Night Tremor
A sharp voice demanded him to give a mission report, and a hard hand struck him when he failed to answer. He felt the sting in his neck acutely as it snapped viciously to the side with the force of the blow. A small part of him screamed to offer up some form of resistance, but to no avail. What use even was it to pay attention to the disturbing images his mind conjured up during the dream – he knew how it ended, with ‘Wipe him’ or ‘Put him on ice’, sometimes both. Often both, actually. Those were the three constants in his life: pain, confusion, and the unforgiving cold. That was his life, and this was how it ended and started anew each time. Wipe him. Put him on ice. That was the nightmare, and it was real.
He jolted awake with the buzzing and whirring and crackling or electric currents still in his ears, scream dying in his throat before it could break through. He felt so cold, so so cold, even though the sweat was collecting on his brow, pooling on his chest and dampening his shoulders. He sat up after allowing himself a moment to repeat the sentence that had become his mantra over the past few days: You are not with Hydra anymore, and you’re never going back. Already his battered body protested a lot less, his injuries healing much more quickly than humanly possible. He could probably pull his own stitches the following day and be done with it; the splint on his arm could come off by the day after. As for now it was the middle of the night, and he cursed himself for falling asleep in the first place. Becky looked up at him skeptically, having retreated behind the coffee table when he started stirring. She let out a mournful meow. Then he heard a shuffle of movement from the kitchen. Alert at once, he rose, pacing the few steps leading there stealthily. He found you leaning against the foremost counter, fighting and almost failing to put on a brave little smile. You looked pale and rattled, your eyes bloodshot and darting frantically.
“Sorry, did I wake you?” A hesitant shake of the head; his eyes were inquisitory. What are you doing up in the middle of the night?
“Bad dream.” You elaborated flatly, drawing your dressing gown tighter around you as you shuddered at the memory. “I was just gonna get a glass of water.”
“What about you? You look kinda spooked. Nightmare as well?” You noticed him shivering slightly, noticed how the thin white t-shirt stuck to his chest and back from cold sweat, his posture, more guarded than usual but also betraying a greater vulnerability underneath. You saw his haunted eyes staring off into some unseen world beyond your tiny apartment while being acutely alert of his surroundings, and his hand gripping the wall, knuckles white. Eventually he nodded, with such weight as if it equaled a week in the cooler to admit so.
“How about I make us some warm milk with honey, now that you’re awake as well? I’m having one and you look like you could use one as well. It’s the ultimate nightmare soother. It’s like a warm, long hug from your mom and she’s telling you everything is gonna be alright after she cleared the monsters out of your closet and then she reads you your favorite bedtime story.” You realized you were rambling, but you didn’t stop. You felt it helped to anchor you in the now, chasing away the nightly visions that had horrified you so just moments before. “Well, it’s what I would imagine that to be like, anyway.” He gave you a puzzled look, waiting for you to explain your statement. You hadn’t meant to reveal that about yourself – it was not something you liked to talk about, but it was late and your dream had made you somewhat vulnerable. “I wouldn’t know what that’s like, really; having a mother I mean. I grew up in an orphanage. My… my parents left me by a dumpster right after I was born.” There, you said it, it was out now, he now knew more about you than he did about himself. You quickly busied yourself with pouring milk into two mugs and placing them in the microwave.
“That’s their loss, not yours.”
One simple sentence, spoken to your back in an uncertain yet sincere and sympathetic tone. It was the late hour, it had to be, and the nightmare, that too. You felt the tears pricking at the corners of your eyes and you blinked them away as you counted down with the microwave, anticipating the pinging noise that signaled your milks were done heating. You would have walked over there and hugged him, tightly and for an extended amount of time under different circumstances, that’s how much this little sentiment meant to you. But no, that would have been weird. Inappropriate, even.
“D’you want a Twinkie?” you asked after retrieving the jar of honey from its usual place, already reaching for the cupboard that held your secret stash of sweets.
The Winter Soldier observed you carefully, seeing the muscles in your neck coil and tighten as the words fell from your mouth like something bitter that you hadn’t been allowed to spit out. This was nothing he was ever programmed for, but a small voice deep inside him struggled to the surface, and in a moment of reckless abandon and general cluelessness he decided to let it, for the first time fully appreciating that no one was going to strap him down in a chair again and put his brain through a meat grinder for doing so.
“That’s their loss, not yours.” His mouth said with the little voice from the deepest recesses of his fractured mind. Great, now what? You pulled your shoulders tight in a suppressed sob, breathing deeply, then asked the microwave whether it would like a Twinkie (somehow he felt he knew what a Twinkie was, though if asked he couldn’t have described it). It pinged in response. The Winter Soldier still stood with his back to the living room, quietly observing you as you finished preparing the drinks and fished a handful of plastic-wrapped packets out of a cabinet. He only noticed again how cold he was when you placed the steaming mug in his clammy hand.
“Thank you.” You whispered, meeting his eyes only for a split second before padding over to the couch, stuffing the hitherto unused pillow behind your back. You took a small sip of your milk, finally allowing yourself to relax a little, then mustered a smile and patted the space beside you. The Winter Soldier followed, sitting awkwardly at a distance from you and staring ahead in silence. Becky came closer after a moment, curling up in the space between you. The little voice in his head seemed at a loss, or maybe it had retreated back into some undisclosed crevice of his scrambled brain. He took a sip of his own milk to bridge the silence, enjoying how the warmth spreading around his stomach, the rich nourishing taste, the sweetness of the honey. Hydra had not exactly been concerned with such things, lest he grow to assume that his comfort mattered at all. You offered him a Twinkie and he devoured it defiantly.
Something dropped on his shoulders. He froze, his muscles immediately tensing, readying himself for counter-measures. Violent counter-measures. He fought hard to keep his wits about him, not to let instinct take over. He conjured up the image of the man in blue, red and white along with the moment he had forsworn the use of violence and forsworn killing when he had decided to pull that man out of the Potomac. It was just this second of wavering that allowed him to realize that you were merely tucking a blanket around him. He exhaled slowly, deliberately, willfully banishing the tension from his muscles and the aggression from his mind.
“Sorry. You were shivering. Can’t have you catching a cold, now can we?” Your voice was quiet and soft and warm and sweet and about as unthreatening as can be. He shuddered to think what he might have ended up doing to you. You, unaware of his inner turmoil, continued to unwrap small pastries in companionable silence.
Some thirty or forty minutes later the two of you had finished your drinks, and about a dozen packets of Twinkies. If you didn’t know better (which, truth be told, you actually did not, in fact), you’d have thought he was dozing (which he was, or as close to it as he could get, having been lulled and soothed by the miraculous powers of sugar and quiet, and above all, warm honeyed milk). You cast a glance at the clock and groaned inwardly. Too late to go back to sleep now, anyway. Fuck nightmares. You didn’t have them often - unlike your guest, you strongly assumed - but when you did they left you skittish and frayed for the rest of the night, usually, in 98% of known cases.
“Hey, roommate,” you called out softly, “Am I correct in assuming that you won’t be sleeping any more tonight either?”
He nodded lazily without hesitating, staring up at the ceiling and drawing the blanket tighter around his shoulders. You grinned.
“So I was thinking Star Trek marathon to pass the time. Opinions?”
“What is a Star Trek?” he asked, bewildered. Your jaw actually physically dropped. “You cannot be serious.” He just shrugged in response, and you thought that Hydra had just taken on a whole new layer of cruelty. You squared your shoulders defiantly and retrieved your Star Trek box set from its place (Skye had given it to you for your birthday. You quickly pushed the thought of her away. She still hadn’t called you back.), holding it up for him to see. “You, my friend, are in for a treat then.” You announced.