Every day Bucky was getting increasingly more tired, and Hannah was starting to worry about him. He would try to sleep, but nightmares stopped him from getting a good night's rest. Yet, he somehow managed to get up early every morning and go to work. Even on days where he didn't have work, he was up early and busy with something.
Recently, he had been coming to the cafe during his lunch break to order a cup of coffee. Hannah watched the clock, knowing that he would be there soon. She brewed the usual black cup of coffee, and right on cue, Bucky walked through the door. He walked to the back table and sat down without so much as a glance towards Hannah. She didn't know what to do to help him. He couldn't keep relying on coffee to keep him awake, but he wasn't getting any sleep.
Hannah sighed, poured a cup of the black coffee, and went to his table. "How long do you expect this to keep you awake?" she asked, sliding the drink towards him.
"As long as I need it to," he replied curtly.
"It's not healthy," she commented.
He took a sip of the coffee, and let out a slow breath. "If you have any other ideas, I'm all ears." The problem was, she didn't have any other ideas. She didn't know what he was going through, and she definitely didn't know how to fix it. She had tried multiple times to get him to tell her about the nightmares, but he never said anything. Prying only made him annoyed, and sympathizing made him upset. It felt like all she could do was stand there and watch him struggle.
"Would it help if you took some time off work?"
"You mean the one thing that might wear me down in a day?"
She sat across from him and sighed. "Just throwing ideas out there. You have to be getting at least some sleep."
"Any sleep I'm getting doesn't count as sleep," he grumbled and took a gulp of coffee. Bucky left at his usual time and went back to his own job. Defeated, Hannah stood and continued with her work until the end of the day.
Hannah was lying on her couch with a blank mind. She had been trying to come up with so many solutions that her brain seemed to have quit on her. As she listened to Bucky's footsteps above her, she rubbed her eyes. It was 3:00 am and he was still awake. The only reason she was on her couch was so she could be awake too and listen for any sign that he had gone to bed.
After a bit more time had passed, she gave up and decided to pay him a visit. It's not like she would be waking him. She trekked up the stairs and knocked on the door. When the door opened, Hannah was taken aback. Bucky was in a tank top and sweat pants. She had never seen him in anything but a simple shirt, jeans, and his jacket.
"What?" he asked. Hannah realized she had been staring and swung her attention back to the reason she was there.
"You aren't going to fall asleep while pacing the floor," she remarked.
He shrugged. "Who knows. I didn't mean to wake you-"
"Oh, you didn't. I'm not sleeping tonight either."
"Hannah, you need to get some sleep."
"So do you." They stared at each other while trying to get their point across. Eventually, Bucky moved aside so she could go through the door, but that didn't mean he would sleep. Hannah sat on the couch and tucked her knees up to her chest. "I'll stay here if you let me."
"It's not like you're going to keep me up," he said. He took his usual place across from her, but he didn't start a conversation.
"Maybe if you tried sleeping in your bed-" she offered.
"It's not exactly that I can't sleep," he interrupted. "It's that I don't want to."
"Are they really that bad?" she practically whispered. He didn't answer. Hannah's heart was picking up speed as if she experienced the nightmares herself. How could they be so terrible that he would stay awake, no matter how tired?
"Are they all about Hydra?" she asked.
He shook his head. "No, but they are mostly." He stared off into space as he continued. "I've gone through this before. It'll be over eventually."
Hannah furrowed her brow. "Does 'this' happen a lot?"
"Are you my psychiatrist now?" he joked.
Hannah smiled. "I don't know. I guess I'm just...intruiged. I've never heard of anyone like you before."
"Well, what about you?" he countered. "You're apparently an alien."
She tipped her head back as she smiled. "I'm not sure if that's true. Besides, they call themselves Inhumans."
Bucky laughed, and Hannah knew that he was getting delusional. "Right, sorry." He shifted his metal arm like he had to make sure it still worked. "Can you control it?"
Hannah scoffed. "About as much as you can control your nightmares."
He pursed his lips and nodded. "Just making sure."
"Making sure of what?"
"That you didn't do it on purpose," he clarified.
Hannah laughed and looked at her hands. "Believe me, I wish I could control it." Unfortunately, the only place she had heard of Inhumans training their abilities, was at SHIELD. Every now and again, she would think about what Agent Coulson had said. "We're the good guys." Based on everything she had heard about SHIELD, how could that be true?
She and Bucky continued talking for a while, but there was a point where the conversation faded, and Hannah fell asleep. A loud noise made her shoot awake the next morning, and her heart nearly jumped out of her chest. She didn't know where she was, or what she had heard. Then, she slowly got her bearings. She was on Bucky's couch. She had a blanket covering her, and she quickly took it off and stood up.
Hannah whipped around, trying to find out where the noise had come from. Bucky was rummaging in his kitchen. She took a small sigh of relief. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to fall asleep."
Bucky turned around and shrugged. "I don't mind."
It was freezing in his apartment, so Hannah rubbed her arms. "Did you get any sleep?"
"I did," he responded nonchalantly.
Hannah stared at him with wide eyes. "Oh, wow! That's great!"
"Only about an hour," he pointed out.
"Still, any sleep is good," she said. Bucky nodded, and Hannah headed for the door. "Sorry for inviting myself over. I'll talk to you later." Another nod and she left his apartment.
It was two days before she spoke to him again. It wasn't terribly late, but Hannah was about to sleep when she heard him knock on the door. She shuffled over to the door and opened it slightly.
Before she could say anything, he spoke up. "I need to ask a favor."
Hannah rubbed her eyes as they tried to focus on him. "What is it?" she croaked.
"Will you come upstairs with me?" he asked.
Hannah hesitated. "For what?"
She heard him let out a breath like he was trying to calm his nerves. "Will you just come?"
Hannah groaned and checked her watch. It wasn't every day that Bucky came to her door, but she was tired. After a moment of consideration, she told him her answer. "Fine."
"Thank you," he said.
"One second." Hannah went back to her room and dragged her blanket off the air mattress. When she left her apartment with it, Bucky looked at her confusedly.
"What's that for?" he asked.
Hannah wrapped it around herself overdramatically. "It's so I don't freeze to death in the frozen wasteland that is your apartment," she explained. He raised a brow but didn't say anything.
Once they were in his apartment Hannah turned to him. "What do you need?" Bucky looked at the ground and didn't say anything.
"Bucky?" She asked unsurely. "You did need something, right?"
"I need you to stay," he mumbled. Hannah stared confusedly at him. One look at her face,a nd he knew he needed to clarify. "I've only been able to sleep one night in this whole week..."
"The one where I was here," she finished absentmindedly. She wasn't quite sure how to respond. She wanted to help him, but she felt like she was intruding. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize Bucky didn't like being around people. How would staying in his apartment help him at all?
"You don't have to-"
"No, it's...it's fine. I just wasn't expecting that to be the favor," Hannah explained. She looked around his apartment. "Where exactly do you sleep?"
"The couch," he answered. Hannah still didn't understand why he didn't sleep in his bed. It wasn't uncomfortable; not by her standards anyway.
She wrapped the blanket around her a little tighter. "Ok then, where am I sleeping? Unless you expect me to stay up and watch you sleep-"
"The bed," he said.
Hannah furrowed her brow. "So, just being here is enough? I don't have to do anything?"
"What would you do?"
Hannah shrugged under the blanket. "I don't know. Read you a bedtime story?"
Bucky scoffed and started setting up his place on the couch. "Goodnight, Hannah."
"Goodnight, Bucky," she echoed. She made her way to the bedroom, and fell asleep.
Hannah woke up in the middle of the night, and wasn't able to go back to sleep. She lied in the bed, staring at the ceiling. She wanted to go back to her apartment, but she had promised Bucky she would stay. Had he gone to sleep? That was, after all, the reason she had promised. It wouldn't hurt to check, at least.
Hannah slowly got off the bed, and left the room. "Bucky?" she called softly down the hall. On the couch, Bucky was asleep. She took a small sigh of relief. His strange idea had worked. She was about to head back to bed, but something stopped her. She walked closer to Bucky, making sure not to make any noise. Beads of sweat were falling down his face. He may have been sleeping, but the nightmares hadn't stopped. Was she supposed to wake him? He needed to sleep, but nightmares were the reason he didn't want to.
Hannah placed her hand on his shoulder. "Bucky-" Bucky sprung from the couch, his eyes darting everywhere. Hannah fell backwards in surprise. She thought she heard him shout something in another language, but her thoughts were scattered.
"Hey! It's me!" she called. Bucky froze, taking in his surroundings. Satisfied he wasn't in immediate danger, he walked to the other side of the room and rested his hands on the wall. His shoulders moved shakily up and down as he tried to catch his breath.
Hannah stood unsurely. What had just happened? "A-are you okay?" she whispered. The only response was his heavy breathing. Hannah tried to calm her racing heart as she moved cautiously towards Bucky. "I'm sorry...I didn't mean...I didn't know-"
"It's not your fault," he breathed.
"No, it is. I shouldn't have tried to wake you-"
"It helped," he interrupted.
Hannah knit her brow curiously. "That was helping?"
Bucky took his hands off the wall and turned to face her. "Just trust me."
"Just trust me?" Hannah scoffed. "You just went haywire! Who knows what what you could've done?"
"I know!" he slammed his hand against the wall. Hannah took a step backwards. Any harder, and his hand would've gone straight through the wall. He took one look at Hannah and softened. "I'm sorry. It's not you. It's...nothing. You should go back downstairs."
Hannah scoffed. "That's it? Come up here, wake you up in the middle of a nightmare and leave?"
"What else are you going to do?" he snapped.
"I'm going to stay up here until you fall asleep again."
"There's no point in that."
"Maybe not, but I won't be able to sleep if I leave now," she reasoned.
Bucky considered what she had said for a moment. "Fine," he grumbled. He had hardly opened his mouth before Hannah sat down on the couch. "You're not going to the bed?"
"That didn't work last time," she pointed out as she tucked her knees up to her chest. "I'll stay right here."
He slowly moved to the other side of the couch and sat down himself. Hannah rested her head and tried not to stare at Bucky. He was such a confusing puzzle and trying to figure him out, only made it worse. Now the tough, Hydra assassin was being defeated by nightmares. She didn't think she would ever figure that part out. He looked so determined to stay awake, but he didn't have the energy. It still took a while, but eventually, he did lie down and fall asleep.