A/N - This chapter was requested by user: RoaMahuta. I ended up using the song 'The Chain' by Fleetwood Mac as inspiration, specifically the lyric: "Listen to the wind blow, down comes the night. Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies." I hope you all enjoy it.
The wind had been throwing the branches of the tree outside against your window for what felt like hours. Smack. Smack. Smack. Rhythmically tapping out some sort of code on the glass, as if it was trying to pass on a message as it kept you awake. It's not like you would have been able to get any sleep anyway.
Sleeping had started evading you a few weeks back. Missions were bound to go badly sometimes. It was an unavoidable fact. Some tiny detail would throw off the entire plan, and on occasion that could be more negative than others. Sometimes, it would lead to a bump or a bruise, something that would heal in a couple of days, at most. Other times, much like your last mission, it would be a loss of life.
Steve had been quick with his pep talk. These things happen. There was nothing you could have done. We'll have to be more careful in the future. He meant well, you knew he did, but none of it did anything to help. Sometimes, you just have to beat yourself up about something in order to get it out of your system. Unfortunately, your usual method for dealing with your own fuck ups didn't seem to be working as of late. By now, you would be back to working, back to sleeping normal hours, and back to not noticing the tap, tap, tap of the branch on the window.
You released a deep sigh, giving in and climbing out of the comfort of your bed. There was no point laying around wasting time when you could be getting something productive done. You grabbed your jacket, tugging it on as you made your way out of the room. The hallways were silent as you made your way out of the building and around the grounds to stand outside of your own bedroom window.
If the tree wasn't going to stop tapping of its own accord, you would make it stop. It didn't take much effort to make your way up into the branches of the tree, yanking at the offending limb until it began to crack slightly.
"What are you doing?" You paused as the voice broke the silence of the night, freezing in place as though he wouldn't be able to see you if your didn't move. "Y/N?"
You finally gave in, looking over to the window beside yours to find Bucky looking back at you. "Hey," you murmured, forcing a small smile onto your lips.
"Hey," he answered, his face a mask of confusion as he watched you. "It's two in the morning. What are you doing?"
For a moment, you considered lying, but in all honesty, there was no lie that sounded less insane than what you were actually doing in that moment. "I couldn't sleep," you started softly, watching as he nodded along with you. "And the tree was making noise on the window."
A small snort of laughter escaped from Bucky, and he dipped out of sight for a second, before returning with a wide smile on his lips. "You're insane," he told you, shaking his head as you returned your attention back to the job at hand. "Just come and stay in my room for the night. Get the maintenance guys to sort it when they can actually see what they're doing."
You released a deep sigh, returning your attention to him. "I'll only be a couple of minutes," you muttered.
"You're going to hurt yourself." A frown etched itself onto your lips at that, and you noted that maybe he had a point. "Just come inside."
You slowly eased yourself out of the tree, running a hand over your face as you walked around to the main entrance. Bucky was waiting for you in the doorway of his room when you made it back to your floor, and you shot him a small, awkward smile as you went to go past his door and to your own. "Sorry for the noise," you murmured, fitting the key into the lock as quickly as you could manage.
"Thought you weren't going to be able to sleep in there." Bucky was watching you with a sweet smile, leaning against the door frame.
You shrugged slightly. "Don't seem to be able to sleep anywhere at the moment," you uttered, sending him another awkward smile as the door popped open. "Again, sorry for waking you."
"I wasn't asleep." You barely caught the words as you went to shut the door behind you, only pausing at the last second to pull the door open.
"You weren't?"
Bucky shook his head. "I don't sleep too well, either." You both stayed looking at each other for a moment as you considered what his comment may have meant. Bucky lifted a hand, rubbing at the back of his neck. "If you want company whilst you don't sleep then I'm free all night."
"You sure?"
"Absolutely certain."
You nodded, moving out into the hallway and pulling the door shut behind you. You shuffled over to where he was waiting, moving past him and into his room.
"What were you doing before I disturbed you?" you murmured, moving to sit on the sofa and pulling your legs up under yourself.
"Nothin' really. Read a couple pages of a book. Tried to watch a film. Couldn't really focus on anythin'." He paused, standing awkwardly at the other end of the sofa, looking down at you. "What were you doing?"
You shrugged again, a habit that had become quite common throughout the night. "Just laying there, hoping I'd fall asleep."
"You can do that in here if you want. Take the bed, I won't be using it." Bucky nodded towards the bed, with it's perfectly tucked in sheets and you let out a small chuckle.
"It never works. Done it almost every night for the last week."
Bucky nodded, coming to sit next to you. "It only started this week?" When you nodded your answer, he frowned. "Was it the mission?"
"Yeah."
"You wanna talk about it?"
This time, you shook your head, looking anywhere but at Bucky. "I'd rather talk about literally anything else."
"Seen any good movies recently?" A snort of laughter escaped you as your eyes suddenly found him again. "Come on, you said literally anything else. Movies are anything else."
You shifted, leaning your head against his shoulder as you considered the question. "I saw this one film, it was a remake of one I used to watch when I was a little-" A yawn cut off your sentence, silencing you.
Bucky moved, wrapping his arm around your shoulder and letting you settle closer into his side. "Keep talkin', Doll."
"I watched it as a kid. It's about this guy and a princess, and-" Another yawn burst out of you, followed by a short laugh. "God, I must be boring myself, I almost fell asleep there."
Bucky smiled down at you, his arm tightening around you slightly. "Just get comfy and keep talking for me."
"Okay," you murmured. "Well, the guy is this thief, but he only steals food and stuff to keep himself alive. And the Princess, well she's a princess, but she's a total badass, and-" another yawn broke free. "-she has this pet tiger. But the thief finds a magic lamp and there's this genie and-" a final yawn fought its way free and you went slack against Bucky's side, your breathing becoming more even as you finally fell asleep.
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