crazy that they left the bullet in there."
She perked up at that, her brows pinching together. "They left it in?"
"You seem surprised." he said, his insides twisting with anxiety. Did he need to add another thing to his list of worries? He was quickly running out of room. She blinked, realizing that her response could incite panic, and shook her head. Her neutral facade was back in place.
"It's unusual, but not unheard of." she said. "Keep an eye on it, though."
"Yes, ma'am." he said with a mock salute. She glared at him, but didn't dare chastise him. Maybe the sergeant rank was good for something. She stood up, dusting her skirt off like that was going to help.
"Good night, Sergeant." she said, turning on her heel and going inside before he could respond. He couldn't help but grin; she certainly didn't take any shit from any body.
Lucille. Yea, she'd be a good ally indeed.
Hello all and welcome to a new adventure! If you're here because of Silver and Honey - first of all, thank you so much for checking out this story! Second, it's going to be completely different from SaH oops!
I do as much research as I can, but I'm sure I'll get some WWII facts wrong. I definitely don't mind gentle corrections, and I'll try to address/fix them in the future!
Like most writers, I thrive on feedback, so if y'all have a moment I would LOVE to hear what you thought about this beginning!
-XM
