Work Text:
It hurt. Sure, he'd been cold before – New York City winters were no vacation, and Europe had plenty of mountains.
At least the cold's pain overwhelmed the pain from...well, from everything else. Some or possibly all of his ribs were probably broken, and god knows what his insides looked like. He might have been bleeding, probably a lot, he wasn’t sure. He had just crashed a plane. A giant plane full of bombs. Bombs meant for New York. For all over the United States. The ice groaned around him and freezing cold water and slush filled most of the cockpit. Even if he wasn’t hurt, what could he have done? It was all blinding white ice and snow clear to the horizon and miles beyond.
At least...at least he'd gotten to hear her voice one last time. He never did manage to find the time to tell her everything he’d still been collecting the words for.
Steve thought of his team. They’d done it. Schmidt was gone. The other guys would be able to get on perfectly well, they were good men.
With an effort he hadn't had to expend since the last time he'd had pneumonia, he managed to shift himself onto...was it the floor now? It was big and flat anyway. He felt like lying down. Maybe they'd find the plane someday, an old relic of a war since won. Peggy and the rest would win it, to be sure.
He was just a boy from Brooklyn, but they'd have a hero's funeral for him anyway. He hoped they wouldn't forget about Bucky. He was the real hero.
Steve had always known he'd die young. From a fever that never got better, or a final time when the asthma wouldn't ease. At least now, now his death would be useful.
It wasn't too long before the cold overwhelmed everything else. He couldn't move his fingers. Didn’t feel able to move much of anything now. The numbness had settled and blossomed into deep pain. It wasn't so bad, really. Project Rebirth had been worse. Felt a lot like he'd explode right out of his skin then. It was worth it. He'd gotten everything he'd ever wanted.
Maybe once the cold got to him, when he emerged on the other side of this pain into...somewhere else, he'd see Bucky again. And his Ma. And his father, too, though he never knew him. His da would be proud. They both would. Wouldn’t they? Yeah, they would.
Bucky would probably cuff him upside the head and berate him for stealing his thunder. "A plane crash, Rogers? And here all I did was fall off a mountain. And you can't even tell me if there were loads of tearful ladies at my memorial, you punk. What kinda friend are ya?"
That wouldn't be so bad, Steve thought, as the bomber sank deeper into icy water, to be covered by the snow and wind. And this wasn't so bad. He'd follow Bucky anywhere, and he followed Bucky into this too. If it came to this - alone, bleeding out and freezing, well, that was just fine with him. Why should his end be any better?
There were voices. Voices?
"Jesus Christ, he's still alive! Fucking hell, I can't believe it."
"That's impossible!"
"Well, he's got a heartbeat, so tell the casket team to stand down and start the hypothermia protocol!"
The darkness seemed softer, almost lighter than before. Something was bothering him. What was that? He felt...he felt. He was feeling. It was pain leaking back in, bone-deep aching needle pricks of returning sensation that turned into a different sort of ache as his body shivered involuntarily.
The dark was nice. Restful. Let’s get back to that. He'd leave the pain here where the dark wasn’t so nice, and maybe it would leave.
“Shit, I better get an anesthesiologist on the line while he’s still unconscious, who knows how fast he’ll burn through the ketamine. Fury’s gonna have kittens…like, tiger-sized kittens.”
Steve Rogers woke up. It was warm. The room was well-lit. There was a baseball game on the radio.
And it was all wrong.