Chapter Text
Steve felt the shift before the fight even met its peak. The tension in his bones turned cold and his whole body felt like it was buzzing high above the clouds. He didn’t have the faintest clue to what was going on. All he knew was that he needed to be there with his team as they fought a maddened scientist off. He didn’t even register his own body moving without his brain consulting it, but he found himself in a darkened closet of some random abandoned building.
He knew outside of the four walls of the closet was his team, fighting determinedly against the scientist and his raging wolves that he experimented on. It was a hard fight, from what Steve knows before his body pushed itself away from the danger. Just outside the stone door is his team probably littered with bruises that would put expired bananas to shame. He hears the low mutters of the com link in his ear, which should be much louder than it seems. All he can make out are the muttered curses of a few of his team members, scattered grunts here and there. So far, none were asking where Steve was and he felt immensely grateful.
He attempts to focus on the battle at hand, but it’s a much tougher fight than the one going on outside. His brain is kicked into overdrive, scrambling to find an answer to the vastly spreading cold in his chest. This isn't his first time feeling something like this. He remembers the quiet after he plunged the Valkyrie into the Arctic waters. He remembers what he was thinking, but he also remembers the pain that followed much better.
The feeling of the cold, skin numbing water filling his lungs. The sound of rushing water and splitting ice. His grunts of pain were not able to be heard over the sound of the plane crashing. The feeling of his fingers shaking each time he even tried to lift them, they moved slowly as if they were bugs traveling through molasses. The last thing he thought of before his body lost the battle against the freezing water was relief at the idea of being reunited with Bucky and his Ma.
To this day, he’s never talked about crashing the Valkyrie, and he never plans to. It brought back memories that he would much rather keep drowned away. Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t want his ‘PTSD’ to rear its ugly head. He’s come to admit to himself that he has PTSD, with the help of Sam, of course. But just because he admits he has it doesn’t mean he wants to explain what that entails.
Luckily, no one has pushed.
But right now, Steve’s about to start pushing against his own stubborn mind. None of this makes sense. He feels like he’s drowning, but he’s not in ice. He hasn’t crashed a plane and he isn’t anywhere near anything cold. Hell, he and the team are in Romania and it’s summer. Yet, here he is. Stuffed away in some brick and stone closet, clutching at his chest like he used to back in Brooklyn during the cold. The familiar feeling of his chest having a hard time expanding because his asthma decided to let its presence be known once again. This whole thing allows for his instincts, the ones that were buried deep, to kick in.
Steve sits down on the ground and tears his helmet off, his blue eyes rimmed with tears. He looks towards the ceiling and mentally counts to thirty-five. He hears his own breath rattle in his chest, his throat burning with each intake of breath. This doesn’t make sense because the serum is supposed to fix this. Ever since he took the serum, he hasn’t had to sit himself aside in order to get himself breathing properly again.
Why now?
He nears the number thirty-five and his breathing continues to stay rattling and forceful. The cold isn’t residing. His eyes fall closed without his permission and he starts to think of things that usually get his mind off of troublesome thoughts. He only had to do this after particularly rough missions, but right now thinking about when and where he should do this is the last thing on his mind. His mind drifts off to before the war, that being the times he some badly wishes he could go back to. Back to the times where he and Bucky would go to different alleyways looking for things to do. Back when he had a family around him. Back when his Ma was alive. The war was the last thing on their minds because last they checked, America maintained an isolationist foreign policy.
No one thought President Roosevelt would declare war, but then again, no one knew Japan was going to bomb Pearl Harbor.
Whenever he would get sick like this, way back in elementary school, his Ma used to sing to him. Soft melodies that her mother used to sing to her. The lullabies were in Irish Gaelic, Steve’s home language before he learned English. Those certain lullabies always brought Steve an unimaginable amount of comfort. No one sang those songs like Sarah Rogers did. Well, no one other than his Ma sang those songs anyway. Irish Gaelic was practically unheard of back in the 1920s, at least in America.
Most of the time, when his Ma let the words of the Gaelic lullabies spill from her lips, Steve wasn’t always lucid enough to listen. He was sick and it was almost always mixed with exhaustion, so sleep won out against him more often than not. But one thing he always remembered was that whenever his Ma touched him, whether it be a hand on the shoulder or a small brush on his hand, he felt warm again. It felt like the cold couldn’t reach him.
The winter was much more bearable when his Ma was around.
Then he lost his Ma and everything was cold and gray. Bucky was there, around as much as he could until the two finally moved in together. Bucky, since he’s returned, jokes about how the winter weighed down on Steve’s shoulder, made him look like he was knocking on death's door each time the season came around. He never fails to mention how Steve never didn’t pull through those winters, though. It was true. He’s never not survived a winter, even when his thoughts got the better of him and he almost made goodbye letters.
Since he’s woken from the ice, or since he’s gotten the serum, really, he hasn’t batted an eye at the winters that come and go. During the war, winter was just another season for him. The cold didn’t make him worry about his own health, or question if this is gonna be the last he hangs out with Bucky before he kicks the bucket. Of course, then he froze in the ice for seventy years, and he still survived the cold. That for sure would’ve put him down for good. But it didn’t and the only logical explanation was the super serum. Steve went along with it because he was more focused on the fact it was 2011 and not 1945.
It made sense to the public why Steve was alive, so he let everyone believe that. Hell, he let himself believe that. Internally, he questioned it, though. He never let his team know he didn’t fully believe the serum was the reason he survived the ice because they would end up questioning him, which is something he probably wouldn’t have been able to handle at the time. None of his team members knew of Steve’s stubborn reputation against the cold, not until Bucky came back, at least.
That was the whole reason he felt suspicious about the whole thing. He survived the ice with the serum, but he’s been surviving the cold since way before he even got the serum. The winter got a hell of a lot worse after his Ma passed away, but he always pulled through. Steve’s health issues were a mile long and none of the doctors had a logical explanation as to why Steve hadn’t died then. He’s sure they still wouldn’t have one today. The thing is he hasn’t brought those concerns to any medical professionals because why should he? He’s got the serum and he’s never going to go back to the way he was.
But he can’t help but to feel there is something deeper at play here.
Steve feels the cold come on stronger and this time he can’t suppress the shiver that comes along with it. Nothing’s working. Why isn’t it working? It always works. He feels like he did when he was sick back in Brooklyn. When it was just him and Bucky and Bucky would be working overtime at the docks. He would be alone in he and Bucky’s room, looking at the ceiling and questioning why he hasn’t died yet. It was a dark thought, but being alone for that long and being that sick brought out the bad side of things. His lungs would be ratting and his fingers would be twitching with each wave of cold that filed through his body. His skin would feel like pins and needles and his breath would be cold on his unnaturally blue lips. Those were the times where Steve would pull out the same technique. It always fucking works.
It's supposed to work.
His pale blue eyes slide open tiredly and he forces himself to focus on the wall in front of him. It’s stone, a dark gray. To the right of the dark gray wall is a woman. Steve thinks he is hallucinating for a half a second. The woman, just out of the corner of his eye, looks pale, her pale blonde hair done up like the women had back in his childhood. His eyes are still set straight ahead of him. He doesn’t want to shed light to his own paranoid thoughts. There’s no one there. Perhaps he’s actually sick and delirious.
He swallows some spit and it burns on the way down, his spit is cold too. He attempts to catalogue his surroundings, getting around to realizing his shield was far away from him before his brain comes to a screeching halt. The hair style on the woman that he’s most likely hallucinating. That hairstyle is so familiar because he saw it every morning before he left for school. It’s the same hairstyle that nearly every nurse had to wear in order to keep their hair from falling in their faces.
It’s familiar because his Ma had the same hairstyle every morning.
Steve’s eyes close for a split second and tries to suck in a breath. It stings and he lets the wince show on his face this time. Finally, he slowly forces his head to turn in the direction of the woman. She sits on a glass looking stool, her face peaceful with a buried heartbroken expression. Steve clenches his jaw, trying to get words out. I
t’s his Ma. He’d know that face anywhere.
He still sees it in his dreams, and saw it every night before the sickness dragged him back to sleep when he was worse for wear. It was that same face that wore those saddened and lost looks. Steve felt like he was looking in a mirror often. He got his pale blue eyes from his mom.
The woman that looks like his Ma is dressed in a light blue dress, a puffy one that looked like there were diamonds falling down the puff. The dress has short sleeves, his Ma never liked frisky dresses. But the short sleeves are puffy as well and has white ruffles on the end. What ties the dress together is the corset and what looks like diamonds lining it with intricate designs. She still looks the same as when Steve last remembers her. She was on her death bed with Tuberculosis the last time Steve was told she loved him. Now she looks the same, middle aged but a lot more healthy. Her paleness wasn’t from her sickness. It’s from her Irish side. Steve took after her a lot, he’s come to realize.
“Stevie.” The woman has the same voice as his Ma, Sarah. Steve sucks in a breath and pulls a harsh cough from his chest. His Ma rushes over from her glass stool, kneeling beside Steve. The nickname pulled buried feelings from deep within his own head. Only a few people ever dared to call Steve ‘Stevie’. The only two who dared were his Ma and Bucky.
“Ma?” Steve barely recognizes his own voice. It comes out raspy, as if he was knocking on death's door once more. He knows he shouldn’t be feeding into his own delusion that he’s actually talking to his mom. The enhanced, logical side of his brain is searching for a definite answer. Supplying possibilities of being drugged. But the emotional and desperate side is winning, wanting to feed into it, let him be selfish just this once.
Sarah nods sadly, a tear slipping from her eyes. Her hair is a lot more pale than Steve initially remembers. The golden blonde hair is Steve’s thing. It was his thing back with the Howlies and it’s his thing now. Not even Thor’s hair could compare to how blonde Steve’s hair is. Everyone on their block back in Brooklyn knew them by their striking blonde hair. But Steve doesn’t remember her hair being that pale. It’s damn near white, but with hints of gold. It reminds him of a golden stained pearl.
“It’s your time, Stevie.” His Ma mutters, her eyes bright with determination. Steve furrows his brows and shakes his head, or tries to shake his head.
“No,” He whispers sluggishly. “Don’ wanna leave Buck. Jus’ got ‘em back.”
Sarah laughs with a sigh, her eyes still shining, “No. You’re not leaving James.”
“Then it’s not my time.” Steve responds resolutely. Sarah sits back and grabs Steve’s cold, trembling hand. His hand is covered by his black gloves and she works to rip them off. When she does, his fingers are starting to turn a ghostly white. Steve’s already a fair pale, but this was putting that to shame. He glances back up to his mothers face and understands that his skin is fading into the same white that she is. The warmth that blooms in his chest is heart-stopping the second she touches his hand. His chest feels like the weight that was holding it down was finally lifted. The cold slowly makes its way out.
The shaky breath that Sarah lets out takes Steve back to when she was dying on her death bed. Tuberculosis taking her farther and farther away from him. The sound was full of unsaid words and not enough time to say them.
“I never told you about where we came from, Stevie.” Sarah starts. Steve narrows his eyes and doesn’t respond. “I know you know we’re from Connemara, Ireland. And that we lived there for six years before moving to Brooklyn. But I never had the heart to explain deeper than that.”
“Does it have somethin’ ta’ do with whas’ goin’ on with me now?” Steve grits out through the searing pain, the cold still slowly vacating his lungs. Sarah shushes him and nods.
“When you were sick…I’d sing lullabies to you.” Sarah’s face sports a fond smile. “Those lullabies were sung to me by my mother. They were songs of our culture. Songs that only those destined were able to understand.”
“I understood them…” Steve swallows, forcing his body to sit up straighter against the wall.
“I know.” Sarah says. “That’s because you’re Destined as my only child.”
“What does that mean?”
“The stories I’d tell you where you were a boy. The ones of different creatures that came from our land. They were true.” Sarah sucks in a sharp breath. “And the powers of those creatures are passed down in the destined families.”
“The stories….you mean the ones about the selkies?” Steve replies, breathless.
Sarah winces, “Not all of the stories I said were to be believed. But selkies hold a strong presence in our culture, Stevie, don’t forget that.”
“So what was true, then?”
“The story of the Queen of Winter. She’s real. And her powers over the winter, over the cold, are most evident within you.” Sarah’s eyes water up and Steve doesn’t understand why.
“Ma?” Steve inches forward, his fingers trembling for a different reason other than the cold. Movement from the corner of his eye catches his focus, his head snaps over into that direction to see ice sprouting from the corner of the room. His Ma’s face is stricken and sorrowful. “Ma? What’s goin’ on?”
“Stevie.” Sarah swallows thickly and takes both of Steve’s hands in hers. “I should’ve told you sooner. I thought it was the end of the reign of winter. The land would choose when the cold meets its peak and when it doesn’t.”
The ice is sprouting beyond just the wall, the other corners of the wall also sporting ice patches. It’s like the whole room is freezing over. For once, Steve is rendered speechless. All those stories were happening in front of his eyes.
“Steve.” Sarah’s voice becomes serious and demanding, like she was scolding her son for not paying attention. Steve snaps over to her again, his eyes boring into her serious ones. “I am the Queen of Winter. I was destined like my mother before me and my grandfather before my mother.”
“Wha–”
“Stop.” Sarah cuts him off. “I should’ve explained it sooner. I guess I just thought you to be too sick to take on the powers. But your time has come. You have to become the next one to hold these powers. The King of Winter. That is why you’re feeling what you’re feeling.”
“Why now?”
“The powers see when you are most fit, not me. Deep inside you, you’ll feel the cold. It can’t hurt you. Nothing cold can hurt you. That’s why you survived every winter that came. You were born with the stubbornness of the cold and the destined protected you each time you were threatened by the cold. I protected you with each winter when I was alive.”
“That’s why the winters after you passed were so…hard.” Steve articulates. Sarah nods, eyes beaming with pride at her protection of her son while she walked the Earth.
“And it is why you were frozen for so long. The Destined froze you themselves to protect you. Protection from the cold is nothing that this new serum has done, it is because of your destin.”
“Are the Destined my ancestors?” Steve questions with a mumble. Sarah nods with a smile.
“That is another word for them. But the Destined are the ones who held the power over the cold and winter. You are a Destined as you are my only child. But I like to believe it is also because of your stubbornness.”
Steve grins and laughs incredulously.
“Your time has come, Stevie.” Sarah reminds him. “You need to embrace these powers, this role.”
“How–How do I do that?” Steve murmurs with uneasiness dripping in his tone.
“Just let it happen. You’ll get the hang of it, I promise. You need to be in touch with your own confidence, which I believe you’ll have no problem with. The powers are affected by your emotions. If you’re angry, a snow storm may come from it. You can go and create just about anything from these powers.”
“How long do I have these….” Steve clenches his jaw, sighing. “...powers?”
“Until you’ve had a child yourself and must pass these powers along. Unless you’re left in the predicament I thought I was in myself. I thought the reign would end with me. But I was wrong, and I should’ve known I would be. You’re strong, Stevie.”
“I don’t have a child…” Steve mumbles.
“You’re young, you have time.” Sarah snorts. “I have to get going, Stevie.”
Sarah states as she stands up, neatly pressing her dress down. Steve pulls himself off the ground, the cold retreating…back within him, he supposes. The ice remains in the corners of the room and he shivers knowing that could’ve been because of his Ma or himself.
“Ma, I–” Steve stutters and stops himself, his fingers fiddling in front of his uniform. Sarah looks up at him with a kind smile and shakes her head softly.
“I’m proud of you and everything you’ve done. I know this is a lot to take in. And I’ll be with you every step of the way, just not physically. Trust me, the more you become in touch with your powers…the more you’ll feel.”
And that’s scary. He doesn’t want to admit that to his mother.
“I missed you, Ma.” Steve sighs heavily. Sarah laughs with no bitterness to it.
“Lordy, Steven. I missed you more than you’ll ever know, even if I have been watching you everyday. I watched you get James back from those bastards that hurt him. And I watched you build yourself a family. But I missed you, still. You’re still my boy, still my son. And I’m proud of you. Now, you need to go settle your powers in and live your life.”
“I love you, Ma.” Steve whispers, his Ma’s hand slowly sliding away from his own. He sees her dress start to fade from the floor, her figure disappearing like a ghost. Sarah’s eyes well with happy tears and she nods slowly. Steve hasn’t even said half of what he wants to say to his Ma. It’s been years since he’s seen her, even heard her voice again outside of a dream. Yet, all his words just fly away the second he gets the chance again. She has that air to her, he reckons. The kind that makes you shut up and listen. Some have said that Steve has that air to him as well.
“I love you, too, Stevie.” She states just as she fully disappears, the ice in the room melting away with the remnants of her ghost. Steve hopes that he didn’t just dream all that up. Part of him feels like he did and the other part feels like it was real. He doesn’t feel cold anymore and the freezing tension in his bones are fired up like a cannon waiting to be shot. He continues to stare at the spot where his mother once was, his eyes unblinking with shock.
His ears fell mute to everything around him the second he saw his mom in the corner of the room. He slowly comes out of his shock, working to stabilize his breathing for a moment's time. Everything comes into focus all at once. His hands stop their trembling and he looks all around him. The stone room is no longer a dark gray, but a light gray. Stone is only dark gray when it’s wet…could be the melted ice. The sigh that escapes his mouth is tired and confused all at once. His shield remains discarded to the side, almost as if the second he stumbled into this room he dropped the weapon and collapsed against the wall. That could’ve happened.
He wasn’t really all there when he entered this closet.
His ears ring for a second, for unknown reasons, until he can hone in on the voices all speaking at once.
“Cap, come in.” Sam’s voice greets him first. The man’s tone is filled with concern and worry, that much is obvious. Steve opens his mouth to respond, forgetting to put his finger on his com so they can hear him, except nothing comes out of his mouth anyway. Sam gets silence as an answer, probably the only answer he’s been getting for God knows how long.
“Steve, are you okay? Where are you?” Bucky cuts in next, breathing hard into the com. His voice was also laced with worry. Steve’s not shocked about that. Recently the two had a hard conversation about Steve’s habits during fights, the throwing himself in the face of danger in order to protect his friends thing. It wasn’t just that, though. Bucky’s always been protective of him, and he thought the man would back off since Steve could protect himself now.
It only seems like it got worse after everything with Hydra.
“Stark, do you have a location on Steve?” Sam questions.
“Not yet.” Tony grounds out, his voice static, meaning he must be far away from Steve. His shield sits on the ground, welcoming him to pick it up and Steve stumbles towards it. The coldness in his veins is still there and thrumming along like it was looking for an excuse to show itself. He grits his teeth as he bends down to grab his shield, his whole body stiff with a cold ache.
“He couldn’t have gone far. We’re both in the same building.” Clint reasons. That’s right. He and Clint both went into the building at the same time. Clint’s com wasn’t cutting Clint’s voice out, so that means the other Avenger has to be near. It would help if his mouth would get on board with his brain and voice these findings.
“Which way did you enter?” Bucky buts in, grunting with each movement he makes.
“South end. The north wing has collapsed.”
“Jesus,” Sam curses under his breath. “Rogers better not have been in the north end.”
Steve tunes them out and tries to speak again. Why was it so hard? He had no struggles with speaking to his mother, but now that she’s gone he’s having a hard time talking? Maybe he’s going into shock, maybe that was all a dream and he wasn’t actually speaking at all. He grits his teeth at the thoughts, he really needs to stay on track.
“Fuck.” He breathes the curse under his breath, stumbling into the stone wall of the corridor out of the closet. The shield weighed nothing on his back where he put it, but his limbs felt weighed down, sluggish with each effort to move. “I–”
He hacks up a few coughs and shakes his head from the blurriness.
“How’s everything outside?” Clint asks anyone who will answer.
“Got the scientist wrapped up, if that’s what you’re asking, Legolas.” Tony answers back. His voice came through much stronger than the last time. Steve shuffles out into the hallway of the building, the door to the closet coming closed behind him. The hallway is dark and empty, the only light shining through being sunlight.
“Any progress on finding Rogers?” Natasha finally speaks into the com link.
“No.” Bucky grits out. It wasn’t an angry response, Steve knows. If it was angry, you’d know. Or, Bucky wouldn’t have responded at all. This was a determined response.
Steve brings his gloved finger up to his com link, his mouth open to try for a response.
“I–” Is all he gets out.
“Steve?” Bucky immediately replies, his tone full of nothing but relief. “Tell me where you are. I’ll come to you.”
“I–” Steve attempts again. “I don’t…know.”
It’s not a response that Steve would usually give. Usually he’s speaking full, confident answers and being stubborn about handling himself just fine. But right now, all that has drained away. Confusion is all that is left and he is not too sure he likes that.
“That’s not good.” Tony sighs heavily. “I’m leaving Batshit Scientist with Natasha and Bruce. I’m coming in to find you.”
Steve nods, forgetting none of them can see him.
“Okay..” He drags out the word accidentally.
“Where were you, Steve?” Sam asks.
“In a room…a closet, I think.” Steve replies.
“I’m glad you came out the closet, then.” Tony says, his sarcastic smirk practically heard in his tone. Steve doesn’t dignify that with a response and shakes his head, willing the sluggishness to wash away. “No response? C'mon, that was clever.”
“It was something.” Bucky answers for Steve. “Barton has south end. Stark, you take west end. I’m heading to the east end.”
“Copy that.” Tony responds, the sound of his repulsors roaring in the background. “Talk to us, Cap. What took you out the fight?”
“Don’t know…” Steve sighs. “Felt..cold all over. M’Body moved without me thinkin’.”
“Oh boy. This is serious. His Brooklyn side is coming out.” Tony jokes around and for once Steve enjoys it, allows the huff to come out without an attempt to hold it back. It’s nice to feel the familiarity of the found family he has. Typically he’d scold Tony for joking during a serious moment, especially on a mission.
“Steve, are you hurt?” Bucky is completely serious, and his voice is coming closer and closer. Clearer and clearer. Steve scrunches his nose up. Not physically hurt, he thinks.
“No…” He doesn’t count the aches he feels all over his body as an injury. Growing up, he had chronic pain in just about every joint possible. This isn’t something new for him.
“That didn’t sound too confident on your end, Rogers.” Clint snorts.
“Wasn’t injured by anythin’ from the scientist guy.” Steve corrects himself.
“You sound like you’ve been hurt.” Sam argues.
“Yeah, almost like you were drugged. Which shouldn’t be possible because of the super serum.” Tony explains with skepticism leaking into his voice.
“Find Steve and get back to the quinjet as soon as possible.” Natasha cuts into Tony’s sarcastic comment. “This scientist guy is making Bruce angry.”
Steve thinks about how long he was out from the fight, nothing adding up. He wasn’t gone for that long, right? He spins on his heel just as Bucky enters the corridor on the opposite end of the hallway. He watches as Bucky’s eyes light up at seeing Steve standing on the other end, and Bucky shoots off in his direction. Steve lets him, he doesn’t even try to run the other way.
His feet stumble as he moves to lean against the wall, just enough to get his aching bones a chance to rest, even if for a second. Bucky saddles right up in front of him, his deep blue eyes dragging over every bit of Steve’s frame. The worry crease in his brow is deep and Steve suddenly feels guilty for making Bucky worry. Lord knows the man probably thought Steve had finally done it. Bucky puts his mismatched hands on both of Steve’s shoulders and hauls him forward into a hug.
“I thought you were dead, you punk. I was hopin’ and prayin’ you weren’t in the north end.” Bucky mutters into Steve’s covered shoulders. Steve sags against him, his eyes sliding closed. “Jesus, you’re freezin’.”
Steve’s brows pull together with confusion. He doesn’t feel cold, not anymore, at least.
“We need to get home.” Bucky mumbles, pulling back from the hug with a stressed sigh. “And you’re soakin’ wet.”
“Don’ feel wet or cold.” Steve mutters like a damn child. He hates it.
Bucky clenches his jaw and looks over Steve’s frame again, shaking his head when he finds nothing but Steve's hands shaking.
“Your body’s tellin’ a different story, pal.” Bucky huffs, his lips pulling upward into a half-assed smile. He brings his gloved metal hand up to his own com link and looks off to the side, keeping his right arm on Steve’s shoulder like he was afraid he’d run off if he wasn’t touching him. “I found Steve.”
“Thank God.” Sam expresses with a heavy sigh.
“Don’t need to be losing the Boy Scout anytime soon.” Tony cackles through the coms, his repulsers coming back to life.
“I think we all know Rogers isn’t a Boy Scout.” Natasha corrects. Bucky and Steve make eye contact and grin to themselves.
“He’s ain’t a good one, that’s for sure.” Bucky adds on with a shit eating grin. Steve tiredly shakes his head and leans more onto Bucky. Bucky takes his weight without question and starts walking them both down the hallway. Steve can’t deny the relief he feels now that Bucky is here. At least he feels less insane. Figuring out if he actually saw his dead mother or not is a mission for Future Steve. Right now, Present Steve feels like he’s about to black out in Bucky’s hands.
And that’s exactly what he does. He lets his body go completely limp in Bucky’s arms and his blue eyes slip closed without warning. The scared shouts coming from his best friend fall on deaf ears. He’s not dying, not now at least. Knowing that is enough for Steve to give his body the all clear to let itself rest. He trusts his team, but he most of all trusts Bucky. Even if he wanted to stay awake for Bucky’s sake, he didn't think he could.
The cold starts to rear its ugly head once again and Steve isn’t too keen on sticking around to feel it again. He’ll explain it all to Bucky once he wakes up again.