Pre War Bucky Barnes One Shots

How?

What if Steve's soldiers had found Bucky when he had fallen off the train?

"There he is!" A distant voice called out.

Or at least Bucky thought it had, he was delirious. It felt like it had been days now. Thinking nothing of it he let himself slip back into unconsciousness, weak with exhaustion and fever and pain.

....

"There he is!" One of the men from the search party shouted in disbelief.

He heard the rumble of confusion and concern coming from his other men as they regrouped with him.

"Where?" One asked gruffly.

"Are you sure?" Another chimed in.

"Yes! There! Look!" He exclaimed and pointed from their hiding spot in the bushes at what looked like it had to be the sodden, navy blue jacket of James Barnes tangled in the branches of a log. "It's got to be the body. What else would be out here in the middle of the wilderness that looks so artificial?"

"Oh my god you're right!" One man gasped.

"Come on, we have to get him. That will at least bring some comfort to the Captain. I mean this is what he sent us out here for." Another one pointed out.

"I can't believe we actually found him! I was ready to call off the search, it has been nearly a week now and this is so far down stream compared to where Barnes fell, he must've floated a long way before he got stuck." The leader admitted.

"But sir, what are we going to do with the body? We lost all of our gear and anything we could cover or carry it with in that ambush." One man asked.

"And how will we get out of this place?" Another asked unsurely as he looked up at the tall cliffs all around them.

"We will carry him and call in a chopper." The leader instructed.

He pulled his walky talky out from his belt and spoke into it.

"Requested chopper in the ravine for unit 96. We have found Barnes's body. I repeat, we have found the body." He spoke sternly.

"Roger that. Dispatch will happen now and we will be there within the hour." A crackle replied.

"In the mean time, let's get this body and bring it into cover, no one else will be around this place." The leader huffed as he replaced the talky on his belt.

The five men jogged out of cover and over to the log where the body that belonged to the man who none of them knew personally, yet they had all heard so much about lay lifelessly in the shallow water at the edge of the river.

It was half wedged under a large rock and tangled amongst the branches of the log beside it. On closer examination the men could see a puddle of stale blood surrounding him. Its source was the left arm, well, what was left of it.

About halfway between the shoulder and elbow James's arm had been viciously ripped off, leaving nothing but a bloody, rotting, infected stump cut raggedly, with frayed pieces of the torn off fabric of his sleeve stuck in amongst the flesh.

His face was pale and thin, eyes closed, lips blue and hair a mess on his head, half plastered to his forehead.

"Oh man, the poor guy. What a way to go out." One of them huffed. "We've gotta clean him up a bit before Cap sees this."