Bucky/Steve One Shots

He Didn't Come Home

(Saw this video by the amazing sebsedits and I HAD to write a one-shot)

War wasn't pretty. How could it be? It was brutal. Bombshells and bullets leaving holes in the ground you once stood on just moments before, crimson streams flowing from the now empty skins, your colleagues, your friends.  It was all just fucked up. How do you stop killing with more killing? It makes you no better than the other guys. 

They called him America's best sniper. He never missed a shot. That was why they had him stationed on the front lines. It was the worst place to be. Nobody there expected to make it home. Bucky had so much he hadn't been able to say. He wrote letters to Steve every day, but he could never be honest in them. They had censors that read the letters before they were sent. If he wrote anything that suggested his real feelings, they would know and he would go to jail. He felt like he was walking on broken glass. His regrets were crushing him. He wasn't going to make it home and Steve would never know. They wouldn't inform him because he wasn't family. No one would know because he didn't have any real family left. 

'Don't be scared if I don't walk through that door... if you stop receiving these letters...'

That was the last sentence of the last letter he ever wrote to him. 

He just couldn't hear him. He could hardly hear anything over the gunfire and the ringing in his ears from the bombs raining down around him.  War made you feel so damn small. The worst part was that he couldn't hear the warning. He couldn't process what was going on until he was already on the cold, wet ground. His chest heaved and his body convulsed with the effort. He looked down to see his chest painted red with his own blood. 

"Goddamnit!" Dum Dum rushed to his side and fell to his knees beside him. Bucky knew he didn't have much time left. He had seen men succumb to injuries like this in just minutes. There was nothing that could be done. He coughed and could taste the metallic fluid that was most definitely filling his lungs at that very moment. And in that moment, he was petrified. He was going to hell. All those feelings he had for Steve, for another man, he was going to hell for that. and the worst part was that he was never able to tell Steve. And Steve would never know what actually happened to him. 

Dum Dum applied pressure to the wound even though it was pointless. He was so damn loyal and would do anything to save him. He knew he would. He coughed once more and it hurt so bad that tears fell onto his cheeks. It wasn't just the physical hurt though. He weakly gripped his friend's wrist as more blood filled his lungs and mouth. He only had seconds left now. "T-tell Steve... please... I-I l-I love h-him..."

"Buck, you need to stay with me, son. Tell him yourself." Tears fell down Dum Dum's cheeks. He hated seeing his friend's in pain. Especially when there was nothing he could do except watch. 

With a shaking hand, Bucky grabbed his now blood-stained journal out of his breast pocket and placed it in Dum Dum's hands, "s-someone should know my story..." his voice faded to nothing as his eyes went dull and still, staring up at the sky. 

Dum Dum closed his eyes with his fingers gently and placed the journal in his own breast pocket, "you put up a good fight, James Buchanon Barnes... You were a good man."

****

"So, Steve?" Dum Dum asked his fellow commando. "d-did you know a James Buchanon Barnes..?" 

Steve froze and looked up at him in shock, "y-yes..."

"I think we need to talk."