Steve's POV
When I wake up the tower's quiet. I turn to Bucky and see he's still asleep. He looks so peaceful, all the stress I can see in the way he frowns and how his shoulders tense up while awake is gone. I could happily spend the rest of my life like this, but his dream shifts and he stiffens up. If I hadn't been awake I doubt I would've noticed, but as I am I can feel the tension and I know it wasn't there before. I pull him into a hug, trying to get his mind to shift to a happier dream, maybe of the two of us, but it isn't working. Then he starts struggling, but not much, it's like he can't move. I can't get him into a better dream, so I shake him. "Bucky wake up!" but he doesn't hear me. It's not working so eventually I shake him really hard, and that wakes him up.
Unfortunately for me, that also causes him to think I'm attacking him. There aren't any weapons in our bed, but his hand still darts under the pillow to grab a knife from habit. I could probably throw him off me right now, he's really confused, but I don't want to fight him so I just stay still. Thankfully the hand around my neck doesn't squeeze, it just stays there as a warning of what he will do if I fight back. "Bucky, it's me, Steve," I say as he looks around the room. Bruce said that if I woke him up during a nightmare or while he was dreaming of the past he might not get where he was or who we were at first, at that I need to remain calm and don't agitate him until he recognizes me. "Bucky?"
He looks at me, really looks instead of just thinking of me as an opponent for the first time and looks really confused before saying, "Steve? Where are we? How are you here?"
"We're in Avengers Tower remember, we're both safe, no one's going to hurt you."
"Where is this tower?"
"We're in New York City."
"How are you here?"
"I got frozen in ice, but now i'm awake and here with you."
"but...HYDRA wouldn't let you walk around free like this."
"Bucky, you're free of HYDRA, do you remember when I rescued you with the rest of the Avengers?"
"...right."
He seems to have recovered his understanding of where and when we are so I take the risk of asking, "could you let me go?"
"Of course, I am so sorry," he says as he climbs off of me.
"It's fine. Do you want to talk about your dream?" he says nothing but pulls his legs close. What does that mean? Maybe I'll go to the library after breakfast and get a book on what body language means, because it's pretty obvious that he rarely wants to talk about anything, and that some things I've done reminded him of bad memories, but I'm not sure what I should and shouldn't do. I see the tear trickling down his face and raise my hand to wipe it away, but he flinches.
He looks up at me and looks shocked when he sees my face, I probably look horrified. "I'm sorry," he says again.
"Don't' be, it's not your fault, I should've known you didn't want to be touched."
"But you'd never hurt me, I should've known that."
"But I did hurt you back when you didn't remember me, and besides your mind's been under a lot of stress lately."
"I know, but I always feel safer with you there."
"Then I won't leave you alone." there's a knock and I look at him. He's not ready to deal with anyone but it would be rude to ignore it so I go over and block their view of the room with my body before opening the door.
"Morning Steve, I just wanted to tell you, Bucky's bed finally arrived, there was a couple of unexpected complications but it's here."
I don't want to stop sharing but I say, "Okay thanks, do you have it with you?"
"It's by the freight elevator. The people who brought it over left it there and I thought you might want to know even if it is early."
"Yeah, I guess we'll set it up today, and that way we can also stay out of Tony's way."
"Okay, have fun I guess. I'm going to have breakfast if you want to join me."
"Maybe, but I might be a bit."
"The offer stands," she says before walking away. I shut the door and look at Bucky who heard everything.
"I guess...we're not sharing anymore," he says looking down.
"I guess," I say but I don't want to stop, it was nice sleeping with him in my arms. "Although, if you wanted to share I wouldn't be opposed," I say and sneak a glance at him, my face bright red. This wouldn't be a big deal normally, but we're dating which makes this more awkward.
"I'd be happy to share," he says, just as red.
"In that case we'll set up the bed, but we'll only sleep in it if we want space for any reason."
"Sounds good," he says because we do have the bed and we don't want anyone looking too closely at our relationship, they might realize the truth, and I don't want to lose them. Besides with how worried Bucky is about me he might break up with me so no one's disappointed in me, and I can't lose him.
"We should...we should go get the bed, you should get dressed first," I say, turning away to grab a shirt.
"Yeah," he says and goes over to the chair where he put his clothes for today yesterday. "You ready?"
"yes."
"Where is everyone?" I ask once we've put the bed in our room and left it while we grabbed breakfast. Natasha said she'd be eating, but she isn't here. I'm not surprised at Bruce and Tony's absence, and I guess Clint could be sleeping, maybe time zones messed him up on their trip or he's on one of his secret trips but the fact that no one's here is a little scary. Nico will lock himself in his room for a while, but he hasn't done that recently.
"I don't know, is there a meeting you forgot about or something?" Bucky asks.
"Hello," someone says and Bucky spins around, putting himself between me and the threat.
"Relax, it's just Peter," I say. Bucky looks over at him and relaxes, after all Peter isn't scary. "Good morning," I say and Bucky nods.
"Where is everyone? And what's wrong?"
"What do you mean?"
"Pepper called me and said Tony needed help."
"Nico's missing!" Natasha says as she bursts in, "we need to find him now!"
"Where's everyone else?"
"Tony and Bruce are in the lab, Clint's out searching, come on!" I don't think Tony's ready to see us, but Nico's more important so we follow her.
When we come in there's a globe in the center of the room and Tony's doing something on one of his new machines. "Any news?"
"We're scanning the globe, but Nico is hard to get ahold of. It's literally easier to track Fury." Tony's focused on the problem, not us, so I'll do the same. Bucky seems to have the same idea because he keeps me between the two of them and just starts reading the reports scattered around.
"JARVIS, have you found a pattern to his disappearances?"
"No," he answers Peter.
"Did anyone hear him mention anything about where he would go?" I ask and everyone just shakes their heads.
Suddenly Clint speaks from the ceiling. It's normal, except he's not in a vent, his voice is being projected instead. Tony changed the vents around his lab to keep Clint out after a glitter fiasco, I think number 34. "I've found him."
Tony pushes a button and then responds, "where?"
"He apparently passed out on the other side of the city. The police took custody of him while his living situation was figured out, but he's still unconscious. I need Nat and maybe Tony over here to get them to give him to us."
"We're on our way," Tony says before looking at Natasha who's already grabbed her jacket. When they're gone the room feels too empty, so we return to the kitchen to wait for them. Peter tries to fill the silence but eventually stops trying because even he can't be optimistic at the moment.
What was Nico thinking? He was probably trying to leave again, but I had really thought we were past this. What if he was kidnapped? But if he was, how did he get away? What if we don't get him back, how will everyone handle that? Are we even doing the right thing trying to keep him here if he wants to leave that bad and the police won't give him back?
"We're back," Natasha says as she holds the door open and Tony and CLint walk in carrying Nico on a stretcher. He looks so young and defenseless, lying there so pale and small.
"What happened?"
"From what the report said he was walking towards the tower and just collapsed for no reason. He's not injured badly, but they didn't know what happened. Also one kid said she saw his hand turn slightly transparent. If what she saw was right then it might be some sort of push back from doing whatever he did."
"I'm taking him to the med bay, don't disturb us," Bruce puffs out before looking at me, "could you two carry him?"
"Of course," I say and Bucky just silently shadows me, taking Bruce's side of Nico.
"Great, hopefully I can quickly fix him." Bruce says as we put him down and he bustles around, grabbing a bunch of weird medical equipment.
"Can we help?"
"No, I need space, just leave and make sure no one barges in."
"Okay," I say, looking back at Nico before the door closes.
Five minutes later everyone comes down. "How is he?" Clint asks.
"We don't know, Bruce's working on him, and needs space to do so." I say as Tony reaches for the door handle. He turns to me and it's awkward, after all our last interaction included him beating up my secret boyfriend.
"Well if he's still talking to us after this we need to work together," he says, "so while I don't trust you or like you at the moment, I'm willing to put that aside until Nico doesn't need us anymore."
I look at Bucky and he's clearly ecstatic about the idea, so I shake his hand and say, "okay."
Peter reaches up and gives Tony a quick one armed hug, and then Tony pulls him close. "I'm sorry for your loss, I know it hurts."
Tony just stands there until a door opening makes him jump. "Nico's stable, but I don't understand everything I'm seeing."
"What is it?"
"His molecules are shifting between solid and gas forms."
"What?!"
"Yeah, he's also messing with the temperature. I'd say that he was pulling the heat energy out of the air to do so, but it's not enough energy, and it just goes back to solid."
"Strange, JARVIS was there anything about something like this ever?"
"Not in reality although there are stories about people turning into smoke demons or otherwise shifting into non corporeal bodies."
"Since when does JARVIS scan fictional stories as well?" Natasha asks.
"Since I became friends with a god." Tony's got a fair point, I wouldn't have believed anything of my current life if I'd been told before I took the serum, or even before I crashed.
"so...Nico might be some sort of demon that's not really human but just created a fake form to blend in?"
"Maybe, but that doesn't seem like who he is. However, it would explain why he doesn't have or want to have anyone close to him. Hopefully he'll explain when he wakes up." We all turn to him, but the only movement he makes is to breathe.
"We should take turns watching him, even if he is monitored by JARVIS a living person would probably make things easier."
"We'll take first watch," I say motioning to Bucky as I sit down beside Nico.
"Okay, I'll come down in a little while."
A/N how many people want Nico to actually tell them the truth? Heads up any answers I get will not choose what happens, but I will remember what people want.