Collection of One-Shots

》ghost of days gone by

He was ten and like any other ten-year-old boy with a crush he only knew how to show affection through relentless teasing. Evelyn sat on the edge of the playground with one of her school books open when the boy came up and tugged on her braid. The shock had caused her book to fall in a puddle along with her arithmetic homework.

"Bucky stop!" She batted his hands away and once free she stood and shoved the boy away, he stumbled backward. "Ouch," she rubbed the back of her head and bent to pick up all her belongings but someone else reached for her sopping piece of homework as well.

It was Steve Rogers, he was even smaller than her. The teacher wouldn't let him play with the bigger kids so like her he remained to himself during recess and sketched on scrap pieces of paper. They had been in all their classes together and during moments alone like this, she came to think of him as a good friend, an even better one than Dorothy and Edith in all honesty. "What happened?" He asked.

She scowled and looked over to where Bucky had gone, he was playing baseball with the junior high kids, "Bucky pulled on my braid again," before she could thank Steve for his help the scrawny boy was marching towards the baseball field. Bucky Barnes was mid-pitch when Steve tugged him back by the tail of his wrinkled and untucked shirt.

"Don't you know not to pick on girls, Barnes?" At the moment none of them realized it would be the start of a friendship that would span across decades.

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"Please tell me you didn't get into another fight." The answer to that was obvious, he had a black eye and busted lip, she wouldn't be surprised either if he had broken a rib or two. Steve stood with his arms crossed as Evelyn wet a cloth and wiped away the blood from his mouth and the cut on his cheek. At times she joked that he was the reason she wanted to become a nurse.

Bucky leaned against the dividing wall between the living room and kitchen of her small Brooklyn apartment, "I'm going to have to put a leash on him soon. He's like one of those small yapping dogs that think they're ten times their size." She laughed at both the comment and the bright red color Steve turned. Evelyn dropped a handful of ice cubes into an ice bag and handed it to Steve to help with the swelling around his eye. "What's your diagnosis Evee?"

She sighed and pulled off her nurse's cap and with a stern voice and serious expression gave her best expression of a doctor delivering grave news, "We all need some pie."

Bucky and Steve flanked her sides at their usual spots at the diner's bar top. "The usual?" Anne asked. They all nodded and in a couple of minutes they all had slices of apple pie, Steve and Bucky had chocolate malts and Evee had her precarious coffee order, a dash of sugar and three ice cubes.

"How's training?" Steve asked. He had flakes of pie crust sticking to his lips.

"I can now successful jab a needle into your butt if that's what you want to know," Steve cringed but Evelyn winked at Bucky, he spun her barstool so that she faced him. "A tempting offer," he replied, stealing a kiss from her.

Steve made a gagging noise behind them, "You two make me want to throw up sometimes, you know that right?" Bucky glared at his friend but Evee leaned over and kissed Steve on the cheek. She laughed and it was like the miracle cure to any of their ailments.

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Bucky and Steve had come to her apartment and were surprised to see how empty it looked, everything was packed away in boxes and crates, on the kitchen table was her suitcase and nurse's bag. She didn't know what to tell them, she wasn't even sure if she could bear to say goodbye. "I'm being shipped out to Germany in two days. Nurses are in short supply near the front."