Steve hadn't slept. Or at least, he thought he hadn't, because when he woke up in his bed (that was still too soft) he felt like he'd just been hit by a freight train.

He mentally scolded himself.

The anxiety from last night still was lingering. God bless Natasha, who had found one of the biggest Hydra bases yet. And he couldn't wait to blow that fuckfest sky high.

At the same time, he was inexplicably doubtful, especially when Natasha had gently eased into the topic that yes, they would need Bucky for this, because he was the only one who knew how to get past the booby traps. He could see Clint snigger at the word, "Booby."

Sam, of course, had unobviously called him out on his obvious doubt. "You, Steve, of all people, hesitant to shoot those Nazi sons of bitches to hell?" And Steve hadn't said a damn thing, because his logic was annoyingly perfect. Steve knew he had stated, more than once, how he would (very violently) take Hydra down. Person by person, base by base. He would utterly destroy the people who had ruined everything Peggy Carter had worked for. The people who had taken everything from his best friend, everything he had to give and more. He had to.

Steve clenched his jaw, splashed the cold water on his face in a frustrated sort of way. "Easy there, tiger, save that temper o' yours for those Nazi bitches," Bucky would've said. Or, at least, Old Bucky, anyways. He was still having a hard time grasping the fact that the Bucky he'd known and the man in the room next to him were two different people with the same face.

He was in and out of the bathroom in almost no time; how clean he was wouldn't matter because he would probably be covered in gore and blood by the end of the day. Food, on the other hand, was something that mattered a great deal, because he would be a great lump of patriotic uselessness on the floor if he didn't eat enough. Steve had learned that the hard way.

A pleasant surprise, Pepper had come by. She was still on rough terms with Tony, which more or less drove her to stop by and assist them unbeknownst to the Stark man. And, he noticed with a small smile, she had brought food. Lots of food. Bacon, too. Maybe some pancakes for Bucky. Probably. Pepper had taken up a sweet spot for his best friend, but Sam was the only one who ever said anything. Pepper probably looked at the man as a son, despite the fact that Bucky towered over her.

Natasha ate very lightly, he noticed, as he made his way to the dining room. A bagel and coffee so dark he could practically taste it on his tongue. Clint was eating arrow-shaped pancakes; where he had got them from, Steve had no idea. Sam was no where to be seen, perhaps still asleep. Bucky was in the living room, on the couch. Steve couldn't see if he had any food with him.

Steve piled food onto his plate, despite the fact that he was much too anxious to be truly hungry
                                           ♢
It was going smoothly, as far as Steve was concerned.

Bucky had easily disabled the traps Hydra had set in a desperate attempt to get outsiders to remain outside, except for one. It hadn't had any serious firepower, just an odd blue mist that had landed on Steve because, of course, Steve had to lead in the case that something like this happened.

Steve, the only one not sweating out of sheer anxiety, kicked the door in before Bucky could use his hand to disable the security. Apparently, Hydra had planned on having their Asset back, because he still had access to everything they came upon. Even the armory, which they had stumbled upon after wandering down the corridor seeing if there was anything that could be of use.

Firing two bullets into the head of the first person he saw, he swore to himself to never let that happen.

The woman fell after a split second of remaining upright; he had noticed that it seemed to happened to everyone. They took some time slumping to the floor, 2 oddly calm seconds, at the most, dead. With lethal efficiency, Rogers tore through the doctors, leaving the guards to Natasha. Clint was keeping watch in the corner of the room, bow in hold, unseen by most, and Bucky was at his side, dropping bodies by the second with both his knife and his gun.

Oh, if you could've seen it. Steven Rogers was deadly enough without that blessedly patriotic shield of his, and James Barnes- Bucky didn't need a damn thing to be the most threatening person in the room. The dark haired man took a doctor in an headlock, crushing his windpipe in record time and letting the body drop to the floor without a second thought. Natasha, blessed be her thighs, was currently snapping the neck of an unfortunate guard who thought he stood a chance against the Black Widow. Clint, with his uncanny inability to miss, released an arrow straight into a man's eye as he raised a semi-automatic to Steve's head while he effectively, yet horrifyingly, tore someone's head off with his bare hands. The head rolled under a table, brown eyes distant and mouth slack.

There was never an estimated number of how many doctors and guards there were in the lab, nor was there an estimate of how many died an unusually cruel death, which, truthfully, every one of them deserved.

Steve could feel the eerily warm spray of blood on the back of his neck as Bucky -assumedly- cut someone's throat. Knowing how scrappy the brunet man could be, he could've just as easily ended up tearing someone's throat out. Oh, the possibilities.

Taking a quick scan of the spacious lab, there were still a good number of people alive. Those would be the hardest to kill, Steve pondered, because he knew for a fact every person on his team had came here with intent to kill. No matter how much blood they got on their exposed skin. Steve raised another gun, dropped the body of a guard who had an arm wrapped around Natasha's throat. He could see the sickeningly red symbol on his coat. The man fell off of her with a surprisingly violent force. Steve supposed he was heavy. He'd never been one for physics and science; that had always been Buck's sort of thing.

Speaking of Mr. James Buchanan Barnes, as soon as Steve shot that man, everything went to hell.

A stray woman, white lab coat tainted with blood splatter (she had most likely used someone as a bodily shield) recovered a pistol from the earless, fingerless corpse of a guard and fired it with uncanny aim, as if she weren't truly a lab rat. And she wasn't, as a matter of fact- but that's not important.

Bucky watched in seemingly slow motion as the bullet- perfectly aimed, he hated it- moved straight for Steve Roger's head, and he knew he wouldn't say anything soon enough, Steve was too busy focusing on the guard that had somehow grabbed Natasha- so he did something that the Winter Soldier never would've done.

He used those beautifully damned legs of his to jump in front of the bullet.

Now Steve, Steve heard the bullet fire, turned slightly as to try and see where it was coming from. Thing is, he didn't realize it was coming for him. Bucky did, though, because he was falling to the ground, neck gushing an impossible amount of blood but Steve didn't care- because he was falling apart- he couldn't hear a thing, barely could his own heart beating, that shouldn't be beating because that shot had been meant for him, him only, it would've- should've- killed him faster than he could've said "Shield," and he was holding his best friend in his arms and he was doing something he hadn't done since Peggy- he was crying. With impossibly blue eyes- that were slowly, slowly losing their light, Bucky looked up at him, mouthing words Steve would've said a million times before if he had known. "I love you."

With a strangled cry, Steve sat up in his bed, body drenched in sweat but no blood- no anything, except for that uncannily real feeling of pain in his heart. With a relieved sigh, it was just a dream,  Steve looked over at his phone on the desk, picked it up to see the time.

The first thing he saw was something he shouldn't've- it couldn't have been possible! Because, just like yesterday- Thursday- today was Thursday, 6:20 AM. The exact same time he had woken up yesterday, before the mission- before Bucky.

AN
FUCK ME IN THE ASS AND CALL ME
JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES, THIS HURT ME