A New Kind of Army

Chapter 20: Cracks in the Masks

The last few weeks of June had been tough on us.

Taiga came home from a shift at the Nexus hospital one night, and had breakdown. A little four-year-old girl had come into his ER and sadly didn't make it. The poison had gotten to her before Taiga had a chance to do anything, but the mutant medic still blamed himself. Kate took care of the younger kids that night, while Christin tended to his eldest's grief.

Black Sheep's nightmares kept coming back. Though it was easier for him to find comfort in me now that he was living in the farm house. It seemed almost every night the little boy would sneak out of the nursey and come crawl into my bed. I never turned him away, and honestly half the time he wasn't even waking me up. My own nightmares were more frequent and that scared me as it meant my shell shock was getting worse. It was getting harder to hide it, but I had too. I couldn't let them know, who knows what will happen to me, what would happen to Black Sheep, if the others found out.

Jenette got shot. Yeah, that was certainly a shock. In a lesson about weapon safety, one of the kids ended up mis-firing. Thankfully, they were far away from the main camp so none of the others were hurt, but Jenette took a bullet to the thigh. She was on bed rest for a week, and afterwards she still walked with a limp.

On a happier note, Arrow came home on July first. It was a good day, filled with smiles and happy tears. The odd void her absence left in the house finally felt filled once again. But Arrow was different. She was quieter. Her smiles felt more forced, and the spark in her eyes was gone. I asked eventually asked Kate and Christin about it, but the only answer I got was this was what happened when someone had taken for the first time. I didn't need them to elaborate; The memory of my first kill, and how conflicted I felt afterward, coming to mind.

The morning of the fourth, I woke up finding Black Sheep curled up next me, sleeping soundly. I smiled at him, but then I saw the date on my alarm, and my heart sank. It was Cap's birthday. I had been so busy with everything, that it slipped my mind. I felt bad for almost forgetting. It had easily become a running joke in the howling commandos, that America's golden boy was born on one of the greatest days in the country's history. Toro and Dum Dum found it hysterical.

There wasn't much we could do while we were serving to celebrate. So, we all gathered up our chocolate rations, lit a smoke pretending it was a candle, and sang in the best voices that we could after an exhausting day of blowing up Nazi bases. Which usually ended in us laughing at how bad we were at it.

"Bucky?" squeaked a small voice next to me.

I looked back to Black Sheep, "Hey kiddo."

"Why you look sad?" His black doe eyes look up at me.

"Just remembering someone Buddy. Don't worry about it."

"Okay," He rolled over and fell back asleep.

I smiled. Maybe I could tell him about Cap one day. One day when he would be a little older. One day when he could understand.

"Bucky are you coming!?"

"Yeah, yeah hold on!" I shouted back, I looked over to Black Sheep who had a large floaty ring in his arms, "You ready?"

He nodded, and reached for my hand as we headed down the stairs.

"Have fun kids! Wear sun block!" the adults shouted after us as we left the house.

Christin had given all of us the fourth off of work. Thanks to the warper guild all of the campers made it home safely last night to spend the holiday with their families. So up until the firework show tonight, we had total freedom. With Arrow back, all of kids in the farmhouse (Christin's kids, Junia, Snowy, Black Sheep and me), decided to do a beach day.