A/N: Today is a two-parter, tomorrow will be a 3-part. Lots to cover during the march back, so strap in and enjoy the ride!
Bucky rides grudgingly in the truck throughout the next day's march, largely because he can't stand up under his own power. He's got vertigo in spades and squints against the daylight creeping in here and there, like it burns his eyes. Steve catches him rubbing at his forehead like he's got a godawful migraine more than once, though Bucky snaps at him to drop it when he asks.
Steve makes a point to climb up into the truck beside his friend whenever the company stops to rest or eat - or as much as he can get away with, anyway. He is still the de facto leader of a few hundred wounded, weary troops, and they need his time and attention just as much as Bucky does.
It truly amazes Steve how readily it all comes to him. Leading the men. Strategy and problem-solving. Organizing the most able-bodied to scout while the wounded and sick bring up the rear. It's engrossing and engaging, and he finds he could easily lose himself in it if he wasn't careful.
He has to be very careful.
The problem is, if Steve doesn't badger him, Bucky won't remember to eat and barely drinks enough to stay alive. The others from the 107th try to look out for Bucky too, knowing a little of what happened to him, but they're often busy trying to scrounge supplies or tending to the worst of the wounded. Nobody really has the energy to spare to keep track of any particular soldier really, except Steve, and that's more a matter of will-power than anything else.
Bucky is usually conscious and mostly lucid now, but he still spends most of his time just lying on his back and groaning every so often when the truck jolts over a bump and jars some tender injury.
He eases up onto his elbows when Steve crouches down beside him, putting on a strained smirk in greeting. Even in the dim light of the canvas-sheltered truck-bed, he looks ashen and tired. Steve hands him a mess-kit with what food he could scrape together from their dwindling rations. It's still warm from the camp-fire and accompanied by a freshly filled canteen. He helps Bucky get himself up and arranged before settling back on his heels to make sure it all gets eaten.
The whole situation is a strange, jarring role-reversal from their time growing up in Brooklyn. Steve was always the smaller one then. The one that could barely keep himself going. The one that Bucky had to look after wherever he could find time. To be on the other side of that makes Steve feel, ironically, very small... and very inadequate. He's constantly on edge, not sure what to do, or if he's doing anything right. Lives are in his hands, and for the first time since he started this whole mess, he's not sure he's up to the task.
Bucky just seems to be in a bad mood in general, so if he notices the similarities, Steve honestly couldn't say.