November 4, 1944

Bucky took in a deep breath before striding into the hospital. All at once his senses were assaulted and overwhelmed with the sharp smell of antiseptic and the faint but lingering tang of blood and other fluids he didn't want to name, bodily and otherwise. The air was thick with what felt to him like desperation and despair, the hints of hope and determination unable to compete against the dashed dreams and horribly altered lives of the dying and wounded that clogged the halls and wards.

It had taken pulling a few strings and banking on Steve's new celebrity a bit, but as soon as they had made it back to London, Bucky had managed to get himself a pass to visit the hospital. And even the nurses fluttering after him as he drew closer to his destination, warning of contagion couldn't stop him.

"I don't get sick," he'd dismissed impatiently when one particularly insistent nurse had refused to stop pestering him. The concern on her face didn't ease but she finally left him alone, especially once Steve had levelled her with pointed look and offered a few placating words that Bucky didn't have the patience to offer as the supersoldier trailed him through the hospital. Bucky was too intent on his search, peering at face after face as he passed row upon row, room after room of narrow cots with their downtrodden occupants lying on crisp white sheets.

And then he finally found him. At once an unsettling mix of worry and relief settled in his chest, making it hard to breathe.

Jack was alright.

Though still pale and visibly weak, he was sitting up, his blue eyes—a shared trait among the Barnes siblings—were bright and clear as he chatted with his neighbour, a small collection of letters arrayed across his lap. Probably from Bea and their mother, Bucky couldn't help but think with a grin.

As soon as Bucky had heard Jack was sick—pneumonia—Bucky had resolved to see him. It was one perk of the position he held in the Howling Commandoes and as Captain America's friend; it allowed him a great deal more freedom and more pull than the average infantryman. Any other occasion and he wouldn't have dreamed of taking advantage of either. But when his kid brother was sick enough that the doctors had believed he wasn't going to pull through? As soon as he'd gotten Bea's letter, he didn't hesitate.

But Jack was on the mend. Seeing him in person, the pervasive fear—terror, really—that he'd been about to lose his other brother began to ease. Even the assurances that Jack was past the worst of it hadn't helped. Bucky had needed to see it for himself.

It was only when Steve's hand landed on Bucky's shoulder that he snapped free of his tumultuous thoughts. Sparing Steve a small grin, Bucky was once again striding forward. He was nearly at the end of the narrow hospital bed before Jack noticed him. And when he did, his face lit up with surprise.

"Bucky!" Bucky swallowed back the emotion suddenly threatening to clog his throat.

"What did you go and enlist for, you idiot. I told you not to." And then they were clasping each other in a tight hug. Bucky nearly lost his composure at how weak his little brother's grip was.

"Since when have I ever listened when you try to boss me around, big brother," wheezed Jack, his voice weak and thready. Bucky tried to grin, but it didn't quite hide the pained look that overcame him as Jack pulled away, turning from Bucky as he was caught by a fit of coughing. It was an awful, painful sound from deep in his chest. When it eased, Bucky straightened, crossing his arms as he mustered a disapproving look for Jack.

"You're supposed to listen to me because I'm the oldest. And Danny and I left you to look after Mom and Bea." A guilty look passed over Jack's face before his expression grew determined.

"And I had to do something after Danny died." Bucky winced again, especially when the coughing started up for a second time. "Besides," Jack added once he'd caught his breath again, "you couldn't just sit back, and neither could Danny." Bucky's jaw tightened before he forced himself to take a deep breath.

"We were both drafted, Jack." The determined expression reemerged.

"And if you hadn't been drafted? Can you honestly say you wouldn't have signed up?" Bucky sighed. Of course he would've; the only reason he'd hesitated long enough for his number to come up was because of Steve. Danny nearly had. And they both knew it. Needing a moment, Bucky stepped back to grab a chair from the end of a nearby bed, maneuvering it next to Jack and sitting before speaking again.

"You almost died, Jack," Bucky finally said softly. Jack slumped.

"I know."

"And you know what that would've done to us." Jack looked up at the way Bucky's voice cracked, his eyes suddenly as haunted and sorrowful as Bucky felt. He didn't say anything for the longest time, his gaze falling to where his fingers toyed with the letters laying on top of his greying blanket. Bucky recognized the handwriting instantly; his mother's and Bea's.

"I'm not getting better, Bucky," Jack finally whispered. Fear and panic jolted through Bucky, but before he could voice that fear, Jack had looked up, a wan smile on his face as he explained.

"I'll live, but I'll probably never fully recover—I'll never get over this. The doctor said it was bad enough that it ruined my lungs. Apparently it's a miracle I didn't die," he said bitterly. A sharp breath gusted past Bucky's lips. His heart ached for his kid brother, but his relief was stronger.

"But at least you'll live," he murmured sedately back, reaching out to grasp Jack's shoulder in a firm, reassuring grip. Slowly Jack nodded, glancing without seeing around the room. He was out of danger and no longer contagious, so he had been moved to the ward devoted to soldiers waiting to be shipped back Stateside.

"And I'm going home," he added. Bucky eyed him warily. There was something almost resentful in Jack's voice.

"Jack—"

"I didn't even do any real fighting, Bucky," he suddenly burst out, startling the eldest Barnes sibling, his voice nearly breaking as another fit of coughing threatened. "I didn't even—I didn't do anything to help!" Bucky sighed, withholding the urge to scrub his hand over his face.

"I know," he finally agreed softly. He truthfully didn't know how his brother was feeling—Bucky was helping, after all—but he could imagine easily enough. He could imagine he'd feel the exact same way had their situations been reversed. But at the same time? He was more relieved than he could say that Jack would be going home, where he'd be safe. He'd be...

"But you're going home." Jack started, frowning at the longing Bucky hadn't been able to quite hide from his voice.

"You...what?" He was cut off by another coughing fit, waving off the concerned way Bucky straightened. "But—but you..." he gestured to Bucky's Commandoes uniform—the jacket and the clothing beneath it definitely not standard issue, harking to his elite position and the missions he was tasked with—and over to Steve. While Bucky spent time with Jack, Steve was making the rounds around the ward, speaking quietly with the other soldiers. Bucky watched him for a moment, privately marvelling at what his best friend had become; Steve, or rather, Captain America, really had become a beacon of hope for their fellow soldiers. But it was Steve's heart that had him wandering from bed to bed, offering bolstering words and handshakes and raising spirits where he could. Bucky couldn't help but smile at that.

But then his eyes fell to the men themselves. For all that Steve's presence was lifting spirits, in the wake of so much death and despair as this damn War was causing? That lingered in this hospital alone? Through the door to the next ward over, Bucky could see a nurse lifting a sheet to cover a soldier who had lost his fight, and faint cries of pain and horror wafted through the air, tainting the easy quiet of the ward they were in. Bucky's smile faded. He looked back to Jack, his grave expression causing the youngest Barnes boy to wince. Especially when Bucky's eyes fell to the letters on Jack's lap, his fingers brushing against the edge of the closest one; it was from Bea. The ache of longing Bucky had been fighting since he'd truly realized what was going on here in Europe pulsed dejectedly in his chest.

"It doesn't mean I don't want to go home, Jack," he corrected softly. "You...you haven't been here long enough to realize just how—we keep fighting because we have to. Because we know we can't let the other guys win—because it's the right thing to do and because everyone back home is counting on us. All the people here are counting on us.

"But we all dream of going home, Jack. Every man over here? We pray, every day, that we'll see home again, all of us knowing very well just how slim that hope is. It may not feel like it..." Bucky sighed in frustration, not quite knowing how to vocalize what he wanted to say. When he finally finished the thought, his voice was so quiet, so subdued, Jack had to lean forward to hear it: "you're lucky, Jack." Jack didn't answer, but the conflicting emotions in his eyes said more than enough. Bucky sighed again. More than ever before he suddenly wished that the War was over. It was a powerful, aching desire rooted in the longing for home. It was so much more than simple homesickness.

But Bucky pushed it away. He'd meant what he'd said about the fight. There was still a job to do, after all, and Bucky was not about to back down from doing the right thing. Not when they were so close and it was so important.

"So Steve really is Captain America." He turned back to Jack at the soft, incredulous comment. Jack was watching as Steve began making his way back to where the two Barnes boys sat, pausing along the way as soldiers called out to him, shaking a couple more hands and sharing a few more reassuring words as he went, unable to deny even one of the wounded. "I didn't think you would lie to us about something like that, but I still..."

"Couldn't quite believe it," Bucky supplied with a grin. Jack nodded with a small huffing laugh.

"Not at all. I thought you were having us on, to be honest. I mean, puny Steve? Captain America? It sounded like a joke." Bucky laughed too.

"Don't I know it. I still can't quite believe it and we're working together."

"And how do you think I feel," Steve added with a wry grin, having overheard Bucky's comment as he walked up.

"Pretty strange, I bet," Jack laughed. Steve chuckled, reaching out to clasp Jack's hand. Jack eagerly shook it, a trace of awe in his eyes mingling with a trace of nostalgia Bucky recognized as him trying to reconcile the imposing man before him with the twig of a boy Jack had grown up knowing.

"It is that," Steve agreed. Jack narrowed his eyes slightly as he took in Steve's new stature.

"Is it permanent?" Steve started and Bucky was suddenly struggling not to burst out laughing at the dumbfounded look on his best friend's face.

"Did Buck tell you to ask that?" Jack frowned, bewildered as he looked between his brother and his brother's oldest friend.

"No. Why?" Steve made an exasperated sound, but some of the effect was lost thanks to the bright grin that spread across his face.

"It was one of the first questions I asked when I saw the new him," Bucky managed to explain through his attempt to keep his laughter to himself. It was a poor attempt, that was for sure. Jack barked out a laugh before another fit of coughs interrupted him.

"Well, you can tell you two are related," Steve said dryly as the coughing subsided, his eyes sparkling with amusement of his own despite the visible concern brought on by Jack's rasping cough.

But Bucky couldn't help but smile as Jack laughed. It made his little brother seem more like the boy he'd left behind when he'd shipped off than the young man now scarred forever by a War he hadn't even had a chance to properly fight in. And that left him with a greater sense of relief than he'd anticipated.

But that was still nothing compared to the relief that came from knowing that at least one of them was going to make it home to Bea and their mother.

And in a War that had already taken so much?

That was something to be grateful for.

A/N: Thanks for Reading!

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