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Every night, Bucky dreams.
More often than not, he dreams of his time as the Winter Soldier. He dreams of maiming and hitting, shooting and beating, digging sharp little blades into meaty stomachs until the whimpering and shivering stops and blood soaks the palms of his hands. He dreams of slate roof tiles carving into his stomach and the cold metal of a rifle pressed against his cheek, crosshairs trained expertly on unsuspecting passersby. He dreams of a rubbery bit sliding between his teeth; icy metal clamps descending in his peripheral vision; a rusted handcuff digging into the pebbled skin of his flesh arm.
Less often, Bucky dreams of people. Vaguely familiar faces crowd around him on misty streets or hover like phantoms over his bed. He’ll think he recognizes one of them and reach out a hand, but as soon as he moves, they disappear like smoke.
Dr. Raynor thinks that the ghostly figures in Bucky’s dreams represent those who didn’t make it onto his list of amends. That the crowds of anguished, suspended figures are people the Winter Soldier hurt and Hydra all but wiped from his memory. Like many things Hydra took from him, Dr. Raynor says, they resurface in his subconscious while he sleeps. It makes sense if Bucky thinks about it.
He doesn’t like to think about it.
Even less common are Bucky’s dreams of falling.
Maybe it’s because it happened so long ago, that first fall. Maybe the Winter Soldier memories are fresher, grittier, more intimate. Either way, Bucky can go months without having a single dream of falling. But when he does, they never fail to leave him reeling.
On a rare day when talking about his past doesn’t make him want to vomit or drive a fist through the wall, Bucky tells Dr. Raynor about the falling dreams. He explains, haltingly, how they always come back to that day in the snow.
If the dream starts with him trembling atop the burning helicarrier in D.C., Steve’s bruised, swollen face swimming before Bucky’s raised fist, it ends with his hands, skin stripped raw, slipping from the cold metal railing on the side of the train. If Bucky falls asleep to the sight of the rapidly approaching gray water of the Potomac and the sound of wind roaring in his ears, he wakes to Steve screaming, glove outstretched, and the feeling of hitting the icy ground.
This time, though, something’s different. This time, when Bucky dreams of falling, he also dreams of Sam.
It’s hours past sunset when the USAF plane finally touches down just outside of Baltimore, Maryland. The night air is cool and light, whipping long grasses against Bucky’s boots and carrying the sharp sweetness of spring.
The adrenaline of the sudden scrap against the Flag Smashers has long since shaken its way out of Bucky’s system, but he’s still almost jittery with exhaustion. He doesn’t regret coming along with Sam on this mission—he’d jump at any opportunity to watch Sam’s six—but fighting is different now. There’s no war, no world ending. No code words or torture. No one’s forcing him to be a part of this, but what else can he do? He has this arm and this skill set, and they have to be good for something. He has to try, at least. To help. It’s what Steve would want.
Bucky watches silently as Torres relays directions to the closest motel, claps Sam on the shoulder, and takes the plane back into the sky. He allows himself to drift, then, trusting Sam to get them where they need to go, and only comes back to awareness when he’s handed a plastic key tag and directed down a dimly lit motel hallway. Sam’s voice floats down the hall after Bucky as he chats enthusiastically with the woman at the front desk, but it sounds hollow and echoed, like Bucky’s several feet underwater.
The second his body touches the understuffed twin mattress, Bucky feels himself sinking towards sleep. He fights against it, blinking, and darkness shutters in and out. The room. He hasn’t searched the room yet. He can’t sleep without checking all the corners, the windows, the door. The bathroom? He doesn’t even know where the bathroom is, let alone if it’s safe.
Deep, creeping weariness wars with the quiet alarm of hypervigilance ringing in the back of Bucky’s head. He can’t make himself get up. Why can’t he get up? He presses his fingers into the pillowcase, a flutter of terror tickling the back of his throat, and just as the fabric starts to shred beneath his nails, he hears a door shut and a lock click. Sam.
Sam shuffles into the room out of Bucky’s line of sight. There’s the sound of a window pane rattling, quiet footsteps, then another door opening and closing. More shuffling as Sam’s hands sweep across corners, shake out the dusty curtains. He’s doing the checks, Bucky realizes. He’s making sure it’s safe. Bucky slowly loosens his fingers from the pillowcase and forces his shoulders to relax. He’s fine. No one can hurt him here. He’s safe.
When Sam’s done he sits gently on the other bed, falling forward until his elbows rest on his knees, looking down at Bucky with an expression so piercing and intense that a slow, unfamiliar warmth begins to uncurl within Bucky’s chest. He shudders through the feeling, struggling to stay conscious, and through the sliver of his half-open eyes, he sees Sam’s lips curve into a smile.
“Go to sleep, Buck,” Sam says softly, and somehow, that’s all it takes. Bucky closes his eyes as Sam clicks off the lamp, and the darkness swallows him.
When he opens them again, it’s to the brilliant blue of the sky.
He blinks, squinting up. Wispy clouds float by, carried on a gentle breeze, but other than that, everything is still. Bucky frowns, bracing his hands on his hips, but before he can wonder where he is, a streak of darkness appears in the sky above him.
As he watches, the darkness gets bigger and bigger. It spins wildly, flashing as some part of it catches and reflects the light, and it takes several long seconds for Bucky’s brain to make sense of what he’s seeing. That's no black streak descending from above; it’s a person, and they’re hurtling impossibly fast towards the ground.
No. Not just any person, he realizes, and it hits him like a slap in the face.
Sam.
The feeling drains from Bucky’s fingers, and all he can do is stand there, heart thundering dangerously in his chest, as Sam falls.
And falls.
And falls.
Sam’s arms windmill as he tries to catch himself on something or slow down, but there’s nothing around him but whistling air. His wings are broken, or he doesn't have wings—Bucky can’t tell—but his suit glows like fire beneath the harsh sun. His face is twisted in raw terror, eyes wide and unseeing. Although, wait. That doesn’t make sense. He’s too far away for Bucky to see his face. But there it is again: wet, anguished eyes, blonde hair limp with dirt and sweat.
“Grab my hand!” Sam shouts frantically, grasping towards Bucky. No. Not Sam. Steve.
The scene shifts and Sam disappears, and now it’s Steve that hangs above Bucky, both of them suspended on the side of the train as it speeds through the snow-covered mountains. It’s Steve that yells out a single, haunted “No! ” as the railing breaks and Bucky’s stomach drops with a jolt. It’s Steve’s face that he sees before falling into the gaping ravine below.
This, now, is familiar. The feeling of blood rushing to his head and pounding through his ears until all he can hear is a vicious current of wind and his own overwhelming, mind-numbing fear. The dizzying weightlessness as his body flips and spins, a rag doll in a cyclone of icy, battering wind.
As he nears the ground, Bucky closes his eyes. This part, he knows. The impact will come soon, then the pain. Such terrible pain. It’s always worse than he remembers, the feeling of his back slamming against the frozen snow. The sound his arm makes when the bone cracks apart, the violent tearing of flesh. Wrapping his arms across his stomach, Bucky steels himself for the crash. It’ll be any second now. He sucks in one last, desperate breath, but before he can exhale, something hard and fast slams into him from the side, knocking the air right out of his chest.
Bucky’s neck snaps against his shoulder as he goes careening off course. This isn’t right. He’s supposed to hit the ice on his back, not his side. He’s not supposed to be rolling through a field of yellow wildflowers, blue-tinged mountains looming in the distance, warm hands cradled protectively around his back.
Confusion washes over him, followed by a flood of sour dread. This isn’t right. He isn’t supposed to be here. He’s supposed to hit the ground. His arm is supposed to come off. He’s supposed to lie there in the snow, fading in and out of excruciating consciousness, until Zola’s men come to take him away.
When the rolling stops and the dust settles, it’s Sam that pushes himself up off of Bucky’s chest. It’s Sam that kneels in the grass by Bucky’s head. It’s Sam that strips off his goggles so that Bucky can see his eyes, tosses them aside, and carefully places a dirty, calloused palm against Bucky’s cheek.
“Bucky,” he says distantly. “Bucky, it’s okay. You’re okay.”
But the dread only grows stronger, sliding effortlessly into blinding, white-hot panic. The flowers are too bright, and the mountains are too close, and his metal arm is too heavy—far, far too heavy—but Sam’s hand is big and solid and there on Bucky’s face.
Bucky feels light-headed. He doesn’t know what’s real. He doesn’t know where he is.
“Bucky,” Sam says again, shuffling closer. “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. You’re in a motel near Baltimore, Maryland. You’re dreaming, but you need to wake up now, okay? You gotta wake up, Buck. Come on, now,” he urges, cradling Bucky’s face between both hands.
“Wake up.”
Bucky wakes, surging upwards, gasping for air. He’s vaguely aware of Sam moving, hands dropping away from Bucky’s face, and his cheeks burn hot in all the places Sam’s fingers pressed into his skin. The hazy moonlight glints off Bucky’s metal hand and glows white in Sam’s kind, sloping eyes, and he feels so, so cold. God, he’s cold. It’s the type of cold that knocks hard into your stomach and steals your breath and holds your lungs in tightly clenched fists and squeezes and squeezes and—
“Bucky,” Sam says quietly from beside the bed, and Bucky can barely hear him over the deafening thudding of his chest. The lamp flicks on, bathing the room in weak, yellow light, and suddenly Sam is right there before him. He’s stripped down to a black t-shirt and sweats, and the covers of the bed behind him are thrown back like he leaped up in a hurry. Sam takes a step towards Bucky, reaching out an arm, but the movement’s blurred as Bucky’s eyes shift in and out of focus. “Breathe.”
Bucky shakes, bowed forward over his knees, fingers twisted in the comforter.
“Come on, Buck.”
His heart feels like a wild creature, dashing itself against the inside of his chest.
Sam settles on the edge of Bucky’s bed. He leans forward and slowly, deliberately rests a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. One of his fingers slides up past the edge of Bucky’s t-shirt onto the exposed, bare skin where his neck meets his collarbone, and the feeling of it—the open nerve buzz of skin on skin, the press of Sam’s nail against Bucky’s pulse—sends him lurching back into his body.
He breathes.
And breathes.
And breathes.
Dull static roars in Bucky’s ears as he gasps, hands braced against the mattress. His eyes flit from the curve of Sam’s thigh to the bridge of his nose to where his thumb is rubbing small, soothing circles into Bucky’s neck. He stares dizzily at Sam’s skin meeting his. He doesn’t let himself think about what it means that Sam’s closeness and presence and touch are bringing him back from the edge, from the cold—and focuses on that soft feeling, shoulders shaking, until the static fades and he can catch his breath.
“Okay?” Sam asks, voice loud as a gunshot in the utter silence of the motel room. And Bucky nods, even though every time he blinks, the nightmare flashes across the inside of his eyelids. Even though he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to think about any of it—Sam falling, Sam catching him, Sam saving him—or how he’s supposed to feel. His eyes fall shut. Everything’s all twisted up inside his chest and his brain, and he can feel himself beginning to unravel at the seams.
The mattress dips beside him, and Bucky opens his eyes to see Sam climbing fully onto the bed. He shuffles until he’s laying on his back, hands crossed casually over his stomach, and Bucky can’t hold back his small noise of surprise.
Sam looks up. “Is this okay?”
His voice is even, but Bucky hears the undercurrent of hesitancy. Without pausing to think about it, Bucky nods again and settles back down on the pillow, facing the wall. Sam turns off the lamp, plunging them into darkness.
The warmth of Sam’s body presses heat into Bucky’s back, and he shivers as it chases away the lingering cold. For a moment, the only sound is Sam’s quiet, measured breathing. It washes over the room like gentle rain, soothing Bucky’s skittering mind, and miraculously, he feels himself tipping back into sleep.
“I’ll wake you if you have another nightmare,” Sam says abruptly, into the dark.
“I know,” Bucky mumbles truthfully, half asleep, and he swears he can hear Sam smile.