Author's note #1: This chapter is rated M for violence, some of it graphic. If you don't like graphic violence, you can miss out the worst of it by stopping at "Once, when he'd been seven years old…" and then resuming at "If these guys have a similar setup to the last guys…" I hate the way this site automatically filters out M-rated stories, so for now I'm keeping the story as T, but will warn on chapters which contain M-material like this. It won't happen very often.

We Were Soldiers

27. Blame

Fighting had been a part of Bucky's life for as long as he could remember. After returning from the Great War, his father had bought the second floor of an old dye production factory in East Flatbush and turned it into a boxing club. Dad believed in starting fighters off young, so at the age of five, Bucky had punched bags. At seven, he'd done light sparring. At nine, he'd begun training for real, and at fourteen he'd won his first championship. Excitement and nerves were natural, but as he got older, and got used to the matches, the less nervous he'd become. Now, he could step into the ring for a match and be entirely focused on the fight, on his opponent, on the tactics he would use.

It wasn't much different on the streets. He'd rarely ever been bullied himself, because he'd always been tall for his age, but he'd spent many long years pulling bullies off Steve, starting with Danny Cavanagh, when they'd been kids, right up to the last guy Bucky had seen off behind the cinema, the day before he'd arrived at Camp Shanks. At first, he'd felt that same nervous excitement. Each time he'd jumped in to defend his friend, he'd anticipated having to fight. But most of the time, bullies didn't know how to fight; not really. They relied on size to overcome a smaller, weaker opponent. Bucky had never been smaller or weaker; the upper hand had always been his. After a few years, stepping into the fray to help his pal had ceased to be a risk, and become more of a chore. Something he could do with a cool, clear head, and a calmness inside his chest.

Now, crouched in the pouring rain without his poncho to keep him dry, listening to the fast-paced breathing of the men pressed in around him, he fought for that same calm. Tried to push away the nerves and the fear. This wasn't a matter of strength, or fitness; he knew he was physically fit and strong enough to kill someone with a knife. Rather, he feared that when the time came, his resolve might waver. That he would ruin his own plan and get his friends killed. That he would be dishonourably discharged and shipped back home in shame, all because he couldn't do what needed to be done.

"Deploy the jammers," he instructed over the radio, once the teams had reported they were all in position.

"Deployed," said Gusty, who set Delta Team's jammer just a few paces away.

"Done," Jones' team confirmed.

"Done," added Carrot.

Bucky swallowed. This was it. Fifteen minutes. The bunker's comms had just gone dark, which meant they were committed.

"Tex?" he asked.

He didn't need a verbal response. Up in a tree somewhere nearby, something metallic went 'plink!'

"Detector is out of action," Tex reported.

"Alright, Jones, hold up the decoy. Let's see if there are any more detectors."

The head-on-a-stick appeared from the ground, where Jones and his team lay prone, their bodies pressed close to the earth. They crawled forward by a few paces, close enough to be within another detector's active radius. Nothing happened. Bucky's emotions momentarily flew before sinking sharply. This meant they would proceed with his plan. But it meant they would proceed with his plan.

"All teams, go," he said.

He heard, more than saw, the teams spring into action. Bravo Team converged on the bunker, where they would be giving each other a leg-up to the gunner position. Meanwhile, Wells led Charlie and Delta Teams into the trench, the Universal Key hugged tightly to his chest. When Bucky slid into the trench, he took the position on the other side of the door, then whispered orders to half the men to set a guard. To their credit, they obeyed in silence, their rifles held in firing position, ready to shoot at any hostile to come into range. Bucky handed the radio to Gusty; he didn't want to take it into the bunker with him, in case it made a noise and gave his presence away.

Now for the moment of truth. Wells held the Universal Key in place and pressed the green button. If it didn't work, they would have to go to Plan B—try to draw the Nazis outside, into a firefight. Hope they wouldn't lose too many men. And then Bucky wouldn't have to go back and tell the colonel that he'd come up with the mad idea of sneaking into the bunker and assassinating the men inside it.

There was a sound, like quiet, mechanical grinding. It came from the door. Wells pulled the Universal Key away, and tried the handle. The door opened, and in the middle of the downpour, Bucky's mouth went dry. Right in the middle of another moment of fearful elation, Wells slipped in through the door, and Bucky was forced to follow him. He didn't feel prepared. Couldn't feel prepared. This was too much. Too fast. But they were on the clock. He didn't want to kill anyone. Especially didn't want to have to kill people with his knife. Didn't even want to kill them with his gun. But he had to. This was why he was here. It was what he had signed up for.

The rain ceased to soak him as he stepped into the shelter of the bunker. A few paces ahead, Wells had his flashlight out, and it cast a dim yellow beam by which they managed to navigate the stairs. Knives in hand, they crept forward as quietly as possible, but to Bucky's ears the tiny noises they made sounded deafening. Their breaths seemed to fill the air and echo down the bare, unfurnished corridor, whilst each step was accompanied by a squelch of their sodden boots. The rustle of their soaked clothes seemed impossibly loud, as did the patter of rain coming from the open door behind them.

His hand shook. There was no denying it, but at least Wells was in front, where he couldn't see how badly the knife trembled in Bucky's grasp. Cold, he lied to himself. I'm just shaking because of the cold. That's it. It had nothing to do with the tiny thread of stark terror that was quickly winding its way up his spine.

A loud laugh from the door to the right stopped him dead in his tracks. His heart beat so fast, so madly, that he could actually hear it in his own ears, and he expected at any moment the door would open and its occupants would find two American soldiers poised for a knife attack. When that didn't happen, Wells gestured to the door on the left, his face a better mask of calm than Bucky thought he was managing. He nodded, and Wells quietly opened the door and slipped inside. Bucky followed.

Once, when he'd been seven years old, he'd crept downstairs in the dead of night to try and catch Santa in the act of delivering presents. Despite knowing each creaky floorboard, despite being familiar with the places he needed to step to avoid making any noise, he'd still felt anxious and giddy as he crept past his parents' bedroom and down the old staircase. He knew his parents could, at any moment, wake up and catch him in the act, but he also knew that he couldn't go back to bed. He'd come too far for turning back.

So it was now, only his parents had been replaced by two sleeping Germans, one in either of the bottom bunks. Made sense. Split the guard duty. Two awake, two asleep. Wells kept the flashlight beam low, and Bucky could just about make out their pale faces. One of them was snoring softly, the other sleeping in silence. Their expressions were slack, peaceful… hard to believe these men supported a regime that murdered thousands of defenceless men, women and children, all because they didn't conform to the Nazi ideal of Teutonic perfection.

As he picked one of the men, and listened to Wells move into place beside the other, he let his thoughts dwell on that. In his mind's eye, he saw the Nazi atrocities; families torn apart, parents sent to work-camps, children killed—and then he brought it home. Thought of his own family forced to endure everything people in Europe were going through. Mary-Ann, Charlie and Janet sent off to do menial labour, his parents tortured for the purpose of medical experimentation, Steve and all their friends from school confined to concentration camps where they were slowly starved…

He let the image build, feeding his anger, his desire to put a stop to the injustices before they could start on American soil; before his family could become victims simply because their ancestors may have had the 'wrong' blood, or because they might dare to stand up against the oppression of fascism. Onto the face of the man in the bed, he tried to see a different face; a pale, moon-shaped, dour face with beady little eyes and a ridiculous little moustache. This man didn't just support Hitler, he told himself; this man was Hitler. And Bucky could strike now. Save millions. Protect his family. Protect his friends. Take one step closer to the end of the war. One step closer to going home and seeing the people he loved again.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Wells watching him, and before he could talk himself out of it—and whilst still seeing the face of Hitler mentally imposed on the sleeping man before him—he gave a nod. As he leant forward, he felt detachment. Felt part of himself let go. Free from the shackles of morality, he brought his left hand firmly down, clamping over the mouth of the sleeping man, and at the same time, pressed hard with the knife, slashing from one side of the soft neck to the other. He felt the crunch of cartilage severed, felt the jerk of the body as it reacted to the sharp, deadly pain. Felt a harsh intake of breath through the nose as the sleeping man woke and tried to draw air through a windpipe that made a slick, bloody, gasping, wheezing noise because it no longer worked properly. Saw the panic in his eyes as the pinprick of light began to dim within them. Felt movement as hands came instinctively up to the neck, to try and stem the flow of blood which poured out from the jugular vein and spurted rapidly from the carotid artery. Felt the weak twitching as the man tried to struggle against his fate. It took almost a minute for the struggling and twitching to stop. A minute for the eyelids to slide closed once and for all. A minute to kill someone in silence.

And then the thing that had let go, took hold again. Every muscle in his body felt like jelly, and it was all he could do to grab hold of the bunk and stop himself sliding to the floor. His left hand was warm, damp, and when he realised it was wet with blood, he quickly reached out and wiped it on the woollen blanket of the bed. Then he did the same with his knife; not because he thought the blade would corrode from the moisture in the blood, but because he didn't want to have to turn around and see the same thing happening behind him.

At that moment, he wished he'd come alone. Knowing that he wasn't alone in this had helped to get him to through the front door… but now he'd just killed a guy in his sleep. Slit his throat and silenced his death cries. Inside, his mind was in turmoil held at bay only by the knowledge that the mission wasn't over yet. But if somebody saw that turmoil, if he saw it within someone else, if he had to speak and in any way acknowledge what he had just done, he didn't think he could keep those floodgates closed.

The moment of silence went on, and Bucky let it. He knew he had to move, to take care of the rest of the mission—maybe even check that Wells was okay, since he'd expected some off the cuff remark by now—but he couldn't bring himself to do it. For as long as he stayed still, and quiet, time didn't pass. And if he could stay still and quiet forever, time would forever stand still, at this moment, a moment in which he lived behind a mask of numb acceptance. If time didn't pass, he would never have go to anywhere, and nobody would ever have to find out what he'd done.

"I'm going to find answers," Wells said at last.

"To what?" Bucky asked without turning.

"To that." He followed the beam of the flashlight to the flag on the wall. Here, residing over the scene of death, the red skull had a macabre feel to it that made his insides writhe. "To these," Wells continued, as the light jumped from one dead body to the other. "To who these people are, and why it's so damn important that we not take prisoners."

Answers. Yes. Whatever was going on here, it was clearly more than a Nazi communications bunker. They had tech that impressed Stark. Colonel Phillips was real twitchy about those guys in German uniforms who had come over with Hawkswell's taskforce. If the local Resistance was so good at making Nazis disappear in these parts, why not just leave the bunkers to them? In fact, why not just roll over them with the tanks? It wasn't as if the company didn't have enough artillery to turn the bunkers to rubble. Why bring along Stark? Why Agent Carter? Why would a scientific division be here in the first place? There was something shady going on, and in answers, Bucky might find some justification for the actions he had taken today.

"I'll help," he said. "I want answers, too."

"I was hoping you'd say that." Wells stood, offering him a shaky hand. When Bucky looked up to his friend's face, he was met with a defiant glare. "I'm wet through and freezing."

Bucky let himself be pulled to his feet. "Then let's finish what we started." Time to wrap this up. To do what needed to be done and get back to camp.

At the door, he pulled the handle, then froze with the door open by a tiny crack as a voice called out in German.

"Hallo! Leutnant Schulz!"

The door opposite the bunk room opened, and Bucky's breath caught in his throat. A German soldier, wearing what looked like an off-duty uniform, stepped out of the small kitchen/dining room and looked at someone further down the corridor as he answered.

"Ja?"

"Die mitteilungen sind nach unten. Gehen sie nach draußen und überprüfen sie die gericht."

"Aber es regnet da draußen!"

"Die gericht anschlüsse haben mit wasser voll. Ich brauche dich, es auszuprobieren, während ich die comms überwachen."

"Verdammt! Gut, ich werde gehen und zu sehen."

Bucky heard the door further down the corridor close, and the soldier disappeared back into the other room. He wasn't gone for long, and when he reappeared, he was donning a blue waterproof jacket. Wells, who had his face pressed to the crack of the open door a little further down from Bucky, gave a quiet hiss.

"If he goes up the corridor, he'll see the outside door open, and raise the alarm!"

Before he could talk himself out of it, Bucky opened the door and ran as quietly as he could on his tiptoes. Height, weight and strength were on his side. As he reached the back of the soldier he grabbed him from behind, clamping his left hand over the mouth and drawing his knife across the neck once more. Again, he felt the panicked flail as his victim tried to struggle, to call out, to reach for his ruined neck, but this time, unconsciousness was quicker. With his arms covered with still-spurting blood, Bucky let gravity slowly lower the body to the floor. There was no chance of the man recovering from that. This time, he managed to keep the jelly-limbs feeling at bay.

When he turned back, Wells was drawing his pistol and flicking the safety catch off.

"If these guys have a similar setup to the last guys," Wells whispered, as Bucky approached. There was nothing but distant professionalism in his blue eyes, "then that means one more guy in here, and one in the comms room. I'll take this one, you deal with the communications officer."

"Alright."

When he exchanged his knife for his Colt, the gun felt a comfortable weight in his grip. His Colt had always felt the most comfortable of all his weapons, but he'd never been able to put his finger on why. Now, as he prepared to use it for the first time, he knew.

His dad had brought home his Great War service revolver; a Smith & Wesson 1899. On the rare occasions when he brought it out to clean it, he let Bucky hold it in his hands. The weight of the past. Dad had taught him to respect all weapons, including his own fists. Any weapon—even fists—could be used to kill. Of the revolver, Dad had told him that the gun had saved his life on three separate occasions. Until now, Bucky hadn't realised what that really meant. He hadn't equated the gun saving his dad's life, to his dad using the gun to kill people. But that's what had happened. His dad had used his gun to kill people in a war just like this one. Then he'd gone home to his family and either lived a happy, normal life, or faked it pretty well. If Dad could do those things, then so could Bucky. And one day, when he had a son of his own, he might even bring out this Colt, and tell his son how the weapon had saved his old man's life.

A loud BANG! from the room behind him made him jump, and he mentally kicked himself for wasting time on nostalgia. Raising the Colt, he pushed open the door, took aim at the first thing that moved, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

"I surrender!" the German, paused halfway to reaching for a rifle that was leaning against the table, cried at the sight of Bucky staring down his pistol.

Shit.

He finally remembered to flick the safety off. Holding the gun trained on the guy's chest, he waited. Any minute now, the guy would finish reaching for his gun, and Bucky would have to shoot him. Any minute now. He just had to wait.

There was an echo of footsteps down the corridor outside, and Wells came running to a dead stop beside Bucky. His pistol was drawn, but not aimed.

"You didn't shoot him!"

"I forgot to take my safety off, and he surrendered."

"Shit," Wells sighed. "Well, you know what the colonel said. No prisoners."

"I know. But he surrendered. And maybe shooting prisoners who've surrendered is okay for the colonel, but it doesn't sit right with me."

"You just need an incentive." Wells lifted his gun and pointed it at the panic-stricken Kraut. Judging by his expression, he spoke English just fine. "You, reach for your gun so that he can shoot you."

"I… surrender?" the German offered. Desperation haunted his grey eyes. His lower lip wobbled. God, if the guy started crying, there was no way Bucky was gonna be able to shoot him.

"You're not allowed to surrender. Now, reach for your gun so that one of us can shoot you!"

"I surrender!" Not only did the Kraut not reach for his gun, he actually backed away from it.

"Dammit!" growled Wells, holstering his pistol. He turned to Bucky, a suggestion already on his lips. "What if we get a firing squad together? We've all got rifles; they don't all need to have bullets."

"We can't ask the men to do that," Bucky objected immediately. "This is our problem. We gotta fix it ourselves. That's why we have chevrons."

"Okay. Okay. Then… we've got first aid kits. Morphine tartrate. We give him two or three shots, and he goes to sleep. He doesn't have to wake up."

"That… that's doable. But maybe we should question him, first. Maybe he can give us some answers."

"Good idea." Bucky kept his gun trained on the man as Wells took a step forward. "What's the significance of that flag in your bunk room? You Nazis got a new symbol to replace your swastika?"

The Kraut raised his chin, and when he spoke, his clipped accent was full of defiance. "I will not say anything. You are going to kill me anyway. I will not die a traitor."

"Looks like we'll have to find answers from our side," Bucky told his friend.

He looked at the German and felt the weight of something heavy settle in his stomach. Either way, this man had to die. Whether they injected him, or shot him, or left him for Phillips… his time was up. As much as he hated the thought of killing another unarmed man, he hated the thought of letting him go even more. Bucky Barnes was no traitor. He could only hope that Phillips knew what he was doing, when he ordered Bucky and Wells to take no prisoners. As for sedating him… what if using the morphine on this soldier who was to die, meant somebody who might live was deprived of it later? It wasn't as if they could just drive down to the drug store to get more supplies. This was all they had.

"Why don't you go check on the rest of the team?" Bucky told his friend. "I'll deal with this guy."

"Or, you go check on the team, and I'll deal with him," Wells suggested.

He shook his head. "It's my fault we're in this position. I messed up with my safety catch. I'm perfectly capable of cleaning up my own messes."

"I know you are. But you've already killed more of them than I have. This would make us even."

"Jeez, Wells, it's not a contest!"

"I know it's not a contest!" his friend scowled, lifting his hand to grab the barrel of the pistol. "It's just about what's fair. You shouldn't have to be the one to do most of the killing. Let this one be on me."

"Since when do you care about what's fair?"

"Since about five minutes ago. Now, let go of your damn gun."

"No. And seriously, let go of my damn gun," Bucky warned.

"Fine. I have my own damn gun. I'll just use that."

Bucky lashed out quickly with his free hand, grabbing Wells' wrist before he could reach his Colt. Wells scowled at him again. Or maybe it was just a continuation of the previous scowl. Either way, his blue eyes flashed angrily.

"Let go of my wrist, Barnes."

"Let go of my gun first."

"I'm going to give you a count of three to let go of my damn wrist."

"I'm not letting go of your damn wrist until you let go of my damn gun."

"Three."

"If you make me fight you over this I'm going to be extremely pissed off," he warned his friend.

"Two."

BANG!

Bucky's heart stopped. Oh god. He'd fired his gun. In the chaos of the struggle, he'd pulled the trigger too tightly. Misfired. And with Wells practically standing in the pistol's line of fire. In front of him, Wells' face was pale, his eyes wide. But he wasn't bleeding. Thank god, by some miracle, he wasn't bleeding.

The Kraut slumped to the floor, blood spilling from a wound in the centre of his chest. Two gasps. Three. Four. Foamy blood bubbled on his lips, and his eyes roamed the ceiling as if seeing beyond it. He managed two words, choked out with the fervency of a true believer.

"Hail… Hydra."

And then he was gone, his eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling, the bubbles of blood falling still.

"He killed Tipper."

Turning slowly, with his finger as far away from his Colt's trigger as he could get it, he saw Gusty standing in the open doorway, his pistol in his hands, still aiming at the dead German. Bucky swallowed the lump in his throat as a wave of desperate relief washed over him. It wasn't his gun that had gone off. He hadn't accidentally shot his friend.

"If not him, then one of his mine-laying Nazi buddies," Gusty continued, his gaze as fixed as his pistol's aim. "He deserved it. They all do." He finally looked up at his sergeants frozen in their tableau of struggle. "And I'm not digging holes. They can lie out for the crows and the flies, for all I care." He turned and left.

Bucky let go of Wells' wrist. Wells let go of Bucky's Colt. For a moment, they simply stood staring at the enemy soldier who'd been the cause of their disagreement. The whole thing seemed extremely stupid, now.

"You wanna walk in the pouring rain, or dig in the pouring rain?" Wells asked at last.

Bucky sighed slowly, deeply. He wanted nothing more than to see the back of this place, but Wells had done most of the digging last time. It was only fair Bucky do it this time. "I'll dig, if you don't mind explaining to the colonel why the mission took so long. But take Gusty with you."

"Sure. I'll be back in a few hours. If he asks, I'll tell him nobody surrendered. We should probably keep this quiet. Don't wanna get Gusty in trouble." He hovered by the door for a moment. "And Barnes—"

"I know." In fact, he was thinking about having the words, 'I'm sorry' embroidered on the front of his jacket. Maybe it would save him having to say it so much. He seemed to have a lot to apologise for, these days. Much more than he ever had before signing up.

When Wells departed, Bucky spent a few minutes hating war. Not just for what it was doing to himself, but what it was doing to those around him. Tipper was dead, and everybody else had to live with that. A week ago, Gusty had been a nice, reliable guy who'd gotten nervous and shy about the thought of talking to a dame. Now his stare defaulted to a thousand yards, and when he spoke it was as if all the joy had been sucked out of his soul. And worse; Bucky had no idea how he could fix it.

His wandering gaze fell on a pencil on the table, and an idea sprang to mind. He seized it as a welcome distraction from his thoughts about death. He finally holstered his gun, and picked up the pencil, then left the communications room. Ordered, "Start digging some graves!" to the men waiting at the top of the corridor. In the bunk room, he rifled through the books on the shelf until he found one with a decent cover left plain on the inside. He ripped the cover from the book, and tried to ignore the dead bodies and the pools of blood as he sketched out the macabre emblem from the flag.

Sure, he was no Steve Rogers, but he'd always done a decent job at drawing. Wells was right; whatever this flag was, it was something important. So important that their prisoner had clammed up and refused to flap his lips about it. It meant something. It had to mean something. Once they returned to camp, he would make a start on identifying whatever the hell this was. And maybe, finally, they could find some long-overdue answers.

Author's note #2 (AKA, shameless self-promotion): I'll be publishing a new one-shot on Friday—a crossover between Captain America and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I saw the latter at the cinema last week, and as it's set in New York in the 1920s, when Our Heroes are just kids, I decided it was too good an opportunity to pass up. If you've seen (and enjoyed) the movie and would like to know exactly how Steve and Bucky fit in to a world of magical creatures rampaging around New York City, keep an eye out for Fantastic Heroes and Where to Find Them. If you've no interest in that, you can enjoy a fun-filled Sunday update here instead! And I'm not being sarcastic or flippant, there; it will be an actual fun-filled update, with actual fun.