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Wind bites at his skin, stinging and cold as it slams into him, stealing his breath like he’d just been dunked in ice water. Ice shoots through his veins and he feels his stomach drop when there’s nothing solid beneath his feet. A look down confirms his fears when he sees a nauseating drop below him. A ravine of grey, sharp-toothed rocks lay below him, like a row of monstrous jaws sat open and waiting to tear him limb from limb.
Then he’s aware of the feeling in his hands, all stinging and numb. He narrows his eyes against the wind to find he’s clinging to a metal bar, knuckles white with effort and fingers red with cold.
His eyes catch something else, sticking out against the slate grey of the train car and the snow. Brown leather. A gloved hand. He squints against the stinging cold air to follow it up with his eyes and locks onto a pair of achingly familiar blues.
Steve
His mop of blond hair is whipping around as he clings on against the wind too. His face is scrunched in desperation and Bucky can see he’s clenching his teeth, straining to reach across the yawning gap between them.
Bucky lunges his hand wildly up towards the open gloved one. His fingers get within centimetres of Steve’s before gravity caves in on him all at once and he’s ripped away.
He catches a glimpse of Steve reaching for him, mid-scream and arm outstretched grabbing for him as he’s plummeting away from it all. Away from the train. Away from Steve.
Down.
Down.
Down.
”Bucky!”
He’s hears a distant scream trailing off into the wind. He desperately wants to scream back.
Then pain.
White hot pain rips through his side so violently it chokes off the scream in his throat and he feels himself slam solidly into something and then… nothing.
More cold. This time he can feel it pressing against the side of his face. It seeps in through his skin and his breath hitches as he jerks his head away from the ground.
He attempts to push himself up the rest of the way with his arms but is caught off balance when he feels a dragging heaviness to his left side, accompanied by a bone deep ache. His mind flashes back to the burning pain that had tore through him and looks to his left for a wound. But instead of flesh and blood he is met with cold metal.
Panic washes over him as he follows the prosthetic down with his eyes, tracing the outlines of the interlocking silver plates right down to his hand. He stares at it, half buried in the snow, and clenches it into a fist. Snow squeezes out from between the fingers and it should be cold. But he can’t feel it. Queasiness writhes up within him at the sight of it. It stirs up flashes of rubber gloved hands digging at flesh with their sharp, cold tools and grinding drills boring into bone.
He scrambles up onto his feet and backs up, his breath now coming out in frantic bursts. They spill out around his face, forming clouds in the frigid air. Strands of dark hair now hang in his face where it had previously been too short to. He reaches his right hand shakily up to the top of his head, grabbing at a fistful of it.
He spins around on stumbling legs to see the rest of his surroundings but everything around him is cloaked in endless white. A sluggish trickle of snow is coming down around him through a heavy fog hanging in the air, it conceals his surroundings, puts him on edge.
The air is too still. Too quiet. The chaos of the rattling train and the shrill screams replaced with a suffocating silence, amplified by the thick blanket of snow dampening anything and everything around.
His gaze drifts down to his feet to see bright crimson pooling in the snow around the hefty black boots he has on. The sight sends dread running down his spine and he whips around to check behind him.
Red.
The ground is drenched in it, what was once white snow is now a stream of deep crimson. But as Bucky’s eyes flit over the scene he begins to take in other things strewn amongst the red.
Bodies. Dozens of bodies littering the blood soaked ground around him.
At the realisation his blood runs ice cold and he stumbles back. The smell of copper wafts up and fills his nose so much he can taste it as his stomach twists in on itself.
And he’s holding something in right hand. It’s cold and wet and when his vision comes into focus he finds himself gripping a knife. The blade is coated in the same thick, oozing red that soaks the snow underfoot. It runs down the handle, pooling into his leather glove-covered palm and through his fingers.
He lets out a gasp and drops the knife like it had seared his skin. He takes more hurried steps back, trying to get distance between himself and the blood soaked weapon.
“No…” he mutters, no he doesn’t do that anymore that’s not him. The landscape around him blurs and the atmosphere is all of a sudden too thick to breathe in. The leather he’s wearing is too tight and he grasps at the buckles across his chest but his cold, numb fingers won’t grip properly and his breathes are coming out quick and shallow.
“No no no I’m not-I don’t want to-” he says breathlessly. Then there’s something around his mouth and nose and the panic soars. He claws at the hard muzzle but it’s not coming off and he can’t breath and-
He jerks up with a heaving gasp. He’s breathing like he’d been drowning, gulping down air. He can still feel the cold nipping at his skin and taste blood in his mouth as he tries to get his bearings.
In the darkness he feels his fingernails still digging onto his cheek. The limb feels so far away and tingly and numb that it takes him a while to lower it from his face, like it isn’t even attached.
His hand goes from his face to feeling along his left shoulder. He hits the cold metal of the socket where his prosthetic arm slots in and he holds onto it like an anchor, the metal notches digging into his fingers.
He’s not wearing the arm. That means he isn’t the soldier. He isn’t back there anymore. The arm that HYDRA had burdened him with had never come off, they’d made sure of it. Bolted the thing to his very bones.
His breathes are still coming out in shallow gasps but his eyes have adjusted to the lack of light. Even with the absence of light in the room he can make out the glint of the vibranium prosthesis lying on the bedside table.
As he comes back to himself he notices that even though he’s coated in a sheen of sweat, he’s shivering, ice still clinging stubbornly to his bones. He turns to the other side of the bed and feels around for the familiar, expected heat there but instead his fingers grasp at cold, empty sheets.
Alarm rushes through him for a moment before distantly remembering that Steve had to leave earlier, a mission-related-something or other he’d been called in for. Alarm morphs into a heavy ache that sits in his rib cage, and he finds himself missing his company terribly.
He clenches his fist, hugging it close to his chest. He releases a heavy, unsteady breath and curls in on himself, trying to smother his shivering as he feels the weight of the nightmare bearing down on him.
He feels stupid for needing Steve so badly at times like this. He shouldn’t need him to console him every time his brain decides to turn on him in his sleep, dredging up old memories. Steve would tell him different, tell him he doesn’t mind being by Bucky’s side to quell his panic, that he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
Steve’s presence was a soothing balm during these moments, a reassurance that everything was okay. Or at least as okay as things could be, given everything they’d been through.
And he really needs that right now.
He sits there for a while, rocking with waves of tremors, as he tries to tether himself back to reality. Time feels crumpled up and stretched out all at once. It could have been minutes or an hour later, but eventually he gathers the energy to break from his hunched position on the bed.
He sluggishly peels back the covers and shifts to sit with his legs hanging off of the bed, placing his feet to the floor.
He plants them down into a thick, soft rug lying by the bed. He burrows his toes into it, trying to bring some feeling back into them and ground himself. The contrast of the soft rug to the cold and pain of his nightmares made it easier to cling to the present.
Once he felt that his legs were steady enough the hold him he stands, arm splayed out for balance. He’s still shaky but it’s manageable as he moves around the bed, noticing now that the first slithers of dawn light were peeking through the gaps of the blackout curtains.
He makes his way to the bathroom and flips on the light, squinting in the abrupt brightness. He goes to the sink and braces his arm against the counter, closing his eyes. He lowers his head and breathes in a few deep breathes to calm his thrumming pulse. He’s still taking in air a little too fast but it’s much closer to normal, he’s not fighting with his lungs to take a deep breathes anymore.
He opens and closes his hand on the counter, trying to dispel the remaining feelings of numbness and static and lifts his head, making eye contact with his reflection in the mirror.
It’s not a pretty sight. His eyes are noticeably droopy with tiredness and his forehead is still tacky with sweat. He can see mottled, red lines on his right cheek where he’d scratched at his face in his sleep. He brings his hand up to touch them lightly with his fingers; they’d be long gone by morning thanks to his rapid healing.
He turns on the tap so that the water runs warm and puts his hand under it, trying to soak up some of the heat. It thaws away at some of the ice in his bones and he cups a handful and splashes it across his face, hoping it’d help wash the nightmare down the drain.
Eventually the water temperature starts to turn scalding and he twists the tap to off. The mirror has fogged up and a blanket of steam hangs in the air, it’s a little stuffy in the room now but it had done a decent job of keeping the cold at bay.
Bucky grabs a washcloth from a drawer and dabs his face dry but as he finishes with it he catches the bathroom door opening in the corner of his eye.
He flinches away from the movement and his head snaps around towards the door, his heart shooting into his throat. The cloth drops to the floor as blood rushes through his ears.
And then a little, white fluffy body squeezes its way past the door, letting out a loud yowl of announcement.
Alpine. It’s just Alpine. He sags against the counter in relief, letting out a long breath that turns into a quiet chuckle. His legs are feeling wobbly again and he lets himself slide onto the floor, back up against the counter.
He covers his eyes with his hand and attempts to get a hold of his breathing again.
In. Out. In. Out. As deep as his lungs will allow.
He’s pulled out of his head when he feels something warm rub up against his legs and he picks his head up to see Alpine, standing by his side and staring up at him with big, concerned eyes. Even with anxiety pulsing through him, the sight manages to pull Bucky’s mouth into a faint smile and he reaches a shaky hand over to pet her around the head.
“Hey, Alley Cat.” He greeted softly. The nickname hadn’t just come from a shortening of her full name but also how he’d found her. Weak and starving in a back alley. He’d been told she was small for her age, the runt of the litter. He guessed he had a propensity for finding strong-willed, smaller-than-average fighters in the backs of alleyways.
A loud purr erupts from the small cat as he begins scratching her behind the ear, pushing her head into Bucky’s hand. Despite her small size she had always been loud and her purring was no exception; Bucky found it bemusing seeing such big sounds come out of the little cat.
Bucky lowers his hand from her head and Alpine settles down beside him. She let out another meow, staring at him with big round eyes, as if to ask why he’d stopped.
Bucky huffs a quiet laugh at that. “Hey, don’t go acting all innocent. You just scared the shit out of me.” He tells her, though he returns to petting her anyways.
He’s running his hand through her fur when Alpine’s ears prick up and swivel back in the direction of the door, she turns to look but doesn’t leave his side.
Bucky looks up in the same direction and hears the distant clink of a key turning in the lock. Then the front door opening and closing quietly and the sounds shuffling shoes and a coat being shucked off.
Soft footsteps make their way towards him until he hears them halt in the bedroom. There’s a few beats of silence before Steve calls out.
“Buck?” He calls, his voice carrying through the rooms.
“Bathroom.” Bucky responds.
The footsteps head in his direction and Steve comes through the door, his face lighting up with a tired smile when he sees Bucky, Alpine by his side.
“Hey, you okay?” Steve asked, stepping into the bathroom. Bucky noticed he looked slightly concerned, he guessed it had something to do with the fact that he’d found him on the floor.
“Hey” Bucky replied, his lips can’t help but pull into a fond smile at his arrival. “M’okay, just… got cold. Couldn’t sleep.” He said, his voice trailing off into a mumble.
He hated talking about what happened in his nightmares, so for the most part he kept it vague. He was afraid if he gave them enough attention, more would be dredged up to the surface, like a dam breaking open.
Steve comes around to Bucky’s right side and settles down on the floor beside him, just close enough that their shoulders brushed. Bucky turns his face towards him, trying to send him a reassuring smile.
Steve gives him a small smile back but it drops slightly when he spots the redness of Bucky’s cheek, his expression morphing with worry.
He lifts a hand to cup Bucky’s cheek lightly. “What happened to your face?” He asks, gently brushing his thumb over the thin, red scratches.
Bucky’s hand goes up to his cheek, covering Steve’s. “Ah, yeah…” He murmurs.
They interlace their hands and Bucky brings them down from his face, pressing his lips to Steve’s knuckles before letting them fall into his lap. His gaze drifts down to his lap and he watches as Steve draws soothing circles across the back of his hand with his thumb.
“Just had a nightmare.” He explains, shaking his head dismissively. “Weren’t the worst I’ve had but…” He continues, trailing off.
Steve’s eyebrows pull into a concerned frown and releases his hold on their joined hands, instead reaching around Bucky’s shoulders and brings him in close. Alpine comes around to Steve’s side and bonks her head against his legs; he gives her a brief scratch around the ear but his focus remains on Bucky.
“It doesn’t have to be the worst to still affect you, Buck.” He tells him. Bucky shifts closer and rests his head down tiredly on Steve’s shoulder, his eyes drifting half closed as he lets himself uncoil and soak up the warmth.
Steve rests his head against Bucky’s, shifting to tuck himself closer. “Sorry I weren’t here.” He says apologetically, pressing a soft kiss into his hair.
“S’okay, honest. You’re here now.” Bucky says softly whilst shaking his head, shifting it further under Steve’s chin. His gaze drifts to Alpine sitting nearby, washing one of her ears with her paw. As if sensing eyes on her she finishes with her ear and looks up at him, letting out a short mew.
Bucky smiles at her. “And Alpine was here to keep me company, weren’t you lil lady?” He stretches his arm over their legs to pet her under the chin and a new round of purring starts up as she closes her eyes.
Steve smiles gratefully at Alpine and reaches out to stroke her along her back. “Well, I’m glad you have someone here when I can’t be.” Steve says softly, Alpine humming with purrs and leaning into his hand.
Bucky hums tiredly in agreement. “She makes for a good little emotional support cat.” He’s sagging against Steve now, eyes closed and limbs lose, you could almost believe he was sleeping.
They sit in the moment for a bit, eyes closed and tucked around each other on the bathroom floor. The hard tile isn’t the most comfortable thing to sit on and their legs are going numb beneath them, but folded around each other and limbs interlinked like matching puzzle pieces, it feels safe; it feels like home. Alpine is content to settle herself at their feet, folded into the loaf position with her tail tucked in and eyes closed.
Steve eventually speaks again, inhaling sharply and shifting around. “Y’wanna go back to bed?” He mumbles into Bucky’s hair.
Bucky sighs deeply and hums in agreement. He begrudgingly untucks his head from Steve, reluctant to leave the heat. He opens his eyes sleepily and blinks in the light, already halfway asleep.
Steve’s arm drops down from Bucky’s shoulder to wrap around his waist, taking some of his weight as they both get up from the floor. They wobble on numb legs at first, before slowly making their way out to the bedroom with Alpine in tow.
Steve guides Bucky back to the bed and Bucky blearily registers that the room is lighter than when he’d left it, the pale gold of sunrise bleeding out from behind the curtains.
Bucky slumps down onto the bed upright before picking his legs up and curling up on his side. He turns his face into his pillow and breathes a sigh, sinking into the mattress as Steve pulls the covers up over his shoulders.
Bucky feels a warm pressure squeeze his shoulder as he hears Steve move closer.
“Back in a moment.” He hears close to his face before a kiss is pressed to his temple. Bucky lips quirk up in a smile and he says a small “okay” before hearing Steve move away.
He drifts inside his head half asleep, comforted by the surrounding sounds of Steve shuffling around the room, rifling through drawers and then the far off rushing of the tap running in the bathroom.
A sudden plucking noise nearby jars him from his doze and he opens an eye to see Alpine stretching on the rug by the bed, claws out and unapologetically pulling at the threads of it.
He only has enough energy to give her a disciplinary frown for the action before letting it go as she jumps up onto the bed and crams herself up against Bucky’s torso, still thrumming with purrs.
A short while later he feels the bed dip as Steve gets in beside him and then a pair of warm arms envelop his torso from behind, a head coming to rest between his shoulder blades. Bucky goes boneless against him, letting the shared warmth between them melt away any remaining tension he was still holding onto.
“Feeling better?” He feels Steve mumble into his back.
“Yeah…” Bucky says, muffled by the pillow. The however many hours of cold and fear have fallen away, leaving him feeling lighter, able to breath again. Contentment swells in his chest and he burrows further into the warm cocoon surrounding him, Steve cushioned against his back and Alpine balled up against his stomach.
“I am now.” He murmurs, a smile spreading across his face as he lets himself drift away, knowing that in this moment, everything is okay.