Blue || Bucky Barnes

5. Call Me Bucky

"That was quite the show... Captain. But you might need to start looking at the audience instead of your notes on the shield." I smile as Steve runs off the stage months later wearing a ridiculous red, white and blue uniform.
"Leia." He's shocked to see me but he smiles nonetheless. I wrap my arms around his torso and he holds me tight.
"What're you doing here?" He asks me pulling off the hat to his costume.
"I'm heading off." I tell him. "They're sending me to Europe. To Azzano actually, as a start. Then who knows."
"Wow." He says.
"I'm going to help people. They need me Steve."
"I know. You're going to be great." He says and a silence falls over us.
"I just wanted to say goodbye." I look up at him after a moment.
"Yeah." He nods his head, his lips in a tight line. I simply wrap my arms around my friend once again holding him tight. "Stay safe." He mumbles squeezing me, the walls coming down.
"I will." Eventually I let him go standing back. "See you over there Captain." I grin.
"Hopefully." He smiles brightly, hopeful once again.
"Bye." I wave turning around and leaving my good friend, my only friend, behind.

"Ms Callahan. This way please." A man holds the car door for me and I slip inside. And we're off.

-

Over the next several months I spend my days with the United States Armed Forces in Europe. I basically follow the devastation. Wherever there's a mass of injuries and fatalities, I'm there within a few hours. I've lost track of the amount of soldiers I've helped and healed. Despite the circumstances I'm glad I'm able to help my country.

About a week ago the men tried to advance forward and with that came many fatalities. One man came back with both his legs blown off from the mid-thigh down. I cried as my shaky palms hovered where his lower half should be. That was one of the many patients where I realized the severity of this war, so many fatalities. Ones that I'm unable to help because they are struck down in battle or don't make it back to the base. But for every one I'm not able to save, there's so many more I can help.

During the days I'm wide awake, tending to many patients with the other nurses on the base. But night is a different scenario. I've started to have nightmares. And not even about the horrific injuries I've seen while being in Europe, but Mark. He appears in my subconscious almost every night. Towering over my curled up person on the ground. He hits me and tortures me and what's worse is that I can actually feel it. And I can never wake up from it, I'm always stuck haunted by the pain. Sometimes I'll recognize I'm having a dream but I'm so paralyzed that my body and mind won't wake up. So I just have to lay there and wait it out. And then when I do wake up, I'm terrified to close my eyes again knowing that I could fall back into the dream. So I just lie awake, staring up at the roof of the tent until I hear the bustling of people outside and I get up for another day.

"Mail Colonel." I hear someone yell out.
"You're all good Damien." I say to the last man I just healed. He had a pretty bad gash above his left brow.
"Thank you miss." He says hurrying back outside.
Most of the men are used to what I can do. That is until I'm hurried off to the next place where all their mouths gape open and eyes wide as I go down the line of injured soldiers healing their wounds one by one.

I spy a colorful magazine left on one of the hospital beds. I snatch up the smooth papers, it's a comic I think. 'Captain America' is the title. I smile to myself, Steve's really made a name for himself, he has a comic now. I miss the guy to death. I can't help but worry for his wellbeing, he's honestly my only friend. Understandably being locked in an apartment for ten years doesn't give one much opportunity to make any friends. I flick through the pages and smile as I read of all the excellent adventures this 'Captain America' goes on.

"Ms Callahan!" A voice tears me away and I whip my head in that direction.
"Yes?"
"Grab your things, you're needed just behind the front." Colonel Hert says.
I nod quickly, jumping up and retrieving my items. I don't have all that much, just the clothes on my back and a spare, and a small satchel of things I'd acquired like a little notebook and pencil. I'm hurried into a truck which drives off immediately. I don't ask where we're going anymore. I can generally figure it out when we arrive, many of the soldiers are talking about it.