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A particularly screeching brassy zing in a jazzy tune pulls you conscious. Before you’ve even opened your eyes, you’re routinely reaching to your right. No Bucky. Sad face. You consider calling out, ‘Can you, like, not?’ but the way your boyfriend’s face lights up whenever he listens to music from his youth enters your mind. You open your eyes and groan as you hoist yourself into a sitting position. When the song starts to taper, you hear the running shower. The next song begins without a lull. You decide to let him enjoy his overly cheerful dinosaur-bop.
A sight out your window shoots a spark up your spine. You merely scanned the room, glanced over the window—it’d been a split-second. He’s here. There’s immediate pain in your side, and then a buzzing in your ears as your head snaps back to face the closed window. That's his hair. That's his car. He found you.
‘He found me, again!?! How did he find me!?’ You've already started gasping useless air to your shattered lungs.
For a moment, you're standing rigid on the balcony of your old apartment building. Your skin crawls, festering under a dark gaze you haven’t seen in years. Not while you were awake, anyway. Snowflakes flutter about as if time hadn’t stopped. You were still in uniform from the job that you loved. The job you’d have to leave to get away from him.
You clear the sleep from your eyes, and they widely take in the threat that reached across the street and penetrated your third-story window to seize your neck, sending shivers.
It can't be him. He's in Alaska. You know this. The car. The color is eerily familiar, coating one of the few models of car you can recognize, but there’s no dent in the front, right overhang, and There are no dress shirts blocking the rear windows. The man is short and-
God. Idiot. Anger crashes in. Anger at yourself, at your faulty mind. Your body too keyed up now to back down, a panic attack is in full swing. Assigning a term for the phenomenon makes it seem survivable, somehow. Fingers curl into claws around a pillow, squeezing the life out of it. Somehow, impossibly, your chest becomes even tighter. At the same time, relief courses through you and makes you dizzy. ‘I’m safe.’ The thought is forced. The buzz in your ears turns into TV static.
You have just the wherewithal to bring the clutched pillow between your teeth before you begin to surrender short, angry sobs.
It may be two minutes that you sit in the middle of your shared bed, feet curled beneath you. It may be twenty. All you know is that the music that you forgot was playing has stopped. Your sobs had run dry and thin, still muffled into a pillow—Bucky’s pillow, you realize. You release it, and your jaw clamps shut, your tongue a rug against the roof of your mouth. You were determined to try to ride it out in silence to not worry Bucky, but strange pressure in your throat causes you to choke.
You hear him call your name. If you respond, you’re not sure your effort would be any more reassuring than the silence. Before you can make a decision, he’s there. Wide eyes stare into wide eyes. Bucky’s mouth is moving. His hands are on you, grounding you. You work to control the panting if only to hear his voice over the TV static. “What can I do?” His speech works to keep a neutral tone.
You lean incrementally in his direction, and he understands. Of course Bucky understands exactly what you need—even when you can’t voice it. A small awe of your boyfriend blossoms in your tight, sore chest as he closes in.
You’re in his embrace. His hair hangs in strings, a wet and cold presence nipping at your ear. It drips, painting spots onto your shoulder. His metal arm, usually chilled, is hot—almost uncomfortably so—a testament to James's preference for scorching showers. You focus on the heat.
When you shift, the familiar metal arm leaves an unexpected print on your t-shirt—a wet stamp of its towel-resistant, intricate gold pattern. Buck’s stubble brushes, warm and prickly, against your cheek as he whispers comforting nothings into your ear with that silky voice of his. Puffs of warm and chalky minted air caress your nose. His flesh hand kneads at the top of your bicep, reminding you to release your death grip of James's undeserving pillow. You pout at its crinkled and misshapen form before turning your face to burrow into your protector's unyielding chest, which has been left bare in his haste. Though your mind is almost entirely consumed by all things Bucky, you're vaguely aware of the lingering hitch in your breath.
Bucky has a strong preference for unscented soap. Supersoldiers must have sensitive noses, you suppose. You were quite grateful for this quirk at the moment because aside from an occasional waft of antiseptic, the scent you were inhaling was pure Bucky. It's sweet with a hint of musk. You find yourself wishing, not for the first time, you could make a Bucky scented candle. The idea causes your mouth to lilt up at the corners, still pressed to his abdomen. You feel rather than hear a sigh of relief escape Buck's airway. His hold on you tightens; his nose nuzzles into your hair. With Buck's flesh hand gently rubbing at your back, you find yourself able to match his breaths. They're purposefully slow, deep, steady.
"You wanna talk about it?" He murmurs.
Your arms stretch and your nose scrunches at the force of your yawn, and in a swift motion, you've covered yourself in the soft blanket at your feet and pushed your flesh pillow horizontal, unfolding your legs to drape between his. Bucky chuckles softly as though it were a secret. Sunlight cast from the bedroom window onto your upturned cheek, your own personal sun, warm, under your downturned cheek.
"Naptime, Darlin?" His question came out rhetoric, oozing affection as was he.
You hummed an agreement anyway, sinking into blissful sleep.