Chapter Text
Steve knew he was dreaming.
In the waking world, Wanda would never wrap her hands around his throat. When Steve was awake, Wanda was quickly becoming a friend, one of the few people Steve felt he could actually relate to. When Steve was awake, Wanda wouldn’t need to use her hands to kill him and they both knew it.
Steve’s amygdala wasn’t quite so evolved. Tonight, Wanda was the main attraction in Steve’s nightmares, tossing him around like a toy until, finally, he was on his knees before her. Wanda smiled down at him, and very kindly said, “You want to die anyway. I’m just doing you a favor.”
Just as her hand tightened, something cold startled Steve awake. His heart was racing and he was sweating and something cold was touching his hip. From the darkness next to him, Bucky asked, “Bad dream?” and a part of Steve instinctively relaxed.
“Just being almost murdered by a teammate.” The solid presence of Bucky tucked in bed beside him had always been the best thing to chase nightmares away.
“You do have pretty lousy taste in friends.” The cool metal of Bucky’s cybernetic arm slipped away, replaced by the warmth of his body. “I’m including myself there. Who was trying to kill you this time?”
“I was…” Reality came crashing back in. It had been seventy years since he’d slept in Bucky’s arms, and two years since Bucky had vanished after DC. There was no way this was real. “I was sparring with Wanda.” Steve was probably lying on the floor of the gym in a heap, while Wanda and Vision and Sam flew in circles shooting at each other.
Steve had been pressing her to be more creative with the visions she trapped people in. He was convinced that if she just worked at it a little bit, she could make her constructs stronger, more real. She’d put him naked in bed with Bucky - talk about wish fulfillment.
Bucky mumbled something about witches into the back of Steve’s neck, already falling back to sleep. He’d been like that, before the war. Steve doubted Bucky slept so easily now, but it was a nice thing for Wanda to imagine.
“Alright, enough.” Steve whispered into the darkness of the room, expecting the beautiful tin paneled ceiling to dissolve into the rigging above the practice gym. Nothing happened. Wanda didn’t like to be told she wasn’t working hard enough, she wasn’t going to make this easy.
Steve wasn’t going hunting for her naked. He rolled out of bed and went to find clothes.
There were two closets. The first one was actually an arsenal with biometric locks. The only thing in there Steve recognized was the shield and the compartment opened easily. When he found the actual closet, he couldn’t tell what was actually his versus Dream-Bucky’s. “Screw it.” He pulled on the first pair of pants and t-shirt he could find.
The apartment was definitely his floor in Stark Tower but it was different from the last time Steve had seen it. The place had been massive, and decorated in a tasteful but soulless style. This place was smaller, maybe half the size but still bigger than any place Steve had ever imagined living.
The living room was full of big, comfortable furniture and a painting hung above a wooden mantle. Steve didn’t recognize the place, but he knew it was his work before he spotted his signature in the corner. The giant statue in the middle of a greenscape was gorgeous, he hoped Dream-Steve had done it justice.
There was a little table by the door with a basket of keys on it. It was such a small thing to know that Steve had always been losing things before the serum gave him an eidetic memory, but the basket made him trip over, from grudging admiration that Wanda had done this, to anger. She’d probably dissected his whole life’s memories to set up all this and he felt terribly exposed.
The Bucky he’d woken up beside was a perfect mimic of everything Steve wanted. He had to wonder how deep she’d dived into his memories to get the smell of Bucky’s sweat right.
“FRIDAY, where is Wanda?” Steve wanted to get this over with.
“Mrs. Maximoff is five floors down in her apartment, Captain.” FRIDAY’s voice responded in a whisper, like she didn’t want to wake up Bucky.
Steve took the keys with his ID tag attached to them and found himself standing in an elevator lobby. Steve eyed the call buttons, a bit dubious. He was a bit distrustful of elevators since DC and he bet Wanda knew it. He took the stairs instead.
About three floors down, he ran into a woman and a shaggy brown dog walking up. “You know, I’m sure I could get a robot to walk you. Why don’t I ever think of that in the daytime? Hey, Cap.” She gave him a friendly smile, like they ran into each other in the stairway at four am all the time.
“Hi,” It took Steve a minute to place her face. He’d seen the woman’s picture in the paper, under a headline like “Heiress Shoots for the Gold.” That and the arrow earring she was wearing made it pretty clear who she was supposed to be, “Hawkeye.” The heiress’ name had been Kate. Wanda was pretty fond of Clint and Steve wondered why she had cooked up a new Hawkeye.
“Right, sorry. You are not the costume.” Kate tightened her grip on the dog’s leash as he tried to leap at Steve’s chest. “Hey, Steve. Don’t mind us. Just taking my dog to the roof in the middle of the night.”
“Have fun.” Steve waiting until they’d rounded the turn to the next stairwell, then started down again. There were two apartments on Wanda’s floor as well. It was an interesting design choice. Maybe she’d found the huge apartments as lonely and depressing as Steve had and imagined something they would all like better. He knocked on the door with a red stylized ‘M’ on it.
Wanda came to the door quicker than Steve expected at four am. “No.”
“No?” Steve hadn’t thought it was going to be easy but he’d figured he and Wanda could at least talk about her letting him out.
“Whatever it is you want, no. No, I will not fly to California to meet with Carol. No, I will not suit up and go to a charity auction. No, I will not take your duty shift.” Wanda looked a little older. There were a few lines around her eyes and something about her body shape was different.
Maybe Wanda had done a little too well creating this fantasy for him. Maybe she’d trapped herself too. “Wanda, I just want-”
Wanda yanked him into the apartment and walked over to a playpen. It was just as shocking as seeing Clint’s children for the first time. She picked up one of the two little boys in the playpen and brandished him at Steve. “Steve. I am six weeks away from my defense, my husband is on a diplomatic mission to Latveria and my sons are teething.” The little boy made a pathetic whine and Wanda shifted him onto her hip and shoved a finger into his mouth. “Unless the world is about to end, I’m busy.”
He must have stared at the baby too long because Wanda smacked his shoulder. “Steve. Is the world about to end?”
“No.” The boys weren’t identical, the one in her arms was was dark haired like Wanda and the one one was so blond his hair was almost white. Steve could imagine why Wanda had done that, to honor her brother. “Everything’s fine. I did want to talk to you, but it can wait.”
“Good.” Wanda set the boy down beside his brother. “Maybe after sunup?”
Steve decided not to comment on the coffee and the stack of papers she’d evidently been editing when he knocked. It wasn’t like he’d woken her up. “Wanda, is this the future you imagine for yourself?”
Wanda pressed a kiss to the blond boy’s head. “I am a powerful witch, married to a robot, I live at the top of the tallest tower, and I tricked my childhood nemesis into paying for a PhD in political science. So yes, this is exactly the life thirteen year old me imagined for myself.”
“Thirteen year old you was pretty creative.” Steve hadn’t known she was interested in anything but friendship with Vision. “I’ll come find you later. Have a good morning with your boys.”
Wanda practically shoved him back out the door. Whoever lived across the hall was leaning against the door, making pitiful noises as he tried to key in his access code. The sleeves of his hoodie were stained with vomit and as the panel flashed red the man made a gagging noise. Wanda seemed to think it was funny. “Doesn’t it make you wish your powers worked like the Flash’s? Then you could just vibrate right through the door and regret your bad decisions from the couch.”
“Shh. Too loud.” It was Pietro who turned away from the door and gave his sister a pleading look. “Just come do it for me.”
“I never thought you would find a woman who lived too fast for you.” Wanda punched it a few numbers and the panel turned green. “I told you ambassadors have liquor in their veins instead of blood.”
Some of Steve’s anger ebbed away. This place was obviously something Wanda had created for herself. She had probably thought he would enjoy a brief trip to a place where everyone was happy, alive, and where they belonged. “I’ll see you later, Wanda.”
Steve managed to get back up to his own floor without running into any more dead people or gender-bent replacement super heroes and slipped back into the apartment he and Bucky apparently shared. He could just go back to bed, enjoy the illusion for a few hours, but Steve wasn’t sure he’d ever want to leave if he did that. The Wanda of his dreams hadn’t exactly been wrong.
Instead, Steve went outside to the balcony that was outside their living room. They were pretty far up but there was some kind of shielding against the wind and overstuffed chairs that would let two enhanced people sit comfortably. It was almost like the screened porch off the back of the Barnes house.
This had to all be coming from some hidden well of optimism in Wanda. Steve never could have imagined anything this happy for himself. He sat down in one of the chairs and stared out at New York as the sun rose.
After a while, the door behind Steve slid open and the smell of coffee drifted out. “Not worth it going back to sleep?”
“Sorry.” Steve turned so he could get a good look at the Bucky Wanda had dreamed up for him. He was shirtless, and the scarring where his shoulder met the cybernetics was so ugly Wanda must have seen it in person. All of Bucky’s chest hair seemed to be missing, although the serum had left Steve equally bare chested. Bucky’s hair was a mess, but the way it had used to look in the mornings instead of dirty and uncombed like Steve occasionally saw in surveillance footage. Steve made himself reach for one of the coffee mugs Bucky was holding.
Bucky pulled it back. “Coffee’s not free, buddy. Pay up.”
Steve had paid for his morning coffee in kisses, before the war, but it was possible the price had gone up with inflation. It couldn’t hurt to find out.
Bucky’s mouth tasted of toothpaste, a disappointment to Steve who had almost been looking forward to his morning breath. The kiss was maybe a little bit more heated than Steve had intended. Wanda did good work, but Steve decided there and then that he was never going to let her use this as an interrogation technique. It was just too cruel.
When Bucky pulled back for a breath, he had a filthy smile on his face. “Sure, I’m game. Let’s give the paparazzi a show. No one’s called me a socialist whore in weeks.”
“You were never a socialist.” Steve couldn’t help but stare at Bucky as he settled into the chair beside Steve.
“It just makes such a good sound bite.” Bucky held out one of the mugs and Steve took it. It wasn't ceramic, but heavy and solid feeling. “You want to talk about it or are we repressing our painful memories this week?”
“I’m fine.” Steve took a sip of the coffee and made a face. “This one is yours. You put half the sugar jar in it.”
“Just checking.” Bucky held out the other mug. “Did you go running without me?”
“No.” Steve wondered what this imaginary Bucky would do if Steve reached for him, if he would react like Bucky used to in bed. Instead of taking the mug without five sugars in it, Steve set the mug he’d been given down on the little side table, walked over to Bucky’s chair, and straddled him. “I just don’t want to wake up.”
“It’s not like I threw you out of bed.” Bucky threaded his fingers through Steve’s hair and pulled him close. “You can always wake me up.”
Steve swallowed a punny remark about waking up parts of Bucky and kissed him. It probably edged into desperate, but he couldn’t help it. The kiss left them both panting and Steve pressed their foreheads together. “Take me back to bed.”
“You have to get out of my lap first.” Bucky kissed his way down Steve’s neck and scraped his teeth against the sensitive place in the crook of Steve’s neck. “We could just stay here.” Bucky pushed a hand up Steve’s shirt and ran a cool metal thumb across Steve’s nipple. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Pardon the interruption.” FRIDAY’s voice woke Steve the second time. He expected to be in his quarters but it was still the imaginary pressed tin ceiling above him and Bucky laying beside him. “Sergeant Barnes, a SHIELD chopper has just landed. Agent Johnson is onboard and requests you join her in the briefing room.”
Bucky raised his head, blinking at the ceiling. It was a habit Steve couldn’t break either. “Do I bring guns or coffee?”
“I have already arranged for coffee.” There was a brief pause, then FRIDAY’s voice said, “I also have a weapons platform adjacent to the briefing room, so I can also provide cover fire if necessary.”
“You’re the best, sweetheart.” Bucky rolled out of bed and walked naked to the closet. Steve couldn’t help but stare. “Do I need a shower or are you just staring at whatever mark you put on me?”
“You need a shower.” Steve didn’t know if the shower here was as awe inspiring as the one in the real apartment he had in the Tower but it was worth checking. “Mind if I join you?”
They did eventually get dressed, armed. When Bucky tucked the fourth knife into his belt sheath, Steve decided he should bring the shield.
When they made it to the briefing room, Agent Johnson was sitting alone at the table. She was in her thirties, and dressed in black combat gear. Steve had never seen her before. Then again, SHIELD was supposed to be gone. Johnson seemed happy to see them, like they were old friends. “Would you be interested in taking a trip with us?”
“What kind of trip?” Bucky sat across from her while Steve lingered in the doorway. “The kind where we go to a miserable place and you put me in a sniper’s blind for days or the kind where we go to an alien planet and you put me in a sniper’s blind for days?”
A smile spread across Agent Johnson’s face. “Not even close.”
“Excuse me, Steve.” Agent Coulson brushed past Steve into the room. He sat down next to Agent Johnson, like he hadn’t died four years ago. Wanda had never met Coulson. There was no reason for him to be in this ideal future she’d cooked up. “Our friends in the Nova Corps are having a bit of a housekeeping problem.”
Steve watched Coulson reach for the thermos of coffee in the middle of the table. Steve could hear the gears working as Coulson moved his hand. Flesh and blood appearance or not, that was a cybernetic replacement limb. Even if Wanda had dug up Coulson out of Steve’s memories of the Battle for New York, he’d had both hands before being stabbed through the heart.
“Something in their archives is messing with their computer systems and no one has any idea what could be doing it. Captain Marvel has called for backup and the Nova are putting heavy restrictions about who we can disclose this to.” Agent Johnson waved her fingers at the holo emitter and a short video of klaxons going off, lights blinking randomly and secure doors opening and slamming shut played. “Do you two want to come play Indiana Jones and help me find out what’s cursed their basement?”
Cold dread settled over Steve. They wanted Steve to do a mission. He’d read Bucky’s files, about how at first HYDRA had controlled him through a kind of hypnotic mind control. Steve wasn’t going to play along, no matter how nice whoever cooked this up made the fantasy.
“I don’t get it. Bucky, I understand. She wants to give me hope. The woman who I ran into in the stairwell? We’ve been talking about recruiting more female members. You, though? She never met you.” All conversation at the table stopped and all three of them turned to stare at Steve. “What are you doing here, Agent Coulson?”
“I want to go into space?” Coulson shrugged, but Steve saw him shift. He had unstrapped his gun. “I never get to go into space.”
“Steve.” Agent Johnson pressed her palms flat against the table. Steve wondered if she was going to vault over it at him. “Do you know who I am? Do you know where you are?”
This wasn’t Wanda’s fantasy and Steve wasn’t going to be waking up soon. He reached a hand back for his shield. “I’m your prisoner.”