THE SOLDIER & THE SHIELD, stucky

04

"THE NIGHTMARES are the worst, I think," Bucky started quietly. "Even the ones that don't wake me up... they stick with me. And I think that's why I'm having such a hard time, I dunno, letting go of everything, letting go of the... fear."

"You're not chasing me away," Steve said sleepily as he laid his head on Bucky's chest. He sniffled, still congested. "I'm not going anywhere. We've been over this."

Bucky shook his head and ran a hand through Steve's tousled hair. Letting out a long breath, he flexed his metal fingers.

"I know," he said. "I know you're not going anywhere and I think that's always been part of the problem. These nightmares... they're dangerous and they're worse when I'm here."

"Does being at Sam's help anything?"

Bucky shrugged and ran his thumb over Steve's cheekbone, focusing his soft touch there for several moments. "I guess. I've woken up a few times in his kitchen, disoriented, usually before he wakes up."

"Usually?"

"Yeah," Bucky said with a snort. "Other times I've woken up pinned to the floor with a knife to my throat or gun to my head. He's not shy about that shit."

Steve stifled a laugh and reached up to meet Bucky's touch on his cheek.

"What are yours about... specifically?" Steve asked carefully, fingers slowly tracing over Bucky's knuckles.

Bucky's fingertips hardly touched Steve's skin. His back had gone rigid against the mattress and it sounded as if his breathing had stopped completely.

"Buck, hey."

Steve slowly pulled himself up until he was sitting beside him.

"Hey, look, it's alright," he whispered. "It's all right, we don't have to get into that right now. We should sleep. It's late anyway."

Discouraged and embarrassed, Steve rolled to the opposite side of the bed and curled into himself.

He knew better than to push Bucky. Before everything, before the war, before Captain America, there had always been a limit to how much nagging he could take. Steve had a bad habit of pushing it and it often ended in long silences and occasionally days without contact.

"Get some sleep," Steve mumbled quietly as he tried to get comfortable. His heart was heavy. He stared out the window at the Brooklyn streetlight, beating himself up for being so overbearing and unaware of unspoken boundaries. "Oh, uh..." he said, turning his head enough so Bucky could hear him. "Everyone... Everyone's still out in the living room. If you wanna take the couch, you might have to wait 'cause I told them they could—"

Steve was cut off by the shock of the cold, metal arm sliding underneath him. He shivered as Bucky's right arm wrapped around him and pulled him close.

"I'm not going anywhere." Steve shuddered at the feeling of Bucky's breath tickling his neck. "Close your eyes. I'm here."

Steve sucked in a long, shaky breath and carefully laid one hand over Bucky's. He swallowed hard and nestled his head into the pillow.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Bucky let out a short exhale from his nose and rested his lips more purposefully against Steve's ear. His voice was so soft and careful that Steve was beginning to wonder if this was all some kind of too-good-to-wake-up-from dream. He didn't have many of those anymore.

"You just caught me off guard. If you want to talk about that, we can. I... know how much it will bother you."

"I want to hear it."