'til the end of the line

brooklyn, brooklyn take me in (are you aware the shape i'm in?)

Tonight was different.

Bucky was out of his bed before he had even processed what was happening, his sock-feet slipping across the hardwood floors in his haste, a tartan blanket trailing behind him from the place it was caught in the waistband of his sweatpants. Steve's screams echoed in the place between his ears, where he knew a brain should be, where he knew there was something because he could feel it; because it was heavy and it hurt like Steve's anguished voice hurt and he needed to do something about it now. That is how he found himself standing in the doorway to Steve's bedroom in the pitch black of the night, heart thrumming wildly in his chest like the bass beat to one of Tony's rock songs, Steve's name rolling off of his tongue in a stream that tasted of honey and rum and the long cold nights that had them curled around each other for warmth in shuddering bomb bunkers, dust in their lungs and salt trails of tears carving rivers through the thick layers of grime and blood on their cheeks like baptism, like holy water, like being together was sacred even in those unholiest of places.

Three words on repeat in Bucky's mind- three words that had become hard to say- three that he could never speak again without the fear of his icy hand slipping out of Steve's and the paralyzing terror that comes with free-falling, tumbling through space and eventually time; without a nagging worry that the metal of his false arm will act of its own accord once again, forcing his body to gear up to deliver merciless, bone-shattering punches as his brain screams itself raw, I knew him, I knew him, I knew him; without the fear of his fingertips turning to dust in front of him, Steve's eyes muted to a colorless grey, shock freezing them both until the only word that Bucky still knows as his brain turns to ash is Steve. And isn't it the only word he has ever truly known? The only one that he can taste before he even says it, the one-syllable-song that his heart syncs to? The one that picks up synonyms like a magnet swept across a junkyard until punk and kid and buddy- and, later, my life and my home and my savior- all mean Steve, Steve, Steve too?

But when he saw his Steve- his Steve, his his his- sat stick-straight up in his bed with his sheets pooling around his waist and a spine-chillingly empty look sagging on his face, those three poisoned words were all he could think.

Bucky took slow steps forward, thankful for the carpeted floor that muffled the dragging of his footfalls. This was different than normal. Most nights, Steve does not cry out like this. Most nights, Bucky- almost perpetually sleepless- would slip out of bed when he hears Steve's breathing come in whines and wheezes and cross the hallway to Steve's room with a heavy heart, hand on the doorknob but too afraid to turn it. There has yet to be a night when Bucky has been able to justify going into Steve's room to comfort him. It would feel wrong, like he was intruding on something deeply, horribly personal and seeing it would render Steve unable to meet his eyes ever again.

He was so, so afraid to hurt Steve.

It scared him more than anything else. So, he would lean his back against the closed door and slide down until he reached the floor, knees folded up against his chest and frantic tears burning his eyes, selfishly craving nothing more than to be curled around Steve in the same way that they used to huddle against the cold as weak walls shook from the explosion of bombs outside. But tonight was somehow, inexplicably different.

It was not something Bucky could touch. It was something in the silver moonlight coloring the room, turning it the eerie shades of ancient and cursed riches; something in the soft piano music coming from Natasha's room next door; something in the lingering smell of smoke from the fire Clint had spent the day stoking in the common area to warm the tower from its very heart; something in the atoms that built Bucky and built Steve and built the tower and the piano and the moon and the dirt and the trees and perhaps the stardust the universe was built from was singing that night, was quivering in its effort to remerge itself into the whole stars that everything came from, to reform the mother of the universe.