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Screeching metal, like a body wearing gear being dragged by hands, he thinks, blood in his mouth, on his hands, everywhere, he can't see anything clearly. It's all blurry, why is it so blurry? The hands are taking him somewhere, he doesn't want to go, he still can't see clearly. Just a silhouette of a machine. No, a chair- No, please, not there- it’s no use. The hands multiply, become tighter, drag him, push him, but they don't stop. He knew they wouldn't. They will never stop but he can't let them take him, can't let them make him that again. Not without a fight, no. They're restraining him now, holding him, pushing him down, he struggles harder, ”Give in”, a voice in his head whispers, but he can't, can’t-
Bucky wakes up with a gasp, lungs struggling to get some air, he's no stranger to nightmares, but they still break him every single time. It's not like he didn't know he would have one tonight too, blackness finally taking over after so much tossing and turning, but he was just so tired, of the negative voices, of pretending to be okay, of trying not to think about Steve just leaving. It was just too exhausting.
Still trying to ground himself, he looks around his apartment, from the half empty water bottle on the kitchen island, the small plants in pots he's trying to grow after Yori advised him to, to the too soft blanket tangled with his legs.
He sighs as he untangles himself from the blanket and gets up, glancing at the window while doing so, he's not getting a minute more of sleep even though it's still dark outside. Might as well do something, he thinks but he knows he can't, his heart is still beating too fast, he's too jittery. So he settles on getting himself some water.
As Bucky listens to the tapping of his footsteps against the floor, he realizes that it's quiet, too quiet. Which would make sense since it's the middle of the night and even the city is not immune to the silence surrounding them. He was used to listening to his surroundings when he woke up at night, the rustling of leaves outside his hut in Wakanda or the soft snores that escaped from Steve, but this silence? It was unfamiliar. It was too consuming.
He was there again. The one place that he never wanted to be back in. He really didn't want to, tried to fight it so hard but it never seemed to work. He hated the chair with every fibre of his being, he despised it. The same chair that took everything and everyone that he knew away from him. He never thought a mere chair could do that. Granted, it was different from others, made differently to serve its cruel purpose but even after all that, wasn't it just a chair? A chair didn't have the right to haunt him in his worst nightmares, take his breath away every time he even thought of- who was he kidding? He deserved it, the nightmares, the breathlessness after a particularly nasty one, the pain, he deserved all of it, after everything he had done, the innocent people he had-
The silence is broken by a chime from Bucky’s phone as he realizes that he was spiralling again, while standing in the middle of his kitchen. Doctor Raynor would be shaking her head disapprovingly right now. He sighs as he walks up to his phone sitting on the table while making a strategy on how to best ignore her question about the nightmares this time, and smiles as he looks down on his phone to see it's a text from Sam.
“Hey Headspace,stop doing ur old-men stuff n get ur diaper up for mission ETA 15”
People may have left him behind but he's not alone. He'll have the calm after his mission. One day.