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There was one particular incident that occurred one night back in the days when Steve and Bucky used to share a room. One that stood out amongst the disturbingly recurrent episodes that the Sergeant suffered almost every night. An event so distressing that, despite the men’s backgrounds, was enough to arise a painful question inside the Captain’s head.
That night, like others before and others yet to come, Steve was woken up by his best friend’s pleas for help. Bucky had been screaming for Rogers in his dreams. And after realizing what was happening, the groggy yet alarmed man tried to wake up the other from his troubled sleep.
“Hey, Buck, wake up,” Steve said, trying to gently rouse Bucky from sleep.
“Huh, what? Where am I? What happened?” Questioned a disoriented Barnes as soon as his eyes shot open.
“You’re in your room, Buck, with me, Steve.”
“Steve?”
“It’s okay, buddy, you’re safe here,” assured Rogers with a waning smile.
“I’m safe…” Bucky repeated slowly while mumbling.
“Did you have another nightmare? What was it about?”
Rogers tried to pry answers out of his best friend, yet the other man didn’t seem to want to cooperate with him. Instead, Barnes just kept silent, still adjusting to the sudden pull back into reality.
“Buck, it’s okay, you can tell me,” said the Captain, attempting again to understand what’s bothering the other man.
“I’m fine, Steve, but I’m also really tired. Can we leave this for another time?”
Barnes’ question was made with such clear exhaustion and resignation that Rogers couldn’t dare to push further on the subject. Nevertheless, he wouldn’t let the matter rest for long.
For the time being, both men settled back down in their beds and managed to fall asleep a little while after the initial commotion. However, Steve was left feeling worried about what was plaguing his best friend’s mind while Bucky couldn’t shake off the uneasiness that took hold of him after he woke up from the dreadful nightmare.
It wasn’t until the next morning, in the midst of preparing coffee, that a sleepy Steve Rogers started to wonder about what he had witnessed last night could actually mean. His still-tired mind began to come up with disturbing scenarios that could possibly be the set of Barnes’ nightmares, which only made the man worry further.
Only when Steve was more alert and awake did he come up with the idea that, perhaps, Bucky screaming for him wasn’t a new development for the memory-unstable man, but more the resurgence of an old recurrence.
That was the moment when it dawned on him that his friend could have been screaming for him while awake when he was captured by Hydra and was being experimented on. It all made sense then, yet the puzzle pieces coming together seemed to do more damage than good.
The worst part of it wasn’t that it could have happened back during World War II, but that it could have happened again after Barnes was turned into the Winter Soldier.
How many times had he been strapped to a table or chair, about to be injected with something, had his arm operated on, or his memory wiped clean? And during all of those scenarios, until the memory of Steve had been completely removed from the surface of Bucky’s mind, had the man screamed for help, hoping in vain that his best friend would go to his rescue?
Even worse than that was the notion that Barnes could have been screaming for someone who he couldn’t even remember, asking for someone that felt like a stranger to aid him amidst the pain and suffering of the unbearable torture, only for no one to show up. Thus, making him feel not only confused but even more distraught.
That twisted realization was enough to break Steve’s heart all over again.
Because it wasn’t enough knowing that he failed to rescue his friend, said friend had been waiting for him to come along for who knew how long. And Rogers never even thought of it until months after finding Bucky again.
Steve blamed himself for a lot of things. Yet his biggest regret was not looking for Bucky after he fell off the train. Even if doing that would have meant putting the whole mission at risk, giving Schmidt a chance to bomb New York undeterred.