Someone help me I wrote another story.
He doesn't like the cold. Not anymore.
He grew up with cold, temperamental weather. Winters in New York City weren't kind. When he was young, when the world hadn't crushed him, when reality hadn't crushed him, he found something beautiful in the snow, in the cold, in sitting with Bucky in bad storms.
But that was before. Before the war, before the serum, before the crash.
Ice. Piercing, invading. The water was cold, colder than expected, but what does one expect from death? The sharp intake of breath, his body desperately fighting. To live, to survive, to make it to that dance. The water hurt, it ached, piercing his lungs. The water, pushing, compressing, crushing.
And then nothing.
There's a storm. One that had been mentioned on every news station for the past three days. The power was out. The hot water was gone. The pipes were on the verge of freezing.
He could see his breath. Quick and heavy, coming out in panicked gasps.
The cold is like a weight on his chest. Pulling him down, clawing its way up his lungs, leaving them bloody and ragged.
I gotta put her in the water.
The water. Rushing, encompassing, drowning.
His hands shake. His breath is coming quicker.
He can't breathe.
"Steve." There's a hand, small and warm, calloused on his cheek. "Breathe."
He's trying. His breaths are ragged, scraping.
"Slower."
Both hands are on his cheeks now and she blurs in and out of focus. Red, like fire, like a beacon. Like warmth, like comfort, like if you go too close you burn. She had warned him in the beginning, didn't she? That she only hurt people in the end. But she was wrong. He was close, and the fire was beautiful, captivating, and he did not burn.
"Hey, it's okay, you're safe."
He reaches out, shaking, and he's pulled to her chest. He breathes in time with her, slow. And the water is gone, for now, the cold is gone. All he can feel is her warmth, close and comforting.
"You are safe," she repeats.
He focuses on the moment, as she instructs. The sound of her breath in his ear, the touch of her hands, running through his hair.
He is in the present. The ice is gone. He is held close to Natasha, and she is solid, and warmth, and home.