Keys clicked softly as the darkness gave a quiet calm.
Daisy hadn't been able to sleep. She didn't know why, just...couldn't.
Click click click.
And up here, where you're devoid of sleep & nothing surrounding you but dark & silence (Daisy starts to think, maybe that's the eerie part of it, as it is reminiscent of the womb. And you aren't really ever meant to remember the beginning, which is what space is. The last laugh to time, where the beginning & end exist as lovers), there isn't any sheep to lull you to bed. No stars to count, as you're them.
Which, she didn't mind as this was her sheep.
Click, clack, backspace, click.
Computing and the realm of numbers, drifting endlessly, was always something that came easy to her. Almost calming.
Entering, backspacing... Here, you could fix, anything. Make anything, and your only consequence was creating something you wouldn't be able to stop.
But she wasn't doing anything complicated. Just maintenance.
Click, clack.
For her, and the machine that kept this thing in the air.
She sipped.
Still couldn't tell you why she was up though. Tried to blame it consciously on Reznor scratching at the door like a puppy, but that wasn't it either.
She got up, getting some more coffee.
Maybe it was Barnes.
His room vitals displayed fine.
She poured.
Maybe, just maybe, he was getting some sleep.
Daisy leaned against the counter, the ethereal white light trying to make it as close to a kitchen back home.
Never knew for a fact he wasn't, just knew he never came out here.
She sighed quietly. And that was what bothered her.
Again, aware of his private horrors, the kinds that make a regular human's nightmares look like summer night's best daydreams. His sacrifices.
But what she was scared of was how. How he could keep that bottled in.
She turned, hearing a noise.
Reznor looked up at her.
Only one other person then.
And she was right. Silently maybe wishing she hadn't questioned what she did earlier.
Barnes entered like a ghost, always. Not for stealth, but care of not having anyone else up to see him.
This, even in space, was the time of night you really could never hide. The darkness, might as well have been a 120 watt bulb.
She turned the corner, seeing him seated on the mess table.
What she never expected, however, was how haunted he could appear.
His eyes were darker, lost in whatever galaxy dreams were in (Wanda & Stephen tried to explain this to her, but she could never understand it.)
Daisy hesitated. Not questioning help. But....whether it was her right to pry. She'd never seen him this way.
Only one other person might've. ....& that person might be the reason he's here (And God, if that wasn't a cruel joke, she didn't know what).
Daisy made some more coffee, pouring the calming Amber liquid that could be forged as alcohol, into two mugs.
She sat across Bucky, putting the two mugs on the table.
He snapped back gently from whatever torture he deemed himself deserving of having, looking at her. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Sorry."
"Not a problem."
She let the smoke make the silence have form. Letting coffee do what it did best, as it spoke for them.
Bucky shook his head softly, fingers still lightly pinched.
She was about to ask how he was doing, but seemed to guess the question.
"......I keep having this dream." His gaze on the cup losing grip as he continued. "...Haven't been able to sleep cause of it."
Daisy again waited.
"And it's not even the dream. Just the feeling after."
She spoke. "What's the dream?"
He paused. "That....all," he waved his hand. "...of this is a dream." He again waited, as if calculating if he was. "....and I can't wake up." He sighed. Quietly, but it weighed as much as the moon.
& there was only one way to settle a wavering planet.
Daisy reached over carefully, laying her hand on his arm.
".....I know we haven't known each other long. What you've been through....no one understands that."
(She gets the feeling someone does, but questioned whatever God above there was why jokes of that magnitude can even exist).
"....But I know pain.....shouldn't be the thing that reminds you it's reality." She looked right into his eyes, trying to give him gravity. "....It's what you've survived."
He looked at her now, as she was here.
"......& Rogers was right. You're a survivor. That's the best reminder of reality."
The computer sheep jumped quietly as she waited.
Bucky waited, another pause. "......Thank You."
She drew her hand away, seeing he was back in gravity.
He drank some of the coffee. "....This is horrible."
She sighed internally, glad he was grounded enough to be a smartass.
"I know." She replied. "Just fuel for survivors."