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Steve dreams of the ice.
It’s frustrating, really, when he’s awake and able to think about it; there’s a certain ironic cruelty in having nightmares about the lost decades of his life, horrors in the absence of true memories.
Tonight it’s the same as always, the crushing weight against his chest, his eyes and nose and mouth full of freezing water as he struggles for breath. His lungs never give in, though, his heart never stops beating, fighting on in endless panicked futility, nothing but silence and cold all around him, his entire being aching like an exposed nerve.
Steve wakes with a start to the sound of Natasha’s voice, familiar but still new enough to be a little jarring. He sits straight upright, fumbling for the lamp on the bedside table as he gasps for breath, memories of childhood warring with the remnants of the dream.
"Steve," she says again, and then she’s there perched on the edge of his bed, her face swimming into view as she manages to get the light on where he’s failed.
He remembers, now — They’re in a safe house in Toronto, experiencing the utter inadequacy of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s heating arrangements while awaiting an extraction delayed by snow. It’s their third time in the field together, and suddenly he feels foolish letting her see him like this: Captain America, super soldier with a weakness for temperatures below zero. It isn’t really about his image, though, isn’t really about his pride. It’s about the way Natasha radiates strength and calm, the way he finds himself perpetually eager to please her, to earn that little ghost of a smile.
"Nightmare?" she presses, when he stays silent.
"I don’t remember the ice," he says miserably. "Guess some part of my body must, though."
Natasha studies him for a moment, as if he’s a mildly challenging problem she needs to solve, then nods once. “Move over.”
Steve doesn’t think twice, just does as instructed. He jumps when she slips into bed beside him, though, his whole body going rigid as she wraps an arm around his shoulders. She smells like toothpaste and cinnamon, the barest hint of smoke underneath.
"What are you doing?" he asks, after a few beats of sitting ramrod straight, trying not to notice the way her body feels curled into his side, the way he’d really like to reach down and pull her closer.
"Warming you up," she says simply. "Relax. This isn’t some kind of tactical maneuver."
"Thanks," he manages, half exhalation as he allows himself to lean into her just a little. And it is helping, the panic receding even as his heart thunders in his ears to a whole new kind of adrenaline.
"The cold is awful," says Natasha, and there’s a raw edge to her words that keeps him from questioning further, keeps him from asking if she’s sure when she moves a little closer and tangles their legs.
Instead he finds her hand under the sheet, and cradles her chilled fingers between his palms until they both drift off again.