Yes, I'm alive.
They'd been asking him about troop positions. For hours and hours, prodding him with sticks that shocked him like broken spark plugs and strapping him down on the table so he couldn't move and there were needle marks where they'd poured some liquid into that burned like fire when it spread through his veins—keeping him awake longer—making him stronger, somehow—saying something about potential—
He couldn't even tell what was happening. Had they stopped? He wouldn't know; he was pretty sure it was dark. Everything hurt and his head kept spinning, scrambling his thoughts. He was mumbling—bogus troop numbers and positions like he had been told to say but he couldn't hear the words and didn't know if he was saying the right thing—or wrong thing—or—
"Bucky!"
A face appears dimly above him and the thought of Steve connects disjointedly in his brain. Steve, his best friend. All they other guys had some girl at home to get back to, but Bucky had—no, Steve can't be here. He's too sick, too small, not meant for…this must be a nightmare. Bucky's worst nightmare, Steve in danger, Steve in—
But the Steve-like thing is patting his face, gentle and insistent, and his voice is the same too, but he's still—
"Hey, Bucky. Bucky, it's me, it's Steve—"
"Steve," Bucky mumbles in recognition. It must be something wrong with his head, distorting Steve, or maybe it's a hallucination. Bucky almost hopes it is, because that (anything) would be better than Steve in the War.
There's the sound of metal and fabric ripping as one, and the stripes of pressure across Bucky's body vanish. It feels so real, it must be real—
Then Steve hauls him straight up to his unsteady feet, and Bucky's looking up at him.
Bucky's so disoriented by this that he almost falls back down until Steve steadies him with his arms (his strong arms) and puts his hand on either side of Bucky's face, like he's the one having trouble with having faith in what he's seeing. "I though you were dead," he says, with that same stupid grin, and Bucky's heart rips in half, torn between elation and sinking terror.
"I thought you were smaller," he mutters, and Steve laughs. His voice is strong, stronger than his best good day that Bucky can remember.
Then Steve is pulling one of Bucky's limp arms over his inexplicably broad, inexplicably solid shoulders and leading him out of the torture room. As much as Bucky is burning to turn his back on that god-awful room, he nearly digs his heels in. "What happened to you?" he rasps, because he's known Steve all their lives, and this—this magical curing of all Steve's ailments—doesn't just happen without consequences, and Bucky's terrified that they did to Steve what they did to him.
"I joined the Army," Steve says, not even straining under Bucky's weight. He's dodging, Bucky recognizes, just like he always does, and Bucky presses on because he's terrified that they did to Steve what they did to him.
"Did it hurt?"
"A little." That's the same answer he gave when Bucky would find him limping out of an alley, bruised black and blue and blood coursing down his face and beaten half to death. He's lying, and Bucky's terrified that they did to Steve what they did to him.
"Is it permanent?"
"So far." The answer is vaguely flippant and Bucky's stomach drops because whatever happened to Steve—and whatever happened to him—might not wear off and Bucky's head is spinning again but he makes himself walk and he's still terrified that they did to Steve what they did to him.
—
Bucky can't stop staring at Steve as they trek back to camp.
It's tricky, because Steve keeps glancing back at Bucky like he's making sure he won't disappear, and Bucky's staring at Steve because of the exact same reason. Half of Bucky is afraid that Steve will evaporate, that this is all a twisted dream spawned by the fever of pain.
The other half hopes that it is.
Either way, Bucky gets a good look at this new Steve. He's much taller, of course, and he walks different—straighter, like he has more confidence, but Bucky knows that the curve in his spine that had one shoulder an inch higher than the other must be somehow corrected. Bucky can also hear him breathing—steady, clear, deep. Not the shallow wheeze that the old Steve would have had after a twenty-mile hike because of the way his ribcage bore down on his lungs, not to mention the asthma. Even more, the fact that he's still breathing and still conscious means that he can't have Angina or a heart murmur or he would have collapsed before mile one. And Steve's skin—tan, rosy even, like he's somehow been cured of his anemia.
Bucky and Steve had been friends as long as he could remember. He'd been there for all of it—bringing Steve his homework when he was too sick to come to school when they were kids, keeping Steve propped up while Mrs. Rogers was working so Steve's airways would stay open when he had pneumonia, keeping an eye on him when they played in the streets to make sure his heart wasn't bothering him. And then as they got older, patching Steve up after fist-fights, and making sure he ate food before he did his homework so he wouldn't forget, practically forcing Steve to move in with him after his mom died. He'd been keeping one eye on Steve their entire lives, and now, somehow, bizarrely, the roles had switched.
And for reasons he couldn't put into words, there was a pit deep in Bucky's stomach.
—
Hours later, after they had arrived back at base camp to a rousing applause, they were herded onto the backs of trucks trucks to be transported to the nearest allied city. On the way, they passed under a screen of what looked to be the last autumn leaves, glimmering red and gold in the afternoon sun. As they did, the rapid upward jerk of Steve's head drew Bucky's eye instead. "What's wrong?" he shouted over the roar of the wind.
Steve glanced at him briefly before returning his gaze to the honey and cranberry sunlight. "Nothing! Just…" He had a slight grin on his face and his eyes were wide with what Bucky could only describe as awe. "It's been a few weeks, but…" he gestured vaguely upwards. "The colors."
Bucky leaned closer, unsure if he had heard Steve correctly. "What?"
Steve's grin widened. "The colors! It takes some getting used to, you know?"
Bucky opened his mouth and froze. The pit in his stomach vanished.
The treatment hadn't just fixed Steve's spine and heart and lungs and muscles. It had fixed something else—his eyes.
Because of the treatment, Steve was no longer color blind.