Steve dreamt while sleeping in Bucky’s armchair right outside of his bedroom. He had dragged the chair up closer to Bucky’s room and sat right in front of the door, like a sentinel, like nothing would happen to Bucky again if Steve would just sit there and kept watch. But he was exhausted and the quiet buzz of the TV just one wall over slowly lulled him to sleep and again, again, in his head, he saw that train on that ravine. No, Steve thought miserably, tiredly. Not again.
Nothing much was different this time. Bucky knew him and he was reaching for him, there was fear in his eyes and time slowed down, Steve himself slowed down as he tried to reach back. But something struck Steve there as he looked into dream Bucky’s face.
“This is the last time you know me,” he said. “This is the last time you really recognize me.” Bucky made a face at him.
“Then why didn’t you just grab me?” He said and then suddenly they were sitting together in that bar they’d found years ago and Steve looked down to see that he’d been doodling on a napkin and Bucky looked over at Steve, his eyebrows furrowed and he pursed his lips. “I would have caught you, if you were the one falling.”
“I know,” Steve said and reached up to rub his face. “I know.”
“Geez,” Bucky said, looking away and shaking his head, two flesh and blood elbows on the counter, a disgruntled look on his face. “This isn’t 1935 anymore, Steve, why are you still in my apartment?” And Steve seemed to forget that real-life Bucky had told him he wanted him.
“I don’t know,” Steve said. “Is this selfish?” Bucky didn’t answer and suddenly, they switched again, they were on the that plane, sinking, freezing over. Steve could feel himself growing cold, clutching his shield over his chest. Not the freezing, he hated the freezing. Bucky was across the plane, standing and staring. He was in black and his hair hanging in his eyes and he was wearing his metal prosthetic, but his eyes still held the lightness of their childhood, and he was smirking like Steve hadn’t seen him do since before his death.
“You know, Natasha’s really something else,” Bucky commented to Steve and Steve closed his eyes, overwhelmed. There was too much going on. The freezing nightmares didn’t collide with the Bucky nightmares too often, but when they did, he always felt particularly rough afterwards.
“She is,” Steve agreed, his teeth chattering, because even in dreams where he was semi-lucid, he still felt the need to play along. “You’re in love with her.”
“She makes me happy,” Bucky said with a cocky half-grin and a shrug of his metal shoulder.
“I just want to be there for you, too,” Steve said. Steve didn’t know how to make Bucky understand that he was his very reason for living right now. Every breath he took here was unbearably dry, and cold and Bucky frowned like Steve knew he didn’t used to frown, like his face had just become harder, which meant that this wasn’t old Bucky.
“I made you a promise, Steve,” Bucky said with his now ever-present frown and the desperate emptiness in his eyes. “You know I’m doing the best I can.”
“I know,” Steve said and then, of course, they were on the train again and Steve watched Bucky fall and Steve stopped and looked at the train car where he was grabbing and frowned and looked back at Bucky, falling, and then Steve let go, too.
Then, Natasha’s hand was on his shoulder and Steve jerked himself awake and looked at her, shaken.
“Again,” Natasha asked in a whisper and Steve nodded.
“Don’t tell... Don’t tell Bucky,” he whispered back and she looked over at his bedroom door and nodded.
“Okay,” she said, then loudly announced, “Morning, Steve!” and Steve put his head back down mostly out of exhaustion and sadness than anything else and thought about his dream like a weight on his chest.