It had still been reasonably early in the evening when they left the Hydra base, and they walked all night and nearly all of the next day before camp was in sight. Steve wished he could have called Peggy to send someone for them, or at the very least, let her know they were coming, but when they were safely away from the prison camp and moving down the road, he discovered that his radio had taken a bullet for him. The bullet would have hit above his heart—still in the chest, though, and he wondered—given his new healing abilities—how bad it would have been. He was glad he didn't have to find out, and he decided not to mention it to Bucky.

Bucky had continued his occasional checks to the back of the line as the day progressed, and though it started taking him longer to get back up to the front, he always made it and he never complained. Even after the sun came up and they were back in friendly territory, no one talked much—everyone was exhausted. Even Steve was starting to feel it—super-strength came with super metabolism, and he was starting to get a little light-headed. Bucky was staying on his feet, but it looked like it was taking more and more concentration to do so, and Steve didn't want to distract him. He did keep a closer eye on him, though.

Guards from the camp had seen them before the base was actually in sight, and by the time they crested the last hill, it looked like word had spread. Soldiers started to line the road, moving out to greet their comrades as they raised the barrier. The entire company put a little more spring into their step, walking a little straighter.

Shouts and cries of, "look who it is!" sounded around them and the crowd grew, staring at them in awe as they crossed into camp. Men started to clap, pointing and cheering as they recognized their friends. Happiness swelled up in Steve's chest, and he couldn't keep from smiling, turning to Bucky and putting a hand to his shoulder. They'd made it. They'd actually made it. Bucky looked up when he felt Steve's hand on his shoulder and returned the smile with a nod.

As they reached the main cluster of tents, he saw Phillips and Peggy coming out to meet them. Phillips didn't look very happy, but then, he never really did. Steve wondered exactly how much trouble he was in. He saluted, and Phillips nodded but said nothing. He seemed to be waiting for Steve to go first.

"Some of these men need medical attention," he said. Phillips looked around, eyeing the crowd behind Steve. Medics were already starting to move in. Steve took a deep breath. May as well get it over with. "I'd like to surrender myself for disciplinary action."

Phillips looked around again and maybe, sort of, looked like he was trying not to smile. "That won't be necessary," he said. He eyed the men, shook his head a little, and then he actually did smile.

"Thank you, Sir," Steve said, more than a little thrilled to have finally gained Phillips' approval.

Phillips nodded and turned, saying something to Peggy before he walked away. Peggy stepped forward—awfully closely—brimming with some kind of emotion Steve couldn't identify. He hoped it was a good one. She looked like she was trying to decide what to say, and looked him up and down before settling on, "you're late."

Steve pulled out the shattered radio. "Couldn't call my ride," he told her. She'd been worried about him.

"Hey!" he heard Bucky shout from behind him. "Let's hear it for Captain America!" Peggy smiled at him as they were surrounded by cheers and whistles and thunderous applause. Steve turned to look at Bucky, who cocked an eyebrow and smirked and kept clapping. People were patting him on the back, and Steve turned to look around, a smile growing on his face. This was…He was…This was overwhelming and humbling and kind of amazing.

Eventually the cheers died away as people returned to their reunions and medics were able to work through the crowd and pull people away. Bucky clapped Steve on the shoulder and nodded toward the med tent. He looked like he was about to fall over. "I'll come find you," Steve said, squeezing his shoulder. "Take good care of him," he added to the medic who was leading him to the tent.

"Is that your friend?" Peggy asked, watching Steve watch Bucky walk away. Steve nodded and she smiled. "I'm glad you found him."

"I almost didn't," Steve said. "He was…"

Peggy put her hand on his arm. "But you did," she said firmly. "He'll be alright."

Steve nodded again. She was right. He'd be fine. They all would. "Sorry about the radio." He looked over to the command tent. "And I hope you didn't get in too much trouble."

"Fortunately for my job, you have very good timing," she said with a smile. "Are you alright? I know the Colonel is going to want to talk to you, but if we need to find a doctor first…"

Steve shook his head. "I'm alright. Although…" He rubbed his temple, trying to will away his growing headache. "Do you think he'd let me eat first?"

Peggy chuckled. "I think we can arrange something. Why don't you go on and check in and I'll see what I can find." She patted him on the arm and started to walk away. "Steve?" she said over her shoulder.

"Yeah?"

"This is…" she shook her head. "Doctor Erskine would have been very proud of you."

She turned away again and Steve felt his cheeks going pink as something warm uncurled in his chest. He hoped she was right. This seemed like the kind of thing Erskine would have had in mind.

He wasn't in the command tent long before Peggy reappeared with an orderly with a tray of food. Phillips' eyebrows went up at the sight of the food, but he motioned for Steve to start eating and keep talking. They were there well into the evening, Steve giving a detailed account of everything that had happened since he left the base, everything he'd seen and done. Peggy and Phillips asked questions any time it seemed like he'd left something out, and then Stark came in and he had to explain all the tech he'd seen as best as he could. They all seemed particularly interested in Schmidt, though Phillips was the only one who didn't seem surprised when Steve described the whole face-removing thing and what Schmidt looked like now. He couldn't tell if that was because Phillips already knew or if that's just how his face was.

Sometime after midnight, they finally ran out of questions. When Phillips dismissed him, Steve left quickly, before they could think of more. Two nights without sleep, a solo rescue mission and a thirty-mile hike were adding up to one tired super-soldier. Before heading back to his tent, he swung by the medical tent to check on Bucky.

The tent was packed. Every bed was full, and the nurse he spoke to told him they'd sent everyone who could manage back to their tents after being treated. He was a little dismayed when she told him Bucky was not one of the ones they had deemed fit enough to send away for the night. She directed him to his bed and told him she'd send the doctor over to talk to him.

Bucky was in a smaller tent outside the big one. The beds here were cordoned off with curtains, and Bucky's was back in the far corner. He was asleep, and it suddenly occurred to Steve to wonder how long it had been since Bucky had slept. He'd been in a weird in-between sort of place in the lab, and he wondered how long he'd been kept like that. He was sound asleep now, so still and quiet that Steve had to lean in to make sure he was breathing. Maybe Steve was just tired, or maybe it was his imagination, but he thought Bucky looked worse—not worse than in the lab, certainly, but he'd seemed like he was rallying once they got moving. He looked really pale, which made the dark circles around his eyes more pronounced, and his skin was clammy.

"Captain Rogers?" came a voice from behind him. Oh, right, that was him. He turned around to see a doctor who looked almost as worn out as Bucky did standing beside him. This had to have been a hell of a night for the medical team. "Linda told me you were asking about Sergeant Barnes."

"Yeah," Steve said quickly. "How is he?"

The doctor sighed. "Well, like most of the men here, he's had it pretty rough. He's got the sort of malnutrition, dehydration, exhaustion and, comparatively speaking, minor injuries one tends to see in POW's."

"But that's not what's bothering you," Steve guessed.

The doctor shook his head. "No. He does show some signs of more serious physical abuse—given where he was, it was probably some kind of torture—but the coloring of the bruises and the tissue damage seem to be several days old. In the past couple of hours, he's started running a fever, and he's fighting off some kind of infection. It looks like pneumonia, although I'm waiting on some test results to be sure, but we've already started him on antibiotics."

Steve's insides twisted at the mention of torture. "Is it bad?" he asked the doctor. "The pneumonia?"

"It's a fairly advanced case, but we're keeping a close eye on him, and I think we've caught it in time to keep it from turning dangerous."

That was worrying enough, but something in the doctor's tone made Steve suspicious. "What aren't you telling me?"

The doctor sighed and rubbed his forehead. "He passed out before we got too far into the examination, but some of the men he was being held with mentioned that there was a scientist at the factory who liked to do human experiments." The doctor sighed again. "There's something in his blood…"

A weight dropped into Steve's stomach, and he swallowed down the urge to be sick. "What is it?"

The doctor shook his head. "I don't know. I've got people looking into it, but I just…I don't know."

"Is it hurting him?" Steve pressed.

"I don't know," the doctor said again. "It doesn't appear to be doing anything, but that doesn't mean it's not. Now that the immediate crisis has passed," he said, gesturing to the tent at large and the camp in general. "We can actually devote some time to investigating and we'll be checking his blood regularly to see if there's any change." He gave Steve a tired smile. "Whatever it is, it's stable for the moment. The SSR medics are already looking into it, and those boys are good at what they do. I'm hopeful we'll figure it out."

Steve nodded.

"You can stay with him if you'd like," the doctor told him. He gestured to a chair in the corner. "Just make sure to stay out of the nurses' way. I'll be back later, hopefully with better news."

He left, and Steve sank down into the chair. "Oh, Bucky," he breathed, running a hand across his face. He'd guessed, back in the lab, but to hear someone actually say it out loud…Experimentation. He shuddered and had to take a few calming breaths to keep from throwing up. He was gonna kill Schmidt. And the little scientist. And anyone else from Hydra he could find.

"Why didn't you say anything?" he asked softly. But then, what could Bucky have said? The immediate need had been to get up and get out, and Bucky did that. And if their places had been switched, Steve would have seen the situation and decided that information could wait for a better time too. He huffed a soft laugh. He wondered if one of them had learned their stubbornness from the other—and if so, which one—or if they'd just both always been that way.

Steve felt his eyes drifting shut and leaned back in the chair. He put a hand up on the bed and wrapped it around Bucky's forearm so he would be able to feel any movement or sudden change in temperature. "Hang in there, man," he whispered. "I got you out. Don't you leave me now."

Steve woke up around sunrise to one of the nurses changing Bucky's IV. "I'm sorry, Captain," she said. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's alright," Steve said. "How is he?" He nodded down at Bucky.

"His fever's come down a little," she said. Steve nodded and she left. He'd been hoping for better.

"Captain?" Another face poked through the curtain, and Steve thought he recognized the man as someone from Erskine's lab in New York, though his name was escaping him. Steve stood and nodded for him to come in.

"Eddie Polaski," the man said. "I'm with the SSR. I worked with Dr. Erskine for a while before…"

Steve nodded.

"Anyway," Eddie continued. "The doc had me take a look at the Sergeant's blood, and he told me you were interested in the results?"

"Yeah," Steve said quickly. "What did you find?"

"Well," Eddie said, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "The boys at Hydra seemed to be trying to recreate Dr. Erskine's formula—the one he used with you. You, ah, he told you about Schmidt and…all that?"

Steve nodded.

"Good," Eddie said, looking glad he wouldn't have to explain it. "It looks like they were working off of what the formula looked like back when Schmidt took it. It's a very crude, much messier version of what you got."

Steve suddenly felt like throwing up again. "They didn't, I mean, he's not gonna turn into…" He couldn't finish the thought.

"No!" Eddie's eyes widened, looking as horrified as Steve felt at the idea. "No. That, no, that's not what they were doing here."

"Oh, thank God," Steve breathed.

"No, um, they had isolated the part of the formula that speeds up healing and they were working on that. That's what's in the Sergeant's blood."

Steve's eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. "They were trying to heal him?"

Eddie shook his head. "Sorry. What I should have said it that they were trying to isolate that part of the formula. It's not a cut and dry science—you can't just lift pieces of it out. Based on what I saw in his blood, this was the latest of several attempts to get it right. Possibly the first one that actually did get it sort of right. I know some of what went into that formula, and getting the measurements wrong can be fatal."

"This could have killed him?"

"It could have," Eddie agreed. "It…probably did kill several people before him."

Steve took a deep breath. "So what does this all mean? Is he gonna be okay?"

"It's a little early to know for sure," Eddie said. "The formula they injected him with is nowhere near as sophisticated as yours—based on the blood tests we've seen, it looks like it's starting to break down already. That's why he's getting sick. He's had this pneumonia for a while, and when they started the experiment, Hydra gave him something to block it so they could experiment without him dying, but they didn't bother to cure it. Whatever that blocking agent was is breaking down, and the formula's breaking down, so now the disease is coming back because it never really went away."

Steve took a moment to process all of this. Breaking down sounded like it should be a good thing. "So, the stuff Hydra put in him, it's not gonna hurt him?"

"Hopefully not."

"Hopefully?" Steve didn't really like the sound of that.

Eddie sighed. "This isn't anything we've seen before. There's just no way of knowing where it's gonna go. Up to this point, whatever they put in him has actually probably been what was keeping him alive—the shape he's in, he should never have made the hike back here. But it's breaking down now, and while it could just work its way out of his system, it could just as easily break down wrong and release some of its more dangerous components into his blood, or even damage his natural ability to heal, depending on how it affects his cells."

Steve swallowed down the rage churning in his stomach—this wasn't Eddie's fault. "So this might still kill him?" he asked, fighting to keep his voice level.

Eddie nodded. "It might. I do think that's the less likely option, but I don't want to make any promises at this point."

"Can you get it out of him?" Steve asked. "Cure it somehow, or…"

Eddie was already shaking his head. "Not at the rate it's changing. By the time we would be able to put something together, he'll have either gotten better, or…" He trailed off uncomfortably. "The best we can do is keep monitoring him and treat any symptoms the compound may cause." He looked up at Steve sympathetically. "I'm sorry I can't give you better news. But, I'm still hopeful, and we're going to be doing everything we can."

Steve nodded. "I know. Thanks."

"I'll be back in a little while for another blood sample," Eddie told him, leaving with a small nod.

Steve let out a long sigh, rubbing the side of his head. This was so much worse than he'd thought. He hadn't known what exactly had happened to Bucky while Hydra had him, but he'd known it wasn't good. But Bucky had really seemed alright on the walk back—just worn down, and Steve had been hopeful that he would bounce back pretty quickly. He wondered how many people had died in the little scientist's lab, and what would have happened to Bucky if Steve's tour hadn't brought him through Italy. He swallowed again, quelling the rage that was still boiling in his stomach. Hydra had to end.

He looked at Bucky, who hadn't moved since last night. Steve sat back down and put a hand to Bucky's forehead—still warm, but cooler than last night. "You can kick this, Buck," he said, patting his arm. "You're gonna get better." It was weird, being on this side of the sickbed. Bucky rarely got sick at home.

He didn't realize he'd drifted off again until he woke up. Bucky was moving on the bed, muttering to himself as he tossed back and forth. "Bucky?" Steve leaned forward, putting his hand on Bucky's arm.

"Nnh," Bucky grunted, stiffening at Steve's touch. "Two, five-five…s'ven," he slurred.

"No, hey, Bucky, it's me, it's Steve. It's okay." He shook his arm, hoping that would wake him up. Bucky's eyes fluttered open, but his gaze rolled past Steve without stopping, settling on an empty spot on the wall.

"Barnes. S'rg'nt. Three, two…five 'ive, sev'n…" That horrifyingly empty stare was back.

"No, no, no," Steve said, leaning in closer. "Bucky? Hey. Bucky, look at me." He reached up and rolled his head to side so that Steve was in his line of sight and patted his cheek with his hand.

"Barnes," Bucky rasped. "Sergean'…Three. Two…five…" He stopped. "Three, two, five," he started again. "Five…s'v'n…Barnes…"

"Bucky, no, come on," Steve urged. "You're safe now, you're out of that lab. They're not gonna hurt you anymore. You're safe."

"Sergeant…" Bucky whispered.

"Please, Bucky," Steve said desperately. "Don't do this." He swallowed down the waver in his voice. "It's me, it's Steve. I'm right here. Please come back."

"Steve?" It was barely audible, but it was Bucky, life blinking agonizingly slowly back into his eyes.

Relieved laughter bubbled up in Steve's throat. "Bucky! Hey, yeah, yeah it's me."

Bucky blinked again and licked his lips, eyes rolling slowly from the curtain behind Steve to the canvas of the tent. "'s goin' on?"

He looked and sounded terrible, but Steve was just so glad to see him conscious and aware that he couldn't keep from smiling. "You're in the medical tent. Back at camp," he added. "You got real sick. Doc said you have pneumonia."

"'s what M'rita said," Bucky said.

"What?" Morita wasn't here. Was his fever bad enough for him to be seeing things?

Bucky rolled his eyes, though it seemed to take a lot of effort. "'n th' cage. Was sick then. Morita thought it was 'monia."

"Oh. Well, he was right. But they're gonna get you fixed up. You're gonna be okay." He would be. He had to be.

"Y'alright?"

"Me? Yeah, I'm fine."

"Look like hell," Bucky said, one corner of his mouth going up. Steve huffed a soft laugh. He realized he'd gone straight from arriving to reporting to Phillips to the chair he was in right now. He was still covered in soot and grime and dirt and probably didn't smell that great.

"Nothing a shower won't fix," he assured Bucky.

Bucky eyed him skeptically. And sleepily.

"Hey, go back to sleep, alright?" Steve told him. He patted Bucky's shoulder. "Everything's okay now."

"Mm," Bucky said. He looked like he wasn't quite finished yet, but his eyes were already sinking shut. Whatever he'd wanted to say was lost in a sleepy mumble. Steve smiled.

He pushed himself up out of the chair. Bucky had woken up, and that had to be a good sign. And Bucky hadn't woken up alone. Steve didn't intend for that to happen until he was out of the med tent, but he needed something to eat, so he hurried back to his tent, and after a hasty shower and change of clothes, headed to the mess hall. He grabbed a stack of sandwiches and the biggest cup of coffee he could find, ducking behind a flap of canvas when he saw Phillips. He didn't want to get caught up in another round of questions.

Eddie was back in the tent when Steve pulled the curtain open. "Just here for some more blood," he told him, pulling a syringe out of Bucky's arm. "We're checking it regularly. Not anything to report yet, I'm afraid, but his fever broke. There's something we can be thankful for."

Bucky still looked pale, but he wasn't sweating like before. Steve wondered if this was what it was like being Bucky, back when Steve got sick all the time. These ups and downs of worry and relief were nerve-wracking. Bucky had somehow always seemed to keep his cool.

"Thanks, Eddie," Steve said.

"I'll be back in a while for some more blood," he said. "Or, if we figure anything out, I'll be back before that."

Steve settled back down in his chair as Eddie departed again. He looked Bucky over, and once he was sure that he did actually look better, he sat back and started making his way through his pile of sandwiches.

He ate slowly and thoughtfully. He ate a lot more than he used to—super metabolism, it made sense, but it still surprised him sometimes just how much more he needed to eat now. He wondered what Bucky would have to say about it. He wondered what Bucky would have to say about all of it, really. Yeah, he'd gotten the knee-jerk reaction and slap on the head when he first explained it, but they hadn't really talked about it. Bucky had yelled at him, which, as much as he got mad when Steve did something he deemed stupid, was a rare occurrence. Of course, nothing about the moment had lent itself to a normal conversation, and Steve figured that was where it had come from. He really hoped Bucky wasn't that angry at him.

To tell the truth, when Erskine had offered him the chance to go through the program and take the formula, he hadn't really thought beyond the fact that it meant getting him to the front lines so he could do his part. The health benefits had been a pleasant surprise. But what it meant for the other people in his life…Well, there weren't really a lot of people in it, and with Bucky gone, Steve hadn't really stopped to think about it. Face to face with Bucky now, he wondered what it was going to mean. It was going to change things, certainly. He wouldn't be getting sick all the time, so Bucky wouldn't have to worry about that. He definitely wouldn't have to worry about protecting him from bullies in back alleys. Actually, he realized he was looking forward to being as physically fit as Bucky, and what it meant as far as what they'd be able to do and where they could go. He'd always kind of felt like he was holding Bucky back before, although Bucky had certainly never done or said anything to make him think that was true.

But now, sitting by Bucky's sickbed and being on other side of things, Steve realized what a huge part of Bucky's life had been looking out for Steve. And Steve appreciated that, immeasurably and without enough words to express it. He always had, and he hoped Bucky knew that. He hoped Bucky knew, too, that as much as Steve appreciated the way Bucky looked out for him, that was the least of the reasons why he counted him as his best friend. He was never not going to need Bucky.

Bucky didn't wake up again until later that afternoon, and when he did, he woke up screaming. Steve hadn't thought anything would be worse than the blank stare and the broken, repetitive recitation, but he'd been very, very wrong. Bucky was trying to push himself up against the end of the bed, getting tangled in the blanket and his IV line. His eyes were wild and red and far away and terrified, and he was screaming at something only he could see like someone was trying to tear his heart out.

Steve jumped up and reached for him, and Bucky shied away, drawing his knees up to his chest and curling in on himself, twisting his fingers in his hair. His breath was coming in quick, uneven gasps before he started making a choking sound, like he couldn't get any air into his throat, and he was starting to rock back and forth. He was still screaming.

"Bucky?" Steve asked, carefully, reaching out a tentative hand to his shoulder. Bucky's head snapped up, wide, frightened eyes staring at Steve. He wasn't screaming anymore because he was gasping for air now and not getting any, and Steve sat down carefully in front of him, taking his other shoulder with his other hand and ignoring the doctor and nurse behind him who had coming running. "Bucky, it's okay. It's okay, you need to breathe. Just slow, deep breaths. Deep breaths, like me," he said, reaching up to untangle one of Bucky's hands from his hair. He pulled it over and placed it against his own chest, breathing slow and deep, just like Bucky used to do for him when they were kids and he had an asthma attack. And just like Steve did when they were kids, Bucky's eyes followed his hand and watched it rise and fall with each breath, slowly mirroring the pattern in his own breathing.

"There you go," Steve said encouragingly. He shot a quick look back to the doctor and nodded for him to leave. He had this now. Bucky was more than entitled to freak out, but he didn't need strangers hanging around to watch. "There you go," he said again. "Just breathe. It's okay. It was just a dream."

Bucky's breathing was ragged, but he was breathing. His fingers moved, bunching the material of Steve's shirt into his fist, and he looked up, meeting Steve's gaze with eyes that were red and watery and scared but, mercifully, aware. "Steve?"

"Yeah," Steve replied, reaching up and grabbing the hand that was clenched in his shirt. "Yeah, I'm here, Buck, it's okay."

Bucky's eyes roamed around their curtained-off section of the tent. "Wh…Where…"

"We're in an Army hospital," Steve told him, knowing what the rest of the question had been. "Remember, we left the factory? Had a hell of a long walk back here." Bucky's hand fell from his chest and moved to paw at the IV in his arm. "That's just medicine," Steve assured him, guessing what was going through his head. He itched to pull his hand away from it, but he wanted him to do it himself—to accept that he was safe. "You've got pneumonia, and that's just regular old antibiotics."

Bucky's hand stilled and he nodded. "Right. Right, you, sorry, you said that before, it—I didn't—I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Steve told him with a sad smile.

Bucky scrubbed his hands down his face with a sigh, lacing his fingers together in front of his mouth as if in prayer. "I thought for a minute…" He shut his eyes and exhaled. He swallowed hard and opened his eyes. "They did something to me, Stevie," he said quietly, shakily. "In the lab, they…They put something inside me. I can still…" He swallowed. "I can still feel it. I can feel it in me and it's wrong and I don't know what they did and I don't know what it's doing, and…" His voice cracked and he blinked miserably up at Steve, tears finally spilling out from where they'd been welling up in his eyes. "Steve, I'm scared," he whispered.

Steve reached over and pulled Bucky into his arms before he had time to think about it. Bucky fell into the embrace with a choked sob, crying silently into his chest. He was shaking like a leaf. It had been a long time since Steve had seen Bucky cry, and he'd never seen him so afraid and broken and…small. It rocked him to his core. He'd never thought a human being could be capable of hating anything as much as he hated Hydra right now. "It's gonna be okay, Buck," he said softly, his own voice wavering a little. "We'll figure this out." He didn't know how, but they would. "We'll figure this out and everything will be fine. I promise."

"You can't promise that," Bucky whispered.

Steve tightened his grip on his friend. "Just you watch me."

Bucky made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob and clenched his hand in Steve's shirt again. "We'll fix it, Buck. We will," he insisted. "I talked to the doc already, and whatever it is in your blood, they know it's there and they're working on it. And if they can't fix it, then we'll figure it out. You and me." Bucky was still shaking, but after a moment, Steve felt a small nod against his chest. They were gonna fight this thing together. "I promise," he said again.

Bucky's tears were coming slower now, but he cried a little longer before they stopped. Steve just held on to him and tried not to cry too. He pulled one hand up protectively around Bucky's head and leaned into his hair, reminding himself that he was here and he was alive. He hadn't been able to protect him, but he'd been able to save him, and he was going to do everything he could to save him again. If Eddie couldn't do it, then Stark, or someone else in the SSR…or anyone he could find. Steve wouldn't rest until his friend was whole again.

Bucky wasn't crying anymore, and his breathing was normal again. For several minutes, they just sat there in silence. Bucky's head was leaning on Steve's arm, and from somewhere near the crook of his elbow, he heard, "you're huge," in something close to Bucky's normal voice. A surprised laugh escaped Steve's throat, and Bucky pushed away to sit up on his own, looking Steve over as he did so. "That's still a thing, huh?"

Steve smiled. "Yeah." He paused. "Is that okay?"

This time, the surprised laugh came from Bucky. "What, because you'd change back if I said no?" He shook his head. "It's okay, Steve. It's weird as hell, and I still maintain that it was stupid, but, yeah. It's okay."

Steve smiled, relieved. "It is weird." Steve could definitely give him that one. "And, yeah, it was probably stupid—"

"No, no," Bucky interrupted. "It was definitely stupid. But you're okay, you came out of it fine, and…" He trailed off, giving Steve a look that was hard to interpret. "It just…It kinda fits you, you know?"

"What?" That wasn't what he'd been expecting, and he wasn't really sure what it meant.

Bucky waved an uncoordinated hand at him. "You were always this guy. The brave little idiot staring danger in the face because you thought it was the right thing to do." He smiled fondly. "The outside just matches the inside now."

Steve smiled, looking down as he felt his face going red, embarrassed but pleased at his friend's words. Bucky started coughing then, and Steve leaned over to the bedside table to pour him a glass of water. All that screaming couldn't have been easy on his throat.

He drank the water eagerly, and only protested a little as Steve plumped up the pillows behind him and pushed him back against them. Years of experience had taught Steve that the elevation would help him breathe easier than lying flat. "Better?" he asked.

Bucky nodded. "So, pneumonia, huh? You're the expert, how long does that take to go away?"

Steve grinned. There'd been a while when they were teenagers where it seemed like he came down with it every winter. "It usually took me a couple of weeks. You could probably be out of here by the end of the week, though—you're still in better shape than I ever was when I had it."

Bucky shook his head. "You can't be serious." Steve shrugged. "How are you even still alive?"

Steve smiled. "I don't know. I think it had something to do with this big jerk who was always looking out for me. He used to threaten to thump me if I didn't get better."

Bucky huffed a soft laugh. "Hey, Steve?" he said after a moment. "I should've said it before, but…thanks."

"For what?" Steve wondered. For calling him a jerk?

"For what?" Bucky repeated with an exasperated huff. "For saving my life, moron." He smacked him weakly in the leg. "What'd you think I meant?"

Steve reddened again. "Oh, well, I…I mean, it's just, you know…" Of course he'd saved his life. It felt weird being thanked for something that he'd done because he needed to. "I mean, anybody would've..."

Bucky rolled his eyes and smiled. "You stormed a weapons factory thirty miles behind enemy lines, alone, saved four hundred people, punched some sort of Nazi hell-beast in the face and got everyone home safely. It's not what anyone would have done. And nobody did it," he added softly. "Nobody but you. Thank you."

Steve swallowed down the sick feeling of realizing Bucky had known no one was coming for him, and smiled and patted his arm. "You're welcome."