EVELYN

II

BUCKY BARNES
1943

I hissed at the pain in my leg but I kept trudging on, I could see the camp nearing. The Colonel took us out to some abandoned trenches to teach us how they worked or something and I caught my leg on a rusty piece of scrap metal. The trench we visited was from the first world war and hadn't been used since. We were all sceptical as a soldier would be, but the Colonel told us the truth; it was abandoned.

Dum Dum Dugan held me up on the left and helped me to the medical tent. I waited almost twenty minutes until someone saw me. She was worth the wait. I had been to the medical tent several times, most of the time because of stupid accidents, and I had never seen her before.

She asked my name. I told her.
She asked what the problem was. I showed her.
She apologised for the wait. I told her it wasn't a problem.
She scolded me about being reckless. I told her I was sorry.

I couldn't explain what I felt for her. I was speechless when it came to her and her green eyes that had a splash of gold in them. They were humble and kind eyes, I could tell. She had a slight accent that was concealed with a New York one. She intrigued me. I wanted to know more about her. I couldn't see much of her hair but I could tell it was a rich brunette. The type that would have a golden glow in the sunlight.

Her lips spoke the most beautiful words, anything she said sounded like a melody. Her touch was so delicate, so gentle, so soft, I could barely feel her as she stitched up the wound on my leg. There was no pain, even though she warned there would be.

Is this what falling in love felt like?

I asked her when she worked. She told me everyday.
"Even Sundays?" I asked. She nodded with a smile.
I asked her why. She told me that there was only her and another nurse.
I knew I would see her more, I would keep her company on the rainy Sundays.

"How's that Soldier?" She asked in the softest voice I had ever heard. I looked down at my leg and it was fully bandaged. I should feel relieved about the time it took to seal my leg and yet I felt disappointed.

I thanked her after she told me how to care for the wound.
I never listened to the words, just her voice.

I walked out of the medical tent, wishing to go back in. The summers sun felt good against my cheek, it was the happiest I had felt since I left Brooklyn. I would see the Nurse with eyes as green as the rarest emerald with gold buried in its heart everyday.

The next day I went back to the heavenly medic tent. I sat in a chair as I watched her gracefully work around the tent, mending each soldier. I watched the way she would whisper loving and encouraging words to each of them. Her eyes caught mine watching her with a smirk, she rolled her eyes but not in a playful way almost sensing what I was up to.

"Sargent Barnes," she is the only person I want to call me that. I followed her to the examination bed, behind a white divider. There was absolutely nothing wrong with me, but I lied. I told her my leg wouldn't stop bleeding, which was only a bit true. I knocked it getting out of bed that morning and most likely ripped a stitch.

With the same gentleness, she unravelled the blooded bandages and re-stitched the bottom of the wound. She didn't speak as much as she did yesterday, I wondered why. I looked down at my leg, despite her changed mood, she still had the softest touch.

"What's your name?" I asked as she finished the stitch. She looked up at me, finally. I never noticed the small beauty mark on her right cheek yesterday and it only adds to her beauty. I admired each of her features, the long lashes that brushed her brow bone when she looked up, the soft V of her rosy lips. The soft dimple on the left that appeared when she smiled slightly, the way her forest eyes searched mine hesitantly. I was curious about her hesitance.

"Carter. Evelyn Carter."

She went back down to wrap my leg which she completed in a rush. I tested her name out a few times: Evelyn, Evelyn, Eve-lyn.

"Beautiful," was all I said. I could see the redness creep up in her cheeks and the way she tried to fight of her smile. Yep, Bucky Barnes has still got it. Girls are so easy to make swoon but I didn't want Evelyn to swoon, no, I wanted her to fall in love with me. I wanted her to love me.

She walked me out of the tent and warned me to be careful, to which I replied, "Then you gotta' stop making me want to come back."
Evelyn blushed and walked back into the tent. She was hard to read, she was almost like a book. She had a mystery to her, I wanted to turn the page more and more. She was a like a book that kept you hooked, a book I would stay up all night to read and figure out.

I'll see you tomorrow Evelyn.