Chapter 1
The tossing and turning doesn’t seem to disturb either Bucky nor Steve. They seem to not even register it. Deep down Y/N knows that she’s dreaming. Dreaming the same damn dream again, the dream that hunts her for days – no, weeks – now.
The car drives as easily as ever. Steve’s driving and Bucky’s sitting in the passenger seat, laughing his head off as Y/N leans forward from the back, leaning between the boys and telling a joke. Steve lets out a suppressed, choked snort, trying to concentrate on the road rather than the joke at hand.
And still… It happens.
“Steve! Look out!” Y/N screams, terrified at the scene in front of her eyes, just seconds before the car gets hit and turned a couple of times, with a force that spins and hurls Y/N around in the backseats.
The truck came out of nowhere, with full speed ramming into their car, T-boning and spinning it a good couple of yards until it finally stops. The explosion in Y/N’s head makes her nauseous, her body and bones ache and she would love to just vomit and pass out as she forces herself upright again. her gaze swivels around agonizingly slow. The right side of the car is heavily dented, pressed deep into the inner of the car. Glass lies around, windows missing and nasty sounds of protesting metal are heard. For a second, she’s glad. Glad, that she was sitting in the middle and not on the right side like she usually does. But the relieved feeling stays only for a second. “Bucky!” She turns to the man on the right side. Usually she’s sitting behind him and fear creeps up on her. He has to be okay!
She looks at him and has to take a deep breath to not vomit on the spot. Bucky hangs limp in his seatbelt, pale and motionless. Blood is all over him, his clothes, skin, face and hair. Alone the sight terrifies Y/N. His right side is trapped in the rented remnants of the door and Y/N knows that he probably loses another arm, if not more. “Bucky? Buck! Can you hear me?” She leans forward, gabbing his metal shoulder carefully, shaking lightly. Bucky’s head lolls on his shoulders and it’s then that Y/N realizes it. She knows… Knows that she lost him. “Nooo….” Her voice is silent broken and whining, whimpering. She feels the tears runs down her cheeks and her heart tighten. The lump in her throat tightens and gets bigger, almost blocking her airways. Crying she turns to Steve. He’s slumped forward in his seat, head on the wheel. “S-Steve?” her voice shakes, not only because of the shock. The shock of having an accident, the shock of finding Bucky, one of the most important people in her life, dead in front of her. No, it shakes with fear. The fear of the life from the last thing she loves, the las person she loves. The fear of loosing him as well. Her hand is shaking badly and is hesitant to reach out and touch him. But she forces herself to reach out. She can almost feel his skin, his shirt as the door beside her gets ripped open. Strong hands grab her arms and pull her away from Steve. “No! Noo! Let me. Steve! Bucky!” Her voice is frantic, hysteric. She wants to stay; she wants to be with them. She wants to hug them, for Bucky to kiss her neck while whispering dirty jokes in her ear and for Steve to swat him over the head before he leans in to kiss him. She wants them. She trashes, punches and kicks, tries to break free and get back. But whoever it is, who’s dragging her away, has a death grip on her. And suddenly everything burns. Her eyes are glued to the car. Flames jump out of the broken windows, Steve and Bucky’s bodies only silhouettes in the hot destruction. The car is burning. Y/N screams louder, cries harder and clings to the man holding her almost gently, now that they’re far away enough to only feel the heat but not be in danger to get hurt. “Steve! Bucky!” She screams a last time, voice broken and cracking. She has lost them. Lost them for forever.
“Y/N…” Tony’s voce is just as broken. He tightens his arms around her, guides her head in his shoulder to cry and probably to not show the own tears that stream down his cheeks at his lost team mates and friends. Y/N cries and cries. About the pain, the loss. The emptiness in her heart.
* * *
Y/N lies there, eyes open and damp with unshed tears from the dream that’s torturing her in feeling so damn real. She almost feels as empty as in the dream. The fear of losing her men is nagging in her mind and only the soft breathing from her side reassures her that bot men are still there. And very much alive.
She stares at the ceiling, one arm thrown over her head, the other resting on her stomach. She tries to will the feelings and thoughts away, to clear her head and forget about the broken things in her heart that the dream has planted there. She not able to sit for a longer while in a car since this started and both Bucky and Steve get worried about the fact, even if they try to not show that. They know about the dream and its effects on Y/N but they respect her decision on not doing anything. Is there even something that can be done? Can they help her with that? She sighs and closes her eyes for a second but rips the open again as the pictures start flashing in front of her eyes again. The lump in her throat and the tears return instantly and Y/N has to starts from anew with willing them away. She hopes sleep has some mercy on her and pulls her back under but she also knows that it’s an endless wait. She had this situation at least six times in the last three weeks and she knows she won’t go back to sleep anytime soon. Her gaze shifts to her right. She looks at the green numbers of her clock on the night stand. It’s two in the morning. She sighs again and turns to her left, rolling on her side to face Steve and Bucky. They’re still fast asleep, cute little snores escaping them while they lie wrapped up in each other’s arms, legs intervened under the blanket. She watches a little longer, carefully running her fingertips over Bucky’s strong back, pulling the strand from his face and behind his ear. She runs her fingers up and down on Steve’s arm and feels the warm skin that sends some spark up her spine. She listens to their breathing and studies their features. They look relaxed, happy and innocent. Two whole different persons when asleep. Y/N has discovered that early in their relationship and it amazes her each time she notices it again.
Eventually, she throws the blanket off of her, knowing that sleep is not coming back and slips out of bed. She grabs the laptop from her side board, scratches Lady’s head as she lifts it from her paws at Steve’s feet and then leaves the room. She notices the faint clicking of nails on the floor behind her and, as she turns, sees Lady following her. “Hey, girl. Want to keep me some company?” Lady pants with her tongue lolling out and joins Y/N on the couch in the living room. Y/N shifts a little so that she’s sprawled out on the couch, back at the armrest and legs stretched out, Lady lying next to them with her head on Y/N’s stomach while she has the laptop on her thighs. She powers it on and clicks herself through some folders until she reaches the one Pepper had send her three days ago. It contains some data and advices for the schedule of the teachers in the facility and also some new things Y/N can consider working on. She agreed to Pepper’s plea of taking on some more work, like helping with publishing new products, keeping stock on charity donations and watching over the Twitter account of Stark Industries. From time to time she can accompany Pepper and Tony in search for new talented kids like Peter to support. Tony mostly supports talented kids from poor families, claiming that it feels right and is only fair because they deserve a fair chance. ‘I’m not a softie!’ is what he throws her on the head when she smiles a knowing smile at him. Everybody knows otherwise, though.
She looks at the list of things, staring at the words but unable to decide what to start with. She closes the laptop with a frustrated sigh and stares at the dark ceiling of the living room. Lady lifts her head from Y/N’s stomach and looks at her. She huffs a breath, sits up and butts her head against Y/N’s shoulder until she looks at the dog and wraps her arms around her. Y/N rubs the dog’s sides, listens to her happy panting and tail tapping against the couch and her legs.
She turns on the light of the lamp on the table beside the couch, illuminating the room in a soft, dim light. Y/N looks at the wall opposite her, with the bookshelf running along it. The thought of painting it pops into her mind. She has enough of all the white walls staring down at her.
She picks up the TV remote and places her laptop on the coffee table before she turns the TV on. She cringes at the loud volume that blasts at her form a few hours ago and quickly tuns it down. She hopes that it hasn’t woken Steve or Bucky up. Even if she’s unable to sleep she like to let them sleep. They often stay awake way to long, especially when on mission so she wants for them to get as much sleep as they can get and she’s willing to stay up alone all night to provide that. Now she can barely hear the TV anymore but she doesn’t mind. Switching the channels a few times and running her hand over Lady’s soft fur, massaging he fluffy, soft ears she’s not really satisfied with the poor selection of strange sex shows, really bad movies from centuries ago and the worst night trach TV. She settles on a movie that’s actually not that bad and she hasn’t seen in a long time. Lady cuddles back into her sides, happy with the good scratches’ Y/N provides and spending her warmth with her.
She stares at the TV with mild interest, letting the movie play but not actually paying any attention to it. Her head is somehow still stuffed with the feelings and pictures of her dream. Every time she tries to push them away, they return only a few seconds later with a new force that drives tears back into her eyes. Tonight, seems to be one of the difficult ones. One that she’s not able to distract herself as well as she needs to.
This dream drains her, steals her sleep and energy. She’s tired of it by now and exhausted because she runs with less sleep than she’s used to and her body needs. Tonight, she won’t go back to sleep. It’s painfully clear with her head running wild. She can feel the pressure of her brain, the oncoming headache not far away. She sighs in annoyance. The dream is bad enough but theses headaches make it only worse. Especially when they turn into a full blat of migraine that won’t go away and pills wont help against. Y/N ruffles Lady’s fur again, stands up to go to the kitchen and gets herself one of the beers Bucky found in one of the convenience stores. If she’s honest, it’s not really beer, more of a soda but Y/N likes the taste of it more than actual beer. Normal beer is just the worst.
She takes it back to the couch and cuddles back close to Lady, who’s already dozing off again, and sips on the beer. This time she has her feet on the coffee table, TV straight in front of her. She sits for a while until she hears naked feet come up to her. “Doll?” A sleepy voice sound from the doorway. Y/N looks up to find a tired looking Bucky with the worst case of bed hair standing there. The man squints against the light and rubs his eyes tiredly. “What are you doing up?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” She shrugs it off as if its nothing and watches the brunette come up to her. He slides in on her free side, taking the blanket from the backrest and throws it over their laps. “Why not?”
“Don’t know. Head’s full, I guess.” Bucky frowns at her but motions to the bottle in her hand, throwing his arm around her shoulders. “And now you’re watching bad movies and drink beer?” He yawns and rubs his eyes again. “Stop criticizing my decisions or go to bed, Bucky.”
“But my best girl isn’t in bed with me.”
“Steve is.”
“Yeah. But he’s not my best girl. He’s an old, grumpy man that snores into my ears.”
“Hm.” Y/N chuckles and looks at him. “When I left you were all snuggled up to that old, grumpy, snoring man with your own cute little snores.”
“I do not snore!” Bucky looks offended at her but Y/N only chuckles and pats his thigh. “Tell yourself that, Buck.” Bucky snorts, takes the bottle form her hand and takes a swing before he passes it back. Then he pulls her a little closer. “What are we gonna do now?”
“What?”
“You can’t sleep and the movie is shit. What are we going to do? Waking Stevie and… go for a walk?”
“Nah, it’s too cold. Besides, I don’t want to be the one who has to deal with a grumpy Steve because we woke him for a walk. In the middle of the night.”
“Fair point.” Bucky nods and leans in to kiss her temple. “What can I do, doll?” Y/N looks at him and shrugs while she takes another swing from the bottle. There isn’t much you can do. At least nothing that would be helpful.
Just then does she hear another pair of naked feet come over to them “Buck? Y/N?” Steve rubs his eyes just like Bucky had done and, if possible, looks even more tired than the brunette. “Why you up?” He slurs his words, obviously still half asleep and falls down on their laps with a tired huff. Lady squeaks and jumps up as Steve hits her with a foot. “’orry.” The blonde buries his head into Bucky stomach and blindly reaches for Lady to pat her apologetically.
Y/N figures that he’s almost asleep again. “You little punk.”
“Jerk.” Steve slaps weakly after Bucky, only managing to hit his chest before he peeks at Y/N. “Why are you up?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” She shrugs once again. “Again?” Steve sits up a bit and looks at her with worried eyes.
“What do you mean ‘again’?” Bucky looks confused between Y/N and Steve until Steve looks back at him. “She couldn’t sleep last night, either. You slept through it as she stood up.” Bucky’s frown returns and he looks at Y/N but she only takes yet another swing from the bottle and fiddles with the label of it. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Y/N glances at him. “Doll?”
“Why should I? You were sleeping peacefully. I didn’t think it would be that important. It happens sometimes.” She shrugs again. Bucky still stares at her in disbelieve. “And what’s your excuse?”
“I have none. You didn’t ask, I didn’t deliver.” Bucky throws him a glance that only screams ‘really, punk?’ and then shakes his head. He turns back to Y/N, plucks the bottle out of her hands and places it on the coffee table. Steve groans as he gets squished and Y/N knows Bucky did that on purpose. Bucky rolls his eyes and pulls Y/N closer. “You had that dream again, right?” At first, Y/N only looks at her hands but then she leans her head on Bucky’s shoulder and nods weakly. Bucky and Steve both sigh and they all stay silent. The men know about the dream and that Y/N has it for a few weeks now, but they don’t know how frequent it is now.
After a while, that felt pretty long to Y/N’s sleep deprived mind, Bucky speaks up again. “My question still stands. What are we going to do now?” Y/N closes her eyes for a moment and hums. “How about we stay here? Watch crappy TV, cuddle a little more and just… do nothing.”
“Okay.” Bucky breathes it against Y/N’s hair. “I need something to drink then.” Steve yawns for the millionth time, stands up, stretches and walks into the kitchen. He comes back with two cups of coffee, one cup of tea and a beer for each of them. He places everything on the coffee table before he pulls it closer to the couch. He shoves Lady a little to the side so he can sit next to Y/N as well and allows the dog to lie on his lap instead, even when she’s clearly too big for that by now. “We need a smaller pet for my lap. A cat or something.” Steve frowns as Lady throws him an offended look but runs his hand through her soft fur. He looks up as the silence stretches and is met with four raised eyebrows. “What?”
“You want a cat?” Y/N asks with a frown and Bucky only shakes his head. “When I proposed that idea to you, you said we can’t have one because Lady will get jealous and won’t get along with it.” Bucky points out but Steve shrugs. “Changed my mind. Lady is just too heavy and big.” He gives the dog some good scratches behind the ears while wearing a serious expression. Y/N snorts at him and leans back on Bucky’s shoulder, watching the TV while he caresses her arm with his hand. He kisses her temple and Y/N hums at it, closing her eyes only for a moment.
* * *
Bucky looks down on his shoulder, halfway through the second movie and smiles. He pokes Steve in the side and startles him awake. The blonde rubs his eyes tiredly, stifles a yawn and looks at Bucky. His expression softens as he sees Y/N’s sleeping form leaned on his boyfriend. “Let’s get her to bed.” Bucky whisper and Steve nods. He gently pushes Lady from his lap, letting the dog sleep. Then he stretches with a groan and turns to Bucky. Gently, he picks Y/N up. She mumbles something about apples speaking French to some toast and rubs her face on his shoulder but falls back asleep again. Both men giggle a little at her words but try to stay silent to not wake her up again. for a second on his shoulder but falls back asleep again. Steve smiles at Bucky and watches as he picks the sleeping dog up. Of course, Lady wakes up and slobbers all over his face but she keeps still and luckily quiet.
They walk back into Y/N’s bedroom, leaving the mess in the living room behind. Steve puts Y/N carefully down on the bed, trying to get her in the middle as best as he can. She groans a little but snuggles back into the pillow Bucky had used earlier and reaches blindly to the side for one of the men.
Steve quickly slips in beside her and pulls her into his arms, making her hum in pleasure and mumble into his chest. Bucky chuckles at her, sets Lady down at her and Steve’s feet, where she rolls into a small ball, and crawls in behind Y/N, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Steve?”
“Hm?”
“What are we going to do with her? With the dream, the sleepless nights?” Steve opens his eyes and looks at Bucky over Y/N’s shoulder. “I don’t know.” He frowns just as concerned and runs his hand over Y/N’s back. “Let’s think of something later. Sleep. Sleep is nice.” Bucky looks unpleased at Steve as the blonde closes his eyes lazily, obviously not really awake anymore. But he settles down. It’s really too late, or early, to worry and think about that kind of serious stuff, so he decides to catch some sleep as well before he brings it up at breakfast again.
* * *
Y/N wakes slowly, wrapped up in warmth She has some hair in her face and quickly notices that it’s not her own. It smells some kind of earthy so she knows that it’s Bucky’s. She peels her eyes open and stares right into kind grey ones. “Good morning, doll.” He smiles at he, lifts his head and pushes the hair away from his and her face before he settles back down. His smile doesn’t leave his face and he leans forward to press a lingering kiss to her forehead. Then he rolls on his back and pulls her with him until she’s settled on him. Y/N is still pretty tired. The fact, that Bucky is still in bed, proves that it’s not that late but pretty early. Steve is missing, though. “Steve’s running?”
“Yeah. Tried to hold him in bed but he went nonetheless. Little punk.” His arms tighten around her and he presses some soft kisses on her hair. “Took Lady out, though. She’s staying with Wanda for a while after.”
“Why?” Y/N lifts her head and looks at Bucky with some sort of confusion. She has to stifle a yawn and Bucky laughs at that, shaking her with his movement and making her grin herself. “We thought we go on a little vacation. Steve went and talked to the others.”
“But I have work. That is pretty sudden.” Y/N sits up halfway and stares shocked at him. For the moment she’s wide awake. Bucky only smiles at her and pulls her back down, resting her head on his heart to hear the steady beat of it. “I know you do, but Stevie and I called Pepper and settled things and we pack things up in a bit. Tony promised he goes along and all. Don’t worry about it.”
“Why would we even go on a vacation?” Y/N frowns at Bucky from her position on his chest and Bucky looks at her for a few minutes. His hand wanders through her tangled hair and Y/N’s eyes slip close at the pleasure of his hands. “Because we though that it might help with the nightmares and sleepless nights. That’s why…” Y/N notice the uncertain tone in his voice and it instantly makes her wary of what’s to come. “That’s why, what?” She sits up straight, Bucky arms falling from her sides to rest on her hips, tightening there while she sits straddled on his hips. Y/N studies his face closely. He seems unsure of what to say but he tightens his grip for a second again. Then he sits up as well, scoots back against the headboard and pulls Y/N with him, still on his lap. “Stevie and I thought it could make you stop dreaming if we… take…” He looks into her eyes apologetically and Y/N has to say that he looks ashamed and guilty as he says the last words. “The car.”
She notices as all color drains instantly from her face.