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The nightmare came for him gently at first. That was the cruel part.
There were nights when it arrived violently from the beginning. Gunfire, screaming, and electricity ripping through his skull before he even had time to realize he was dreaming. But the quieter ones were worse. The quieter ones let him settle too deeply into safety before they dragged him under.
When Bucky fell asleep that night, he had been warm all the way through. The windows of the Tower apartment were cracked open just enough to let the spring air drift through the room, carrying the distant, muted hum of Manhattan traffic from forty stories below. Steve had spent half the evening tangled around him on the couch, and the other half tangled around him in their bed.
The night had felt easy. Easy in the way Bucky still never fully trusted.
Dinner had turned into teasing, and teasing had turned into kissing. Steve had laughed against his mouth, low and warm, one broad hand cupping the side of Bucky’s neck while Bucky melted into him almost despite himself. Later, in the dark, Steve had touched him with that same impossible patience he always carried into moments like this, as if there were nowhere else in the universe he would rather be, and no repaired version of Bucky he needed him to become first.
That part still got to him. The fact that Steve never looked afraid. Never looked disgusted. Never looked at him like he was a broken weapon trying to pass for human.
By the time they finally settled beneath the blankets, Bucky had been heavy with sleep, sprawled half on top of Steve’s chest while Steve lazily traced fingertips along the ridge of his spine.
“You’re drooling on me,” Steve had murmured into the dark.
“It’s called affection,” Bucky muttered against his collarbone. “And you love me anyway.”
Steve’s laugh had vibrated directly beneath Bucky’s cheek. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, I do.”
And God, maybe that was the problem. Maybe his brain still didn’t know what to do with being loved like that.
Because sometime around three in the morning, the warmth vanished.
Cotton was replaced with concrete. The scent of cedar and Steve’s skin disappeared beneath the sharp, stinging stench of antiseptic and old blood. Russian voices echoed through the hollow dark.
The chair waited for him at the center of the room.
Bucky jerked awake with a strangled gasp, every muscle in his body locking hard enough to ache. For one terrifying, disorienting second, he didn’t know where he was. Hydra had always liked waking him up fast. Cold water. Bright lights. Smelling salts. Hands gripping his shoulders to force him down.
His pulse slammed violently against his ribs, a surge of adrenaline so hot it felt electrical.
Beside him, the mattress shifted. Steve woke instantly. “Buck?”
Bucky flinched so hard his metal shoulder clipped the headboard with a sharp, echoing crack. “No.” The word tore out of him rough and terrified before he could stop it.
Steve froze instantly, his hands suspended in the air between them. “Okay,” he said quietly, his voice dropping into that low, steady command frequency. “Okay, sweetheart. I’m right here. I’m not moving.”
Bucky couldn’t get the air into his lungs. The room looked entirely wrong. Too dark, the shadows stretching into the shapes of laboratory equipment. His chest heaved, dragging in shallow breaths that failed to reach deep enough, while his flesh hand clawed violently at the blankets tangled around his legs.
Steve pushed himself upright slowly, keeping his hands visible, careful not to crowd him. “You’re having a nightmare,” he said, anchor steady. “You’re in the Tower. You’re home with me.”
Bucky pressed the heel of his palm hard against his chest, trying to physically force his heart to slow down.
Steve reached toward the bedside lamp. “I’m gonna turn the light on now, alright, Buck? Just the lamp.”
Bucky made a broken sound in the back of his throat.
Warm amber light spilled across the room a second later. Not fluorescent. Not Hydra white. Just the dim, familiar glow of their bedroom. Piece by piece, reality emerged: the navy comforter kicked halfway onto the floor, Steve’s sketchbook abandoned near the foot of the bed, Alpine curled in irritated judgment on the armchair by the window.
The panic didn't recede; it just slowed down, turning thick and sluggish. Bucky dragged both hands through his hair, pulling hard enough to ground himself through the pain. “Jesus Christ,” he rasped.
Steve watched him carefully, alert without a trace of panic in his own blue eyes. “C’mere,” he said softly, shifting an inch closer.
Bucky recoiled automatically, pulling his knees to his chest.
Steve stopped on a dime.
The shame hit almost as hard as the nightmare itself. Steve had done nothing wrong. Steve had never done anything wrong. Still breathing too fast, Bucky turned his face away sharply and shoved his palms against his eyes to block out the light. “Sorry.”
Steve’s expression tightened. “For what?”
Bucky let out a hollow, humorless laugh. “You know what for.”
“No,” Steve said gently, crossing his legs under the covers. “I don’t think I do.”
Bucky’s chest ached. He hated this part. He hated the confusion, the lingering phantom smells, the humiliation of having Steve see him reduced to a scattering of raw nerves. Most of all, he hated how young and small it made him feel.
“You wanna look at me for a second?” Steve asked.
Bucky shook his head immediately.
“Buck.” There was no force in Steve’s voice. Not with him. Never again. Just a quiet, unshakeable certainty.
Bucky finally lowered his hands. Steve’s blond hair was sticking up wildly from sleep, his eyes heavy with exhaustion but entirely clear. There was a faint red crease across his left cheek from the pillow. He looked entirely ordinary. Entirely real.
The panic twisted in Bucky's stomach anyway. His breathing hitched. “I can’t-”
“Yes, you can.” Steve kept his tone level, a lifeline for Bucky to hold onto. “You know what day it is?”
Bucky swallowed around the dryness in his throat. “Friday.”
“Good. And where are you?”
“The Tower.”
“With who?”
Bucky’s throat tightened unexpectedly, a sudden ache blooming behind his ribs. “You.”
Steve nodded once. “Yeah. Me.”
The horror still clawed at his chest, but the edges were softening enough for thought to return in fragments. Steve studied him for another moment before saying quietly, “You’re back pretty hard tonight, huh?”
Bucky shut his eyes. That was the thing about Steve. He never danced around it. He never treated Bucky like he was glass, and he never made him feel monstrous for what was left inside his head.
“Felt real,” Bucky admitted, his voice cracking. “I could hear them.”
Steve’s jaw flexed once, a quick, sharp movement that anyone else would have missed. But Bucky knew the map of Steve's tells by heart. When Steve spoke, however, his voice remained entirely gentle. “They can’t get to you here, Buck.”
Bucky wanted to believe it. Most days he did. Tonight, his nervous system was still convinced he was strapped to a slab of steel underground, waiting for the pieces of his mind to be burned away.
Steve seemed to read the thought right off his face. “Hey,” he murmured. “Stay with me.”
Steve held out his right hand, resting on the mattress between them. He left a wide, respectful distance, giving Bucky all the room in the world to refuse.
Bucky stared at the broad palm, at the pale scars across Steve's knuckles. Slowly, hesitatingly, he reached out his flesh hand and let his fingers sink into Steve's.
The moment Steve’s fingers closed securely around his, something inside Bucky cracked. Because Steve’s hands were warm. Because Hydra’s never had been.
His vision blurred instantly.
“Oh, Buck,” Steve said softly.
Bucky looked away hard, humiliated by the hot tears that finally slipped down his cheeks. “I’m fine.”
“Sure you are,” Steve murmured, a faint trace of fond, heartbreaking irony in his voice.
Steve shifted closer this time, moving slow enough that Bucky had ample time to pull away. When Bucky stayed still, Steve slid one heavy, warm arm carefully around his bare shoulders.
The contact nearly wrecked him. Bucky folded toward him instinctively, his forehead dropping against Steve’s shoulder while his breathing turned uneven all over again. He buried his face in the crook of Steve's neck, the metal fingers of his left hand gripping the fabric of Steve's t-shirt like a drowning man catching a line.
“I hate this,” Bucky whispered into his skin.
Steve’s large hand moved in slow, heavy circles up and down his spine. “I know you do.”
“I’m so tired of it.”
Steve rested his cheek briefly against Bucky’s damp hair. “I know that too.”
The acute panic was mutating now, settling into something quieter and heavier. Grief. Exhaustion. The crushing fatigue of still being broken after all this time. Bucky’s voice cracked in the dark. “We had a good night.”
Steve went entirely still beneath him for half a second. Then, the weight of what Bucky meant landed. “Oh, sweetheart.”
The endearment almost shattered him. Bucky pressed his face harder into Steve’s neck. “It always happens after things are good. Like I'm waiting for the punchline.”
Steve held him tighter, his grip turning fierce but safe, compressing the tremors out of Bucky's frame. “No,” he said softly. “That’s not your fault.”
Bucky let out a shaky, wet breath. “Feels like my fault.”
“It isn’t.” Steve pulled back just enough to look at him properly, his hands framing Bucky’s face, thumbs resting against his cheekbones. “Listen to me. You had a nightmare because your brain is exhausted and carrying seventy years of trauma. Not because being happy is dangerous.”
Bucky’s eyes burned. It sounded so simple when Steve said it. Simple in a way Bucky could never quite access on his own.
Steve brushed a thumb beneath his eye, wiping away a stray tear. “You know what I think?”
Bucky shook his head slightly against Steve's palms.
“I think sometimes you still expect peace to be temporary,” Steve said, his expression softening painfully. “So when you finally relax, your brain panics because it thinks you've dropped your guard. It goes looking for the threat to keep you alive.”
The accuracy of it made Bucky’s chest ache with a sharp, validating pang. Yes. Exactly that. Hydra had taught him over and over that safety was conditional, temporary, and always a precursor to pain.
Steve kept rubbing slow circles against the back of his neck, his fingers tangling in the hair at his nape. “But you’re here now,” he murmured. “And nothing bad happened tonight. The peace is real, Buck.”
Bucky’s breath hitched, a ragged sob catching in his throat. Steve smiled sadly, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. Bucky reached up, scrubbing hard at his face with his free hand. “Sorry I woke you.”
Steve immediately frowned. “You know I hate when you apologize for existing.”
“That’s not what I’m apologizing for.”
“Close enough.” Steve pulled back, reaching toward the nightstand. “Drink some water for me.”
Bucky drank obediently, mostly because arguing required energy he didn't possess. The cool water cut through the metallic taste of fear in his mouth. Steve took the glass back, set it down, and turned his full attention back to Bucky.
“You want to talk about it?”
Bucky hesitated. Usually, he said no. Usually, Steve let him bury it. But tonight, the skin over his soul felt too thin to hold everything inside. “The chair,” he admitted quietly, looking down at his own lap. “I could feel it.”
Steve’s face changed instantly. Grief flickered openly across his features before he could mask it, his eyes darkening with an old, familiar sorrow. He didn't offer a platitude. Instead, he reached out and threaded their fingers together again-flesh to flesh.
“You know what I remember from tonight?” Steve asked softly.
Bucky frowned slightly, looking up through his lashes. “You laughing at me because I can’t cook rice correctly.”
“That was fair criticism. The bottom of the pot was black.”
“You kissing me in the kitchen while the smoke alarm went off.”
Bucky’s mouth twitched with the ghost of a smile despite himself.
Steve squeezed his hand, his voice dropping into something thick with emotion. “I remember the feeling of you leaning into me on the couch. I remember the way you felt under the covers. I remember you falling asleep on my chest, entirely safe. That’s what tonight was, Buck. The nightmare is just an echo. Tonight was the reality.”
The tears came back hard after that, but the terror was gone, replaced by a profound, cleansing release. Bucky bowed his head sharply, his shoulders shaking.
Steve moved immediately, pulling Bucky back into his chest, wrapping his arms around him so completely that Bucky felt entirely enclosed by him. Bucky went willingly, burying his face in Steve's shoulder and letting the rest of the grief weep out of him. Steve held him securely beneath the blankets, one hand buried in the hair at the nape of Bucky’s neck, his solid weight anchoring him to the bed.
“You’re alright,” Steve murmured repeatedly against his temple. “I’ve got you, Buck. I’ve got you.”
Outside the windows, Manhattan glittered endlessly against the dark sky, distant, alive, and entirely ordinary. Inside the apartment, Steve continued talking softly, his voice a steady, rhythmic cadence that grounded Bucky back into the present, second by second. He didn't rush him. He never rushed him.
By the time the tears finally slowed, Bucky felt entirely wrung out, his muscles loose and heavy with a true, deep exhaustion. Steve brushed a soft kiss against his forehead. “Are you sleepy again?”
“Yeah,” Bucky murmured, his eyes half-closed.
“Good. Let's get some sleep.”
Bucky stayed tucked against him, his ear pressed over Steve’s chest, listening to the slow, steady, super-soldier heartbeat beneath his cheek. It was a reassuring, permanent rhythm.
Then, very softly, Bucky broke the silence. “You still okay?”
Steve pulled back just enough to look down at him, his brow furrowed in immediate confusion. “With what?”
“This.” Bucky gestured vaguely between them with his metal hand. “The waking up. The mess.”
Steve stared at him for a second like the question physically hurt him. Then, he reached up, cupping Bucky’s face carefully between both hands, forcing Bucky to look into the absolute certainty of his blue eyes.
“James,” Steve said, his voice fierce and fiercely quiet. “There is nowhere in this world I would rather be than right here, taking care of you.”
Bucky’s throat closed painfully, but the last remnants of the knot in his chest dissolved.
Steve leaned down and kissed him, slow, warm, and lingeringly real. When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against Bucky’s, their breaths mingling in the dark.
“You don’t scare me,” Steve whispered.
And finally, beautifully, Bucky let his eyes close, and breathed all the way out.