What if James Buchannan Barnes was born a girl?
What if James Buchannan Barnes was born a girl instead of a boy? How much different would their lives had been then? If he'd been born a girl, Bucky wouldn't have been named James would she? For generations the first born in the Barnes family was named James, but they had all been boys. His father wouldn't break that tradition so maybe she would have been named James as well... But she wouldn't be nicknamed Bucky then! Maybe they'd call her Jamie, Jamie sounds a little more feminine than James or Bucky. Let's call her Jamie then.
Jamie would grow up as a tomboy, her father had always wanted a boy so to please him she'd play with toy cars with him and as she grew up she'd learn how to box. That's why she could still protect Steve when he got himself in trouble with bullies. And in trouble he would often be because even though the boys didn't like getting their asses kicked by a girl they couldn't help themselves so jealous were they of Steve. Because Jamie would be a beautiful girl, with her big blue eyes and long dark hair and she would still be Steve's best friend and they'd spent all their time together.
Of course Steve would be madly in love with her but still too shy to do anything about it like ask her out or kiss her. Jamie would be in love with him as well but she wouldn't do anything either because in the 1930's and 1940's it isn't proper for a girl to court a boy. So she would wait for him to realize that she returned his feelings and that he could woo her ; that actually he only had to say just one sentence and she would agree to marry him... But Steve being Steve he wouldn't have the self-confidence to decipher properly all the hints she'd drop. He would miss-read the love in her eyes as mere friendship and then...
And then the war would happen. Steve would want to enlist and he'd go there with Jamie because they'd still go everywhere together. As he'd go through the medical exam, some of the staff would go to Jamie, asking if she'd ever considered being an army nurse. She would think that if Steve goes to war then she might join the war effort as well and she'd sign in... Only Steve would be rejected. She would still go through with it because she'd want Steve to be proud of her. He'd be worried of course but she'd reassure him telling him that as a nurse she would be safe. He wouldn't really trust that and he'd try to enlist again and again to join her. But she would go without him and they'd say goodbye at The World Exposition of Tomorrow and maybe Steve would even gather enough courage to ask her to dance with him. She would agree if he did...
Then she'd fly to Europe and face the horrors of war, but Jamie could take it she was made of strong material. Meanwhile Steve would finally be allowed to enlist and would be trained for the war. He'd be selected to receive a serum to turn him into a super-soldier. He'd meet Peggy Carter, but he wouldn't be as awed by her because he already had a strong and caring woman in his life. Peggy wouldn't even come close to Jamie in Steve's heart, and being a smart woman, Peggy wouldn't pursue him further and accept to merely become his friend. Steve would eventually get the serum but he would still be the only success of the experiment and end up being a mascot for the USO. Steve still wouldn't get to fight in the war.
Unfortunately the war wouldn't be as safe a place for a nurse as Jamie would have wanted Steve to believe. Somehow she would be taken captive alongside the 107th in Italy. As soon as Steve would hear the news he would fly to the rescue. He would free the 107th confront Red Skull and save his beloved. Red Skull and Zola would manage to flee but Steve would have completed his rescue mission and come back to base as a hero. Jamie would jump into his arms as soon as she would be free to do so and only reluctantly would she let go of him. She'd be surprised by his new appearance but she would be too happy to see him once more to say anything; not when she had thought that she must die thousands of miles away from the man she loved. So she would kiss him, and he would finally kiss her back,
Swept up by the war, by their reunion, by the fact that they had finally confessed their love for each other, they would have sent all sense of propriety to hell. They would have found an isolated spot, away from their fellows, and there and then, Jamie would have let her uniform fall to the ground. Steve, a gentleman as always, would have tried to stop her, but she would have come closer to him and she would have started to undress him as well. She would toutch his bare skin, lightly at first, but quickly her toutch would become more hungry. Steve would be unable to stop her, and unable to stop himself, they would discover each other's body and finally consume their love.
They would keep on fighting and pursuing Hydra. They would do it together for a while, then when Jamie would find out that she was pregnant, she would go back to the US, and help the war effort from home. She would not want to go and leave Steve, but he would make her see reason, she had to protect their unborn child.
Alone in Europe, Steve would fight twice as hard, he would be in a hurry to go back to his beloved and their unborn child. He would relentlessly track his foes, prevent their evil plans of world domination and he would save everyone. He would vainquish Hydra in no time and he would be home for the birth of their first child.
Steve and Jamie would buy a house in the suburbs, they would have a garden with a white picketed fence. In the garden, they would have a dog, a golden retriever. They would have lived a happy life. They would have lived the most perfect life...
But instead of all that, James Buchannan Barnes was born a boy and none of that ever happened.
They say that as one dies, one can see all of one's life flashing back. However as James Buchannan Barnes was falling off a train in the middle of the Swiss Alps, he saw the life he wished he had lived but never did and mourned the love he could never confess...