☆

You stopped on another picture. “Maybe these.”

He leaned closer when you held the screen toward him. The nails were dark red this time, glossy enough to catch the light, with some kind of gold detail near the cuticles.

“Those are nice.”

“You said that about the last ones.”

“The last ones were nice too.”

“You have absolutely no standards.”

“I have plenty of standards.” His gaze dropped deliberately over you. “They’re just not about nail polish.”

You nudged his stomach with your foot, but you were smiling when you did it.

Bucky caught your ankle before you could pull away and pressed a kiss to the inside of it. “When’s the appointment?”

“Thursday.”

“Thought you said Tuesday.”

You laughed and locked your phone. “I moved it. I spent more than I meant to this month, so I pushed it back.”

Bucky frowned, and you recognized the expression immediately.

“No.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was about to ask how much.”

“Exactly.”

His thumb continued tracing the same slow path over your ankle. “How much?”

“Bucky.”

“How much?”

You studied him for a second before naming the approximate cost.

He nodded once. “I’ll send it.”

“You don’t have to pay for my nails.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you saying it as if you’ve already decided?”

“Because I have.”

You sat up enough to pull your feet out from beneath him. “You can’t just pay for my things every time I mention wanting something.”

“I don’t.”

“You bought me that coat.”

“You were cold.”

“My old coat was perfectly fine.”

“It had a hole in it.”

“In the pocket.”

“Still a hole.”

“You replaced my headphones.”

“They only worked if you bent the wire.”

“They worked.”

Bucky stared at you.

You tried not to smile and failed.

“Fine,” you conceded. “Bad example.”

“Thank you.”

“You still don’t have to.”

“I want to.” His voice softened, losing the teasing edge without becoming serious enough to make the conversation heavier than it needed to be. “You like getting them done. I like you being happy. Seems straightforward.”

Arguing with Bucky about this particular form of affection was almost impossible. He could be stubborn and occasionally overprotective, but the things he gave you never seemed designed to create obligation. He noticed what made your life easier, what made you smile, what you lingered over before deciding you could do without it, and quietly made room for those things whenever he could.

You narrowed your eyes at him anyway. “Do you want something?”

His expression became suspiciously thoughtful.

“You do.”

“Wouldn’t say I want something.”

“You’re thinking about it.”

“Maybe I’ve got a request.”

You groaned. “I knew it.”

Bucky caught your hand when you reached for your phone again, turning it palm-down against his thigh. Your current manicure was nearly three weeks old, enough new growth showing at the cuticles that you’d spent the previous evening complaining about it.

His thumb passed across your nails one by one.

“Put a B on one.”

You blinked.

Bucky kept his attention on your hand, but there was a faint tension at the corner of his mouth that told you he wasn’t quite as casual about the request as he wanted to appear.

“A B.”

“Yeah.”

“For Barnes?”

His eyes lifted to yours. “Got another boyfriend I don’t know about?”

“I might.”

“Hope he’s tough.”

You laughed. “Are you threatening an imaginary man?”

“Depends how imaginary he is.”

You threaded your fingers through his. “You want your initial on my nails.”

“One nail.”

“That’s very possessive of you.”

“Could be worse.” Bucky brought your hand to his mouth and kissed your knuckles. “Could’ve asked for the whole name.”

“Think that might be difficult to fit.”

“Your nail lady seems talented.”

“She has a name.”

“I’m sure she does.”

“You’ve met her.”

“I remember.”

“You called her my nail lady after claiming you remember her.”

Bucky kissed another knuckle to hide his smile. “You gonna do it or not?”

You considered making him work harder for the answer, but the idea had already settled pleasantly beneath your ribs. It was a small thing, almost ridiculous in its simplicity, and that made you like it more. Anyone else looking at your manicure would see a decorative initial. Maybe they’d assume it belonged to you or meant nothing at all.

You would know better, and so would Bucky.

“I’ll think about it.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s not a yes.”

“I know.”

“You enjoy making my life difficult.”

“Very much.”

Bucky sighed and reached for his phone.

A second later, yours buzzed on the couch.

You picked it up and stared at the payment notification. “You sent too much.”

“Tip.”

“That’s still too much.”

“Then get something fancy.”

“Something fancy.”

“Technical term.”

You leaned over and kissed him before he could say anything else. Bucky’s hand immediately came up to the back of your neck, keeping you close for another kiss when you started to withdraw.

“You’re ridiculous,” you murmured against his mouth.

“Get the B.”

You laughed into the next kiss.

“I said I’d think about it.”

By Thursday afternoon, you’d thought about it. Quite extensively, actually.

You hadn’t told Bucky what you’d decided. He’d asked once the morning after your conversation, received the same vague answer, and apparently determined that pestering you would lower his chances. He hadn’t mentioned it again.

You’d gone with the dark red after all, although you’d changed the original inspiration enough to make it your own. The color was rich and glossy, the kind of red that looked nearly black in low light before catching bright crimson when you moved your hands.

Your nail artist had smiled when you finally explained that you wanted a tiny gold B on your left ring finger. She’d glanced from the finger you indicated to your face, visibly considering whether she should ask, but you’d only smiled.

By the time you got home, you’d already decided you wanted to see his reaction before telling him where you’d put the B.

Bucky was in the kitchen with his back to the apartment door. He’d changed out of whatever he’d worn that day into gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt, his hair pulled loosely away from his face.

“Hey, doll.”

“Hi.”

He turned, and his gaze went directly to your hands. On impulse, you tucked them behind your back. Bucky stopped when you hid them, and you smiled sweetly.

“What’re you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Show me.”

“You don’t even know whether I got it.”

His brows lifted. “You hiding your hands because you didn’t?”

“Maybe I want you to appreciate the suspense.”

“I’ve been appreciating the suspense since Tuesday.”

“That sounds difficult.”

“Extremely.”

You stepped around him toward the refrigerator. Bucky moved with you.

You changed direction. So did he.

“James.”

“Show me your hands.”

“You’re being weird.”

“You made it weird when you walked in hiding them.”

“You’re the one who asked me to put your initial on my body.”

“On a nail.”

“Still part of my body.”

He almost smiled. “Show me.”

You let him suffer for another few seconds before finally lifting your right hand.

Bucky took it immediately. His attention moved over the new manicure as he turned your hand gently beneath the light. “Pretty.”

“Thank you.”

“Like the red.”

“I thought you might.”

His eyes flicked toward your other arm, still held behind your back. “Other one.”

“So demanding.”

“Please.”

You laughed softly. “Much better.”

Then you gave him your left hand.

Bucky took it with the same easy confidence. At first, he only looked at the manicure. Then he saw the gold.

His thumb stopped beneath your ring finger.

You watched the realization happen. It wasn’t dramatic. Bucky didn’t freeze completely or demand to know why you’d chosen that particular nail. His attention simply focused until it seemed to narrow around the tiny letter, his thumb sliding slowly upward until it rested against the pad of your finger.

“You picked this one.”

There was something different in his voice.

You pretended not to hear it. “You said one nail.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t specify.”

“No.”

“So I picked.”

Bucky looked up.

You’d expected amusement, maybe a possessive little smile that would tell you he’d understood your joke exactly as intended. Instead, the expression on his face made warmth climb much higher across your chest.

His gaze dropped to the B again. “You picked the left hand.”

“I did.”

His thumb moved slowly over your ring finger. “This finger.”

“You noticed.”

Bucky looked up at you. “Hard not to.”

His flesh hand closed gently around your wrist.

Anyone else might’ve thought the location was random. Bucky couldn’t; he’d been born in a time when that finger carried an implication that had survived nearly a century of everything else changing around it. You’d chosen it because you knew he would understand.

Bucky lifted your hand and pressed his mouth to the ring finger. The kiss lingered.

Your teasing softened before you could stop it. “You like it?”

“Yeah.”

“Worth paying for?”

His eyes remained on yours as he kissed the finger again. “Would’ve paid either way.”

“I know.”

That mattered, and something in Bucky’s expression told you he understood why. The B hadn’t been purchased or traded for anything; he’d asked, and you’d chosen.

His thumb rubbed lightly over the gold letter. “You did this on purpose.”

“Obviously.”

“You’ve been planning to come home and make me crazy.”

“I didn’t know it’d be this easy.”

Bucky’s gaze moved from your hand to your face. “Careful.”

You smiled. “Or what?”

His hand tightened around your wrist just enough to pull you closer.

The kiss he gave you wasn’t anything like the ones he’d pressed to your finger.

Bucky kissed you slowly at first, like he had every intention of proving how patient he could be, but his restraint lasted only until your freshly manicured hand settled against his chest. His mouth opened against yours as your nails scraped lightly over the cotton of his shirt, and the hand around your wrist shifted until he could thread his fingers through yours.

When he pulled back barely an inch, his eyes dropped immediately to your joined hands. Your left hand tangled with his, his initial gleaming from your ring finger.

“Jesus Christ.”

You laughed softly. “Really?”

“You knew.”

“I suspected.”

“That’s worse.”

Bucky kissed you again before you could answer.

Your back met the edge of the kitchen counter, his body settling between your thighs when you leaned against it. His metal hand braced beside your hip while the other stayed wrapped around yours, thumb repeatedly drifting over the nail like he couldn’t quite help himself.

“You gonna stare at it all night?”

“Maybe.”

“I did get nine other nails.”

“Don’t care about those right now.”

“That seems rude. They were expensive.”

“I know. I paid for ‘em.”

You caught his lower lip between your teeth. Bucky made a low sound in his throat.

“Oh, now you’re gonna use that against me?”

“You’re the one who brought up the price.”

“You’re impossible.”

“And you’ve got my initial on your ring finger.”

“You’ve mentioned.”

“Not enough.”

His mouth moved down your throat.

You tipped your head aside, giving him room as his lips found the spot beneath your ear that he already knew made your knees weaker than they had any right to be. Bucky’s hand finally released yours only because he wanted both hands on you, and he slid them beneath your thighs to lift you onto the counter.

Your fingers went immediately into his hair.

He groaned against your neck.

The response made you pause before you deliberately scratched your nails over his scalp.

Bucky’s head lifted. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“You know what.”

“I really don’t.”

His gaze dropped to your hand tangled in his hair.

The gold B caught the kitchen light.

“Oh.” You smiled.

Bucky stared at you for another second before pushing between your knees and kissing you hard enough to wipe the expression from your face.

You wrapped your legs around his hips, pulling him closer until the hard line of his cock pressed through his sweatpants against the inside of your thigh. Bucky’s metal hand settled at your waist while the other slipped beneath your shirt, warm fingers spreading over your skin.

“You’re already hard.”

“Very observant.”

“From my nails?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

You flexed your left hand against his shoulder. Bucky’s eyes narrowed.

“So they have nothing to do with it.”

“Didn’t say that.”

“I could take the B off.”

His flesh hand closed immediately around your wrist.

You laughed. “Thought so.”

“You’re a menace.”

“You love me.”

“Unfortunately.”

His thumb stroked over the letter again. The tenderness of it didn’t match his expression.

Something about that made heat coil low in your stomach.

You slid from the counter before Bucky could stop you, keeping your body close enough to his that you felt the hitch in his breathing when your hands reached his waistband. Predictably, his gaze followed your left hand as you pushed his shirt up just enough to drag your fingertips over the strip of skin above his sweatpants.

Bucky exhaled slowly through his nose. “Doll.”

“Yes?”

“You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“I haven’t even done anything.”

Your fingers hooked into his waistband.

“That statement’s about to become a lie.”

You smiled up at him and pulled his sweatpants down far enough to free him. His cock sprang heavily against his lower abdomen. You’d touched him hundreds of times before, but with his initial gleaming from your ring finger, Bucky watched your hand approach as though he’d never seen it there before.

Your left hand curled around him. Bucky’s breath caught. The dark red polish looked striking against his skin. The gold initial gleamed from your ring fingernail, visible with every movement of your hand. You gave him one slow stroke, then another, and his eyes stayed fixed on your hand.

“You’re staring.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not even pretending anymore.”

“Nope.”

You tightened your grip slightly on the next pass, thumb brushing over the head before smoothing the moisture down his shaft.

Bucky’s hips shifted toward you. His metal fingers curled against the edge of the counter hard enough to make it creak beneath his grip.

“Easy,” you murmured.

His eyes finally lifted to your face.

You smiled.

Then your hand moved again.

Bucky swore.

You kept the pace deliberately slow, enjoying every involuntary response he gave you: the flex of his stomach beneath his shirt, the way his thighs shifted when you twisted your wrist near the head, and the increasingly uneven rhythm of his breathing.

Most of all, you enjoyed the fact that his attention kept returning to your ring finger. “You really would watch my hand all night.”

“You gonna keep doing that all night?”

“Maybe.”

“Then yeah.”

You laughed, tightening your fingers again.

Bucky’s head tipped back.

Your free hand settled against his hip while you stroked him, and for several quiet seconds the only sound in the kitchen was his breathing and the slick slide of your palm.

Then his metal hand covered yours.

You looked down.

The metal fingers wrapped over your knuckles without restricting you, his palm guiding your hand into a firmer stroke. His metal thumb settled against your ring finger just beneath the nail, leaving the little gold B visible above it. Your stomach tightened at the sight, and Bucky noticed.

“Thought you were teasing me.”

“I was.”

“Don’t sound so smug now.”

“You put your initial on my hand and suddenly think you’re in charge?”

Something like satisfaction flickered across his face.

“I didn’t put anything anywhere.” Bucky lowered his head until his mouth brushed your ear. “You wanted it there.”

Your grip faltered, but his hand tightened over yours and maintained the rhythm.

“Left ring finger,” he murmured. “Could’ve picked any of the other nine.”

“You asked for a B.”

“Didn’t ask for that.”

You turned your head enough that your lips almost touched his. “Maybe I wanted people to wonder.”

Bucky went very still as you stroked him once without his help.

“Maybe I wanted only you to know.”

His metal hand left yours, and for half a second, you wondered if you’d pushed too hard at the implication neither of you had quite said aloud.

Then he stepped out of his sweatpants, both hands catching your waist before he picked you up off the floor. You barely had time to laugh before he carried you toward the bedroom.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You started this.”

“You paid for it.”

“Best money I’ve spent all month.”

He put you on the mattress and followed you down before you could argue.

Your shirt disappeared first. His landed somewhere near the foot of the bed. The rest followed with considerably less care, your new manicure momentarily forgotten beneath the much more immediate pleasure of Bucky’s mouth moving across your chest and his hands spreading your thighs apart.

By the time he pushed two fingers inside you, you were already wet enough that the stretch came easily.

Your head fell back against the pillow. “Bucky.”

“Yeah, doll?”

“Stop looking at my hand.”

His mouth curved against your breast.

You lifted your left hand deliberately into his line of sight.

Bucky’s fingers curled inside you.

The sudden pressure dragged a moan from your throat.

“Cheater.”

“You’re the one waving it around.”

“I moved my hand six inches.”

“Six dangerous inches.”

You laughed breathlessly, but the sound broke when his thumb found your clit.

Bucky knew you too well to need much experimentation. His fingers worked inside you with the easy confidence of familiarity, pressing where he knew you needed them while his thumb rubbed slow circles that made your thighs tighten around his wrist.

Your hand caught his shoulder, your nails leaving faint red lines when you dragged them down his skin. Bucky’s breathing hitched beneath your touch.

“You like this too?”

“Everything about these is becoming a problem.”

“You’re very dramatic for someone who fought aliens.”

“Aliens didn’t put my initial on their ring finger.”

“That you know of.”

He stopped moving.

You burst out laughing.

Bucky stared at you with offended disbelief for half a second before his expression shifted into something much more dangerous.

“Funny?”

“Very.”

He curled his fingers. Your laughter disappeared into a broken gasp.

“Still funny?”

“You’re proving my point.”

“What point?”

“Don’t remember.”

“That’s what I thought.”

He bent and kissed you while his hand continued working between your thighs.

The orgasm built quickly after that, pleasure gathering until your teasing became impossible to maintain. Your nails dug into his shoulder as your body tightened around his fingers, and Bucky stayed exactly where you needed him until the tension finally snapped.

You came with his name against his mouth. He kissed you through it, slower now, his fingers easing you down rather than pulling away immediately.

When your breathing steadied, Bucky lifted your left hand from his shoulder.

“You’re checking the polish?”

“Making sure I didn’t ruin it.”

“You’d have to pay for another appointment.”

“Tragic.”

You smiled as he kissed your palm, then your ring finger. “Bucky.”

His eyes met yours. There was something almost unbearably fond beneath all the heat.

You touched his face. “I meant it.”

His brow furrowed slightly.

“The finger,” you clarified. “I picked it because I wanted to.”

Bucky’s expression softened. “I know.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“Know you pretty well.”

“Apparently not well enough to predict which nail I’d choose.”

“I was hoping.”

That caught you. “You were?”

His thumb stroked over the B.

Bucky looked almost sheepish for the first time that evening. “Didn’t wanna ask.”

“Why?”

“Felt like too much.”

You knew he meant the finger rather than the initial itself.

Bucky had encouraged you to wear his jacket, let you steal his shirts, and made room for your things in his apartment until separating your belongings became nearly impossible.

The initial itself could’ve been teasing. Putting it on your left ring finger made it harder to pretend there wasn’t something more beneath it.

You curled your fingers around his. “So you asked for the B and hoped I’d do the rest.”

“Something like that.”

“Coward.”

Bucky laughed softly. “Yeah, maybe.”

You pulled him down for a kiss. This one was gentler than the others had been, but it didn’t stay gentle for long.

Bucky settled between your thighs, and you felt the hard length of him press against you. Your legs opened instinctively around his hips.

He broke the kiss. “You good?”

You nodded and drew him closer.

Bucky pushed inside you slowly. The stretch made your breath catch, your body still sensitive from the orgasm he’d already given you. He paused long enough to let you adjust before moving again, filling you until his hips settled flush against yours.

Your nails pressed into his back.

“Christ.”

“You better not complain about scratches after all this.”

“Not complaining.”

He proved it by rolling his hips, sending your head deeper into the pillow.

Bucky kept the first few thrusts slow, but there was nothing tentative about them. Each one pressed deep enough to make your toes curl against the backs of his thighs, his flesh hand gripping your hip while his metal forearm supported his weight beside your head.

You lifted your left hand and touched his face.

His gaze shifted automatically. You saw the exact moment he noticed the B again.

“Oh, come on.”

Bucky laughed against your mouth. “Can’t help it.”

“You’ve seen it.”

“Not like this.”

“Like what?”

His hips drove forward harder.

Your question dissolved into a moan.

Bucky caught your hand and pushed it into the mattress beside your head, interlacing your fingers while keeping the B visible between them. “Like this.”

Heat rushed through you.

He kissed you before you could find something clever to say, thrusting into you with enough force to make the bed shift beneath you. Your free hand moved over his back, nails dragging down muscle every time he pushed deep.

Bucky’s fingers tightened around yours.

“You gonna keep it?”

“The manicure?”

“The B.”

You smiled despite the way your breathing kept breaking apart. “Until it grows out.”

His mouth brushed your jaw. “Then what?”

“You gonna pay for the next set?”

“Absolutely.”

You laughed.

Bucky thrust harder.

“Then maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“You’re getting demanding again.”

His metal hand slipped between your bodies.

The first pass of his thumb over your clit made your thighs clench around him.

“Bucky.”

“Maybe?”

“You’re bribing me with orgasms now?”

“Working?”

His thumb circled again.

You moaned and tightened around his cock.

Bucky’s forehead dropped against yours. “Fuck.”

You could feel his control slipping in the increasing force of his thrusts, each one driving you closer to the edge while his thumb maintained the rhythm against your clit.

Your left hand remained pinned beneath his, the little gold B still visible between their interlaced fingers. Bucky looked at it once more, and you felt his cock twitch inside you.

“You really like having your name on me.”

“Yeah.”

The answer came without hesitation.

You turned your hand beneath his until your palm pressed against his. “Good.”

Bucky groaned.

His next thrust hit exactly right.

Pleasure tightened through you so quickly that you barely had time to gasp his name before it broke. Your body clenched around him, thighs trembling at his hips while he kept moving through the contractions.

Bucky lasted only a little longer. His face disappeared against your neck, his hand squeezing yours as his rhythm finally broke and he came deep inside you, his hips pressing flush against yours through the last few uneven thrusts.

Afterward, the apartment went quiet.

Bucky stayed over you until your breathing slowed, then eased out of you and shifted onto his side, pulling you against his chest. His metal hand moved lazily along your back while you rested your cheek over his heartbeat.

For several minutes, neither of you said anything. Then his flesh hand slid down your arm until his fingers found your left hand where it rested against his chest. He turned it gently in his palm, and the little gold B immediately caught his attention again.

“You’re obsessed.”

“Little bit.”

“You know these only last a few weeks.”

“I know.”

“They grow out.”

“I know.”

“I’ll have to get them redone.”

His thumb rubbed gently across the tiny gold B. “I know.”

You lifted your head. Bucky’s expression was suspiciously innocent.

“Is this your way of saying you’re paying for all my manicures now?”

“Only the ones with good design choices.”

You smacked his chest. He caught your hand before you could pull it away and kissed the ring finger again.

“You’re impossible,” you muttered.

Bucky settled your hand against his chest, keeping it there beneath his. “Appointment in two weeks?”

You tried to sound annoyed. “Three.”

“Two and a half.”

“Bucky.”

“Fine. Three.”

You rested your head against him again.

His thumb continued moving over your finger.

After a moment, you smiled into his chest. “Maybe next time I’ll skip the initial.”

Bucky went silent.

You started laughing before he could even answer.

“Don’t you dare.”

credit to @uzmacchiato for the cherry divider ❤️💛

War breeds misery.

You used to repeat to yourself like a prayer, or maybe a curse, and it didn’t take long in a soldier camp to know it wasn’t just a phrase. It was the reality you had to live with now. Men left. Men died. You’ve seen it too many times already.

Early in your time here, there had been a young lieutenant, barely twenty-two, with a shattered leg and a hopeful smile. He told you all about the girl waiting for him back in New York while you disinfected his wound, how he was going to marry her the moment he got home. He made you promise to come to the wedding. Three days later he developed sepsis. You held his hand while he slipped away, still murmuring her name.

So after all this, you truly should know better than to find yourself smiling at his advances every time he turns his back (because you would never do it outright in front of him). Instead, you find yourself looking forward to his every visit now, even though you keep telling yourself none of it affected you, that you were still not looking for anything here.

Bucky asks you a lot more questions, now. The flirting is still there, but softer, less performance and more conversation. Have you been getting enough sleep? What books did you read back home? What did you like to do on Sunday mornings? You answer some of them and deflect others, and he accepts both with equal patience, which is somehow more disarming than anything else he could have done.

He tells you small things about himself, too. That he’s from Brooklyn, that he has a best friend named Steve who is, according to him, the most stubborn person alive, which you privately think is rich coming from the man who refused to let anyone but you touch his bullet wound. That he used to go dancing back home. All of it feels like he is courting you in slow motion, giving you space to breathe while refusing to let you forget him.

Then, one Tuesday morning in late July, he doesn’t show up.

You don’t notice immediately, of course, because you’re elbow-deep in work. Morning passes in the usual blur of antiseptic and gauze and the sounds of men in pain, and by the time you come up for air it’s afternoon and the quiet has stretched thin.

You ask Beth, casually, the way you’d ask about the weather. And she tells you Barnes’ unit shipped out before dawn. High-risk, someone said. Behind enemy lines. She doesn’t know more thant that, isn’t supposed to, and she moves on quickly, the way everyone at camp learns to move on quickly.

You move on, too. Or you perform moving on, which you are very practiced at, and it mostly looks the same from the outside. You work, eat your hardtack crackers and your tasteless soup and sleep under cold sheets before getting up and working again. Every day, you are exactly as good a nurse as you have always been, and no one would look at you and see anything wrong. Because nothing is wrong, right?

Nothing except one thing: every time the tent flap of the infirmary opens, your eyes go there first. You don’t mean for them to. It becomes a kind of reflex you resent the moment you recognize it, an involuntary lift of attention every time boots cross the threshold followed by an equally involuntary drop when the face doesn’t belong to him.

It annoys you considerably.

And what catches you off guard is that you’re not annoyed he left without saying goodbye. You’re annoyed that you’re actually waiting for his return, because you’re not the kind of woman who waits. At least, right up until a blue-eyed Sergeant with a Brooklyn accent decided that your hands were the only hands he’d allow near his injuries and started showing up like clockwork.

You decided that a long time ago. The boy back home, really, had done an efficient job at helping you with it. You had been eighteen, he had been nineteen, and he was handsome enough that you’d let yourself be a little stupid about him. Charming mouth, careless hands, and then he left; not to war, not to anything noble, just left because he was nineteen and that was simply what he did. That was when you had sat with the particular humiliation of having been briefly foolish and promised yourself, firmly, that you would not do it again. So far, in life, you had been doing a reasonable job of it.

Apparently, until the seventh day of his disappearance. Because on the eighth, word reaches camp before the men do, in fragments, as bad news always do in places like these, passed between soldiers in low voices and picked up by nurses only because you’ve got ears everywhere.

The mission had gone sideways. Not catastrophically, but there had been contact with the enemy and the unit had taken casualties. You don’t know how many. You don’t know who. You hear it while you’re changing a dressing on a soldier’s forearm, and your hands keep moving, cleand and precise. No questions, just a face that says ‘I am a nurse and this is a field hospital and I’m just doing my job’.

The problem with performing something very convincingly is that it requires a great deal of energy. So by the time you step outside for a moment of air in the late afternoon, you stand with your back against the side of the infirmary tent, face tipped slightly up toward the sky with tears in your eyes, and you think, very clearly, please let him come back.

It’s the first time you phrase it openly, even in your own mind. That his return matters more than you would have told anyone before, even himself. And you were never one to believe much in religion, but you just might after today, because a few hours after your silent request, his unit returns.

You hear the trucks from inside the infirmary, the rumble cutting through the evening camp noise, and you are outside before you have made a conscious decision to be. Professional instinct, you tell yourself, because nurses should be ready to receive the wounded, and the lie lasts in your mind approximately as long as it takes you to scan the first truck and realize it doesn’t carry him. Neither does the second one.

You stand very still in the cooling evening air while soldiers climb down around you, some under their own power, some needing help. Nurses and medics move past you, someone calls your name and you hold up a hand, ‘one moment’, and keep looking.

He drops down from the third truck a minute after, and your breath comes back to you all at once.

First thing you notice is that he’s on his feet, walking. But he’s moving in a careful way that immediately tells you something is wrong, something you’ll have to take care of, and there’s dried blood on his temple, a messy field dressing around his left arm. Mostly, he looks worn down to something quieter than the man who left eight days ago.

You watch his eyes move through the crowd and you know what he’s looking for before his gaze finally lands on you and stops. For a moment, it really does feel like the world has frozen in place, even with the camp churning around you. None of it seems particularly relevant when you see his blue eyes looking at you.

Then he walks toward you, focused like you’re a fixed point he’s been navigating toward for the past eight days And you, a practical woman, a detached woman who decided years ago she would never be foolish about men, close the remaining distance yourself and let him walk straight into your arms.

Bucky is considerably taller than you, and he ducks his head slightly, one arm coming around you and holding on. You feel the full weight of him exhale against you, as if he’s putting down a heavy stone he’s been carrying. Somewhere nearby, you are vaguely aware that people can see this, and worse, they are looking. Beth, who notices everything, is definitely watching from the infirmary entrance.

You pay it no mind. Instead, you pull back just enough to see his face and take a brief clinical look even though nothing clinical is moving through you right now. You see the temple wound, a bruise under his right eye, the injured arm.

“Let’s get you inside,” you say quietly.

The infirmary is frantic when you two walk in, serious cases being moved to the surgical area, the other remaining soldiers with less serious injuries being dispersed across different stretchers and beds. You find a quiet corner and pull the curtain across before sitting Bucky down on a small bed, taking a deep breath before letting the nurse part of you come forward, because that part of you is steady and is the one he truly needs right now.

You start with the temple, clean the dried blood away with a soft cloth and assess the cut. Shallow, no stitching needed, just cleaned. Bucky sits without moving, his usual warmth gone. Present in body but mind somewhere else entirely.

“Let me see your arm,” you say, and he offers it to you without a word.

Gentle fingers unwrap the field dressing carefully. The laceration underneath is deep and has been packed choppily with whatever was available. This one will need stitches. You gather what you need without speaking and notice him watching your hands move without saying anything.

You sit down in front of him, disinfect the wound with your usual carefulness before starting on the stitches. “Are you okay?” Your voice comes out soft, and you’re sure he knows you don’t mean physically because that part of him you can access clearly.

Bucky remains quiet for a moment. “Lost four men. Carver, Spencer, Brown, Higgins.” His voice is flat when he says the names, the way he’d announce them to a secretary filling out an official report, devoid of emotion. You notice it’s not a direct answer to your question.

“I’m sorry,” you say. The words feel small, but they always do here.

“Higgins had a kid,” he continues, staring into the distance. “Eight months old. Never met him, he was born a few weeks after he was sent here. His wife sent him a photograph a while back. Had it in his hand when he—”

Your hands slow for just a moment, an almost imperceptible pause, and then you continue. There is nothing you can say to that. It’s one of the many things you’ve learned in this camp: that sometimes there is nothing to say and the worst thing you can do is try anyway. So you let him sit in the silence.

The stitches take time, which is good, because it gives you both something to be occupied by. When you’ve finished and are wrapping the arm in clean gauze, Bucky finally shifts his gaze from the middle distance back to you, finally returning from somewhere far away.

“I thought about you out there,” he murmurs, stripped of his usual charm and leaving behind only quiet honesty. “Thought about coming back to this tent and you being in it.”

Your heart does something inconvenient in your chest. “Dangerous thing to think about in the middle of a mission.

“Probably. Didn’t stop me.”

You finish wrapping his arm and fasten the bandage, and then sit for a moment with your hands in your lap, not quite ready to stand up and end this. Next to you, a lamp flickers slightly. When you look up, Bucky’s watching you with a peculiar expression, and then one of his hands is coming up slowly, fingers brushing your face. He gives you time to move away, and yet, you don’t.

Which makes the after worse. Because his fingertips move along your jaw, and his eyes drop to your mouth for just a moment before he’s leaning in. The answer that has been living in your chest, the one you’ve been carrying like contraband, almost makes it out. And then you pull back, enough that his hand is no longer pressed against your skin.

“Please, don’t.” Your voice is very quiet and his hand stills, hovering in the air.

“… Right.” He says, and something moves behind his eyes, a door being shut.

“Look, Bucky…”

“No, I heard you.” He reaches down for his shirt at the end of the bed, pulls it on without asking for help, all too careful and one-armed, without looking at you. Then he gets up, lets out a heavy sigh. “I just don’t understand what you want from me.”

Your eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“See, that’s not true.” Bucky’s eyes find yours again, and this time, they’re not particularly soft, but they’re still not unkind. Genuinely, he just looks tired. “You came outside when the trucks came back. Walked into my arms in front of everyone in this camp. You say you don’t want anything, then come after me when I stop giving you attention. I’m not a dog you can kick down and still expect him to chase after you every time.”

Those words land squarely between your ribs, mostly because he’s not entirely wrong.

“I know I haven’t been fair to you.”

“No, you haven’t.” He agrees. “I think you like having me around for the wrong reasons. Gives you something to look forward to. Someone who thinks you’re pretty and shows up on cue. Very convenient, as long as he doesn’t ask for anything real back.”

You open your mouth, close it. There is a first time for everything, you suppose, even for Sergeant Barnes to be everything but the charming gentleman he has ever been around you.

“That’s not—” you start.

“I’m not your entertainment, Nurse,” Bucky says, final, like he’s reciting something he’s been holding for a while. “And I’m not going to keep making a fool of myself over a woman who’s already decided nothing I do will ever be enough to change her mind.” Finally, he picks up the bottle of painkillers you had set on a table by the bed and slides it into his pocket without looking at you. “Thank you for the stitches.”

Bucky pulls the curtain back and walks out without looking back.

You, on the other hand, remain very still, sitting in the quiet corner of the infirmary for a long moment, reflecting on it. You have been holding a door open just enough to let the warmth through while telling yourself you were keeping it closed. Enjoying the particular comfort of being looked at the way Bucky Barnes looks at you while insisting, to him and to yourself, that you are above it.

He came back from behind enemy lines with four men dead and the first thing his eyes did was look for you in a crowd. And you opened your arms out to him, only to reject him right after.

A few nurses are already in their cots, halfway asleep, by the time you come into the sleeping tent. The ones who aren’t are moving through their nighttime routines in silence. You sit on the edge of your cot, begin unpinning your hair with methodical patience. Maybe concentrating on a small, meaningless task to avoid thinking about something larger and considerably more important.

Beth comes in a few minutes after you. Says a soft goodnight to a few other still awake nurses, and then settles onto her own cot which is close enough to yours to be able to strike up a conversation without waking anyone already asleep. She begins untying her shoelaces, and you’re already lying on your back, changed into your nightgown and with your hair down, by the time she decides to say something.

“Everyone could tell he was looking for you when the unit came back today,” she says, conversationally, like commenting on the weather. There’s no clarification on who he is, but you don’t need one. You decide to say nothing, choosing instead to stare at the ceiling of the tent. The canva is remarkably interesting tonight.

“I also saw you go outside as soon as the trucks came in.” A brief pause. “Very dedicated to receiving the wounded.”

“Beth.” Her name comes out like more of sigh than anything else.

“I’m just noting the facts.”

“Please note them quietly.”

There’s a small sound that might be a suppressed chuckle. A moment passes, two, before she figures pushing the conversation is something she wants to do.

“Barnes is not a bad man,” she says, and you hear the shuffle of clothing as she gets out of her nurse uniform and dresses into her nightclothes. “We all know he can be a lot. But he’s not a bad man.”

“I know he’s not.” You do. Whether he’s a good or bad man has never been the issue.

“Then what is problem?”

It’s late and you’re tired, still carrying the hollow feeling in your chest since Bucky walked out the infirmary. Which means you could have not answered, but do anyway.

“Men leave. Or they die. And the women who cared for them are left holding it. I’ve seen it happen too many times to think I’m somehow exempt from it,” you answer.

Beth is quiet for a moment, and you hear more rustling as she settles in her cot and under the flimsy sheets. “That’s true,” she eventually says, and you appreciate that for once she doesn’t argue with it or offer some counterpoint.

“So. There it is.”

Another pause.

“Can I say something?” Beth asks.

“Can I stop you?”

“Probably not.” She turns her head to look at you, and funnily enough, you decide to stop staring at the ceiling and turn to look at her, too. “You’re already holding it. Whatever you’re trying to protect yourself from. Listen, I’m not trying to pry on purpose, but sweetheart, everyone saw the way you were dancing together that other night. Lord knows every other nurse here has had their moments with a soldier, but that was not the same. You looked…” A pause as if she is trying to find words that won’t set you off. “You looked like you weren’t dancing here, in a war camp. Just a couple back home enjoying a night together.”

As apparently has become common occurrence for you, you hear words that are too true and that you can’t run from. Precise and unwelcome. Observations of someone who has been quietly watching.

You just close your eyes and don’t say anything else. Just lie awake for a long time, hearing Beth’s breathing eventually slow down and steady. Feeling the hard mattress and the cold sheets over your body. But the night eventually passes anyway.

The days, too, pass. Three, precisely, before Bucky comes back in to the infirmary. Which are days too many when you take into consideration how he’d come in daily, previously, over small wounds.

You’re on your afternoon break, sitting outside on the low wooden crate you have claimed as your particular spot on the shaded side of the infirmary with a cup of weak tea when Beth comes to find you. Already wearing that expression she always makes when she has information she has decided you need, regardless of whether you’ve asked for it or not.

“Barnes is inside,” she says, matter-of-factly. “And he didn’t ask for you.”

You look at her over the rim of your cup. What would happen if you just pretended to be sick for the rest of the day and headed back to the sleeping tent? Would the world tilt on its axis? You consider it. You briefly consider becoming a fugitive and running from camp if it means not having to deal with whatever this is.

“Edna’s with him. Just thought you should know.”

You appreciate that she’s generous in the way she says it, passing no judgment. But none of it matters when you’re already setting down your cup and walking back toward the tent with very little professional sense. Another day, you’d pretend that’s all this was. Clinical legitimacy: you knew his wounds, you treated him before, you should be the one seeing it through.

But today you don’t.

You find the curtain he’s behind and pull it back, and Nurse Edna looks up from where she’s unwrapping his arm. Bucky looks up too, but his face doesn’t change, and you hate that more than anything else.

“I’ve got this one,” you say to Edna, who reads the room with admirable speed and exits without comment.

Beginning where Edna left off, you unwrap the rest of the bandage with usual efficiency while Bucky says nothing, but you’re a little on edge, fingers trembling where usually they would be still as stones. Eyes access the wound and find it clean, with the stitches holding well. That’s good. One good thing in this mess. One good thing that absolutely does not stop you from rubbing salt, figuratively speaking, on the other open wound.

“You didn’t ask for me,” you say, turning casually to throw the old bandage in a nearby trash bin.

“Didn’t think you’d want to see me after the other night,” he tells you, and he doesn’t seem angry about the fact, just conformed to it. “Wouldn’t be fair to put you in that position.”

“That was considerate of you,” you say, and you do mean it, even though it comes out slightly more clipped than you intended.

Bucky makes a sound that isn’t quite agreement. He feels you on edge, but makes no attempt to pretend it isn’t deserved. Only when you reach for clean gauze and begin rewrapping his arm does he break the silence again.

“I’m sorry. For what I said the other night.” A slow exhale. “I didn’t mean it. I was tired, and angry. I lost four men and I—” You watch him bite on the inside of his cheek like he’s rummaging through his own words. “I want you to know I wasn’t angry at you. I’m still not.”

You finish wrapping his arm, smooth the edge of the bandage flat with your thumb with your usual carefulness. “Don’t apologize.”

He blinks. “Well, I—”

“You were right. I haven’t been fair to you. I told you I didn’t want anything and then behaved in ways that contradicted that, and you have every right to be—” Angry. He has the right to be angry at you, you just don’t want him to be. “I’m not saying this to be self-flagellating. I’m saying it because you deserve to hear it acknowledged.”

Bucky doesn’t immediately react, but when he does, his expression shifts slowly, similar to ice thawing at the edges. The first thing you notice is the corners of his lips moving up.

“Oh, self-flagellating,” he parrots the word in something you think is an attempt at mimicking your voice.

You look at him slightly dumbfounded. “What?”

“Nothing. Just… that’s a big word.” His mouth is doing more now, curving toward something that is almost a grin. You, on the other hand, are making turns in your brain trying to catch up with the sudden change in mood.

“It’s a perfectly ordinary word.”

He scoffs briefly, but you find no ill intention behind the way he does it. It’s more similar to the way little boys will playfully tease the girls they fancy back in school, too afraid to show affection any other way. “Sure it is. For someone who went to the kind of school where they teach you words like that.”

“… I don’t follow. You know what self-flagellating means. It’s not a big word.” Petulant, almost, the way you say it as if taking offense when he’s halfway right.

“I know because I went to Sunday church with my Ma. You know it because you went to a fancy school. One of those with a pressed and very expensive uniform.” He pretends to give it some thought, head tilting and considering you with genuine contemplative enjoyment, like this is a problem he is delighted to think about. “Did you have a hat? I’m picturing a hat. One of those little ones with the ribbon.”

Something a little cold settles in your chest, too quick for you to catch up on, reminding you of the distance between where you come from and where he does. It settles right there, like water soaked up by a sponge.

“You’re making fun of me.” You turn back to the instruments tray, tidying things that don’t need tidying, just to keep your hands busy and your eyes anywhere else. “I know how it looks. My clothes, my vocabulary, but I’m not… I’m not trying to be above anyone. I never was.”

Like a switch being turned on, his expression changes in a second. “Wait, no, no. That’s not what I was doing.” Whatever instrument is in your hand right now, you set it down with way more force than necessary. “Can you stop and look at me?”

You don’t immediately, so one of his hands finds your arm, way too gentle, a touch that has no second intentions behind it, only meaning to get your attention. And it works, because you finally look back at him. He’s still smiling, but there’s no teasing left in his face, you don’t think. “I’m sorry. I’m just a fella from Brooklyn, okay? My Ma scrubs other people’s floors, and I grew up knowin’ boys like me don’t end up with girls like you. I think I try to be funny so I can hide how amazed I am by you. Smartest person in this camp. Prettiest, too.”

The strange thing about Bucky Barnes, the one you cannot figure out for the life of you, is that his compliments land like no others have before, not from the rich guys who ever tried a hand at talking to you. Rich vocabulary or not, it seems that it did not matter, because he disarmed you with that easy charm.

“And yet, you keep on trying, even though you think boys like you don't end up with girls like me.”

He just gives you a sheepish smile. “I like you. What other option do I have but to try?”

That truth simply stands there while you look at him, and he looks at you, neither of you saying anything for a moment. Afternoon light comes through the canvas, paints his skin a warm tone that matches his blue eyes all too perfectly, and makes you wonder for half a beat what it would be like to see the sunset with him by the pier back home, his hand in yours, maybe eating ice cream if the day was still too warm.

It’s you who looks away first, just as you always do, finding the instrument tray particularly interesting once more, even though every single instrument on there has been moved and rearranged enough times in this conversation. You’re vaguely aware of how Bucky shuffles a little, tries to chase your gaze and then you’re extremely aware that his eyes really are the problem. Too blue, too good at making you lose the careful composure you always prided yourself in being able to keep in difficult times. If you are being honest with yourself, which you try to be, even if in small increments, you’ve memorized the exact shade of them.

Bucky tips his head slightly, attempting to find whatever fascinating thing you seem to be looking at on that tray, and there is, of course, nothing there. He knows it, and you know he knows it, and still you move a pair of scissors that were already perfectly placed. A slow exhale leaves his lips and he shifts on the small bed.

“Can I say something without you thinking that I’m trying to push you again?”

Your hands slow, just slightly. “You can tell me things, Bucky.”

He nods once, then rolls his shoulders like he’s trying to steel himself before continuing.

“I want to kiss you.” And that’s enough to make you stop and look at him again, because you can’t help it. His eyes are right there, looking straight into yours the moment you turn your head. “I'm not… I'm not asking. I know where you stand, and I meant what I said before about not wanting to make you uncomfortable. I just—” A short pause. “I think you deserve to know that it's not something that's going anywhere. That I wake up in the morning and that's still true, and I go to sleep at night and that's still true, and it was true behind enemy lines and I imagine it'll be true tomorrow.”

Silence would be a good idea right about now. To not say anything that might be interpreted the wrong way. Silence would avoid a broken heart. Maybe two.

Instead, you do something considerably worse.

“Bucky,” you whisper his name, trembling hands reaching slowly next to him to grab his shirt and begin slowly pulling it up his arms. He lets you, which doesn’t help anything that you’re feeling right now.

“I pestered you to stop calling me Sergeant Barnes, but you saying my name like that doesn’t help with my wishes to kiss you stupid.”

Your bottom lip gets caught between your teeth, face scrunching slightly in concentration as if dressing a soldier, a thing you’ve done thousands of times, is something that requires all your attention. Just when you move his shirt over his shoulder, your hands move down to begin buttoning it and then stop, hovering, as you blink at his chest.

“Can I say something, too?” You ask.

Bucky moves very carefully, like he’s trying to pet a wounded dog and hoping it won’t run away, and settles his hands over yours, wrapping them softly around your wrists. “Tell me.”

If you closed your eyes right now, you believe without a doubt that you could still describe his eyes perfectly to someone, the way he’s looking at you with so much patience.

“I want you to kiss me.”

Bucky doesn’t move immediately, just looks at you like he’s trying to make sure he heard you correctly. Takes a short breath, then exhales again.

“… You sure?” You just nod once.

Disbelief begins to clear from his face, and instead careful hope begins to bloom. One of his hand moves from your wrists, slow enough to give you time to react, before it comes up to your face. Just his palm, warm against your cheek, thumb brushing over the skin before it rests against your bottom lip and gently pries it away from the confines of your teeth where it had landed again while you waited for him.

He leans in slowly, forehead touching yours before your lips connect, and you stay very still, not exactly terrified, but there is fear, nonetheless, settling in your bones. The other hand, wrapped around your wrist, pulls it close to his chest, and you unconsciously move both hands to rest against his chest, fingertips feeling the soft hair there, the hard muscle built the hard way.

You’ve kissed men before. Well, you’ve kissed a man before, and a boy when you were a kid, but that doesn’t count. So you’ve kissed a man before. You know what being kissed feels like. Which is why you’re surprised that your heart almost gives out the moment his mouth finally presses against yours.

Soft, soft like expensive silk, the kind you would touch when picking out a new dress that your father would pay for. The kind of kiss that has been waiting a long time to happen, and doesn’t rush now that it is, lips learning the shape of their new favorite place to be. You feel it moving through from the point of contact outward, all the way to your fingertips, which are still pressing against his chest and which curl slightly inward without you entirely meaning to. Bucky feels it, feeds off of it, and his hand on your cheek coaxes you closer, body leaning toward yours. A soft brush of tongue sends a jolt down your spine, and you think you actually whine, although very, very quietly, only to feel him smiling into the kiss right after.

When he pulls back, he does it slowly, leaning back only an inch and kissing your upper lip before letting go completely, but still keeping his hand on your cheek, the other on your wrist. You open your eyes to find him staring at you, smiling like a fool, bright and wide, and that smile is felt in your chest, making something bloom deep down.

Despite everything, the war, the camp, the men he lost, the lieutenant who died holding your hand and whispering his soulmate’s name, the walls you have very carefully maintained over the course of the last months… you smile back.

“Am I pushing my luck by saying I can imagine myself doing that every day for the rest of my life?”

War breeds misery. Men leave. You know all of this, have always known it. Yet he says something like that, so unbearably sweet, and you forget why you ever tried to keep him at arm’s length. So you chuckle, and Bucky’s smile widens at the sound of it.

“You are pushing it a little,” you say. “But that’s okay. You have me in a good mood and I will let it go.”

He leans in again, and you expect him to kiss you again, but instead his lips press a soft kiss to the tip of your nose, then another one to the side, on your cheek, then another one to the corner of your mouth. “Y’have any idea what it’s like to be embarrassingly gone for someone who looks at you like you’re a minor inconvenience?”

“In my defense, you do act like a minor inconvenience very frequently.”

His smile turns a little wicked at that. “And still. Here you are, asking me to kiss you.”

And still, here you are. Hands on his chest, feeling his pulse under your touch, fear still there, familiar in your bones, but starting to make way for the beginning of an entirely new feeling.

Finally, you stand, move your hands which are no longer shaking to help button his shirt before finally putting some space between the two of you.

“Don’t stay away three days again. The stitches need monitoring.”

Professional, as if you hadn’t just asked him to take your breath away, and he hadn’t complied. The corner of his mouth lifts. “Yes, nurse.”

When Bucky leaves the tent, touching your arm softly before departing, you find yourself thinking that Beth is going to be absolutely insufferable about this, and that this war that takes everything and gives back so little might just be willing to give you something, this time.

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A few other nurses are finishing getting ready around you. There's no real privacy at camp, not really; you all sleep together in a tent, while the soldiers sleep in another. The other nurses are your family and they see your body and your soul every day. Firm fingers smooth over the edges of your dress. Blue, falling slightly below the knee, hugging your waist and with slightly pointy shoulders. The cut is expertly made and it's very obvious, especially to other nurses, who are familiar with fashion, that you come from money.

You’re not trying to impress or flaunt. Wearing this made you feel pretty, and you liked to feel pretty. Maybe you even expected a certain Sergeant to pay you a compliment or two.

Finally, you walk out of your tent, standing straight and looking shy, your movements careful. A group of nurses is already making conversation with a few soldiers around the campfire, and they seem to be joyful, laughing, telling some stupid jokes that would make the rounds back home. You approach cautiously, not because you’re particularly interested in making conversation, but because it would look worse to stand in a corner all alone.

“Nurse! So kind of you to join us lowly soldiers today! I never see you in our hangouts,” one of the soldiers says with a warm smile. He’s laughing but not mocking - just trying to make light conversation.

“We lost a lot of good men these weeks, soldier. I thought the ones alive deserved to be celebrated,” you answer. That seems to get his attention in a good way.

“Of course. We appreciate your presence, as always.” The man smiles, and another one of the soldiers approach. You recognize him as Corporal Johnson, the man you almost treated in the infirmary yesterday, before Sergeant Barnes barged in asking for your hands only.

“We do, indeed. You and the nurses who work here do the Lord's work,” Corporal Johnson says, with a kind smile, and gives you a once-over. “You look great in that dress, by the way.”

The compliment isn’t unexpected, but you blush anyway. Not because you particularly enjoy it, but because you’re not used to compliments. You didn’t date before the war. There was a guy, once —a boy, really, not a man— and you dated long enough for you to realize you never wanted anyone like him in your life ever again. After that, there was no one else. You didn’t look. Didn’t make yourself approachable.

“Thank you, Corporal,” you answer, still kind, despite the discomfort. Around you, there’s no sight of Bucky yet. You try to pretend that that doesn’t affect you. That it doesn’t slightly burn in your gut to not see him here, after he asked you to be here. Did he... forget? Did he decide not to come, instead?

Corporal Johnson’s voice cuts through the silence that had settled.

“It’s a beautiful night out. No clouds, so you can see every single star in the sky,” he comments, looking out towards the sky, watching the full moon. “Are you looking for someone, by chance, ma'am?”

You are. But there is absolutely no chance you are about to admit that you’re only here tonight because Sergeant Barnes invited you. You are barely able to admit it to yourself, let alone anyone else in camp.

“Are you not going to invite the nurses to dance?”, you ask, as if trying to swerve the conversation into another direction. The solder chuckles and puts a hand on your shoulder.

“Don't worry, darlin'. When we're done a couple of shots we'll start to dance, and all the girls will be asked to the makeshift dance floor. You'll have fun.”

There’s a quiet discomfort when Corporal Johnson places his hand on your shoulder. He’s not trying to be disrespectful, you know that, but you are so far from being interested in whatever he’s trying to get out of you that it’s almost laughable. You really don’t do well in these situations. The man smiles kindly, unaware of your discomfort, and continues.

“What kind of music do you like to dance to?” He asks, making conversation. “I'd love to dance with you when the time comes.”

“Thank you, Corporal.” You answer the man, but the smile is gone from your lips. You remain kind, but you're really not interested. “I'm sure you wouldn't like that, I have two left feet.” A lie to try and get you out of this, but he doesn’t seem to believe it very much.

“Maybe you could give me an opportunity to find out, huh?” The man grins, and he rubs his hand on your shoulder again, this time the contact lasting a little longer. Then you hear it. Him. His voice, a little boyish, but not sweet like he usually talks to you. No, he sounds a little rougher, exactly as you would expect to hear him speak to another soldier.

“Johnson, I don’t think she wants to dance with you. Maybe find another nurse to pester?” Sergeant Barnes says, approaching slowly from behind you. You don’t really look at him when he stands to your side, instead you pretend to look around you, anywhere but at him. Corporal Johnson looks like he’s about to say something else, but he takes one look at you and seems to finally understand you’re not interested, so he moves along quickly.

Bucky steps in front of you, replacing the spot where Johnson had stood just seconds ago, and he’s smiling, wide and pretty, giving you his best look as he holds his hands behind his back. Your name rolls of his lips slow and steady, and it almost doesn’t sound like he’s calling you; it just sounds like he’s saying it because it’s his favorite word. Your cheeks turn a soft pink shade, but it’s nighttime and likely not very noticeable.

“Sit with me,” Bucky asks, pointing towards two chairs by the bonfire. He sits first, resting his arms on the sides of the chair, and you follow suit after a second. Still, you don’t really look at him. Just stare at the fire, blinking slowly. Like you’re suddenly unaware of how to make conversation outside the infirmary.

You bite your lip and hold it between your teeth for a minute, trying to pick a topic to start a conversation, choosing careful words that could be seen as nonchalant. Trying not to give him the wrong idea.

“It's a pretty night,” you say. God. Somehow that was the stupidest thing you could have said, but nothing else would come out.

Bucky doesn't want to laugh, but a small chuckle escapes his lips. He looks at you and you're biting your lip, and he can tell that you're a little nervous. You don’t know that he is, too. He wants to say something dumb, cheesy, like it's even prettier now that you're here, but he doesn't, instead nodding at your words.

“That it is,” is all he ends up saying. And now Bucky Barnes is the one feeling like an idiot. Why won’t he say anything else when he was the one who asked you to come?

A phonograph strategically placed outside starts playing a soft song, something happy and sweet, nice enough to dance to. It’s a silent invitation for everyone to gather round and start having fun. A couple of soldiers already have their hands on nurses, pulling them to their feet as they start dancing together. Neither you or Bucky move.

“I like this song,” you say, quietly. Are those words an invitation, too? You would never ask Bucky to dance. You’re a girl, after all, isn’t that his job? But you’re not against dropping a hint here and there.

Bucky’s heart thumps with anticipation, and he looks at you with almost an innocent, confused expression. The usual confidence in him is faltering just a little.

“Yeah?” He asks, his words almost a whisper.

“It's a good song to dance to,” you reply.

Bucky's starting to get the hint, but he's scared he's misinterpreting things. You look so damn pretty next to the fire, and he wants to be close to you now, so very badly—

Bucky finally dares to speak, his voice soft and nervous. “Do you wanna dance?”

You don’t really ponder for an answer. You nod and mouth a soft yes, and the next instant Bucky is offering you his hand, getting up from his chair and giving you a small bow. The moment your hand rests on top of his, you think you can feel it. The spark. You’ve touched him before. A thousand times, every time he came to the infirmary to get himself patched up. But not like this - this is something else, it’s a little intimate, hands joined, feet walking side by side as he moves with you towards the center where everyone else is already dancing. One hand stays clasped to yours and the other rests on the small of your back, low enough to show you’re not just any girl but high enough to keep it respectful. Bucky knows the boundaries of a girl like you. Pretty, soft, intelligent, with money. Even if most of that doesn’t matter in a war.

“You look beautiful tonight,” he finally says as he starts swinging with you to the sound of the song playing. You’re not surprised to find Bucky is actually a very decent dancer. You can imagine he’d make a show of taking girls dancing back home. “You always do. But even more tonight. Did you dress up like that just for me?”

There’s no denying it; it’s a little annoying how fast he goes from a soft gentleman, almost a little vulnerable, to a flirting tease. And by annoying, you mean you hate how much you like it that he shows both sides of him so easily to you when you barely know each other. When all you know about him is the exact placement of every scar and mark on his body because you’ve seen him undressed too many times to count.

“Don’t push it, Sergeant Barnes,” you answer, trying to downplay his words, but it’s probably way too obvious at this point that you did dress up for him. Because he asked you to come, and you did, and now you’re here, in your pretty dress and red lipstick. His blue eyes catch yours for a moment, the soft night breeze not nearly cold enough to soothe the sudden warmth that spreads over your body when he looks at you like that.

“I really wish you’d stop calling me that,” he huffs, and his voice does sound momentarily disappointed. There’s a reason why you mostly avoid calling him by his nickname, despite his insistence; because a nickname would mean proximity. Closeness. Calling him Bucky would let the door with a slight open crack where intimacy could seep through. Would invite him to come closer, press deeper.

“It’s your rank. I’m just being respectful,” you murmur and you can swear you feel his hand tightening around yours, eyes flickering with something you don’t immediately identify.

“I think I’d like you to disrespect me a little,” he answers and you almost choke on air, the way he says that so casually almost throwing you off balance as you sway in his arms. “You said it yourself yesterday—you’re not a soldier. You don’t answer to my rank. That means you don’t have to call me it, either.”

He’s right, and you know it. You stew on those words for a moment, looking to his side and ahead of you to avoid his gaze.

“Will you stop being a pain if I start calling you Bucky?” You ask, unimpressed. Even though you’re not looking at him, you can see him smiling from the corner of your eye.

“No. I'll be even more unbearable, thinking you're finally giving me a crumble of attention.” At least he admits that. Then there's a moment of silence, and you feel Bucky's body stiffening even as he dances with you and keeps a steady rhythm. Like he's standing on words he can't afford to say, but wants to say them nonetheless. And he says them. “Can't stop thinking about you. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

The words make you blush, even though there's an attempt at denying any affect they have on you. He's always been smooth with his flirting, but this feels so intimate, even as you dance together in the middle of soldiers and nurses. Like the world has stopped spinning for a bit.

“I want to steal the most breathtaking kiss of your life so you can’t stop thinking about me either,” he continues, like he's incapable of stopping now that he's let the floodgates open.

And you’re only a woman. As much as you can pretend to not be affected by him, by the words he says, the way he looks at you, you feel the intensity of that sentence in every molecule of your body. Your heart is hammering in your chest, beating so loudly maybe everyone in this camp could hear it if they were silent long enough.

“Bucky…” you start, and already is face is lighting up, warming up to the way you say his name. He thinks it sounds good on your lips, the way you say it, a little scolding, but careful, with a certain warmth behind it. You don’t say his name like you say other soldiers’. He notices it before you do. “You’re sweet and I appreciate your compliments, but you shouldn’t be saying those things.”

Bucky swirls you around to the rhythm of the song before pulling you back into his embrace and somehow, you feel like you’re even closer than you were before, like he’s holding you tighter against his body. You can feel the hardness of his chest through his uniform and your eyes are momentarily locked on his when he lets go of your hand and instead hooks his fingers under your chin, gentle, making you look at him.

“You think I’m sweet?” Bucky says, a clear teasing tone in his voice. “Do you not want me to say those things because they make you uncomfortable or because you like hearing them?”

You blink at him, slow, a little dumbfounded, because he’s catching you off guard with that question. The answer should be easy. It makes you uncomfortable to have him always trying to flirt with you in the infirmary, and now here, in front of everyone else. You want him to stop. But the truth runs deeper in your veins, threatening to come to light every second now. The way you’ve memorized every detail of his face and sometimes you see it when you close your eyes at night.

“Don’t do that,” you ask, and this time, you’re the one who sounds slightly vulnerable, like you’re touching an open wound. “Whatever you want from me, Bucky, I’m not looking for it in this camp.”

Bucky loses some of his confidence when those words reach him, but his expression remains mostly unfaltered. He can take hits to his ego, he just wishes he didn’t have to. Every night, he’s been dreaming of you, the only good thing in this God forsaken place. But he doesn’t dare admit that, not to you, or anyone else.

“I was hoping you’d change your mind for a handsome Sergeant,” he says after a second too long, and it’s enough for you to notice that your words hit like a blow. His hand moves from your chin and back to intertwine with yours, dancing with you like this conversation didn’t mean anything, like you were just a soldier and a nurse dancing the night away until either of you got too bored or too tired.

For the next week, there’s a slight shift between you and Bucky.

He’s come in to the infirmary once every day to get his wound cleaned and checked by you. As usual, he doesn’t let other nurses touch him, only ever asks for you, but when you tend to him, he doesn’t say much. A quiet hello, a few soft words and then he’s gone, disappearing into the crowd of soldiers. And you feel stupid, because you miss the bantering. The flirting. The way his eyes looked at you with soft promises and stolen glances when he thought you weren’t looking. He’s distant, now, like he’s trying to respect the space you seem to want.

You said you weren’t looking for anything. You weren’t. But you seemed to have found it, and now that it’s lost, you feel a little empty.

Today, you’re taking a small break to eat a hardtack cracker outside the infirmary when you see him. Sitting by a tree, a bit removed from the tents in camp, fiddling with a sniper riffle, putting it apart and back together and seemingly cleaning its parts. You think about approaching, then you think about leaving him be, and your feet are glued to the floor for half a minute while you try to decide what would be the best course of action.

You decide on the first. Slow, you walk over to him, and he hears your footsteps before you speak, but doesn’t say a word.

“Mind if I sit?” you ask, sweet. Bucky points at the empty place next to him with the sniper.

“Go ahead.”

You do. Sit next to him, back against the large tree that offers shade to both of you, legs raised and pressed to your chest as you rest your head on top of your knees. You give him a look as he continues cleaning his weapon, barely giving you any attention.

“Are you okay?” you ask, after a minute of just watching him. He shrugs.

“The wound is almost healed, so yeah.”

“I didn’t mean the gunshot wound. I meant…” A pause. How do you tell him ‘I miss your flirting’ after you made it clear you didn’t want him to do that? You’ll look stupid, or worse, childish. Just a rich girl who doesn’t know how to deal with being rejected. “You’ve been a little off, is all.”

That seems to get his attention. He looks up from his weapon, and his eyes meet yours. Bucky looks tired, more tired than usual, but there’s a softness to his blue eyes still. And despite it all, he smiles at you. Not the usual flirting type, the teasing, just a smile.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” he answers, but it sounds so fragile in his usual confident frame that it sounds like a lie.

“I worry about all my soldiers. It’s my job as a nurse,” you say with a soft smile. But then something flickers in your eyes. “Especially my favorite patient.”

He actually chuckles at that. “Thought you couldn’t have favorites.”

“I can make an exception.”

His eyes are on yours, and you feel like you might drown in that blue for a moment, because he’s just staring, like he’s trying to find the answer to a question he hasn’t asked you yet. He blinks once, and his eyes seem to dart to your lips for just a moment before he’s looking back up to your eyes.

“You pushed me away when we danced,” he says, matter-of-fact. You did. Not physically, no, because you both danced until there was no more music to dance to, but he’d tried to be clear about his intentions and all you had to say was you weren’t interested.

“Nothing’s changed.” And that’s a lie, because everything did. “I’m still not looking for anything here.”

“You know—”, Bucky starts like he’s about to discard whatever you’ve just said. “If you want me to go back to courting you, all you have to do is ask. I’ve stepped back because, contrary to what you might think about me, I actually care and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Those words make your heart flutter, and your mouth almost hangs open before you catch yourself and press your lips into a thin line. You feel your cheeks heating up, hands a little shaky as you hold a sad piece of cracker in one of them. You’re not even hungry anymore.

“Is that what you were doing? Courting me?” Bucky’s raising an eyebrow at you as soon as the question slips past your lips.

“Did it not look like I was courting you?”

“Can’t say I’ve had many men doing that. It’s a little hard for me to tell,” you admit, a little too quickly. Maybe that’s a piece of information Bucky didn’t need, maybe you didn’t have to tell him right away that you’re pretty inexperienced when it comes to men and their antics, but he doesn’t seem taken aback.

“Well, darlin’,” The pet name slips past his lips easy, and it does something to you. Why do you want to hear him call you that again? “I don’t mind being the one to show you how a man really impresses a woman. Even in times of war.”

And that’s a promise coming out of Bucky Barnes’ mouth.

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You had been a nurse back home. Lived to see too many people die on your hands, many of them from stupid, small things. When the war comes, you tell your family goodbye and you’re sent off to England. Things are worse, there. Your knowledge doesn’t feel enough. Every week, more people die than you could have ever saved in a lifetime working at the local hospital.

Today, however, there has yet to be death on your hands. You're tending to a wounded soldier who's not going to die from his injury. Some shrapnel lodged in his arm, but by the time you finish disinfecting it, he'll be good to go and fight some more. Probably die another day, from another injury. Maybe in your hands, maybe in another nurse’s.

You’re chatting casually with the soldier while you clean his wound when you recognize a very familiar, particularly loud voice in the tent.

“No one's gonna have a look at it unless it's her,” the voice hisses through clenched teeth, and it couldn't sound more annoyed while, simultaneously, annoying.

Sergeant Barnes has been a difficult pain in your side at camp. Whenever he's wounded, he'll come crawling to you. Says you're the most capable nurse in camp, won't let anyhone else tend to his wounds, yet you know he's being impossible on purpose.

The first time Sergeant Barnes was brought to the field station, he had been near a loud explosion and lost part of his hearing for a few hours. He was terrified it would be permanent. He landed on your hands and you watched over him, did some tests, didn’t find anything particularly wrong that would dictate permanent damage.

Next time, a blast injury to the leg. Jessica, another nurse, was supposed to tend to him. He asked for you. You weren’t busy with any other soldier, so you obliged.

From the third time on, it was like clockwork. No other nurse could touch him; it was either you, or no one, to the point the Captain once walked into the tent already yelling your name. “Nurse, check on Barnes immediately!”

It doesn’t take a lot of brains to figure Sergeant Barnes out. He thinks you’re pretty, and this is his attempt at flirting his way into your path. And you’re not blind, he is a handsome man. But you’re not looking to find romance in the middle of war, where he could leave tomorrow and never return. No, you wouldn’t go down that path.

Back to the present, you excuse yourself from the soldier you're taking care of, and you walk in the direction of the Sergeant's voice. Barnes is half-sitting on a chair, shirt covered in blood around the right shoulder area, and Nurse Beth is giving him an exasperated look as she tries to convince him she is just as capable as anyone else in here. “Sergeant Barnes, you were shot, I need to take a look at—”

“No.” He interrupts immediately, his voice stern. Then, he sees you and his expression lightens up almost in a second, a boyish grin settling on his lips.

“Beth,” you say softly. “Could you please finish tending to Corporal Johnson? It’s a simple injury. I’ll care for Sergeant Barnes.”

Beth seems happy to run from this hell-given situation, and she leaves without making a fuss. You approach Barnes with a stern look. “Sergeant. You cannot keep doing this. All nurses at camp are perfectly capable of tending to all your wounds.”

“None have your hands,” he says with a stupid grin. “And I thought we agreed you'd call me Bucky.”

You raise an eyebrow while you find the necessary tools for treating his wound on a nearby cart. “We didn't agree to anything. You made a request, and I ignored it.”

“Shouldn't be ignoring Sergeant's orders,” Barnes says, and he sounds way too smug for his own good. You'd like to slap him out of it, but that wouldn't be much of a good idea.

“Thankfully I'm not a soldier, so I'm not under your orders,” you reply, and that seems to throw him off balance for a minute before he regains his composure and is smirking again. You wish that smirk didn’t mess you up as much as it did. It would make this easier if you were a little more impermeable to his obvious flirting.

“Lord, I missed your quick wit. Had to get myself shot to find an excuse to come talk to you again,” he answers, and something about his tone really feels like he's being way too honest.

You ignore that specific remark.

“Relax, Sergeant. Let me take a look at your wound.” You put on a pair of gloves before you slowly move his shirt down. On his shoulder, there's a small bullet wound, the skin slightly pushed in with a ring of red around it and some gunpowder staining the skin. On his back, there's an exit wound; bigger, tissue pushed out, an irregular shape. You hum in quiet approval, like the sight isn’t as bad as all the blood on his shirt would have led you to believe. “Good news, the bullet came out and it didn't leave fragments behind. We just have to disinfect the wound and patch you up, and you'll be ready to go.”

“So I won't have to stay overnight for observation?” Barnes almost sounds hopeful, but you shake your head no with a chuckle. “I really need to learn to get shot in more dangerous places. What could get me killed? Femoral artery?”

“Sergeant Barnes,” you call out, and there's a clear hint of scolding in your tone. “Don't joke about things like that. I deal with a lot of serious injuries every day. They're ugly and nasty, and worst of all , they really do get you killed.”

“You could stop me from being reckless if you just told me I am your favorite patient,” he answers, smug again, like he's just downplaying your scolding. “And do I have to beg to get you to call me Bucky? I'll do it, I'm not against the prospect of getting on my knees for you.” The double entendre in his last sentence isn't lost on you, but you ignore it. Mostly. Your body does not, because your cheeks turn a light shade of red, and Bucky absolutely catches on to it.

Oh, he notices. Bastard even sits a little more upright on his chair, eyes trailing over your face.

“I can't have favorite patients,” you say, and then you add, like something in you has cracked a little, “—Bucky.”

That seems to take a hit at his smug exterior, too. Like, somehow, he wasn’t truly expecting you to actually follow suit and call him by his preferred nickname. Now he thinks that name will never sound as pretty in anyone else’s mouth.

“I won't tell if you won't,” he murmurs to you, and it sounds a little too sinful to be appropriate. You ignore it. Lord, you're doing a whole lot of ignoring when Bucky is around.

“Lean back. I'll take care of that wound now,” you say, trying to sound as calm and professional as you can. Your fingers work masterfully over the wound, careful, disinfecting with alcohol and cleaning the blood with a white, soft rag before you give him a pitiful look. “The stitches will sting a bit, Sergeant Barnes.”

He gives you a mischievous grin. “Glad I have your pretty face to keep me distracted, then.”

There's a certain soft touch in the way your hands work on stitching his skin, a softer touch than you would normally use with the other soldiers. Of course, you couldn’t admit that Bucky was your favorite patient, but you can't help but have a certain tenderness in the way you take care of him. You're not sure he realizes it. But you also have a very specific sense of humor, and you don't even try to hide that you pinch his skin a little harder on purpose the first time the needle goes through the skin.

Bucky doesn't make a full noise, but he hisses through his teeth. “I thought my pretty face was distracting you,” you comment, clearly amused. He squints his eyes at you, like he's realizing you did it on purpose.

“Didn’t think you had a mean streak in you.” He says back, but after a moment of slight sting in his body, he’s grinning at you. Again. “I like it.” Is all he says before he goes quiet, watching you work.

You finish the stitches relatively fast, and then you cover them with some gauze, protecting them from possible infection.

“You’re all done, Sergeant.” You say, patting him on his good shoulder. He doesn’t seem to appreciate how you’re back to calling him that instead of Bucky. You open the medicine cabinet and grab a bottle of pain killers before handing them to him. “These will help you manage the pain. In a normal situation, I would give you some antibiotics, but we are trying to ration those for more serious situations. I think you’ll heal just fine. In any case…” A deliberate pause, because you know the next part is going to elicit a reaction from him. “…I would recommend you come in every day to change the bandage, so we can keep it clean and lower the risk of infection. At least for the first week.”

And you were right about the reaction, because Bucky is smiling, ear to ear, as he grabs the bottle from your hand. His fingers brush against yours when he does, touch a little rough, and they linger on your skin for a little longer than necessary.

“So I will have an excuse to come see you every day.” He says, like he’s suddenly a kid who has been offered the biggest piece of candy in the store.

“It’s not an excuse. You do need to come in every day to change the bandage. I would prefer if you let any nurse take care of you, though.”

“No.” He answers way too quickly, and his expression is not hard, but there’s an uncomfortable shift to it. It’s quieter when he speaks again. “Just you. If that’s okay.”

If that’s okay.

Well. It’s not like you mind it. You find it strangely affectionate that since June, the first time Sergeant Barnes stepped foot in this camp, there is a sense of routine and normalcy to your life. Soldiers come and go, almost too many different faces to remember. And then, a few days every week, in comes Sergeant Barnes. The one face that is always the same in the mess. His ocean blue eyes, staring at you like you’re God sent in this hell of a place. Hands that sometimes try to reach half-way and see if your own cross the rest of the way. They never did. Even though a part of you wanted them to.

“Okay.” You say, after a moment of silence that definitely stretched too long. “Let whoever greets you know that I gave you the okay to ask for me specifically.”

He seems content with that answer. Slowly, he stands up from his chair and dresses the half-destroyed shirt over his torso again, the blood dry and brown staining his right shoulder. He slides the bottle of pills inside the back pocket of his pants and, for half a second, there’s a look in his eyes. A shift, something softer than the usual flirting. Inquiring. There’s a question behind his eyes.

“We are having a get together tomorrow night.” He finally says when he figures he is tired of holding it back. “Bonfire, stupid music, the whole lot. A part of the unit is returning to camp and we like to welcome back the survivors with some good times.” It takes him a second to continue, and it feels like he’s reaching for the right words. You feel slightly uncomfortable, but you don’t make anything of it. “You should join us.”

Of course you know what he’s talking about. It isn’t the first time, and surely won’t be the last, that the soldiers do this. It’s good for morale, they say, and you think you believe them. Anytime soldiers come back, a lot of dead come with them. But the living are there by their side, dreading, seeing their future laying in a gurney next to them. They need to be reminded of a little happiness, even if fleeting.

Nurses will usually be in attendance, too; they look pretty while they sit on soldier’s laps, singing some happy songs about better times. They dance together, make them happy for a night. Some of them will disappear into the nearby woods for an hour or two. Come back with their hair disheveled and their clothes messed up.

You don’t usually go. Not because you’re not invited—in fact, you didn’t need the Sergeant’s invitation, and you know his words mean something closer to ‘I’d like to see you there’—but because fleeting happiness didn’t particularly work for you. Never in your life did you feel as hollow as you do these days, working to save people who could be killed tomorrow, or the day after, in an instant. It feels pointless and stupid to sing along to pretty little tunes while people are dying for things you don’t defend.

Sergeant Barnes says your name and you’re brought back to your senses, realizing you are a little lost in thought.

“Sergeant Barnes…” You begin, and in a second, his hand wrapping around one of your wrists. It’s soft and quick and you are a little startled because he’s never been this direct. Of course you have noticed him staring, of course you’ve heard his thousand different ways of flirting and saying you have a pretty face, but the touch was new. He never touched you before.

“Bucky. Please. I mean it.” Your stomach does a flip at the way he speaks, because does Sergeant Barnes —or, Bucky—sound… vulnerable? “You don’t have to say yes right now, but, maybe, don’t say no yet?” Hopeful. Vulnerable and hopeful.

“Bucky,” you start, finally giving into his request fully. He smiles at that. “I will think about it.”

And you do. Tonight, when you go back to the sleeping tent and you lay on the hard mattress, under the cold sheets, you think about sitting by the bonfire with Bucky by your side.

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