Chapter Text
Bucky experiences bitter, freezing darkness. HYDRA wants to see how cold soldat can get before succumbing to frostbite. How black his fingertips can become and still heal. Their love of experimentation on their creation is endless. How much pain can he take? He screams his throat ragged. Passing out would be a relief, but soldat is demanded to endure. He always does, soldat . Bucky, soldat , they feel as one. The feeling of fingers around throats, fingers bent back to break, breath leaving bodies, breath rough with agony in their chest. Soldat, Bucky, monster. Screaming until their own ears ring. Doesn’t matter, alone, together, forever. Trapped, the tight cold of cryogenesis, aching head fills with terrors, who is he, pain and fear and blood. Screaming, screaming, screaming.
And more screaming as Bucky is brought out of these visions by pressure on his chest, slick with sweat and heaving with exertion. He is still screaming. His throat hurts, hurts badly, and he can’t stop. He is disoriented. Darkness is everywhere. It is not cold anymore. The ringing in his ears subsides and he is aware of your voice, your presence, though as if through a great density of water. His metal arm lies across your chest, pinning you to the bed. He tries to read your lips. He can’t move, can’t stop screaming.
“Bucky, it’s okay,” he thinks you say. You stretch out a hand to cup his cheek, push back some of the sweaty tendrils of hair from his face. It is electric, this intimate touch where his head throbs, he thuds back into the present moment and jerks his arm back to himself as if burned. As if he burned you with it. Fuck . You are with him before he can recoil his way to the floor in shame. You sit on his lap and he can’t get away. He doesn’t want to, not really. He is all out of self-denial.
“Come here, baby. I’m so sorry. It wasn’t real. Hey, come here.” You whisper into his ear, your breath is warm and grounding on his skin.
He can’t speak, can’t do anything but take great gulps of air, choking on his panic. You are holding him, your strong embrace the only thing keeping him from shuddering apart. “You’re doing so good, just keep breathing. You’re awake. You’re here with me in this hotel room. Just us. It’s safe here.”
It’s too much, it’s all too terribly much, and he can’t take it, not anymore, not with his nerves so raw and his senses overwhelmed by your proximity. He throws his arms around you, can’t stop himself, can’t find self-control. He would do anything, anything , to get more warm and soft touch. He is so cold and broken. And you let him, let him sob into your shoulder, you hold him tight, you don’t ask questions, you tell him things he wants to hear. “You’re safe, I’ve got you, it’s gonna be alright, Bucky, sweetheart, baby, you’re going to be alright.” You plant a few small kisses into his hair, your lips warm and soft.
Eventually, even his enhanced adrenaline supply is spent, and he starts to sag forward with exhaustion. “‘M sorry,” he mumbles into your neck. He should be able to keep it together, shouldn’t subject you to this, this, this … disaster .
“Hush, darling, you’re doing so so good, you have nothing to be sorry about.” You wrap your arms around him tightly. “I don’t mind at all, okay?”
He nods, his throat too sore to want to respond.
“Do you want to try to go back to sleep?” Your thumb makes circles on the nape of his neck. He shakes his head too frantically. Get it together, Barnes .
“Okay, we’ll stay up, just like this.” That’s what he tries to do, to avoid a repeat performance, to avoid scaring you away with all his brokenness and baggage. But you’re so solid and sure and steady and damn if he doesn’t feel so safe, even after everything that happened, and sooner rather than later, he is huffing out soft snores into your hair.
Bucky looks precious like this, scowl smoothed out by sleep, you think, feeling his abdomen rise and fall against yours. It had been terrifying to wake up to his screaming, dark and agonized, and even more so when you weren’t sure you were going to be able to wake him up, pinned down as you were by a flailing metal arm. You were so relieved when his stricken eyes met yours and recognition started to bleed out some of the abject terror.
Some hours later, a watery dawn breaks through the cracks in your window curtains, but you don’t wake Bucky. He should sleep, you now know he probably doesn’t get enough. His breathing is smooth, and you are certain he is not having a nightmare. Eventually, you drift off until both of you wake to the ringing of your phone. You stretch over to your pants, keeping your hand on Bucky’s good shoulder as you lean back, and retrieve your phone. Caller ID, Avengers Tower. You mute it, but Bucky has already stirred. He blinks his eyes open, confused, and then, you think, happy. At least not panicked.
“Hey,” you breathe out, not wanting to shatter the sleepy smile creeping across his face.
“Hey.” His voice is hoarse. “I’m sorry about …” and he gestures helplessly to your tangled embrace. Gentle spots of pink crest his cheekbones.
“Why?” You rest your head on his chest. You’d touched him far more intimately last night. “You think I don’t like being close to you?” His reply is cut off by another ring. You sigh and answer. It’s Nat, her version of frantic, which means a slightly clipped tone.
“There you are! What the hell happened?”
“A lot. We’re mostly okay. We should be back in a few days. Situation is hectic, call soon.” And you hang up, tossing the phone aside.
Bucky raises an eyebrow. “This is hectic, is it?”
You grin, “No, this is cozy.” You consider nuzzling into the sweet curve of his neck, but his eyes are still concerned. You take a deep breath. “I kept hold of the book, Bucky.” His gasp is audible and his expression darkens. “I think you deserve to see it first and decide what you want to do with it.”
He is silent, and you run your hand up and down his bicep reassuringly. “Take your time, I told Nat a few days for a reason. I’m going to go find some sustenance and some clothes if I can. The book is over there.” You gesture towards the small table by the door, and slide off the bed. He looks a little lost. You squeeze his hand. “I’ll be back soon.”
You are gone, and the emptiness of the room presses in on him, the Winter Soldier book menacing him even as it is barely in view. His insides are icy. It buoys his spirits a little that you are so careful of his autonomy, like no one else ever has been, not even plenty of people ostensibly supposed to consider him a teammate.. It means so much, the slivers of normal that you have given him, like waking up in a soft embrace, that you trust him, feel comfortable with him, even after his disgraceful meltdown.
Fuck , he groaned, dragging his hand down his face. Embarrassment washes over him. He could have hurt you.You certainly hadn’t acted like you didn’t want to be right where you were, on his lap, in his arms, letting him feel like one of the good guys. A spiteful little voice that sounds suspiciously like himself in Russian wonders if your trip to go get clothes was really just a trip to get away from him. He would not blame you.
This was a subject more daunting even that the book, so he turns to that as a distraction. He has an uneasy feeling about SHIELD’s interest in the book, which is supposedly to study it for the purposes of disarming him and any others like him. Study him , his mind supplies unbidden, conjuring up old memories of being helplessly strapped down, at the non-existent mercy of HYDRA, interspersed with new visions of horror, being made to do awful things again, after the sweet perfection of a morning like this, would be too much to bear. His insides churn with anxiety.
Eventually, the soft click of the door alerts him that you’ve come back, and tension he didn’t realize he was carrying begins to melt
“It’s hardly a soy latte and croissant, but it was the best I could do!” You smile cheekily and hand him a cup of black coffee and a snack pack of cookies. “I got some clean clothes, too, I’m going to shower and change real quick. I got some weird looks in this get up.”
Before he can even mention the book, you have disappeared into the bathroom. The anxiety of this is eating him up inside. You came back, you came back, you came back.
He is standing at the bathroom door, barely restraining himself from barging in, preparing to knock so you can put him out of this misery when the door swings open and you almost walk straight into his chest. Fuck, Barnes . Creepy, much?
“Are you okay, Bucky?” Your eyes are so clear and green, you look small with your face upturned. Your new sweater is oversized and blue and it looks llike it would feel soft against him if you held him.
“I want to destroy it.” You don’t even blink, just nod.
“I think that’s the safest thing to do.” He sighs, somewhat relaxed. “I can take care of that, if you’re ready.” He nods.
Bucky wordlessly watches as you use your ability to incinerate it to ash with a smokeless flame.
“We’ll just tell the team it wasn’t there.” He likes being in on a secret with you.] It’s petty, but he’s a petty guy about this. “I got you some clothes, too. Maybe we could take a walk, hang out? That was kind of heavy. Or we could stay here and just chill, whatev- ”
Bucky doesn’t know what’s come over him, he just hugs you, pulls you into his chest, to feel you and inhale the scent of your hair, you’re real and you’re here and he can spend another few moments with you in your embrace. Feeling light and normal and not like he’s a hundred year old murderer.
You spend the next few days rattling around this small Ukrainian town, you go out for coffee and he is overwhelmed by the options. You grin when he asks what the hell a “ma-chee-at-oh” is and it warms his heart when he can make you smile. You help him order a macchiato and it’s warm and nice, and sitting with you in this small cafe is nice, too. Like he’s a normal guy taking a pretty girl out for coffee.
Each night, he waits until you are in the bathroom or over by the side table, fiddling with the little collection of stuff you’ve bought for them, to slip into bed. He knows if he crawls in next to you, you wouldn’t push him away, but it’s so deeply soothing every time that there’s a relatively spacious expanse of bed and you nuzzle in right next to him and he can feel you and smell you and you let him hold you, even with his metal arm, and that's really nice - really, really nice - but so is being what you call the little spoon. Having you, soft and warm and solid, at his back, one arm draping protectively over him, your hand resting on his belly and rising and falling with his breath, is so comforting, he hardly ever has nightmares like that.
You lean over to kiss him for the first time when you're walking back to the hotel after his first experience of straight espresso (“Not sweet enough,” he had said, making a face), under the moonlight. You stop to look up at the stars, and he looks down at you, and then you stretch up and kiss him softly. He is still at first, and you ask him, “Is this okay, Buck?” and he nods. You do it again, and he is ready this time and kisses you back and wraps his arms around your waist and it’s so deliciously natural.
Like all good things in Bucky’s life, few though there have been, it must come to an end.
You can sense the dread rolling off of Bucky, and anger flares within you at the suspicious sidelong glances the two of you receive as you walk back into the Tower’s lobby late at night. He is silent as you go your separate ways to sleep before giving your mission report to the team tomorrow. He strode ahead of you as soon as you entered the compound, and you assume he wants some space. You let him have it, of course, but your room, luxurious as it is compared to your budget hotel, is lonely without Bucky. Nevertheless, you perform your ablutions and sleep easily.
Bucky does not.
Curse Tony and his stupid thin walls. Bucky rips his hand down his face and throws himself out of the flimsy office chair, sending it flying backwards. He resumes pacing, trying to drown out the sound of your breathing, the sound of your heartbeat downstairs, three doors left from his own. He’s so on edge, doubt and anxiety nearly choking him. He knows it’s not the most rational feeling in the world, but he worries that the pervasive environment of distrust, suspicion against him will flow like poison into what you two had cultivated. Back in your old routine, without the excuse of the mission to be seen with him, would you put up with all his negative qualities? And for what, what was the benefit for you? Nothing.
He doesn’t think he has been so stupid that this whole time you’ve only been interacting with him because of the mission, you held him, touched him, laughed with him, acted like he was a normal guy and you were his girl. Fuck, he was so twisted up inside . You were going to being questioned about the mission, about him tomorrow, everyone would turn on him, he’d seem erratic and jumpy and you’d rethink everything.
Bucky doesn’t sleep, he just sits in the corner in a bit of a semi-comatose state until he is startled out of it by knocking. For whom the bell tolls.
“Hi, Bucky!” It’s you, and you smile so prettily, he tries to wipe the grimace off his face. “I thought we could walk to the debrief together.” He is silent a beat too long. “If you’re cool with that, I know we didn’t really talk about, well, about us, ya know?”
He can’t bring himself to speak. You are so damn cheerful, apparently heedless to the lion’s den into which the two of you are about to walk. Him more than you , his thoughts turn dark quickly. You don’t deserve this, he wants to stop, but it’s like a scab that he’s picked just a little bit and he can’t resist, can’t quell the awful deep inside him. “There’s nothing to talk about. Let’s go.”
Your eyes widen and he feels monstrous. He brushes past you and it’s quite a few moments before he hears your footsteps behind him.
You don’t know how to take what he just said. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all when he opened the door. Stressed and tense and unhappy. You wish you could take him away from this, back to the hotel, down to the river, to do anything else and watch his shoulders inch back down from his ears.
They have to get this debrief over with.
Natasha speaks first, “So...what the hell was that?”
“The bunker was a complete waste of time. No book. Automated security, we did our best, but we had to cut early. That’s it.” Natasha raises an eyebrow, but adds nothing else.
Tony splutters, “That’s it? You’ve been gone for almost a week, my quinjet had to fly itself back, you have nothing to show for it. What the hell is ‘that’s it’?”
Vision is next, “But surely you were able to find the book after examining its location in Sgt. Barnes’s mind?” Bucky’s breathing quickens next to you, and you can feel him clench and unclench his fists.
“Why does it seem everyone seems to know a hell of a lot more about this than we do?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Tony provides the rejoinder, continuing, “Maybe we should interrogate the Winter Soldier on his own, more thoroughly.” The room tenses, Bucky ready to strike, but you can tell from his expression that this panics him deeply.
“Under no circumstances will you or anyone else be interrogating him.” You let your power bleed through into the physical plane, just a little, so that the room hums slightly. “We’re leaving.”
Voices call after you, but you slip your hand into Bucky’s and tug him behind you, out of the room, out of the hallway, all the way out of the building until you feel him startle to a stop behind you.
You sigh and turn, your anger leaving you, “Are you okay?”
His voice is raised, his face is flushed, “Why are you like this?”
“Like what?” Your eyes are wide and innocent and he hates himself for shouting, but he can’t help it. He’s too emotional. Out of control. How is your heartbeat still so steady?
“Like this, this !” He waves your clasped hands in your face. “Lying for me, protecting me, taking care of me like - like - like I’m worth all that, or something.” Is he crying? He might be crying. Your eyes glisten. Has he made you cry? Shouldn’t have said anything, should have let you just keep walking and pulling him along behind, shouldn’t have -
“Because you are worth that,” and now you are shouting, “because I love you , damn it, and I would do anything to keep you safe, make you happy.” You throw your arms around his middle, and he doesn’t know what he should do, not really, so he rests his chin on the top of your head. He is definitely crying.
“But what about … “ His past, his trauma, his nightmares, his stupid metal arm, his -
“But nothing. I love you, okay? I love you . I’m not going to be scared off by anything. Not a messed up mission, not them, not you shouting, not anything.”
His breath hitches. You sound like you mean it, like you really believe he is worth all the shit you have to go through to be with him. It doesn’t make any sense, but if you believe it, maybe he can, too.
He would have his doubts, of course, in the time to follows, but they were erased more and more easily by soft touches and whispered endearments, by the number of consecutive days you let him be the little spoon.
Neither of you are crying anymore, but he waits for you to speak first. You pull back up to look at him, eyes made even greener by the slightly reddened rims.
“Want to go pick up a latte and a pastry?”