The first time you wake up gasping, after, you are in a small, grotty motel room in New York. Your hand catches on the knife under your pillow as you roll yourself into an upright position, heart racing, body tensed in preparation for a fight that is not coming.
It takes you three minutes and seventeen seconds to get your breathing back under control. You can't remember what you dreamt about, but the last few threads of terror are still lurking around the edges of your brain when you swing your legs out from under the too-warm covers and stand up.
Your fingers tighten around your knife. Rationally, you know that there's nothing in the room with you. You'd be aware by now, if there was; whatever's been done to you has upped your sensory inputs beyond human levels. There's nothing breathing or ticking inside your room, except you.
But rational thinking doesn't count for much after nightmares — especially when your brain is clouding over, two different identities fighting for dominance inside your head — and you are on the run from multiple intelligence agencies. Paranoia is so familiar it's almost second nature, now, has saved your life so many times that you can't ignore it, so you're moving into the shadows in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
You prowl around the perimeter of the room once, twice, three times, and then check the bathroom and the corridor outside. You find nothing, but your body still feels like a live wire, so you pick the locks of every other room on your floor and scout each of those out, too.
The ease of the locks under your fingers wouldn't have given you pause before now — you've broken into too many rooms with higher security than these to be surprised by how quickly you're through each door — but Steve unhooked something in your mind, and whatever he woke up in you, or triggered in you, or put into you— it balks at your deadly efficiency. You pause in the fourth bedroom — a woman is sleeping in the bed, a girl, barely more than eighteen, a rucksack in one corner of the room, dusty boots kicked off by the side of the bed, two-day old sweat in her hair — and your brain— jams.
You can still feel the suffocating sense of fear that clouded your sleep. Under it, there's horror, and there's anger, and there's confusion. You are used to the sharp focus of the Winter Soldier: target, mission, plan. The Winter Soldier was as clean and as simple as a blade.
This, whatever you are now, or whatever it is you were that is clawing its way to the surface — this is not clean. This is not simple.
You bite down hard on your cheek, clench your fingers into fists, dig the nails on your right hand into your palm. The pain sparks through the fog in your mind, helps you remember that you're in danger, that you need to secure your position.
The aim gives you purpose. The purpose keeps you grounded.
You stalk through the girl's room, checking each corner and the space under her bed and the empty cupboard her bag is propped up against, and then do the same to the other five rooms around yours.
There's nothing — of course there's nothing — but you don't sleep for the rest of the night anyway. You sit in the safest corner of your room, where you can watch the door and the window and the bathroom, knife in your hand and two guns by your feet, and you leave as soon as the kid working the front desk arrives.
You've been awake for five days.
---
You wake up with ice on your tongue and throw your knife into the cupboard at the foot of your bed.
There's a shout building in the back of your throat, but you can't remember what the words are meant to be. You snarl instead, and the sound rips out of your mouth like it should hurt. It doesn't.
You slide to your feet, the movement effortless and graceful, and snatch your knife back from the cupboard, and scan your eyes around the room. This is your fifth motel in New York. You tell yourself that it's a good precaution, to leave when the rooms you're in feel unsafe, but you know — you know — that you haven't been found by anyone since your mission failed.
You know how to be invisible. You know how to live unnoticed, under the radar, and you know that none of your motels have been compromised. If your superiors had found you they'd have killed you in your sleep, or tried to, and either you'd be dead or their agents would be. The same is true of SHIELD, and any of Hydra's other enemies — and you don't doubt they're after you, the ones that believe you do exist, because you seem like easier pickings now, without the bulk of Hydra behind you — but you're still alive, and you haven't fought anyone since— since your target, on the ships.
You weren't at risk in any of the motel rooms you've abandoned. You hadn't been found, and your positions was secure, and you were safe.
The truth — and you know it's the truth, even as you're fighting it — is that you don't feel safe anywhere, not when the danger is in your head, in your body. The truth is that you are the weapon, and you have killed, and you might kill again, and there is a part of you now — a part that is growing, a part that is getting louder, and stronger, and more solid — that is terrified by that.
The icy taste in your mouth lingers. You consider the room, the empty corners, the empty bathroom, the empty bed.
There is no threat here.
You leave at dawn, regardless.
You've been awake for eleven days.
---
The sun is already up by the time you fall asleep.
You can hear the couple in the room on your left clearing out their bags. The room on your right has been empty all night. You've been watching the shadows chase themselves across the ceiling all night, too afraid of what you'll see when you close your eyes to allow yourself the chance to find out.
You haven't slept in four days, though, and the constant vigilance is catching up with you.
These streets are familiar in a way that sits uncomfortably in your mind. The simplest of things — the corner of a building, the mouth of an alley, a tabby cat that hisses as you walk past, a small boy with a hanky around his neck — jog free new memories, ones you aren't sure you can trust, ones you aren't sure you want to trust —
(Your father's hand heavy on your head, ruffling your hair, and you're embarrassed to be treated like a kid but at the same time you're glowing with pride because your father's saying well done, James, in his steady, serious voice.)
(Steve's laughing, body tucked up close against yours, and you're laughing too — and it doesn't matter that there's blood smeared down his chin because his smile is as bright as fireworks on the fourth of July and as heady as the beer you used to steal from your father's bottles.)
(Jesus, it's as skinny as you, and Steve's grinning wide despite the scratch cutting up his cheek, his hands full of mangy fur and gangly limbs — we gotta keep it, Bucks, we gotta, he tells you, and you've never been able to say no to Steve, so you spread your hands and say, you're cleaning up its shit, even though you've no idea how you'll afford food for a cat as well as the two of you.)
(If you fight back, they'll leave you alone, you tell the kid, and he rolls his eyes like he's heard it a thousand times before, says, they're not worth the effort, and you can see the bravado there, can see the bluff, but you don't call him out on it, just hand him your dad's handkerchief and tell him to clean his face up.)
It's exhausting, fighting your own brain, so you fall asleep, the sun streaming through the barely-there curtains in your room.
You wake yourself up falling out of the bed when it's dark again, landing neatly on your hands and knees, and pant down at the floor. You think you can smell blood, and rusting metal, and something sterile and medical, but when you check you are unhurt. Your left arm is fine. There is nothing out of place in the room.
You're gone by the end of the hour.
You've been awake for twenty-one days.
---
You are in Steve's room, the first one he takes you back to. It looks like a safe house — it probably is a safe house, you remember, because SHIELD is gone, and Steve is as lost as you are. He is Steve now, though, most of the time. It's hard to think of him as the target when he smiles at you with sky blue eyes that make memories shift through your brain at rapid fire speed.
This time, you blink awake slowly. You catch flashes of your dream —
(A hand around your own, tight enough that you can feel your bones grinding together, but the falling feeling doesn't stop, the air keeps howling past your ears, you're still going down down down until there's nothing but black all around you.)
— but it dissolves before you can pull it properly back into your brain. You scowl up at the ceiling, lips pulled back from your teeth, and then push yourself to your feet.
By the window, a figure shifts. You're in a crouch before your brain registers Steve, but he just— smiles. The lamplight filtering into the room catches on the edges of his face. "You okay?" he asks, and there's something intimate in the sound of his voice, warm and low, like you're not soldiers, like you weren't trying to kill him a month ago.
(Steve's voice in a dark room, you're safe here, Bucks, I won't let anyone get you here, I'm not letting anyone hurt you again, and you know that's a fucking stupid promise, you know he can't guarantee your safety, but you let yourself believe him anyway, let yourself relax against him until you're falling back to sleep.)
"Bad dream," you say, and then hesitate. You're used to scouting the room out after each of these dreams, used to letting your brain slip back into something predatory and blank. You don't know how Steve would react to something like that, but you doubt it'd be good.
Steve's watching you calmly. His stillness throws you off balance, just a little, whenever you catch it. It is so far from the chaos raging inside your own mind that sometimes you want to try and break it, out of spite.
Because he's watching so closely, or maybe because you've lost your touch, he catches the way your eyes dart to each corner of the room. "You need me to leave?" For a moment you consider saying yes. He would go, you think, and he would come back once you were steady again, because he has decided that this is the best way to deal with you. Because — I'm not leaving you behind again.
But you have been alone for so many nightmares now — woken up alone and breathed through the aftershocks alone and steeled yourself to move on alone — and the part of you that is growing, is human, is Bucky maybe wants to stop running.
"No." You pause. You swallow dryly. "I need— I need to check the room. Make sure it's— safe."
Steve's eyes widen slightly, but he nods before you can ask why. "Right. Right, of course, you can— go ahead. Whatever you need."
You eye him briefly, until he looks calm again, and then nod sharply and let your mind quiet down to a point. Whatever expression your face falls into gets a quiet, quick inhale from Steve, but you ignore him. Your focus is on the room, on any potential risks.
Like always, like every other time you've done this, there are none. The room is safe.
When you let your brain relax again, Steve's gaze is still heavy on your face. You straighten warily, watching him back, and wait for him to break the silence.
Eventually, he exhales slowly. "Safe?" You blink, but nod, and he flashes you a smile. "Good. This is one of Natasha's apartments. She'd kill me if I compromised it."
He's already settling back into an easy posture, leaning against the wall, shoulders loose and body casual. You're almost jealous. It still feels like your body is on fire, plugged into some system that won't shut off. Steve notices, of course. You're starting to think Steve notices everything.
"Hey," he says, soft. That trace of intimacy is back in his tone. You're torn between pushing it away and melting into it, letting it curl around you and shut everything else out. It would be so easy, now, you think. To just give in. "Hey, we're safe. You checked. You can relax now."
Under the intimacy is something else, something— practiced, you realise, like he's done this before. This isn't the first time he's talked someone down from this edge. Jealousy flares up in you again. It's completely illogical, but you only just manage to clamp it down.
And then you catch the sadness tangled up in Steve's eyes, the same sadness that flickered there when you flinched away from Bucky's name, and, oh.
You take a deep breath. "I used to— did I have nightmares, before?"
Steve's whole face freezes. There's so much hope in his voice when he says, "You remember?" that you have to look away.
"No." You almost think you hear his shoulders fold in on themselves. "Just— you seem like you know what's— what's going on in my head. I just thought—"
"Oh." Steve's smile is sad, this time. "Well, yeah, then. You got nightmares when we were out in Europe, used to have to check the whole room back then, too. Mostly it worked. Sometimes it didn't." His eyes are still warm, though, and fond. "I'd stay up with you on those nights. We'd talk about home. About Brooklyn."
"About before the war?" Steve nods. You swallow again, look back at him. "Can we— would you tell me? Now?"
It is almost as dangerous an idea as coming to Brooklyn was, as walking to that coffeeshop was, but Steve's face sparks back up into that hopeful expression, and you can't quite make yourself regret it. Not enough to take it back, at least.
"Yeah," Steve breathes. "Yeah, Bucks, I can do that."
You meet his eyes and nod.
Bucky gets firmer in your head with each story he laughs his way through.
You've been awake for thirty-six days.
---
Steve is half on top of you when you wake up. Your hands and neck are slick with sweat, and for a terrifying moment you think it is blood on your skin.
You do not shout out, but it is a close thing. Instead, you turn your head and bury your face in the hollow at the bottom of Steve's neck.
There are still nights when you wake up under Steve and push him off, brain stuck as the Winter Soldier, seeing him as target, enemy, body-to-be-disposed-of. This is not one of them — Steve smells like coffee and charcoal and soap above you, his eyelashes white-blonde against his cheek, his breathing slow and even and familiar — but you aren't fully Bucky either, you can feel it, old anger pulsing in your veins. Your exhales drag painfully in your mouth. Your inhales are shaky.
"Hey," Steve murmurs, one hand patting at the sheets until it folds around yours. "Bucks, hey, it's alright. You're alright." He pulls back slightly, pushing himself up on his other arm, and peers down at you. "Bad dream?"
You make an ugly noise. "Think so."
He hums sleepily and shifts, giving you the space to wriggle out and off the bed.
"Go back to sleep," you tell him. You always do. He never does.
"When you come back," he counters, and you smile even though he can't see it. You do not know if you love him, but there are times when you think you're close. When you think maybe you did, once, and maybe you could, one day, again.
The room is clean. You are no longer surprised when you don't find anything. This is the third apartment Steve has led you to. You've been here longest, through the most nightmares so far, and while the need to get away still itches under your skin, you think you'll be fine here for a little while longer. Maybe this time you'll stay until Steve wants to move.
He shifts when you slip back under the sheets, rolling onto his side so you can curl up against his chest. "Safe?" he asks, even though you both know he knows the answer.
You nod anyway, say, "Yeah," as he throws one arm around your shoulders and pulls you in closer. When you close your eyes, you could be in Europe, in the forties — or even earlier, Brooklyn, when you were kids. Bucky feels natural in your head now, the memories mostly solid, and Steve a steady base to catch you when they aren't.
It isn't where you expected to end up, when you dragged him out of the water and left him on the bank, but in some way it feels inevitable.
The world has tried to tear you apart so many times, and it has failed every time.
"You gonna sleep?" Steve is blinking blearily across you at you. His eyes are mostly full of sleep, but you can still pick out the concern there, the warmth, the affection.
"Remember when you covered me in flour and water because I said you were skinnier than Emily Green?" you say instead, tucking your head against his throat, and you feel his smile on the top of your head.
You've been awake for sixty-eight days.