eighty-seven.
When Bucky woke up with his lovers on either side of him, he thought it was going to be a good day. He was fully prepared to lean over and kiss both Nat and Steve on their heads before leaving for the day... But when he leaned over to kiss Steve, his hand came away covered in thick blood that stuck to his fingers no matter how hard he wiped his hand on the sheets. When he turned to Nat, a river of blood cascaded from her just like her hair.
He looked down at himself and saw that he was covered in the blood. It stuck in the grooves of his metal arm and crusted on his flesh hand. His black pants were stained even darker and his leather vest was slick with blood. He looked up into the mirror and the panic he felt rising up in him didn't even register on his own face, because the face looking back at him wasn't his.
It was him. The muzzle was wrapped tightly around his jaw and his smudged black makeup did nothing to hide the murderous glee in his eyes. Bucky reached up to his face only to feel the same muzzle underneath his fingertips. And he lost it. He rose like the dead from the bed full of it and stormed over to the mirror. One kick to the center shattered it and sent glass flying.
And then he was jolting upright, fully awake in bed again with Steve gripping onto his metal arm and keeping it pinned to the bed. Nat was nearly sitting on his other arm to keep it pinned down as well as she called his name.
Wildly he thrashed, looking around like a frightened animal, and right now he was. But there they both were, alive and staring back at him with life in their eyes and in their veins and he looked down at himself and he was clean, still wearing his t-shirt and sweats from the night before and he was safe and so were they. He relaxed, suddenly realizing that it was nothing more than a dream once more.
The moment they freed his hands he sat up and pulled them both close to his chest, pressing kisses to the tops of their heads as he spoke to them in the Soldier's native tongue.
"Я так виноват. Я так боюсь." He whispered.
Nat felt a stray tear fall into her hair as if hearing his broken confession of fear wasn't enough to make her heart break for him. She didn't think she'd ever heard him so afraid of anything in her life before now.
"Buck, do you wanna talk about it?"
He hesitated before whispering something else in Russian that Steve obviously didn't understand. He was learning, but at the same pace as Peter, so there was a ton he didn't know. Natasha, goddess that she is, however, had no problem translating. It kinda sounded like music to hear her talk over Bucky's deep voice speaking Russian to her.
"He says that um... He had a dream that The Winter Soldier was back and that he um... Hurt us, while we were sleeping, and that he woke up covered in our blood."
Steve looked up to where Bucky was sitting, head hung in shame and he felt his heart break once again for his lover. Bucky looked so saddened and so ashamed of what his dream self had done that Steve wanted to cry. His first morning back home and this is how he was feeling.
"Bucky. Look at us. We're alive and breathing and you're here with us, and we're safe. We're safe here. We're safe with you. In fact, you make me feel twice as safe compared to when I'm here alone. Know why?" He waited for Bucky to shake his head. "Because you're here with me, and I know that you've always got my back no matter what, just like I've always got yours. Okay? Nothing is gonna happen to us. You won't hurt us. We're safe... Bucky, you're safe."
And Bucky couldn't help but believe him.
Bucky stood on the top of an overpass and looked down. He could see the target beneath him, and for some reason standing here felt familiar but he wasn't quite sure why. He didn't particularly want to make a scene about this, but Bucky was partially considering waking the Soldier up himself just to make sure he went through with the job.
Thankfully, deciding against that thought, he looked across the way to an alley where Natalia was meant to be waiting for him. As of right now, he was out of his direct line of sight, which was perfect. The less he worried about her right now, the better, and let's face it, she can handle herself.
Just a little ways down the street, not far from him but slightly more towards the area where Steve was waiting, Bucky could see Rumlow. His back was turned, but he'd know that bastard anywhere. Steve wanted to do this the right way. He wanted to take the asshole in and go the goddamn legal route to make this man pay, but Bucky thought that was bullshit for several fucking reasons.
First of all, this asshole was fucking Hydra to start. Secondly, this guy helped fucking torture him for almost 10 goddamn years, kidnapped their son, raped him, tortured him too, and probably did the same to loads of fucking people. Thirdly, this asshole had already been taken in the legal way, and nothing fucking happened because he somehow managed to blend in with the actual fucking government and claw his way to the top through the highest security, top secret government facility and use the knowledge to his advantage.
So no, Bucky wasn't keen on doing that for the third goddamn time. And Steve decided that yes, maybe it was time to do it Bucky's way, and Nat doesn't think she'd ever seen Bucky so murderously happy before in her whole life, and they'd known one another for a long goddamn time.
Bucky shifted on his toes and leaned against the railing the overpass to line up his shot. This one wasn't to kill, this one was to immobilize or at least injure him enough that he'd be a little bit easier to find. As he shifted the cross-hairs down onto Rumlow's thigh, something happened and he was temporarily blinded in the eye he was using to line up the shot.
With one regular glace around it was easy to tell that someone had deliberately blinded him, and when he looked down at where Rumlow had been sitting he saw the empty chair and began to panic as he saw him walking right towards where Natalia was. Sure she could handle herself, but what if she couldn't be warned in time? Had Steve seen that?
Quickly, he tapped the small button on the front of his vest. "Nat he's coming to you, do you read?"
With no immediate response, he hopped over the railing and landed right on top of the hood of a car that had been passing below at the time and rolled down onto the asphalt beneath and took off at a dead sprint towards the alleyway.
Tapping the button again, even he could hear the panic in his voice as he said, "Steve, Rumlow is on the move to Nat. I've got no response on her end. Go."
Rumlow left Bucky's line of sight as he ducked into the alleyway and Bucky cursed rather loudly as he picked up the speed as much as possible.
Steve basically met Bucky in the dead center of the alleyway when he came from the opposite end. Standing in the middle of the alleyway, it was clear that neither Rumlow or Natalia were here, which instantly begged the question, where the hell are they?