Let's just say that it's been months since that...incident happened. Both Steve and Bucky seem to be recovering, though Bucky has been keeping himself distant. He'd also keep his door locked at night, just in-case he attempted to try anything again while he was asleep.

Nightmares wrecked him often. The fact that he had tried to kill Steve, and would have, if Steve's panicked yells hadn't snapped him out of it.

If he had killed Steve…

He would never forgive himself. Ever. He'd make himself pay for it.

Some of the Avengers had checked in on them, including Tony, Sam, and Natasha. Wanda had also checked in once or twice to make sure that the friends were faring well. They understood the two of them wanting to be left on their own, away from the avengers, for a while. Tony seemed to understand, too, which was a relief for both Steve and Bucky.

But for right now, the two men were relaxing outside. They hadn't completely blocked each other out, as neither of them could possibly cope without the other.

"How are you holding up?" Steve asked. He lowered himself down on the bench next to his friend, glancing at him with a concerned expression.

Bucky noticed this and gave him a ghostly smile. "Not too bad, I guess...What about you?" his eyes flickered to each of the scars left on Steve's face from his sudden attack. It was a reminder of what he had done, and tried to do. As long as those scars were there, so was his guilt. Except it'd always be there anyway.

Steve shrugged and gave an honest smile. "I'll be fine. I've survived much worse.."

Bucky stared at him. "Seriously?"

The man nodded. "I don't think you'd want to know, though. I still have some pretty nasty scars from it. Never forgot it and never will."

Bucky gave a disbelieved chuckle and stared toward the sidewalk below them. They'd both been spending a bit more time outside. Being indoors all the time seemed to be boring Steve out, along with partly driving him insane, which Bucky had noticed. He had always paced back and forth through the living room of their apartment. But sometimes the man sketched. It seemed to vary day to day, which didn't surprise the former assassin.

"Did you hear from any of the others lately?" Bucky turned and looked back at Steve, who nodded. "Sam's been keeping in touch. Makin' sure we've been staying out of trouble."

Bucky gave a small, but amused smile. "Like anyone can keep you out of trouble. In fact, you seem to just attract trouble everywhere you go."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Do not."

"Do too."

"Do not!"

"On your left."

Both men looked up to see Sam walking toward them. He had an amused smirk on his face, clearly having heard the last part of their conversation.

"Oh, look who it is," Steve rolled his eyes and stood up, shaking Sam's hand.

"He ain't lyin'," Sam suddenly said and glanced at Bucky, who had stood up to stand beside Steve as well. "You're like a magnet."

"Not you too, Sam," Steve said dramatically. "Anyone else believe that?"

"Tony," Sam grinned. "And Natasha. Maybe Rhodes."

Bucky snorted. "Seems everyone's turning against you, Steve," he nudged him with his shoulder playfully.

The 3 friends laughed for a few moments, enjoying themselves. Steve was glad to have a moment of fun with his friend, after everything that's been going on for the past 4-5 months. It's been a while since the nightmare incident, but none of them forgot about it, which is quite obvious. Bucky still has nightmares, too, but only tells Steve about the less violent ones, mostly about his time as the Winter Soldier, and the torture and things he saw, but Steve could tell he was leaving out a lot of details.

"How you guys holding up?" Sam asked, glancing between Steve and Bucky, who looked at each other.

"Getting better. Slowly, but we're making progress," Bucky replied. Steve quickly nodded in response, rubbing at some of the bruising that still remained on his face.

"That's good," Sam complimented. "You guys still like each other right?" Sam grinned, clearly knowing the obvious answer.

Bucky and Steve stared at each other, then back toward Sam.

"No," Bucky stated blankly. Steve could tell he was trying his hardest not to break down right there and burst out laughing.

But it worked. Sam looked surprised. "You being serious?"

Steve shook his head and wrapped his arms around Bucky's shoulder. "Of course not. That's ridiculous."

"Yea. I was about to say. Unless Steve got brainwashed or something, I don't believe that some nightmare would split you two apart," Sam replied with a relieved expression.

Bucky grinned, and Steve was relieved to see that he didn't act offended to anything that Sam said about the nightmare. In fact, the things he said about it not being Bucky's fault seemed to be finally getting into the stubborn man's head.

"It takes more than that to split us apart," Bucky smiled toward Steve, giving him a quick pat on the shoulder.

"Figured that much," Sam laughed.

"So what brings you here?" Steve asked, turning back to Sam.

Sam shrugged. "Free day. Just making sure the two most trouble magnets around don't get into any trouble.

Steve glanced at Bucky and grinned. He noticed his friend's face blanch. "Hey- that- that isn't fair!" Bucky protested with a frown.

"Can be if you believe," Steve grinned.

After a few more hours of laughing and joking around, the two finally headed back to the apartment. It was a long day, but it was pretty fun, and both of them seemed to enjoy the break from the depressing mood. But it soon went back that way as soon as they entered the building.

"Gosh, I can feel the mood changing already. There goes happy," Steve murmured sadly.

They headed over and sat down on the couch, flicking on the TV to relax. For a few minutes they sat in silence, just staring at the flickering images on the screen in front of them.

"Do you...ever have nightmares about what happened?" Bucky suddenly asked, never tearing his eyes away from the television.

Steve was caught off-guard, and it took him a minute to ponder the question, which he obviously knew the answer to. "Every night...some are worse than others." He looked toward Bucky, who finally broke his stare at the TV in front of them to make eye-contact with his friend. He could see the wear and tear and exhaustion in Steve's eyes, he could also see a hint of resignation, as if accepting the nightmares would just be apart of him for as much time as need be.

He just nodded and then looked down at the floor, fiddling with his metal arm.

"Stupid question. Do you?" Steve asked, already knowing the answer.

Bucky looked up with a slightly annoyed and slightly humorous smile. "Well, that is a stupid question, but the answer is yes anyway."

Steve sighed and stared toward the ground. "You know...even the- more serious nightmares..you can tell me. So we can...prevent what happened before from happening again."

Bucky, instead of immediately protesting and saying that wasn't even an option, remained silent. He continued to fidget with his metal arm slightly before making eye-contact with Steve. "You know…" He gave a small smile. "Maybe that doesn't seem like a bad idea after all.."