Red, White & Blue | Bucky x Reader

Chapter Eight

A few days later, I'm in the hospital tent when I hear the shout. "Nurse! We have wounded!"

Marie looks at me from across the workstation and together, we run outside to find a group of medics unloading wounded soldiers from the back of the medical trucks. Drawn to the noise, other nurses arrive as well, Evelyn and Georgia among them. We begin ushering the wounded into the tent. Most of the soldiers only have minor wounds, cuts and bullet holes that were quickly patched on the battlefield by the medics, and those are easy to clean and properly stitch up.

As I help to organize the wounded by the severity of their injuries, the sound of screaming draws my attention. I turn my focus to the noise and watch as two medics carry in the last soldier, half of his right leg has been blown clean off and he is gushing blood.

"Y/l/n! Get over here!" The doctor orders as he rushes to one of the operating tables to prepare his instruments for the operation. I quickly wipe my hands on my work apron as I hurry over to inject the screaming soldier with morphine, hoping that it will ease some of his pain. The remainder of the soldier's leg needs to be amputated above the knee and he's losing too much blood, we will have to move quickly and can't wait for the morphine to spread.

Two medics grab the soldier by the shoulders and hold him down as the doctor makes an incision above the knee and pulls back the skin. The soldier screams out in agony as the doctor saws through the bone, and I grab the soldier's hand, hoping the physical touch will somehow comfort him.

Red. All I see is red. It coats our hands and covers the table. I've seen my fair share of blood, but nothing like this. My years as a nurse could not have prepared me for the gruesome reality that is war. I keep my head down and do as I'm told, allowing my training to take over as I try to tune out the screams of the soldier, the morphine can only do so much. I look the soldier in the eyes as the doctor readies a cauterizing iron.

"Take a deep breath," I tell him, gripping his hand hard, as if my own life depended on it.

He nods and breathes in, holding the air in his lungs as the doctor presses the searing iron to the stump of his leg, sealing off the wound. The sound the soldier makes pierces my ears as it fills the tent. The pain becomes too much for him to take and he passes out. I put my fingers to his neck, checking for a pulse. It's slow, but strong. He'll make it.

The doctor moves to his next patient as I dress the wound, carefully wrapping the stump in sterile cloth. The medics help me move him into one of the empty beds, where he's now resting peacefully. The morphine finally took its full effect and I watch the gentle rise and fall of his chest as I try to steady myself before going to tend to the rest of the injured, stitching up cuts and removing a few bullets from their limbs.

Hours later, I leave the tent in a daze, my uniform is slick with blood and my hands are stained red. Exhausted, I allow my feet to carry me back to my bunk, where I find Bucky standing on the path just outside my tent, leaning against a post, head down and hands in his pockets. He hears me approaching and looks up, his eyes sweeping over my bloody uniform.

"Hey..." he says softly as I stop in front of him, "I heard all the screaming... Are you alright?"

Silently, I walk into his arms, and he holds me tightly, not caring about all the blood.

"Bucky?" I say after a while. "...Never let me see you like that, okay?"

He rests his chin on the top of my head, but doesn't respond, knowing that it's a promise that he can't keep.

A few weeks later, Bucky enters the hospital tent, followed closely by Dugan and Jones. From the way Bucky's holding his right arm, I can tell something is wrong.

"How on Earth did you manage to dislocate your shoulder?" I ask, ushering him into a stool before examining the injury. Although soldiers come in and out of camp on a regular basis, no one has left camp in the last few days. A battle didn't cause this injury.

"It was a bet," Bucky confesses. Dugan snickers, trying to supress his laughter while Jones looks away, trying not to look guilty but failing, miserably. Bucky smiles at them but quickly hides it before continuing. "We found a couple of abandoned bicycles and decided to have a little race around camp. Turns out, dirt isn't the best surface to race on..."

I look between the three men. While Dugan can barely contain his laughter, Jones won't look me in the eye. Meanwhile, Bucky just smiles and looks around the tent like this is his favourite place in the entire world. I take Bucky's chin in my hand and turn his face to look him in the eye. His pupils are dilated and his breath reeks of alcohol.

"You've been drinking," I state.

"Just a little bit," Bucky admits, sheepishly. He looks around the empty tent once again. "I'm surprised you don't... working here..."

"So, Sergeant James Barnes dislocated his arm not because he's fighting in a war but because he insisted on winning a drunken bet?" I question, slowly finding some amusement in his predicament and trying not to let it show. "Did you at least win?"

"Of course, I did! But if I didn't, I wouldn't need to get aid from my pretty—" I cut him off with the satisfying pop of his shoulder sliding back into the joint, "Argh! Jesus, Y/n!"

"Serves you right," I retort with a laugh, putting his arm in a sling. "You'd better hope no one needs you for the next few days while you heal, Sergeant."

"Thank you, Nurse Y/l/n," Bucky says with a smile.

I playfully roll my eyes and return the smile as Dugan and Jones help him up from his seat. I watch the three of them stagger from the tent, shaking my head and chuckling to myself, completely unaware of the three nurses watching us.