We Were Soldiers

84. Sent to Coventry

Steve rolled over in his bed and looked at the sleeping face of Bucky. For a split second, he was overcome with guilt and regret. For all the time he'd been outta Krausberg, Bucky still looked like he'd just been pulled off Zola's table. His pallor was pale, his shoulders carried a perpetual slump, and there was a look that flared occasionally in his eyes, as if he knew he was being hunted.

The guilt and regret swiftly faded. For the past two days, Bucky had been a nightmare to live with, and it was the little things that hurt most. The way he'd neglect to ask Steve by name if he wanted his canteen filled, after asking everybody else on the team one by one during a regular water run. It was always, "Dugan, you want your canteen filled? Hey Falsworth, I'm heading to the tap, you want a refresh? Dernier, what's the French for 'water' and do you want some? Jones, toss me your canteen and I'll fill her up. You too, Morita. Freddie, you want a top-up? Okay, anybody else want their canteen filled while I'm out there?" or something to that effect.

At other times, he'd 'forget' Steve hadn't washed his food tray, and 'accidentally' tip away the soapy water they'd heated over the stove, so that Steve had to walk out to the tap and wash his tray with cold. Most hurtful was the way Bucky would tell stories to the others, and refer to Steve as 'this guy I used to know.' "When we were seventeen, me and this guy I used to know went to Coney Island..." "Senior Prom was great; I set this guy I used to know up with my sister, and we had lots of fun even though he couldn't dance to save his life." "Oh yeah, I remember watching The Wizard of Oz; me and this guy I used to know went and saw it at the cinema."

Even that Steve could've lived with, but when Bucky started sabotaging the missions just to prove Steve wrong, he went too far. On the first day after their fight, he messed up the evening mission by failing to climb to his perch in time to take out his target. The morning after, he missed every single shot. When Steve questioned him, he shrugged it off with a "somethings, these things happen" and a "sometimes, not everything goes the way you plan" and Steve was quickly reaching the limit of his patience. It was Bucky's nonchalant attitude, as much as anything, that threatened to push his anger over the edge.

Instead of waiting for the rest of the tent to wake, he dressed in silence and went for an early-morning jog. Carter had warned them about going anywhere alone and unarmed, but today he was in the mood to take risks. Besides, he didn't think Carter would have enlisted the Home Guard to lie in ambush at such an early hour, and even if she had, he knew he could take whatever they might throw—or shoot—at him.

Running felt good. Helped to work off some of his anger and clear his head. Before he knew it, he'd jogged into territory more populated, where local city-folk were going about their daily routines.

"Top of the morning to you, Captain Rogers!" somebody called.

Steve stopped and looked around for the source of the greeting. It was an older man wearing a labourer's outfit; probably one of the local steelworkers responsible for producing some of the many aircraft involved in the war.

"Good morning," Steve replied. "And please don't take this the wrong way, but how do you know who I am?"

"Ahh, I was one of your hostages from a couple of nights ago." The man offered a friendly wink. "The way you and your lads stormed that factory, it bodes well for all the men, women and children being kept prisoner by the Nazis."

"Oh." If he'd been one of the factory hostages, he'd probably seen and heard the argument with Bucky. And that did not bode well for inspiring confidence in the civilian population. "You were there for the… um…"

"Debate about tactics between you and your scowling fella? Aye. The two of you must be very good friends."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because only the best of friends can fight like the worst of enemies." He nodded, gaze introspective. "Aye, our enemies can injure us, but only our friends have the power to hurt us. I hope you two get your disagreement sorted out… for the good of everyone."

"So do I," Steve admitted. He just didn't know how to go about it. He and Bucky had never truly fallen out before, not like this. They'd had their disagreements in the past, but they'd always been able to laugh them off and go back to the way things were before. This time… Steve wasn't sure if there was any going back. There was no denying it: Bucky had changed. Steve's greatest fear had been realised. He looked at Bucky, and barely saw any trace of the man he'd known before. He didn't know whether war had done that, or whether it was the result of whatever he'd experienced in Krausberg, but Bucky was a different man. A harsher man. A less compromising man.

"See you tomorrow," the man said with a wink and a grin.

"Why? What's Agent Carter got planned for tomorrow?"

The civilian merely tipped his cap and strolled down the street as if he had not a care in the world. Right then, Steve envied him.

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Steve was gone when Bucky went for the water run the next morning, but he took his canteen anyway, because even though his friend was behaving like a child, Bucky was determined to take the high road and not stoop to Rogers-levels of jerkness. It was as if Steve purposely went out of his way to antagonise Bucky. At the end of every briefing, he asked, "Anybody got any problems with this plan?" And then, just for emphasis, "Sergeant Barnes, do you have any problems with the plan?" If Steve really was as all-knowing as he pretended to be, he'd already know that you couldn't predict every eventuality, and sometimes plans had to be changed during their execution.

But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst was when Steve constantly and purposely blanked him, as if Bucky was just some annoyance to be ignored. When Bucky went to refill all the canteens, Steve never said thanks. When Bucky offered to spend the evening hauling the sandbags back into place around the tents, Steve barely even glanced at him. When Bucky stripped down and cleaned all the paint rifles as a peace offering, Steve didn't even seem to notice.

There were no two ways about it: becoming some sort of chemically enhanced super-soldier had changed Steve. The awkward, self-conscious kid who'd been Bucky's best friend for almost twenty years was gone, replaced by Mr. Superiority. And the sad thing was, nobody else could see the change. Captain America was all the others had ever known, so they accepted him at face value, never truly understanding that Steve wasn't the type of guy to expect others to jump at his every command.

As he refilled the canteens, he tried to figure a way out of this mess he'd… if not created, at least contributed to. Why couldn't Steve just accept that in some matters, Bucky knew best? Why did he constantly have to shoot his ideas down, and go his own way? Sure, Bucky could apologise, but what would be the point? He was doing what he thought was best. Any apology would sound insincere because he didn't believe he'd done anything wrong. Not that Steve had done anything wrong… he was just being pig-headed about the whole thing.

When he got back to camp, he was met with silence. Immediately, he put down the canteens he'd filled and lifted his paint rifle into a usable position. Ever since Dugan and Morita had been jumped, nobody had gone anywhere alone and unarmed, and Bucky certainly didn't want to hear Captain America's lecture about safety. The paint rifle wasn't a true weapon, but anybody jumping him wouldn't be a true enemy. All Carter cared about was hits, and paint did that just as well as real bullets.

"Gabe?" Bucky called, inching towards the tents. Somebody should've been up and about by now. "Dugan? Monty—I mean, Falsworth?"

Silence reigned… until Agent Carter stepped out of his tent and gave him a look that said if you shoot me with that, I'm going to kick you in a place that will impair your ability to father children. He promptly lowered his weapon.

"Where is everyone?" he asked.

"Captain Rogers is taking his usual morning run," she replied. "I sent the rest of the team out with Howard to get pastries for breakfast. I thought they deserved a treat, after their exemplary performance so far."

The fact that he wasn't invited to the treat was not lost on Bucky, but instead of rising to the bait, he merely returned to the canteens and deposited them outside their respective tents. "Oh."

"I thought we might talk for a moment," she said.

"Sure. I got time to kill."

"Then I'm not interrupting your sulking, am I?"

"I'm not sulking," he protested. Besides, even if he was sulking, it was none of her business.

"Good. Sulking is very childish. I'm glad you're not giving into it." Agent Carter gestured to one of the sandbag piles, inviting him to sit. He declined. "You know, you were way out of line, earlier."

"Tell that to Captain Big-head," he scoffed.

"I intend to. You're both as stubborn as each other." She pursed her lips as she considered her next words. "What we're doing here is training. This is the place where you're allowed to make mistakes so that there's less chance of them being made out there." Carter cast her arms wide, indicating the rest of the world. "When children first learn to walk, they stumble and trip and fall down a lot. But practice and perseverance pays off. Captain Rogers hasn't done this before. You need to give him time to settle in to his role. To get used to making plans and giving commands."

"I'm not the kinda guy who can just stay silent when somebody makes the wrong plans."

"Yes." She couldn't entirely suppress the sardonic tone in her voice. "I'd noticed. But you're going to have to learn to become a team player—"

"A team player?!" He plonked himself down on the sandbag beside her, a scowl creeping across his face. "I am a team player. Or have you forgotten the first six months of the 107th's duty with the SSR? The countless missions Phillips sent us on? The dangerous missions? The deadly missions? Hell, you even told me that we were picked for those missions all the time because we were good at succeeding. When Wells and I were sent out on the suicide runs, we got the job done every time. We made plans together, executed them together, and the few times we argued, we didn't let it interfere with the mission. Maybe the problem isn't me. Maybe it's Steve. You ever consider that?"

She ran her gaze over him, her deep brown eyes weighing him up. He resisted the urge to squirm beneath her assessment, to sit a little taller and straighter.

"Sergeant Barnes, why do you think you and Sergeant Wells worked so well together?"

Her question threw him off balance. If he'd been sat on something less sturdy than sandbags, he might even have fallen off. His feathers ruffled, he ran a hand through his hair.

"I dunno. I guess Wells was there from the start. He knew what it was all about. The stakes, the difficulties, the pain of loss… and unlike a certain comic-book-hero-cum-movie-and-radio-star, he didn't let his ego get in the way of the mission. He listened. He trusted me, and trusted my judgement."

"Would you say it's fair to state that you and Sergeant Wells were both opposites, and equals?"

"Well, I guess that's fair," he grudgingly admitted. He didn't like giving Carter an inch: there was no telling what she'd do with it. Probably take it for a mile.

"He was a sergeant. A good sergeant. Like you."

"Yeah, what's your point?"

"That the working relationship you had with Sergeant Wells functioned mainly because you saw each other as equals. But you and Captain Rogers are not equal. You've never been equal. Isn't that right?"

Her accusation hit him like a dagger of ice to the gut, her narrow-eyed gaze boring right into his skull. Before Bucky could even open his mouth to ask for clarification, Agent Carter offered it.

"When you were captured by HYDRA, Steve told me how you were always there for him. Always looking out for him. You were his strength and his anchor."

Steve had said that? To a dame? Guilt began to gnaw at the edges of his mind.

"And now, he has strength of his own. He doesn't need you to prop him up and take a few blows for him. He's stronger and faster than you, and he outranks you. Whilst you're on missions, he doesn't need you to be his friend; he needs you to be his sergeant. To follow your orders to the best of your abilities and back him up in front of the troops. He's not your equal. Captains and sergeants can't be equals in the eyes of the chain of command. That's just a fact of the military. And as efficient as you and Sergeant Wells were together, he's gone. You can't just fill that void with Steve. You can't treat all commands like the one you've experienced before. You were given unprecedented freedom to carry out your orders, and now you have to adapt to a new way of doing things."

"Don't you think I know that? I'm trying! It's just…"

"Just what?" she prompted.

"I don't want Steve to go through the same things I did. The guilt over losing men. The worry over failed missions. He doesn't need to experience that. Not if I can help him."

"It is your experiences of war, including the losses, which has helped to forge you into a good sergeant and an excellent soldier. If you deny your friend those experiences, you deny him the chance to grow, both as a captain, and a person. I know you want to protect him from being hurt, but there comes a point where you have to let him make his mistakes and own them."

He hated that everything she said made sense. In the past, he'd always looked out for Steve. His best friend was a gentle soul, and Bucky wasn't sure he'd be able to handle the loss of soldiers under his command. If he could save Steve from making the mistakes he himself had made, wasn't it his duty to do that?

"Look," Carter said, driving her point home, "I know it's not easy—for either of you. Even when you were best friends, you stepped in to the role of protector. Now, the friend who needed your protection is perfectly capable of protecting himself. What he needs from you now is support. I'm not saying you shouldn't give your opinion; it would be negligent of you not to, especially if you thought the plan wasn't fully sound. But once he's made up his mind and given his orders, don't try to undermine them. And if it turns out he's made a mistake, be there to help him to understand and move past it."

"What if he's changed too much?" he asked, putting weight to his greatest fear. That this serum his friend had been given had made him something other than Steve.

"Then instead of mourning the child he was, get to know the man he's become. You might find you have a lot in common."

"I guess you're right. I suppose I've been a little… over-protective," he admitted. His past was littered with people he hadn't been able to protect, from his dog Bingo, who'd been hit by a car when Bucky was fifteen years old, to Wells and the others who'd gone on the last supply drop and never come back. At least Steve was still here, and every instinct Bucky possessed was screaming at him to protect the few friends he had left. He would never forgive himself, if something happened to Steve.

"Personally I would call it 'over-bearing,'" said Carter. "But to each his own."

She left him with that food for thought and returned to the post-office building she called home. As much as Bucky wanted to make things right with Steve, he wasn't sure of his chances. And even if he could find a way to apologise to his friend, would Steve even accept an apology, or had Bucky finally ruined their friendship for good?

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Steve followed the pebble he kicked along the ground, uncaring of where it took him, barely even paying attention to the stone's erratic bounces. In his mind, he replayed the mission of two nights ago over and over again. Each time, he heard Bucky's voice over the radio. I got a sight on my first target, and I need to take it now. Each time, Steve gave the same reply. Wait. Don't rush it. Don't jeopardise the mission. It had been the right call. The mission had been a success. But Bucky acted like it'd been a huge failure. That the whole war had been lost because of it.

A second pair of footsteps approached and fell into line with him. His mouth went dry when he glanced aside and saw Agent Carter beside him. She wore a perfume that made his head giddy, and even though she didn't look at him, his heart skipped a beat.

For a long moment, they walked in silence, and Steve dared to hope that she'd come regarding personal matters. That she wanted to talk to him about that dance he'd promised her.

"You were out of line back there," she said at last.

Steve stiffened. Kicked the stone a little too hard. It went skipping along the ground and disappeared into a pile of rubble a hundred yards down the road.

"I'm not sure I follow. The mission was a success."

"I'm not talking about the mission." A thoughtful expression crossed her face. "Well, not entirely. I'm talking about the things you said to Sergeant Barnes, after the mission was over."

"I never was very good at keeping my mouth shut," he admitted. In truth, he'd been feeling guilty about some of the things he'd said. Anger kept the guilt from rising up and consuming him. "But Bucky was out of line, too. He shouldn't question my orders like that, especially since the mission went smoothly."

"From where you're standing, it went smoothly," she corrected. "But yours wasn't the only viewpoint. From Sergeant Barnes' perspective, taking his first shot as soon as he was ready would've enabled him to move on to his next point and be set up in plenty of time. It was a calculated risk borne of experience. How do you expect the men to trust your judgement, if you show no trust in theirs?"

"It's not that I don't trust Bucky. It's just…"

"Yes?" she prompted with eternal patience.

"He doesn't know what it's like. Being Captain America. Having all this responsibility. Having the eyes of the world watching me. So many hopes and expectations… it's exhausting."

"You're right, he doesn't know what that's like. But he does know what war is like. He knows how to plan missions, and how to carry them out. He's not the only member of your team who found some of your commands frustrating, but he's the only one who spoke out. The men understand that you need time to find your feet, but for Sergeant Barnes, he still sees you as a friend."

"He still sees me as the scrawny guy who needs protecting."

"Oh, I'm not so sure about that," she said blithely. "I think he just wants to protect you from failure. He saw his way as the best way, and couldn't understand why you wouldn't listen. In his mind, it became personal. The two of you won't find it easy to work together. Sergeant Barnes is used to having the freedom to carry out missions in his own way. You're not used to giving orders and having them followed through. And you still share a bond of friendship that, right now, is standing in your way. I'm not saying you can't be friends, just that first and foremost, you need to be soldiers."

"I guess you're right. When I imagined getting out here, finding Bucky, serving together, I never dreamed I'd be the one giving the orders. I figured we'd be side by side, just like old times. Me leading, Bucky following… the idea feels strange."

"Give yourself some time. You'll get used to it."

He nodded. Unfortunately, time was the one thing he didn't have. In less than two weeks, his team had to be fighting-fit and ready to take on HYDRA. If they couldn't prove themselves on the training field, they'd never be given the green light for real missions, and everything Steve had been through would've been for naught.

Besides, this wasn't just a case of two old friends butting heads. Bucky was different. He wasn't the same happy, carefree guy he'd been back in the States. The old Bucky would've tried to make things right two days ago. The new one… Steve wasn't sure he knew much about the new Bucky at all.

"Bucky's dad told me war changes people," he offered to Peggy.

"Well, he was partially right. Life changes people. You won't be the same person tomorrow that you are today, and the same could be said if you were still at home, and had never heard of Project Rebirth or the SSR. War simply has a way of making the changes more… drastic." She sound as if she spoke from experience, but he didn't wanna pry. Not yet. "I'm sure Sergeant Barnes has changed from the man you used to know, but that just means you have the privilege of getting to know your friend all over again."

"I guess." Maybe he'd been holding onto the idea of Bucky remaining unchanged for too long. Maybe it was time to put that dream aside and start facing reality.

"I'm glad you agree." She stopped, and waited for him to do the same. "And by the way, if you have an issue with one of your team, you shouldn't address it with a hot head. And certainly not in a public forum. You may have felt justified in your actions, but all you accomplished was to make the other men afraid to speak their minds. That's all well and good in a traditional army outfit, but your team is not expected or desired to be that."

"I guess I really do have a lot to learn about commanding. Does it ever get any easier?"

"With experience, yes. As with anything, it will be more challenging, in the beginning. But you're very lucky. You have a team of experienced soldiers. Use them. Listen to them. And if they tell you there are better ways, believe them. Don't be so quick to dismiss their ideas because it doesn't fit in with your plans. I know you probably see Sergeant Barnes as an oversized irreverent child—God knows, I certainly did, when I first met him—but he's actually very good at what he does. Just, don't tell him I said that."

For the first time in two days, Steve smiled. "I promise I'll keep your praise secret."

"I'm glad I can count on your discretion." She reached out to squeeze his shoulder, and his heart almost leapt right out of his chest. "Don't be afraid of making mistakes. Remember what Dr. Erskine told you; that you should remain a good man. Not a good soldier."

"Isn't it possible to do both?" He so desperately wanted to remain true to Dr. Erskine's memory… yet he also wanted to be a soldier that his father could be proud of.

"Most of the time, it probably is. But should there ever come a time when you have to make a choice between the two… well, I hope you'll listen to your heart. Never forget that Steve Rogers is who you are. Perhaps in a year's time, the war will be over, and an accord will be reached to prevent any future wars. There may be no more need for soldiers. At that time, you still need to be Steve Rogers."

"You're right. Thanks, Agent Carter."

She left him with the excuse of needing to prepare for the next training exercise. Their talk had helped put things into perspective. He shouldn't have come out here looking to find the Bucky Barnes of a year ago; too much had happened, to both of them, for either of them to have been the men they were before all this started. But it wasn't too late to save their friendship. If Bucky could find it in his heart to forgive Steve, then Steve could do no less.

He just hoped he could convince Bucky he was sincere in wanting to mend fences and start afresh.