"Bucky, no!" Steve shouts. Suddenly everything freezes, and Bucky stops sinking. As Steve looks into his best friend's eyes, the blue color begins to return, "I can save you," he whispers.
"It's already too late." Bucky replies, quickly disappearing through the floor.
"...Ever get the feeling that you're never
All alone and I remember now
At the top of my lungs in my arms he dies
He dies."
"No!" Steve shouts as he sits up in his bedroom. He frantically searches the room and is relieved everything is in color again. Bucky wasn't dead, he knew that, and yet each night he relives his death he awakens drenched in sweat, never able to shake the sick feeling in his stomach.
But he lays back down on his bed anyway, checking the time: 1:09 a.m., even earlier than the night before. Each night Steve is forced to re-experience Bucky's death, in a number of different ways, the earlier he wakes up. The sick feeling doesn't help either. He turns onto his left side, and closes his eyes. No good. He flips to his right side and closes his eyes tighter. Still no good. The nausea is only going to persist if he keeps tossing and turning, so he carefully sits up. Maybe tonight should be the night, the night he talks to Bucky.
No, Steve thinks to himself, your so-called "need" to speak to Bucky is more than a dream discussion, and you know it. The thought of waking Bucky in the middle of the night is simply unthinkable. As if his problems were ever more important than Bucky's needs. Ever since the Avengers found Bucky, it has been nothing but help to heal and guide Bucky into joining society again. Steve's aberrant thoughts were zero priority, and yet he found Bucky gravitating to him more than any other Avenger. But this is only because Steve is the only one with shared life experience so it would only make sense that Bucky be most comfortable with him.
Not that it mattered. As far as Steve was concerned, any feelings he has for anyone are rather pointless, as he never seems to do anything right. He was seventy years late for a date with a woman he wasn't sure he had truly loved. He was always about finding the right partner to dance with, but was Peggy the one?
He is ashamed to even think such a thought, especially since the one name that usually came to mind when Steve thought of his partner was certainly not a woman's name. In fact, it is the only person he wants to be with right now, and the thought that perhaps in another universe that person might want him right now too causes Steve to leap from his bed and toss the sheets aside.
"Screw it," he says to himself, "I need to find Bucky." He grips the door knob of his bedroom, hesitating for a moment, then silently opens the door, entering the dark hallway. Since finding Bucky, the Avengers found it best to live collectively, all around each other in order to help Bucky learn how to live comfortably, and get used to being around people. Tony had the team move into the Avengers' Towers, which provided everyone with communal living rooms, kitchen, bathroom, etc. and their own personal bedrooms. Except Steve and Bucky were the only two that actually slept alone, never bothering to ask who was where the night before. Now Steve could join the club. Well...not precisely the same club as everyone else, but one where he won't have to face another night alone.
He finally makes his way to Bucky's bedroom door, which only has one characteristic marking it as his: a red star sticker placed in the top center by Steve. That was when they had first moved him in, and also the last time Steve had been in or around Bucky's bedroom. Steve's nausea hasn't subsided, but he felt his stomach shift. It went from sickening fear to sickening nervousness. So it's reasonable when he hesitates to knock. He holds his fist up, but is terrified of actually knocking, fearing he would wake the Winter Soldier, and not Bucky Barnes. He instead takes a deep breath through his nose and holds it, clenching his jaw. He is about to knock when he hears a
voice.
Story 4 - Nightmares ch1
Start from the beginning
