Summary: Steve saved Bucky from Zola. Except he didn't.

There were plenty of moments in Steve Rogers' life when his gut feeling had proven to be right. Most of those times had to do with Bucky, like the one time Steve had insisted that just bluntly asking the particularly pretty blonde Bucky had been eying all evening to have sex with him would probably end in a disaster. Bucky had laughed charmingly, before smoothly making his way over to her. Steve had had to drag his best friend home that night after his suave smirk had been punched right off his face by the girl's lover, whom neither of them had noticed.

There also was this one time when Steve had warned Bucky that he had a particularly bad case of flu and that his friend should probably stay away from him. Bucky had come over anyways, bringing along chicken soup and some extra blankets. In the end, they'd both ended up with pale, sweaty, miserable looking faces, sniveling feverishly underneath the enormous pile of covers and spoon-feeding each other soup whilst trying to suppress the urge to be sick.

And of course there was the time when Steve had strongly advised against his friend ordering yet another drink because surely, this could only end badly. Bucky had just shot him the most adorably drunk smile, drawling a pleading 'Aww, just one more drink, Stevie?' before putting on that doe-eyed expression of his – and really, who could say no to that face? Of course, just the one more drink did end badly with Bucky bursting out in an embarrassingly off-key ballad before throwing up all over the counter of the bar.

Turned out his gut feeling wasn't always right, though – at least not when things truly mattered.

After Steve had rescued Bucky and the other surviving POWs, he had been sure everything would go back to normal – or at least as normal as things could get during wartime after just finding out you were fighting against a genetically enhanced red-skulled jerk in your own new super-soldier body, posing as Captain America. He and his men had been hailed as heroes upon their return and thanks to Bucky, Steve was showered in praise. To be honest, Steve had just been relieved to have his best friend back at his side. After all, even when he had nothing, he still had Bucky.

Except he didn't. Not entirely at least.

Granted, during the day he seemed okay. Steve and his newly founded "Howling Commandos" as they called themselves had enough dirty jobs to do to keep their hands and heads busy. Bucky, brilliant sniper that he was, was focused as ever, taking out bad guy after bad guy with a cold intent that Steve would never have guessed could lurk behind that happy, friendly face of his. After work – he didn't know when they had started calling killing people like that, but it unnerved Steve in a way very few things still could – Bucky was joking with his fellow soldiers, enjoying a drink or two and basically having a good time for as far as that was possible during a war.

But then along came nighttime. And that was a whole different story.

The first few weeks, Steve pretended he couldn't hear Bucky's breathing become more and more labored as they lay sleeping in their shared barracks. He feigned he didn't notice the mumbled pleas, the scared but barely audible no's, the incessant shifting and turning and shifting again in his sleeping bag. He even elected to ignore the times when he heard how Bucky jolted awake and upright with a choked cry, followed by the sound of muffled sobs in the dark. Steve kept telling himself that his friend was fine and that this sort of behavior was normal during the war – and maybe to some extent that might even have been true.

Only, it wasn't. Not for Bucky.

On the third night of the fourth week, Steve felt almost ashamed of himself for not speaking up when he could clearly hear Bucky's ragged breathing as if he was desperately trying to hold back the pathetic whimpers that inevitably left his lips from time to time. So he did speak up.

'Buck?' he called out softly into the darkness, feeling hesitant. The strangled breathing instantly halted. Steve listened for a few seconds, but everything remained dead silent. 'Bucky?' he said again, a bit louder now, but not too loud that he would wake Dugan who was sleeping only a few yards away from him – though he probably shouldn't be worried that much about the guy since he could easily snore his way through an earthquake.

Steve's only response now was the rustling of the extra sheets he had brought Bucky after the latter had complained about being so damn cold at night. He sighed.

'Buck, I know you're awake. And I know you've been awake every damn single night since you got back here. So please – just talk to me?'

Silence again. Then, a slight, hoarse chuckle. 'Do away with the swearin' and you sound just like one of my dames, Stevie. Always wantin' to talk. Thought I'd left that stage behind when I joined the all-male army to be honest.'

Steve sat up from his thin mattress, peering through the darkness to try to make out Bucky's shape sitting up straight in his fortress of blankets. 'Well, you didn't leave me behind, and if you don't talk to me soon, I certainly won't quit naggin' like one of your dames, you jerk.'

Soft laughter bubbled up from Bucky's throat, and now that Steve's eyes had adjusted to the darkness, helped by the faint moonlight streaming through the few small windows, he could even see the glimmer of Bucky's grinning teeth from the mattress just across from him. 'You go right ahead, Stevie. Can't wait for you to show me your dance moves, though. I always take my girls out dancin'. You should know that by now.'

Steve smiled even though it wasn't visible to Bucky in the almost pitch black barracks. 'Yeah, I know that, Buck,' he said softly. After that, it remained quiet for a while, as if they were both just content with sitting there and having to guess the other's thoughts.

'Are they nightmares?' Steve finally asked, his voice strangely eerie, bouncing off the wooden walls of the room. More rustling, indicating that Bucky was probably just shrugging half-heartedly.

'Dunno. Not really. More like, they're memories. But I guess you can safely call those "nightmares" too.'

Steve's heart sank in his chest, a coldness spreading through it that he hadn't felt in a long time after his mother had died. 'You remember then,' he said, his words no more a question than they were a statement. 'Zola. What happened there.' He frowned, chewing his words, before repeating himself, only this time he was asking: 'What happened there?'

He heard how Bucky took a deep breath before shakily releasing it again. 'Yeah. What happened there. Fuck if I know.' Steve's frown deepened at the sudden use of the expletive while Bucky took another shuddering breath. 'But I guess, yeah, I guess I remember some things. Shards, y'know. Nothin' much to go on. But enough.'

Enough to never want to sleep again, Steve finished Bucky's sentence silently. He was already quite certain that his friend wouldn't want to share the burden, but he asked anyways. 'What do you remember then?'

As expected, he didn't get an answer that soon this time round. It was only after a full minute had passed that Bucky finally spoke again. Steve had to strain his ears in order to hear it at all: Bucky's voice sounded small and broken and nothing like anything Steve would ever want to hear coming from his best friend's mouth. 'I don't wanna tell you.'

Truth be told, that did hurt, and probably even a bit more than it should've. But Steve understood. Of course he understood.

'Okay,' he said slowly. 'You wanna go back to sleep?'

That damn moment of silence again – but then Steve suddenly heard something he wanted even less coming from Bucky, and that was a trembling sob that was squeezed from his throat, followed by a shattered 'no'.

In one swift movement, Steve rose from his mattress, taking the three big necessary steps to get to where Bucky was sitting up with his head leaning back against the cold wooden wall of the barracks. He sat down next to him, their sides pressing against each other, before pulling him in for a strong, sideway hug.

Bucky was cold, he noted, whereas Steve was now permanently warm thanks to the serum flowing through his veins. He felt how more sobs started wrecking Bucky's body as he pulled the brunette into his chest, one hand on his back and the other buried in his hair to hold him close. They sat like that for a while, Bucky's breathing slowly evening out again as his tears stopped soaking Steve's nightshirt. Steve felt awful.

'I'm so sorry, Buck,' he whispered. 'Had I been there earlier-'

'Don't you dare finish that sentence, you punk,' came the muffled reply, interrupting Steve's train of thought. 'You came. You even came, if I heard correctly and the rumors are true, specifically for me. So don't you go badmouthing yourself Rogers, or I swear to God, I will make you wear those downright ridiculous Captain America tights for the rest of your life.' Bucky sat up, Steve's left arm still loosely slung around him and their shoulders and sides still touching. 'Who provided you with that dumb uniform anyways?'

Steve felt a bit hurt by this. 'Don't you like it?' he asked tentatively, almost insecurely. He felt Bucky move in his grasp, his disbelieving blue eyes staring up at him, before laughing.

'Do you seriously want me to answer that question?' he asked, still chuckling a bit. His voice turned more sincere though as Steve frowned and started to move away a bit. 'Wait, I'm sorry.' Bucky grasped the arm slung around him to stop him from moving, and Steve didn't know whether it was deliberate or unconscious but Bucky had reached for his hand, squeezing his fingers. 'It's just that, ah, I dunno, Stevie. Do you really need the outfit to be a symbol for the nation?'

Steve shrugged. 'Apparently the nation thinks I do. And besides, like I said before: it's kinda grown on me.'

Bucky beamed up at him, his gaze soft and trusting even though Steve couldn't really see it. 'You never had anything to prove, y'know. I always thought of you as a symbol, with or without it.'

And to be honest, Steve didn't really know what to do with that information or with the fact that it was warming him up inside, or with how Bucky had begun playing with his fingers absentmindedly. They just sat there in silence again, before Bucky suddenly started chuckling and said: 'You remember that time when you were fightin' that Murray kid?'

Steve shot a distrusting look at Bucky. 'Yeah, and he beat me to a pulp before you even got there?' Bucky nodded just a bit too vigorously. 'That's right, yeah, that's right. Well, y'know what? Turned out he got a sister.' Steve frowned, not quite knowing where Bucky was going with this. After having drawn a content breath, Bucky sighed out happily: 'I screwed her right into the mattress two days before I was shipped out. Made sure her big brother could hear her moaning throughout the entire house. Never seen anyone get so red in the face when I got downstairs afterwards.'

There was a short pause in their conversation. Then, as if on cue, they both started choking on their restrained laughter.

'Jeez, Buck, that's-' Steve hiccupped. Bucky grinned, back to being his usual self where he was all slick smiles and mischievous winks. 'You don't gotta thank me, Stevie. Actually did me a favor too.'

They chatted for about two more hours after that, talking about their crappy home in Brooklyn and thick-headed bullies and art school, carefully avoiding the topic of the war and what had happened to Bucky. They probably would've talked all night long if an annoyed voice hadn't sounded from the other side of the barracks, kindly asking them to shut the hell up or get their own room.

With a chuckle, Steve started to disentangle himself from Bucky, who had slumped against his shoulder, eyes half closed in much needed sleep. 'C'mon, soldier. I ain't your pillow.'

He almost missed Bucky's reply because it was muffled against his own body, but his heart did a funny little jump when he just barely caught it. 'But you're so warm,' Bucky mumbled, not moving from his spot. 'And you smell like home.'

He pondered just staying there for the remainder of the night, letting Bucky sleep on his shoulder, his arms safely wrapped around the strong body of his friend who didn't look that strong at all anymore now. But he also knew it would raise questions in the morning, and both their backs would be hurting so much – and they were such stupid excuses, but Steve put distance between their bodies anyhow.

'I'm going back to my bed,' he whispered so as not to wake anyone else. He hesitated, taking in the shadows of Bucky's sleepy face as the latter sat up, blinking drowsily. 'You gonna be okay now?'

Bucky breathed sharply through his nose, a lazy smile forming on his lips. 'No,' he said, and there was no harshness or fear in his voice, just compliant resignation. 'But I can pretend I will be.'

And that right there broke Steve's heart, but he moved away nonetheless after pulling up Bucky's sleeping bag again and covering him with the spare blankets. 'Get some sleep,' he muttered, before padding over towards his own mattress again.

He didn't hear any more noises coming from Bucky's bed that night.