Two
Darkness fell quickly, lifted briefly, fell again. The smell of blood filled his nose and seeped behind his eyes. Get up Barnes, stand up. You have to move. He couldn't, not for his life. He knew he was going to die there. A thousand feet above him, snow drifted a long way down, miles down, to reach his face and melt on impact against his blood-stained skin. His vision and the white sky were one and the same, only white. White and white for miles and miles. Had he said Steve's name as he had hung there, suspended in the white nothing, hands clamped frozen to the rusted metal train handle? Had he said Steve's name? Had he looked at him before plummeting down? He tried to remember now, what Steve had looked like, what his eyes had looked like. Had to remember. it was important. he didn't know why it was important, he just knew that it was. Somewhere in the distance he thought he heard the sound of a train grinding along the tracks, maybe a whistle, though it could have been the wind. He closed his eyes against the white sky and when he opened them, he was plummeting at breakneck speed into a freezing cold abyss. And as streaks of rock and tree blasted past him in blurs of color, Bucky watched the speck of frozen ground miles below him grow bigger and bigger, surging up to meet him--
Bucky's body jolted violently and he sat forward in his seat, hands gripping the shoulders of the seats in front of him, a gasp caught in his pounding chest. He blinked in his surroundings, his vision a haze of sharp colors and light. Sam was turned around in the front passenger seat, watching him, but he didn't notice. "You good man?" Bucky leaned back against the leather seat, feeling his shirt, cold and damp, stick to his back. Dry, reddish-brown land flew past the windows of the car. He met the unfamiliar eyes that watched him from the rearview mirror. The driver, a young man with round glasses and slightly sticking up brown hair peered at him with friendly curiosity. "James Barnes, good to have you with us." he said chipperly, his voice slightly tinted with an Eastern European accent. He returned his eyes forward. "I'm Nikola, your driver to the rendezvous point. Shouldn't be much longer now. Just sit back and relax." Bucky leaned his head against the window and took a shuddering breath, closing his eyes against the dizzying, blurred landscape. He knew Sam was still watching him but he didn't care. He needed to ground himself. He gripped the arm rest and dug his nails into the tough leather. He heard the low murmuring of their voices start up again, riding smoothly just above the hum of the tires on the road, and focused on it, tried to slow his breathing. Sam had asked Nikola something. Nikola was smiling. "Try to guess," he replied. Sam looked at him. "Okay...Russian?" Nikola shook his head. "People always guess Russian." Sam had probably asked Nikola where was from, Bucky supposed. "Romania." Bucky mumbled, eyes fluttering open. "Close!" Nikola's face lit up excitedly at Bucky in the rearview mirror. "Close, very close. Romania. That's a good guess." he seemed pleased. Bucky closed his eyes again and let the voices merge back into a hum, wanting to know Nikola's answer about where he was from, but drifting too far from it. After what felt like a while, he finally came back, felt the sweat drying on his back and forehead, and let the hum of the vehicle and the familiarity of the other two passengers' voices fill his thoughts, let it drown out the clicking sound of the train echoing hollowly in his ears.