"Steve!" he cried out, voice echoing off the still water and rocks and foliage and trees he knew existed, but which could not be seen through the brume that enshrouded everything beyond the mouth of the cave. Nothing returned his cry.
Again and again he called out. He kept calling until all his throat allowed was a faint rasp.
With every shift of his body, the vines tightened around him—snaking over his chest and arms, securing him uncomfortably in the tiny cave.
He dangled there, resolving gradually to hopelessness, for what may have been hours before anything happened beyond a water-skipper paddling by.
It began with an eerily loud splash a ways off, into the wall of fog. The fog did not muffle the sounds of each subsequent splash and swish as whatever it was neared—swish after swish after swish—until at last a small figure emerged from the heavy haze, all thin arms and feeble chest and ashen skin.
Steve cut carefully through the water, panting softly as he reached the boulder Bucky nearly stood upon. He found a grip in the dimples of the stone, and then looked up at his friend.
"I've got ya, Buck," he reassured, or tried.
"Steve..."
Now that Steve was there, Bucky wanted little more than for him to leave. The young man shook like a leaf from the low temperature of the water—water that had been intolerable to him even when he was a super soldier.
But Steve ignored his worried tone as he dug his bony knee into the rock and hauled the bulk of his trembling body from the water. He steadied himself and turned his eyes to Bucky, who could feel the horror dawning on his own face as he looked into Steve's.
"Doll, your lips..."
Steve gave him a crooked smile and rolled his eyes. "Even at a time like this, Buck?" he asked with his light bite of sarcasm. He then leaned in and up to press their lips together in a chaste kiss.
Bucky couldn't bring himself to reciprocate; all he could think of was Steve's cadaverous skin, sickly blue lips, and the frigid touch of the kiss.
"Stevie," he tried again when Steve pulled back, but he went ignored.
"We need to get these off you," Steve said of the vines. He reached up a hand to cup the ones wrapped around Bucky's neck, curled his fingers over them and gave a weak tug. Bucky shivered at the chilled touch.
"Steve," he pled. "Steve, go get help."
"Sorry, Buck," Steve shook his head, "But it was damn hard to get here, and I don't know if I'll be getting back without you."
Bucky always admired that Steve was the intrepid one, but that was usually after he forgot how frustrating that quality really was sometimes.
"Steve, listen—" But Steve jerked, and Bucky lurched in response, instinctually trying to reach out to the other man. The vines only tightened their bands.
"What was that?" Bucky asked quietly.
"There's something..." Steve peered behind himself, down at the water. Slowly, as though laden down, he began to pull his foot from the water. What breached the surface was not just his foot, but his foot encased in a thick chunk of ice.
"I'm so numb I didn't feel the cold," Steve remarked, perplexed. "But I could feel the weight."
Bucky pitched toward him again, wanting to pull the smaller man closer. "Get the rest of you out of the water," he demanded.
Steve began to comply despite arguing, "But I'll have to get back in eventu—" The rest of the words were lost when Steve jerked again, his calf submerging into the glossy water.
"Get up here, Steve!" Bucky's voice pitched up in panic.
The next instant Steve's body received a hard tug backward, and he slipped down until he was waist-deep underwater.
"Buck," Steve gasped as he scrabbled for purchase on the boulder.
Somewhere, Bucky knew he couldn't have struggled against his restraints any harder, but giving in to that reality wasn't an option, so he pulled and thrashed and threw his weight around until he could hardly budge taught vines.
It was then—as though something was waiting for his full attention—that Steve was sunken to his neck. His panicked blue eyes met Bucky's own and their mouths moved to speak, but finally, Steve was dragged completely below the surface—the crystalline surface that allowed Bucky to watch every second. He saw Steve sink as though he were hitched to an anchor, saw him slow in his fight against the cold while a glass-edge delineation of solid ice entombed his defenseless body. And when it looked like he hit the bottom, and he was wholly frozen in place, there came the frost and sepulchral creak of the water freezing through.
With that, like a floodgate had opened, sound rushed back in. He hadn't even realized it was gone. Now his own screams hit his ears, and no matter how loud he cried out, the iced-over pool didn't crack.
The sharp vice of terror is what woke him then. Bucky came to consciousness with his pulse pounding, and his breath sighing out harshly. He levered up on his arms and gave the room a bleary once-over. It took a second recall the reason he was waking on the sofa in the team living room and not in his bed with Steve.
It was the trash littering the couch, carpet, and glass coffee table that jogged his memory: the trash was exclusively candy wrappers, left over from their Team movie night. (Bruce and Tony always put a lot of thought into the sweets the team would binge on as they sat through their weekly movie.)
Other than the wrappers and Bucky, the only other evidence of their bonding activities was Thor, strewn across a great portion of the other bend of sofa. Everyone else must have found their way to their own beds. They left the lights dim, and the TV turned off.
Trying not to step on a stray Toblerone box, Bucky got to his feet with the buzzing need to find Steve guiding him into the hall.
Like a child, he thought as he slipped into their moonwashed bedroom. Just seeing the outline of his partner under the sheets was a tremendous relief on Bucky's nerves.
He tried for subtlety, but the mattress shifting under him woke Steve, who in response rolled to face him, muttering something like, "—wondering if you'd ever come." However, the words couldn't process because all Bucky could focus on was the sickly blue of Steve's lips.
"Doll, your lips—" he choked, shocked by the parallel to his nightmare. Was this just another dream? He couldn't watch Steve freeze over again.
Steve didn't seem to notice his spike of fear, instead he stared up at the ceiling, deep in thought until a realization struck and he replied, "Are they blue? Tash made me try one of her..." He waved a hand, searching for the word. "Candy things. Those ridiculous sour ones. I thought everyone was givin' me funny looks..."
Bucky let out a gust of air and chuckled halfheartedly. "Jesus, ya mook."
"What's the matter?"
"Nothin'. Don't worry about it. Just a nightmare."
"Really bad?" Steve asked, vigilance aroused.
"Scared the life outta me, yeah," Bucky said. He hunkered down to lay facing his partner. "But you're right here, so no problem." Though his heart still twinged with the memory, he was calming quickly.
Bending closer until they shared the same pillow, Steve tipped their foreheads together. "Not goin' anywhere, Buck."
