To Bucky, there was nothing more frightening than having a dream come true.
Because Bucky’s dreams were nightmares… grueling, relentless, and all-consuming nightmares. Nightmares of his past, his pain, and more recently… there was you.
His mind liked to do that he found, liked to take the innocent things that lived in his mind and turn them into something dark and twisted.
It drove him mad at times, seeing the things his mind showed him like your blood on his hands, his bullet landing between your eyes, or his bionic hand around your throat.
On those nights he’d wander the building and find himself at your apartment. He’d take post there, in the hall just outside your door for hours on end like there was something he had to protect you from, even if that thing was himself.
He needed to know that his dreams weren't a reality. Needed to hear air fill your lungs, and hear the beating of your heart. He needed to know that he hadn't hurt you like his mind wanted him to believe. That he wasn't the same monster he had been.
And that's as close as he ever got because truthfully, he was scared of what his mind would do - what he would do if he dared to get closer.
So tonight, when the metallic tang of blood filled his nose, he panicked.
His head snapped up from where it had been resting against the wall, looking down the hall left and right for anything out of place, anything that could explain the smell of blood in the air.
There was nothing.
He squeezed his eyes shut and dug his bionic fingers harshly into the flesh of his thigh to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
He wasn’t, and he hadn’t been… had he?
He thought hard and swore he hadn’t moved an inch since he had planted himself outside your apartment, but then again, he wasn’t sure if his mind was something he could trust.
He was up and pacing now, struggling to draw in a full breath of air, frantically inspecting his hands for any evidence of blood, evidence that his dreams had come true.
He determined that they were clean, but that did little to ease his panic with the smell of blood still lingering in the air, suffocating him.
He almost tuned in to listen for your heartbeat like he had dozens of times before, but then thought against the idea.
What if that sound was gone?
He might lose it completely, but he couldn't just stand there and do nothing.
The next thing he knew the doorknob to your locked apartment had given way under the pressure of his bionic hand.
He was submerged in darkness immediately upon entry, but that didn’t stop him from moving as fast as his unsteady legs would allow.
He prayed to whoever would listen. Prayed that his worst fears hadn't come to fruition. Prayed that despite whatever he found, you were okay. That was all he needed.
The light pouring out from your bathroom caught his attention and in a second, he was there, sending the door flying open.
For a moment his world stopped spinning.
You were there, sat on the bathroom floor with your back propped up against the bathtub. A towel under you, stained red from the blood that spilled in small rivers from the self-inflicted gashes that decorated the space where your hip and thigh met.
You shrieked at his abrupt entry, your knife-yielding hand flinching away from where it hovered above your marred skin.
“God what the fuck, Bucky!” You shouted, clutching at your heart that he could hear beating wildly.
He wasn’t sure he had ever been so relieved to hear such a beautiful sound.
"Do you hear me? What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Your shock was quickly turning into anger, and that was more than fine with Bucky. He could deal with anger.
When he failed to find his voice, you moved to stagger to your feet and closed the distance between you both. His brow furrowed in concern, noting the way blood streamed down your leg and the slight limp in your step.
Suddenly you were crowding his space, the bloody edge of your knife pointed at his chest. With every ragged breath he took, he could feel the tip press into his skin.
"You need to leave, now. I mean it, Bucky." Your firm voice wavering, the blade trembling in your grasp.
He had been held at knifepoint thousands of times in his life it seemed, and yet at this moment he was at a loss.
He wasn't the guy that could talk someone down and apart from one too many stolen glances, and a few shared words through comms, this was his first real interaction with you.
Tentatively, he raised his arm and curled his bionic fingers around the blade.
You were lethal, Bucky knew that.
He'd seen you in the field, and there was no doubt you could put up one hell of a fight if you wanted to.
But you didn't fight him and he was glad for it.
Finally, he found his voice.
"I'm just glad you're alive…" He confessed.
You scoffed and glared at him with watery eyes.
"Of course I'm alive, this -," You gestured to your bloody injuries. "That's not what I was doing, I wasn't trying to die."
Bucky didn't push it. He understood better than most people that taking your inner anguish and turning it into something physical was sometimes the only way to get relief.
The only difference was that his wounds healed at an inhuman rate, hiding his pain from the world.
But that didn't mean he had to like it when it came to you.
"I believe you, doll. But you're done for tonight." It came out like an order, leaving no room for a rebuttal.
He went to tug the knife from your grasp, and when your grip didn't budge, an arched brow from Bucky was all it took before you allowed him to take the weapon, grumbling all the while.
When he caught sight of the knife in his bionic hand, staining the vibranium with your blood he faltered.
It was an image his mind tortured him with countless times, and if he didn't hold on tight to his sanity it wouldn't be hard to convince himself that he was the one who had put those cuts into your skin.
He didn't do this. He was trying to help.
"Bucky?" You tried to get his attention.
He tore his eyes away from the blade and expertly folded it and tucked it away in his back pocket.
"You're shaking…" You noted with a hint of concern.
He was, but he easily dismissed that with a grunt and moved forward to grab you under your arms.
"Hey!" You yelped when he lifted you with ease and moved to set you down on the counter.
"I'm going to clean you up," He stated, before kneeling to rummage through your cabinets for a first aid kit.
"And I'm guessing I don't have a choice, do I?" A watery laugh escaped you. Any hint of your previous anger seemed to be gone.
"Nope," He gave a curt response, face concentrated as he assessed the supplies.
You didn’t deserve his coldness, but Bucky wasn’t sure how to be any other way. He wasn’t soft, he was a threat and he couldn’t afford to forget that.
He was quick to get to work, beginning by gently cleaning the blood from your skin, doing his best to keep your blood from coating his hands.
His lips pressed into a firm line as he took in the display of scars that lay underneath your fresh wounds.
"You know if this was all it would take to get you to talk to me, we could have gotten this over with a long time ago." You cut through the silence, squirming when he applied pressure to the wounds.
"Sit still," He chastised.
"But really, why don't you talk to me? What did I do to make you hate me so much?" You persisted.
At this point, Bucky thought maybe he preferred you angry and threatening to slice him open compared to this.
How was he supposed to explain that he was avoiding you like the plague because he had reoccurring nightmares about you?
That he envisioned you suffering at his hand?
He couldn't do it.
"I don’t hate you. It's… it's just complicated alright?" His shaking hand fumbled with the antiseptic.
You hummed thoughtfully.
"Fine you don't want to tell me, so be it. Can you explain to me why you came barreling in here like you knew what was happening?"
He huffed a frustrated breath through his nose.
He was lingering outside of your apartment in the late hours of the night so he could make sure your heart was still beating, and caught the scent of your blood.
There was no way to could say that without sounding like a psychopath.
"Again, it's complicated." He grunted.
He made quick work of bandaging you up, and immediately put his hands in the sink and scrubbed them clean under the scalding hot water.
His stomach churned as he watched the water, pink from your blood seep down the drain.
Your eyes bored into him, watching his every move and the feeling made him want to crawl out of his own skin.
He needed to make his escape, and just as he was about to do that, you called him.
He tensed, turning to face you as you hopped off the counter and sauntered your way over to him.
"I'm going to figure you out." You promised with a smirk.
Bucky's adams apple bobbed nervously in his throat, because he knew damn well that once you set your mind to something it would be nearly impossible to shake you.
He could already see a plan forming behind your eyes, and he knew that from this moment on things would change.
He wasn't sure he was ready for it.
Opening the door to the bathroom, he trudged into the dark halls with haste.
"And maybe sleep with one eye open because I'm coming for that knife. It's my favorite!" You shouted behind him.
The metal of the knife sat heavy in his pocket.
Fuck, he cursed.