Nightmares
Sergeant Barnes was screaming.
White-hot pain obscured everything else around him. He could hardly see.
After several agonizing moments, the pain cleared, but he had no time for relief before he realized where he was.
The chair. In that dark, horrible room. A man, wearing a uniform, face hidden with shadow, began to speak.
“Longing.”
No. Not this. Not again.
“Rusted. Furnace.”
“Stop- stop!”
“Daybreak.”
The man stepped forward, and with growing horror, Bucky recognized the man. It was him. It was Bucky. He spoke again, and he could feel the words as they left his lips.
“Seventeen.”
No. How is this possible? He was with Sam- and Peter- and Maggie-
“Nine.”
He cried out, trying in vain to stop himself from finishing the dreaded monologue.
“One.”
It was no use.
“Homecoming.”
And when Bucky looked back at the chair, he once again recognized the person who sat there.
“Benign.”
It wasn’t him. It was Steve. In the chair. Why not me? thought Bucky. Why not me?
And then it was Peter.
“Freight car.”
Peter stood, and he lunged for Bucky, crushing him with the weight of hundreds of innocent lives, choking him until he couldn’t feel anything at all-
He woke up for real this time, holding back a scream. He was on a couch in one of the smaller rooms of the warehouse. There was no chair. But it still felt so goddamn real…
He realized quickly that he was sweating. And cold. Really fucking cold. The familiar weight of the dog tags on his chest seemed to be the only anchor he had to reality at the moment.
Bucky steadied himself, propping up his elbows on the couch. He bit back a sob, angrily, and squeezed his eyes shut, as if he were trying to rub away the dream.
There was a small noise from the other side of the room, and he tensed. The last time he heard a noise like that, he’d been beaten up. And that really hadn’t been fun.
He reached under the pillow, feeling for the gun he kept there. A sudden movement came from near the window and he sat up straight, the gun cocking, aimed at the movement. A figure stepped into the moonlight, eyes wide. It was Maggie, wearing a sweater and a pair of pyjama shorts. Her hair was messy and frizzy, like she’d just woken up.
“Bucky? Can you put the gun down? It’s just me.”
He obliged, shaking, and set down the gun. The safety was switched back on as he stashed it under the pillow. She gingerly came and sat down next to him. His heart was still racing from the horrible nightmare, and he regarded her cautiously.
“Another dream?”
He nodded.
“Panic attack?”
He nodded again. She reached out carefully. “Is it okay if I touch your hand?”
He swallowed, and nodded again.
She gently took his hand and squeezed it. “Feel that? That’s real. Whatever you saw in your head- that’s not real. This is. You can squeeze my hand as hard as you like if it helps, I promise it doesn’t hurt.”
He squeezed her hand, tears in his eyes again. He didn’t want to open his mouth for fear that he would shout out loud. They sat there like that for a while until his breathing slowed to a normal pace, and he was crying less.
“Sorry,” he whispered finally, when he felt that he could talk again.
She smiled at him. “It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize. It’s not your fault.” She squeezed his hand again. “Is it okay if I give you a hug?”
“Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
They embraced. It was warm and familiar, and it felt natural. She gently pulled away.
“Je vous souhaite une bonne nuit,” she said quietly, and he echoed the phrase back to her with a slight grin.
“Sleep well.”
“Are you gonna be able to sleep?”
He chuckled, lighthearted. “No. I’m probably gonna stay up and rewatch Lord of the Rings. But at least I won’t be having a panic attack.” She nodded, was satisfied, and turned to leave.
“Thank you,” he added quietly. She jauntily saluted him as she walked backwards towards her room, and narrowly missed a collision with a support pillar.
“Shit!- I’m such a fucking klutz-”
He laughed quietly and settled back beneath the sheets. Time to figure out how to work the cellular phone. Sam had helped him download the Lord of the Rings trilogy from something called Amazon Prime Video, and he watched them a few times a month at this point, but could never figure out how to get it to turn on. These damn newfangled inventions were gonna drive him mad.
- - - -
Sam was flying.
He soared over treetops, buildings, houses and cities. He soared towards the ocean, and there with him was Riley, on lovely wings made of wax and dazzling feathers. They swooped and played, and they flew to the desert, like two birds catching a breeze.
He was so unbearably happy he could burst.
They arched and curved and graced in circles, through the hot desert air.
But something was wrong. The wings began to melt.
Riley didn’t seem to care. He flew higher and higher and laughed louder and louder, but the voice was not his own.
The wings gave out, and Riley began to fall. He fell almost in slow motion, laughing the whole time.
Sam was powerless. He hung frozen in the air, unable to assist as Riley fell. And Riley’s scream was Peter’s, and he was falling all over again, but this time it was Peter.
He fell and he fell and he fell and Sam could do nothing but watch in bitter agony as everyone he loved was falling.
First Riley, and then Peter, and then Maggie, and then Bucky, and then Sarah, and the cycle started over.
And over. And over again. A million times, and each time he couldn’t save them, any of them.
How horrible.
He sat up, panting, tears streaming down his face. He must have half woken up at some point, still trapped in the thralls of a nightmare, because he was clutching the blanket around him, his fists digging into the cottony fabric.
Someone materialized in the doorway and awkwardly poked their head inside.
“Peter?”
“N-no. It’s just Bucky. Sorry.”
“Oh. It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize.”
“Right.” Bucky hovered in the door for a second before making the decision to enter. “Rough night?”
Sam nodded soundlessly.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Not really. I’m just… I’m worried about Peter. They arrested him, I saw it on the news. It’s him for sure. I dunno what they’re gonna do to him, but whatever it is won’t be good.”
Bucky agreed silently.
“I just gotta get some sleep. I can’t- we can’t help Peter if we don’t sleep.” Sam was upset, shivering from the nightmare.
“Okay,” said Bucky softly. He sat down on top of the blanket, curled up awkwardly around the pillows. “Y’know, my mom, she used to do this thing when we had bad dreams. She would just sit and rub our backs ‘till we fell asleep.” He left an unspoken question in the air.
“Yeah. That would be nice, Buck, thanks.” Bucky smiled a little bit, and Sam turned over on his belly, hugging the pillow closer to his chest. At first the contact surprised him, because Bucky was not the most touchy-feely type of guy, but it was nice, he had to admit.
They sat there for a while, Bucky tiredly and absentmindedly rubbing Sam’s back. Sam fell asleep quickly, into a dreamless and deep slumber. Bucky waited until there were snores coming from Sam’s unmoving figure, and then he started to get up, carefully removing the blankets from around his knees.
But after a moment of looking at him, he realized how warm and good he felt. He leaned over and planted a soft kiss on Sam’s forehead as he slept, snoring quietly. Bucky crawled back under the covers, and with one last glance at Sam, he promptly fell into a peaceful and deep sleep in the bed next to him.
It was the best night of rest either of them had gotten in weeks.