❝ the devil's in the details,
but you've got a friend in me ❞
captain america: the first avenger au
oc x bucky barnes
cover by @remuslupout
copyright 2022
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― if hearts and ink bleed the same ―
Bucky's POV
Bucky Barnes was a firm believer in the notion that there was little use in nighttime. Except for midnight parties and bedridden serenades with strangers and sleep, of course - most of all, sleep - there was little use in it. He supposed he should rephrase that, then: there was little productive use in nighttime.
It would make sense, then, that he despised the United States military in the earliest hours of the day. If someone were to ask his opinion of the army at noon, three in the afternoon, or even seven in the evening, he would doubtless speak highly of the organization. Seven in the morning was much too early. It was a time meant for tied-up women with screaming children in their cradles, for government officials whose minds roiled in their skeletal cages as other time zones churned the earth with their stomping feet and rumbling cars.
It was not a time meant for Bucky Barnes. And yet...
"Private Barnes?"
A groan trembled between Bucky's lips. He peeled his eyes open ever so slightly, glimpsing fuzzy silhouettes in the pointed tips of his lids. The army's reveille was supposed to have woken him up minutes before, though he often slept through the bugle horn's call. He hadn't at first, but after a year in service, the daily awakening faded into the undertones of his own life's song.
He woke.
He trained.
He slept.
Woke, trained, slept.
Woke.
Eventually, the seven A.M. cacophony mutated into a minute lullaby. It was no different than the songs that played in a person's head all day, hardly attended to unless that same person desired to take notice.. Even the most perturbing additions to one's life, such as a gentle alarm on the bedside table being shoved aside by the army's wakeup call, could be remedied into a monotonous routine.
"What is it?" Bucky asked, the notes of his voice settling into a low rumble in their early morning stupor.
The man speaking to him - it was Simon Hall, the young mailman who was so spindly that he made everyone wonder how he managed to carry pounds of letters at once - cleared his throat before holding out an envelope. "Says it's from a Ms. Carolyn Levy. That a girlfriend or something?"
"Or something."
Bucky grasped the letter between his fingers, trying not to seem too eager to read it yet not completely sure he was succeeding. He tore the edges of the envelope, fingertips tangling with one another in their sprint to get to the letter inside. When the paper was spread out on the cot, there was no use in hiding his growing eagerness, because there it was.
