A week had passed since the last time he'd seen Evangeline, since the last time the trio from Brooklyn had been back together for the first time in months, since Steve had witnessed the fact that the woman he loved had already fallen for his best friend. 

The group of selected soldiers had made camp a few miles away from their target location, one of Hydra's other laboratories hidden throughout Germany, France, Italy, and Austria. Though the weather had gotten colder, they had a fire burning outside their tent,  and one of their fellow soldiers were on watch for the next few hours, Steve didn't wrap his blanket around his shoulders and lay down to sleep for the night like Bucky had. Instead, the super-soldier sat on his cot with his legs crossed and his journal in his hands, a pencil resting in his right hand.

With the turn of events revolving around Evangeline's affections, Steve couldn't help but feel lonely even though his best friend was sleeping only a few feet away. Ever since they were little kids, they could always tell each other anything, no matter how stupid, embarrassing, or vulnerable. Growing up, they'd always told each other their crushes from school and casually poke fun at each other for it, just enough teasing to make each other smile.

Not once had either boy mentioned Evangeline's name, Steve kept his mouth shut about that mainly because they were all so close. Admitting his feelings for her would've been a little too much, even though both boys were constantly promising to each other that neither one would ever rat out the other to the certain ladies on their minds. The little asthmatic kid from New York always said the name of some other girl from his homeroom, his history class, or art sessions during study hall to maintain the connections he held with both Evangeline and Bucky. Steve began to wonder if maybe Bucky had done the exact same thing for the exact same reasons.

Ever since his transformation from weakling to super hero, Captain Rogers found himself secluding his thoughts to the paper in his journal, drawing pictures no one would ever see and writing letters that no one would ever read. Though he'd drawn a few illustrations of Buck within the past few days in his free time, the amount of pages spent on Sergeant Barnes's mug was nothing compared to the countless drawings of Evangeline, each one created from the images in his mind, the good times and memories he'd lived through by her side. 

After Bucky's proposal and the sudden separation of the two love birds, Steve knew that Bucky would've had a cow if he saw all of his friend's work, if he found out that Steve was just as in love with Evangeline Harris as Bucky was. But the sergeant was well aware of Steve's want for privacy when it came to his journal. As kids, every time Buck would sneak a peak at the art inside, Steve would throw a fit and not speak to the bigger kid for a few days, a week at the most depending on just how much Bucky had seen. The only person the frail little boy ever willingly shared his work with was none other than his crush; he kept all the drawings of her hidden away before exposing what he'd spent all of his personal energy on within the week.

The biggest difference between then and now was that Steve had started writing letters to her, not just drawing her beaming smile and intoxicating gaze whenever she was interested in something. Every few days, he'd write out the words he wanted to say to her, the words he'd never speak, the words that would always be trapped in his heart like a wild bird in a cage.

Dear Mon Tout, he started on his second letter, changing Evangeline's name to the French phrase 'my everything'. Despite Bucky maintaining his distance from Steve's journal, there was no such thing as being too prepared for the worst case scenario. I wish...

Oh, how he wished for so many things, so many rewrites of the past before he could lose her for good, before her heart slid through his fingertips like sand and into the hands of another man. Into the hands of his closest companion, his best friend, his brother. That had to have been the worst punch to the gut, knowing that Evangeline was happy with a man Steve could never hate, could never resent because she was happy with a man Steve would've taken a bullet for. 

I wish I hadn't been scared.

The fear was what kept him from opening his mouth. The fear of losing her after admitting that she meant the world to him was a weight on his weak shoulders he could never shake off no matter how many times he tried to talk himself out of loving her. Every time he saw her, he'd always tell himself in the back of his mind that it would never happen; she would never care for him the way he cared for her. He was constantly reminding himself that she deserved better. She deserved a man who could protect her and hold her when she was afraid, a man who could keep her safe from the dark world outside his embrace.

It was a sour taste in Steve's mouth to know that if he'd been recruited for the super-soldier program  three months earlier, he just might have finally checked off all of the qualifications he'd made up in his mind.

I wish it wasn't him.

Of all the people in the world, it was Bucky. It just had to be Bucky.

I wish you never left.

I wish I never left.

I wish I would never see you again.

I wish you were with me right now.

It wasn't uncommon for Steve's letters to turn into giant bipolar lists of requests that Santa Claus would've never been able to fulfill in his entire immortal lifetime. The sentences he wrote were so simple, and yet so complex in the deepest way anyone could think, packed with emotions he would never be able to express to the outside world.

I wish I had said something sooner.

I wish I deserved you more than he does.

I wish life wasn't so cruel.

I wish life would be crueler and put me out of my misery.

I wish

As he quickly scribbled down the 'h' in 'wish', the sound of Bucky stirring across the tent came to his attention and he slowly closed the journal, then placed it under his pillow like usual. At first, Steve had thought that Bucky was waking up, but upon further inspection, the man realized the sergeant was just dreaming, or having a nightmare. He tossed and turned subtly at first, then escalated to muttering under his breath and kicking his legs, like someone was trying to hold him down and he was fighting their grasp.

"No..." Bucky spoke, his eyes moving wildly beneath his eyelids. "No, let her...let her go...Leave her...Leave her alone..."

It was then that Steve decided to take action. He knew exactly who Bucky was talking about, and having nightmares about their friend being tortured was something Steve never wanted to go through, so he took pity on Buck and quickly walked over to his cot and shook the sergeant awake.

"No...no no!" Buck jumped and his eyes shot open. 

"Hey, Buck, you're fine," Steve began to comfort the frightened man. "It was just a dream."

Though the sergeant believed Steve, he was far from getting over the horrors he'd lived through. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the cot, sitting with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands as he took shaky breaths.

"It's my fault..." He murmured to himself, his voice muffled by his palms.

Neither one of them slept that night.