Red Nights
Disclaimer: I don't own Captain America.
"Bucky? Bucky, where are you right now?" Steve looks sharply into piercing blue eyes. "Buck, wherever you are, I need you to come back." This is like hypnotism, but harder. More serious. Steve's hands hover lightly over Bucky's shoulders. He won't touch the man rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. The man in a fetal position in the corner of the blackened room. Eyes ripped open by fear. Steve does not touch him.
Steve knows almost exactly where Bucky is right now. Bucky is not staring at the lightly colored wooden floorboards in the apartment. Even if his eyes have adjusted to the darkness, he can't see them. Bucky could be in one of three or four places right now. But the lip-synced motion of silent words playing wickedly with Bucky's mouth leaves Steve with a pretty well educated guess. Bucky is staring at Howard Stark's lifeless corpse. Ice laces his veins as his eyes burn, locking with the intense, dead gaze of Stark's dark brown hues painted red around the edges. The car is diagonal across the bridge. All Bucky can do is stare. Steve will bet anything that he's right.
But he won't say anything. It's all real, but for Steve to mention the incident aloud would bring the reality to the present. It is not present. Howard Stark died seventy years ago. The present consists of cold sweat at two in the morning. Consists of two war torn men huddled in a corner.
Steve does not say anything. Steve does not touch Bucky.
"James "Bucky" Buchanan Barnes. Where are you?" Steve pronounces each word with both caution and urgency.
A strangled choking noise rips from the back of Bucky's throat. His eyes seal shut, and the room smells acidic as the vomit spills slowly from Bucky's mouth.
Everything is still in the moments that follow the retching. Bucky's eyes are still sealed shut, but now his mouth follows their lead. A slim strand of saliva connects his lips to a dark pool on the floor.
"Bucky, come back to me." Steve's voice is soothing as he judges Bucky's stability. He deems it safe and lays his left hand on Bucky's shoulder.
Bucky's eyes snap open again, and his snaps to face Steve. His eyes are still big and frightened, but there's a life in them that tells Steve that Bucky will be okay.
Bags sag under each of Bucky's eyes.
"There was so much blood. So much blood..." His voice trails off, gaze following back to the same spot on the hardwood floor. For a moment Steve thinks he might lose him again. He slides his arm cautiously across Bucky's shoulders, then grips him protectively.
He plants a kiss on the other man's temple and mutters against the skin, "I know, Bucky. I know."
Bucky's head turns upward again, tears brimming in his cold colored eyes.
"It's my fault, Steve." He seems to plead.
"Shh," Steve soothes. "It's alright now. You're okay. You're good, and you won't ever hurt anyone again." The speech is familiar on Steve's lips, but he has no problem saying it again.
Bucky has long since dropped the death grip he once held on his stringy brown-black hair. He's fallen back against the wall and curled up in Steve's arms.
It's three forty-five am before Bucky is asleep again, and Steve has the vomit mopped off his bedroom floor.