steve rogers and bucky barnes imagines

b u c k y; safe haven

The light in the kitchen was on, but she had dimmed it to the lowest setting so that she wouldn't wake anyone else. She hated being awake at night, holed up in her room with the possibility of looking at anything but her four walls looking slim, unless she had the balls to venture out in the dark, lonely hallways of the tower.

Some nights - most nights - she decided that it was best for her to stay in her room. She decided that, not only did she have all that she really needed there, she also really didn't want to have to make the (at least 5 minute) journey to the communal area of the avengers tower alone.

However, tonight was not most nights. They'd been on a hard mission, one that required her to go back to her roots, back to the Hydra base where they'd given her the powers that gave her the right to join the avengers, back to where she was tortured and treated as a lab rat while scientists took notes of her behaviours and added them to their sick collections of research.

Tonight was one of those nights. The ones where you feel like, even though you're awake, you're not really. The ones where you wish that you could just forget about your feelings and go to sleep, and you think that you might be able to, but when you're laying in bed you can't get your brain to shut off. Yes, Y/N was having one of those nights.

She'd tried to go to sleep, really, she had, but the memories of metal beds and leather straps and night after night in that god-awful cell kept flooding to mind, and the prospect of taking a walk through the tower no longer seemed fearful, but rather the opposite. Comforting. And so, without much thought because - really - she had no space to put any thought into it, she pulled on a robe and pushed open her door, stepping out into the dark hallway that was illuminated only by the little green lights that indicated where the fire exits were.

She'd meant to take a walk to clear her head, she'd only be gone ten minutes at most, but somehow she now found herself in the kitchen, and it was four in the morning - which was two hours after she'd left her room - and she was watching as the sun rose through the floor-to-ceiling windows that gave her a view of the city.

"What are you doing down here?" The voice was calm, kind, but it broke her from her thoughts and made her jolt slightly in her position, curled in the corner of the sofa with a glass of water in one hand.

It was Bucky. He was standing in the doorway, a crooked smile on his face and a blanket tucked under his arm. She recognised it as being the one that she always left draped over the bottom of her bed, and figured that Bucky had probably woken up and gone to her room, before realising that she wasn't there. She felt a pang of guilt upon looking at him, hair disheveled, shirtless and sweatpants thrown lazily on to lay low on his hips, the remnants of sleep still prominent in his eyes and the sullen look that adorned him whenever he'd just woken up.

He hadn't gone with them on the mission, thank god, and had probably fallen asleep with ease but had been plagued by nightmares. Y/N knew that they woke him up at all hours on most nights, that he'd tap on her door lightly and wake her by crawling into her bed and giving her an apologetic smile. Sometimes he wanted to talk about them, and she never minded when he did, listened patiently and stroked his hair and didn't flinch if he cried. Other times, he'd simply stroke her cheek and let her go back to sleep, or trace patterns on her forearm or back until he fell asleep himself. He went to her to ground himself, to remind himself that he wasn't with Hydra anymore, that the dreams weren't real, that he had someone in his corner. She was his support system, and he was hers.

"Watching the sunrise, of course." She joked. She could feel her eyelids drooping and she set her water down on the coffee table. "Haven't I told you, it's a pastime of mine."

She flicked her bleary eyes from the window, to Bucky, who was now walking towards her. He chuckled lightly, fiddling with the blanket, then sitting down next to her and draping it over the pair of them. "You should sleep."

She shook her head and let him drape an arm over her shoulders, eyelids getting heavier by the second. "Can't." Was her simple reply. Bucky pressed a soft kiss to her temple, smoothing down her hair, and she found herself leaning into him.

"Tell me about it." He waited expectantly for her to explain herself, tell him what was going on in her brain that made her unable to close her eyes and let slumber overtake her body, and so she did.

"The mission, today." Bucky's face dropped, because he knew what was coming next. Memories of her past, things that hurt her and scared her, the things that she only told him, no one else. Everyone got the general gist of where she'd come from, what had happened to her, but Bucky knew the details. The heart-wrenching, horrible details that both angered and broke him. "We went back there. The same place that they...you know, hurt me."

He let her continue, "It was hard. Scary, seeing it again. It looked the same as it did the last time, before I got out. I keep having this same memory come to mind, when they chained me to my bed and didn't feed me for a week, all so that they could 'observe' how my powers worked when I was low on energy. It's worse, because I'd almost forgotten everything. I was moving on, and, yes, the thought of the place scared me, but it didn't send shivers down my spine like it used to."

"I thought I was finally getting better, you know? Thought I was finally handling it." Her voice broke halfway through her last sentence and a tear rolled down her cheek, but Bucky's thumb had swiped it away before it could get too far. He was kissing her face, light, feathery kisses from her hairline to her jaw, comforting her without speaking. He knew that she hated when he gave her sympathy, when he spoke at all when she was upset, really. She'd always just wanted to let it out and move on, and he understood and had never questioned it.

"C'mere." He said simply, wrapping his metal arm around her back and pulling her close to his chest. She sighed into his bare skin, his arms felt strong around her, like a fortress that no one could compromise, and she felt safe. He felt safe. From his scent of musk and mint to the feeling of the scars on his shoulder under her fingertips, he felt safe.

"You should sleep." Bucky repeated after a few minutes of rubbing over her back soothingly with his calloused thumb and twisting a lock of her hair around his metal pointer finger.

"I told you, I can't." But she knew that she was already drifting off. She couldn't help it, there was just something about the way that he held her, the way that his body fit around hers and his head nuzzled at her neck while he placed the occasional kiss there. He was intoxicating, and she loved it.

He chuckled lowly and released his grip on her, laying down on the sofa and motioning for her to do the same. "I know, angel, but I'm here now. Nothin's gonna hurt you." He cradled her face with one hand and touched his nose to hers. "You know I'd never let anything touch you, princess."

She smiled weakly and he kissed her, a fleeting kiss, but it was enough to convince her to lay her head against his chest while he pulled the blanket up to her chin. There'd be questions from the rest of the team the next day, but neither of the pair minded. "I love you, darlin'. You're safe."

Y/N knew that she didn't know much, that she wasn't a genius like Tony or Bruce, that she wasn't a saint like Steve or a god like Thor, but she knew that she'd never felt bliss like she did when she lay with Bucky - her home, her safe-haven - listening to his heart beat.

"Sweet dreams."