Quiet
Bucky didn’t think he’d had a second of quiet since he left New York.
It was ironic, really, that even out in the middle of nowhere, New Jersey, surrounded by the thick trees and barbed-wire fencing that portioned off the military training camp from the rest of the world, Bucky somehow felt more exposed than he ever had on the busy and wide-open New York streets. He’d scarcely had a moment to himself since he’d left his apartment for the train station – alone, for once, as Steve had staunchly refused to come with him.
Bucky thought about it as he laid awake on his cot, staring up at the canvas ceiling of the temporary barracks in the early morning darkness. He’d just pulled himself out of a dream, some bizarre, half-waking nightmare in which he was at once paralyzed in his stiff army-issued cot and out training in the yard, struggling through the assembly of an unfamiliar rifle as his drill instructor barked out orders for him to go faster, telling him that more men died the longer it took for him to figure it out. Even in his dreams, he couldn’t escape the crushing pressure of all the people around him, the weight of all that they were asking him to do.
It was a stark contrast to the way he’d felt when he left New York, so achingly lonely he could have died with it. Once he’d taken his seat on the train and looked out at the platform to see the other guys at the station with their sweethearts on their arms, kissing them and promising they’d be home before they knew it, Bucky’s thoughts had traitorously veered back to Steve. Half of him had wished that they could do the same, wished he could feel the press of Steve’s lips against his own as he pretended to be brave about leaving and pretended he’d be home soon. Another part of him had just missed the company, wished Steve were there so that they could share a smile or one of the old inside jokes that flowed between them as familiar and easy as breathing. Anything would have been better than the stony silence that had echoed in his head when the door of their rundown tenement apartment clicked shut, sealing him and Steve away on opposite sides.
Bucky still missed Steve, still ached for him in ways he could hardly articulate even to himself. The quiet, though – Bucky was starting to think he really might enjoy some peace and quiet.
Now that he was awake, Bucky could hear the soft snoring of the guy in the bed next to him intermingled with the characteristic muttered sleep-talking of someone further down the row of cots. It was nothing compared to the noise he was sure he’d be hearing in just a few minutes, that of drill instructors sounding an alarm throughout the camp, rousing the men to prepare for their morning inspection. Bucky sighed, considering his pair of equally unpleasant options. He could either try to savor his last few minutes of inadequate sleep, or he could bite the bullet and accept that his day had already started. Wanting to avoid another unceremonious intrusion of the US military into his subconscious, Bucky went for option two, pushing himself out of his cot and moving as slowly as he could in the direction of the latrine.
It wasn’t like they weren’t allowed to get up to use the bathroom – or, at least, they hadn’t ever been explicitly forbidden from doing so – but with the strict military discipline that now governed Bucky’s daily life, some measure of caution not to be seen or heard still seemed appropriate. Collective punishment was a pretty common thing here, and Bucky certainly didn’t want to be the one to get everyone in trouble. He was still pretty shaken up from the last time one of the guys had gotten their whole unit punished – “Quit crying, Johnson. You’re gonna stand there and watch, and the men who just died because you can’t listen to directions are going to run laps until someone passes out. Maybe next time you’ll pay better attention, huh?” The stunt was just another reminder that, for better or for worse, none of them were ever really alone out here. When they left for the war, there would be no room for individuals, no place for their own wants or needs. They’d have to give themselves over entirely, they kept being told, if they wanted a chance at turning into the heroes they were somehow supposed to become.
Looking at his reflection in one of the gritty, rusted mirrors hanging over the unreliable bathroom sinks, Bucky was pretty sure he’d already given over his fair share of himself. The six exhausting weeks he’d been away from New York had changed him in ways he couldn’t help but notice, and most of those changes were clearly staring back at him from the mirror. His hair, for instance, had been buzzed the day he’d arrived. It had since grown out into something rough and short, still a far cry from the thick, wavy bangs he used to slick back with pomade for nights out in the city. His chin was sharper now, and the lean muscles he’d already been honing while working at the docks were becoming more pronounced. He was starting to look like a whole different person, and he had the fleeting, terrifying thought that Steve might not even recognize him if he could somehow see him now.
Trying to wipe that notion from his mind, Bucky ran his hands under the sputtering tap and splashed some water over his newly hollow cheeks, thankful that the stubble coming in there was at least familiar. No matter how many times the army made him shave, that, at least, would keep coming back.
Bucky’s mind drifted inadvertently back to the early mornings he and Steve had spent together in their apartment in New York, Steve fussing with the coffee while Bucky scrambled to get ready for work. Steve had always griped at him for hogging the bathroom, admonishing him not to use up their meager supply of hot water for the day in one go.
“What, you really gotta shave every day, Buck?”
“Jealous, Rogers? Ain’t my fault you can’t grow a beard…”
“Oh, screw you, Barnes.”
But the fights were never really fights, always undercut by Steve pressing a mug of watery coffee into Bucky’s hand after he left the bathroom, by Bucky always making sure to shoot Steve a smile before running out the door.
Bucky didn’t realize the memory had turned the corners of his mouth up into a wistful reflection of that past smile until he heard a scuffle behind him, followed shortly by a group of guys from the barracks barging into the latrine. The intrusion prompted him to school his face into a much more neutral expression.
“You were up early, Barnes,” someone called to him from the toilets on the other side of the room. He must have missed the call to wake up, Bucky realized, and now he’d have to join the others in scrambling to prepare for the morning inspection. There was no time for reminiscence in the fast-paced environment of boot camp – and there certainly wasn’t space for Bucky’s particular sort of nostalgia in front of the other guys. Even though his relationship with Steve, for better or for worse, had never strayed outside the bounds of what would have been considered normal, he still didn’t want these guys he hardly knew to have access to those memories, Bucky’s fondest. Steve was something he wanted to keep for himself, something untouched by the vast changes and moving pieces of the world he’d been dragged into.
Bucky carefully arranged his face into what he hoped looked like a casual smirk, shoving down the memories of home. “Had to get in here before you guys made a mess of the bathroom, didn’t I?”
The quip earned him a teasing clap on the shoulder, firmly grounding him in time and place. That was the extent of camaraderie here, nothing more than a quick pat on the back and the occasional false smile.
“Well, too bad you missed it, man,” the guy washing up at the sink next to him joined in. “Heard the COs talking just now, saying they're having trouble gettin’ enough guys on the front. Sounds like we might be lucky enough to get outta here early.”
Bucky’s heart dropped. “Wait, you mean, like… shipped out? Overseas?”
“Well they ain’t hardly gonna send us home, are they?”
“Right,” Bucky muttered with a halfhearted chuckle as laughter erupted around him. His head was spinning. It wasn’t like getting shipped out was a surprise; much as he’d tried to avoid thinking about it, he’d known it was an inevitability. Still, though, now that deployment was looming ever closer on the horizon, he couldn’t help but wish he had more time. He’d thought he’d at least have a moment to send a letter off to Steve once the intensity of basic training had let up, letting him know what was going on and telling him again not to worry. (He’d hoped, a little, to have one in return, something of Steve to take with him as he left familiarity for the front lines, but he was realizing now that that had only ever been wishful thinking.)
“Dunno about you, but I’m about ready for a little change of scenery,” the guy washing up on the other side of him – Bucky thought his last name might be Williams – said, offering a wry smile that Bucky did his best to return. “Europe can’t be half as bad as having to see the Colonel’s face first thing every morning.”
Bucky genuinely laughed at that. “Hey, credit where credit is due – that moustache is something to behold!”
He got a laugh in return, and Bucky felt himself relax a little. This shouldn’t be any different from his life in New York, joking with the guys from the docks after work, playing off his hard-won social grace as easy charm. The only thing that distinguished this from his life before was the constant underlying fear, the knowledge that he’d been thrown into all of this with no say in the matter and, with deployment now looking more and more like a tangible reality, no idea what he was really in for.
“What about your girl, though, Williams?” someone called from across the room. “Getting sent off to Europe can’t be good for the wedding plans.”
Bucky glanced sideways at Williams. He was furtively touching the bare skin of his left hand, tracing the pattern of an invisible ring.
“She’ll be alright. Way things are going, we’ll all be back stateside by Christmas, right?”
“‘Course we will,” Bucky said hurriedly, without even really thinking about it. “We’re already winning, right? Won’t be long at all.”
Williams shot him a grateful smile, making it easier to ignore the thinly veiled skepticism of the other men. “You got a girl, Barnes?”
Bucky froze. He’d known it was only a matter of time before someone got around to asking, but that didn’t make the question any easier to deal with in the moment. He’d been with girls, sure, taken them dancing, sometimes taken them home. None of them had ever been “his” girl, though. Try as he might, he’d never managed to make a real connection with any of them, and he knew exactly why – for the same reason that, when Williams asked him about “his” girl, Bucky’s mind ignored every bit of reason and rationality he’d ever tried to instill in it and made a beeline straight for Steve.
After floundering for half a second, Bucky quickly reassumed the mask he’d been so carefully practicing since he found out he’d been drafted in the first place.
“‘A’ girl? I’ve got plenty, you gotta be more specific. Which one’re you talking about?”
Even as most of the guys laughed it off, Bucky couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t out of the woods yet. Williams was still giving him a curious sideways glance that made him feel far more exposed than he was comfortable with – like the guy could see straight through him, right into the empty space in Bucky’s chest that no amount of sweet-talking girls or dance hall dates ever seemed to fill.
As chatter resumed and everyone scrambled to prepare for whatever grueling tasks the day would have in store, Bucky stole one last glance at himself in the mirror, picking out the lingering familiarity of his eyes in an otherwise increasingly unfamiliar face. He spared one last thought for Steve, hopefully safe and unchanged back home. Still mad at him, probably. Bucky sighed, turning away from his distorted reflection entirely.
It didn’t matter how much he wished things were different, how much he wished he and Steve had never been driven apart. Bucky was still heading straight into the unknown, and, despite the constant presence of his commanders and comrades-in-arms, he felt like he was doing it wholly alone.