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There are good days, and there are bad days.
On good days, life is light and easy. On good days, Bucky wakes with the sun and stretches long and slow and his mind is calm and nothing hurts. He rests his cheek on the pillow, watches the steady rise and fall of Sam’s chest, and lets the happiness fill him up like bubbles.
On good days, Sam makes breakfast—fried potatoes and sausage and eggs just this side of too runny. They sit together at their tiny kitchen table in their tiny house in Delacroix, and Bucky eats until he’s full and enjoys every bite. On mornings like these, Sam’s love tastes like salt and pepper and garlic and hot sauce, and Bucky feels it inside him, feels the way it tickles down his throat and sends shivers across his lungs and settles warm and familiar in his stomach.
On good days, their missions are simple and clean. On good days, Bucky allows himself to be mesmerized by the way Sam’s wings catch the light and doesn’t have to worry about stabbing or being stabbed, shooting or being shot, hurting or being hurt. Afterward, they visit Sarah and the boys or FaceTime Torres or drive to New Orleans just to walk around and be near other people, and Bucky feels nothing but the intoxicating comfort of closeness and community and family.
And on bad days….well, today is a bad day.
At this point in his life, with so much horror in his past, Bucky is fully aware of what he’s supposed to tell himself on days like this: Recovery is non-linear. There will be setbacks. It will take time and hard work. And he knows it all, he really does. It’s just that everything’s been so good lately. The mornings have been peaceful and the afternoons have been lazy and slow and the nights...well, the nights have been just for him and Sam.
It’s all been so good that a small part of him—a quiet, hopeful voice Bucky thought life beat out him decades ago—wonders tentatively if this might just be his future. If this period of peace and joy indicates a chance at a life without the pain, without the memories, without the days when he wakes up feeling empty and unsure and terrifyingly out of control.
It’s precisely because he let himself hope, Bucky thinks bitterly, afterward, that this particular bad day manages to knock him all the way down on his ass.
Today, Bucky wakes to pain. He’s thrown from sleep by a nightmare; vision stained red, heart rabbiting with the memory of bones snapping like twigs beneath his hands.
Shit, he thinks, curling into himself. “Shit,” he says out loud when he realizes that he’s shaking so hard the mattress rocks beneath him. He tries to edge away from the center of the bed—from Sam—but it’s too late. Sam stirs, yawns, and turns, eyes finding Bucky’s immediately.
“Hey,” he says gently. Bucky tries to say something back—apologize, maybe—but it gets stuck in his throat and filters out as a breathy gasp.
“Okay,” Sam says, shifting up onto his elbow. “You’re okay, Buck. Just breathe.”
Bucky tries, he really does, but the fear that takes up so much space in his chest suddenly feels a whole lot like panic. He feels guilty for waking Sam, guilty for ruining their morning, guilty for feeling guilty—and on and on it goes in tight, sickening circles.
“Can I touch you?” Sam asks, still so quiet. When Bucky nods, Sam shuffles over and pulls him in; chin hooked over the back of Bucky’s neck, arms wrapped tight enough to press him back into his skin. When they’re like this— so close he can’t distinguish arm from arm, leg from leg—Bucky’s whole world becomes Sam. His steady heartbeat, the warm smell of clean cotton and clean sweat, the light scratch of his stubble. He catalogs each sensation, letting himself disappear into them until the nightmare fades and his limbs feel stable and everything is just Sam, Sam, Sam.
“Coffee?”
Bucky nods, and Sam pours a second cup before settling down beside him at the kitchen table. Bucky never feels much like eating after mornings like this, and Sam always says that cooking for one person just isn’t as fun, so they nibble at toast and listen to the brittle autumn leaves rustle against the window.
“How are you feeling?” Sam asks, ducking his head to catch Bucky’s eye.
“I’m okay.” He tries to keep his expression even, but Sam’s got a sixth sense for deception, and Bucky’s always been bad at lying to him.
“We don’t have to go, you know.” He takes a bite of toast. “They’ll understand. It’s not a special occasion or anything.
Bucky stares, brow furrowed. Were they supposed to go somewhere today? He searches his brain, sifting desperately through the thick, cottony emptiness, and comes up with nothing. He gets like this, sometimes, after nightmares. His mind stays locked into those moments of frozen terror, and even if he can’t remember what the dream was about, it still manages to hold onto him.
Sam waves a hand. “Sarah invited us over for dinner, but again, it’s no big deal. We can stay in if you want. Watch a movie.”
“No,” Bucky says, catching Sam’s hand and interlacing their fingers. “No, I’m alright. Let’s go.” Even though their houses are only a fifteen-minute drive apart, they haven’t seen Sarah or the boys in a month. Between all the missions, court appearances, and fancy events, Bucky knows Sam must be missing his family. Besides, he’s fine. One little nightmare shouldn’t have the power to stop him from living his life.
“Okay,” Sam says hesitantly. “As long as you’re sure.” When Bucky pulls him in for a soft kiss, he tastes like butter and mint toothpaste and smooth, sugary coffee.
__________
“How big did he get?”
“Big.”
“But, like, how tall?”
“Real tall.”
“Okay, but if you had to compare it to something. Taller than a giraffe?”
“Taller.”
“Taller than Sauroposeidon?”
“Than what?”
“AJ,” Sarah cuts in sharply. “Let Bucky eat his food.”
“But Mom,” AJ leans forward eagerly. “He was there.”
Sarah purses her lips and presses AJ back down into his chair. “I know he was there,” she says. “And so does your brother, and so does your uncle. We know everything about everything that happened that day in Germany, thanks to your endless questions.”
AJ squints at her like she’s missing something completely obvious. “But I’ve never asked him about the Ant-Man part before.”
Sarah’s expression turns thunderous, but before she can shut AJ down for good, Sam interjects, hand outstretched. “I was there too, you know,” he says, turning towards AJ, and now it’s Cass’s turn to heave a long-suffering sigh.
“What?” Sam claps a hand to his chest in mock offense. “You don’t want to hear about your uncle’s adventures?”
“We’ve already heard it from your perspective,” AJ rolls his eyes.
“Oh, I see how it is,” Sam grins. “I’m boring, now. Ohhkay. I get it. Good to know.”
AJ says something sarcastic back, and Sarah stares him down until he apologizes, and then Cass gets involved, and the table devolves into heatless, familial bickering. Bucky tends to stay quiet at times like these—watching them go at each other brings back warm, fuzzy memories of him and Becca arguing circles around each other when they were kids—so the conversation quickly fades into an atmospheric hum.
Not that he was very tuned in to begin with. Everything’s been hazy since this morning, the world turned soft-edged and slippery, and it takes twice the normal effort to focus on what’s going on around him. He hates this sunken, staticky feeling—hates it more than almost all the other symptoms that come with having his shitty past and his shitty brain—but once he’s in it, it feels like no amount of pushing or pulling can bring him back to the surface.
Bucky stares down at his bowl, trying to will himself into an appetite. He doesn’t want to offend Sarah, not after she went to all the trouble to cook dinner for the five of them, but the thought of eating anything still makes his stomach turn. He stares so hard his eyes go fuzzy, and when he blinks to clear them, his soup disappears. Suddenly, the bowl is filled with severed fingers and hot, sludgy hills of intestines and piles of broken-off teeth and bones and oh, that’s what this morning’s dream had been about.
Bucky doesn’t remember a lot of what Hydra did to him, but he remembers that day. It’s coming back to him now, in shaky stops and starts. There was a dark, cramped cell, the air thick and sour with mold and rot. It was in foot soldier territory, far below the sharp eyes of upper command, and the foot soldiers liked to play games.
Bucky blinks, trying to dislodge the memory, but there’s no stopping it now. It blares on, unspooling bright and blinding and heedless.
Hydra sometimes had auctions, for lack of a better term. Showcases. Days where they combed roughly through his hair, polished his suit, and trotted him out in front of wealthy potential clients. He was world-renowned—an infamous, underground ghost—and there were plenty of corrupt dignitaries and heiresses and world leaders who wanted the chance to take Hydra’s precious toy for a spin.
Hydra leadership would line up five or ten whimpering, disposable soldiers and bark out “Рядом, Солдат” and he’d snap to attention, limbs locked, eyes lowered. Then, after making sure they had the attention of the onlookers, whoever was in charge that day would grab Bucky by the chin, forcing eye contact, and whisper: “Aтаку́й.” Attack.
Everything after that is mostly a blur, but he does remember the feeling of destruction beneath his hands. Turning people inside out, ripping and biting and slicing through uniforms and flesh and bone alike. When he was done, heaving and dripping amidst the carnage, the clients would clap and laugh like they’d just seen the circus. He was always led away before they made their offers, but sometimes he caught snippets. They wanted to rent him for a few days to assassinate a minister of defense. They wanted him to smother a rival candidate in his sleep. They wanted him to burn down an elementary school. They wanted him to do things for them at night.
On this particular day, he’d been off the ice for over 48 hours, which is probably why it’s all returning to him so terribly clearly. Between running diagnostics on his arm and two showcases, he was kept in the cell, ferried back and forth by foot soldiers who didn’t take too kindly to the asset who killed their comrades with brutal, unrepentant force.
After cleaning up the bloody human remains in the auction hall, they came back to pay him a little visit, a steaming dog dish held out before them.
“Cмотри, Солдат,” they whispered, eyes bright and hard as they loomed over him. “Ужин.”
One of them pried his lips open, dirty fingernails drawing blood from the roof of his mouth, and the others took turns forcing spoils down his throat. Blood-soaked fingers, shreds of organs, fatty bits of entrails. The chains kept him strapped down, and their iron grip kept his mouth stretched open, and he couldn’t move or breathe or try to defend himself in any way, not without risking infinitely worse punishment.
Now, at the Wilson house, he sees the dog dish—soup bowl—swimming in front of his eyes, and it’s like he’s really there—like he’s back in that terrible, godless cell. He blinks again, hard and desperate, and the image shutters in and out once, twice, before disappearing like smoke.
“-ucky. Hey, Buck. You alright?”
Bucky starts, eyes snapping up to find everyone at the table staring at him. He’s holding his spoon so tight that his hand’s gone numb around the handle, and he carefully sets it down on his napkin, blinking.
There’s no dog dish, and his soup bowl has only ever been a soup bowl. He knows that, rationally, but his heart's pounding and everything’s still hazy and his senses are dulled and off-kilter. He takes a deep breath, hoping to settle his nerves, but the second he moves, he feels a stab of nausea so intense it’s painful. He tries to swallow it down, force himself to stay collected, but it's rising up into his stomach, into his chest.
“Bucky,” Sam says again, eyebrows sloping in concern, and it’s all Bucky can do to keep his hands from shaking. He arranges his face into what he hopes is a neutral expression, carefully aware of the kids—god, he’s probably scaring the kids—and offers the table a tight-lipped smile.
“Excuse me,” he mumbles, pushing up from his chair as calmly as he can. Sam stands with him, drawing everyone else’s attention, and that gives Bucky the window of distraction he needs to tuck his chair back in with trembling fingers and slip out of the room.
“Is Uncle Bucky okay?” He hears one of the kids ask as he claws at the back door, but Sam or Sarah’s response is swallowed by the sudden rush of wind as he tumbles out into the crisp autumn evening.
The brisk air feels cool and grounding against Bucky’s flushed, tacky skin, but before he can leave the doorway or sit down or even take a breath, his stomach rolls with awful, renewed urgency.
“Fuck,” he breathes, stumbling down off the back porch and onto the dry grass below. “Shit,” he says, falling forward until he hits a tree. His right hand automatically comes up to catch him, fingers digging into the rough bark, and his left braces against his knee. “Christ,” he gasps, forehead knocking against the wood, and then he’s throwing up, stomach cramping, tears burning the corners of his eyes.
Through the thunderous beating of his heart, Bucky hears the screen door shut, then the soft sound of footsteps on the grass. Less than a second later, Sam’s beside him, hand warm and steadying at the small of his back.
“Sam,” Bucky croaks through heaving breaths, and he feels Sam’s hand start to move in soothing circles. His head is spinning and his chest is tight and everything hurts, but Sam’s here now. Sam’s here.
“Yeah, it’s me, Buck,” Sam murmurs. “It’s me.” After a few seconds, the nausea subsides, leaving Bucky with nothing but a pounding headache and crippling, bone-deep exhaustion. He lets himself go limp, shuffling away from the sick before sinking toward the grass like a stone. Sam goes with him easily, twisting them in midair so that Bucky lands with his head cradled against Sam’s chest.
Bucky makes a punched-out sound when they hit the ground, eyes falling closed. He feels wrung out and hung to dry, tired in a way he hasn’t been in weeks.
“Shhhh,” Sam whispers, hand coming down to gently comb through Bucky’s hair. It’s nice, being touched like this. Sam’s hands always feel nice. They’re quiet for a while, Sam petting Bucky’s head with slow, rhythmic motions.
“You aren’t feeling too good today, huh, Buck,” Sam says after a moment. “Bad memory?”
Bucky hums, dizzy with the feeling of Sam touching him, the rhythm of Sam’s chest rising and falling beneath his cheek, the sound of Sam’s heart beating, steady and sure.
More time passes, and all the good feelings of Sam soft warm comfort start to outweigh the bad, pushing Bucky back into himself. His headache begins to disappear, his hands no longer shake, and the hazy, out-of-body sensation fades away. He nudges up into Sam’s chin, chasing the warmth of his bare skin.
“Hey there,” Sam laughs as Bucky settles into the crook of his neck with a sigh.
“Hey,” Bucky breathes into Sam’s collarbone. He exhales again, long and slow, and blinks open his eyes.
The sky’s almost dark and the trees cast long, black shadows over the grass. Bucky lets his gaze drift across the yard, skipping over leaves and small bicycles and stray weeds until it lands on the back porch. Seeing the Wilson house stretching high above him, painted gold by the last rays of the sun, jerks Bucky firmly back into reality. Shit, he thinks, guilt crashing over him like ice water. Goddammit.
“Sorry for ruining dinner,” he says out loud, eyes trained on Sam’s stomach. “And for throwing up in your yard.” He already knows what Sam’s gonna say—he’s sweetly predictable, that way—but Bucky can’t help himself. Sure enough:
“Don’t apologize,” Sam says, and Bucky can hear the frown in his voice. “It’s my fault. I should have known better. That nightmare this morning...and I could tell you weren’t feeling alright–”
“No,” Bucky interrupts, pushing up into a sitting position. Sam’s radiating guilt (he would know, he practically wrote the book on the subject), and when Bucky shuffles to face him, he’s doing that thing where he worries at his bottom lip with his teeth.
“Don’t, Sammy,” Bucky grimaces, reaching up to gently tug Sam’s lip free. “It’s on me. I should have said something.”
Sam smiles softly against Bucky’s finger, then swoops down to press a warm kiss to the palm of his hand. “If I’m not allowed to be sorry, then neither of us are allowed to be sorry. Deal?”
“Fair enough,” Bucky huffs. He curls their hands together and shuffles back down to rest his head on Sam’s shoulder. “Thanks.”
“Of course,” Sam says. He tucks his chin over the top of Bucky’s head, forming a warm shield against the chilly dusk, and Bucky feels the muscles in his cheeks shift as he smiles. “Always.”