So this chapter focuses mostly on something I feel like the PJO/HoO books/fandom kind of ignored: Percy's nightmares. With all he's seen, you know the kid has some at some point. So this chapter could get kind of depressing, but there is some happiness.
*It was brought to my attention that I had gotten Percy's origin story wrong, so I fixed it in the previous chapter. I had seen the movie more recently than I had read the first book and the book was in my mom's classroom, so I went off of what I could remember out of the two.*
"So let me get this straight: the old man here has a god for a dad, and you guys have the same dad? And you just uncapped this pen sword thing that is really scaring the crap out of me, by the way. And then Thor said something about this plummet to tartar sauce?" Bucky and Percy laughed so hard at Steve that they couldn't breathe.
"Tartar sauce!" Percy repeated, making the brothers laugh even harder. "Oh gods, that's hilarious."
"So you didn't plummet to tartar sauce? I swear that's what he said too," Sam said.
"Thank you!"
"No, I am not a piece of fish. Tartarus. The deepest depths of the Underworld. I literally stared into the pit of Chaos."
Bucky shuddered. "That's… that's…"
"Harsh," Thor finished. Bucky looked between him and Percy.
"Yeah. Harsh."
•••
After getting familiarized with the story and endeavors of Percy Jackson, nearly everyone's brain was turned to mush. There was just short of a unanimous consensus to go to bed and call it a night, Thor being the only dissenter. He was fascinated by Percy's story, mostly because he was so young and had seen things comparable to Thor himself.
The room that Steve had christened as Bucky's was between Steve's and Nat's rooms. It had a tall ceiling, the walls painted white with a light gray carpet. Bucky was exhausted, but also so happy in the company of what he considered friends that he didn't want to go to bed. He was almost afraid that if he fell asleep, he may wake up and realize that it was all a dream. With as smart of a man as he was, he knew that it was extremely unlikely, but the foolish part of him that had trust issues believed it was a possibility.
He settled into his queen size bed and pulled the navy blue comforter over his shoulders, turning onto his right side and looking out the huge window. He could see what he felt like was the entire city from here, from his little comfort place in the tower. The windows of the skyscrapers were lit up like little stars that had fallen out of the sky.
That's sometimes how he felt.
Like he was a star that had fallen out of the sky, but instead of being one of the ones that became the lit windows he had somehow lost his light in the descent. The descent into the identity of the Winter Soldier had taken away the light he had, the light that James "Bucky" Barnes always carried with him. He had been a kind man for his entire life, if by "entire life" you mean the 28 years before the Winter Soldier. And even as the Winter Soldier, he still had Bucky somewhere in him.
Now he was trying to turn the light back on. The frustrating part of all of it was how fragile the light was. Turning it back on was a process that required care and time, all the little pieces needing to be reassembled in just the right way.
As he looked out on the starlit sky, he made himself a promise: he was going to turn that light back on, become the man he had been all those decades ago. No matter how long it took or what he had to do, he was going to be happy again.
He walked the short distance from his bed to the window seat, wrapping a gray blanket around his bare shoulders. He sat on the marble ledge, leaning against the white wall and pulling the blanket around his waist. The ledge was plenty wide enough for him to sit, with about six inches to spare. He turned his head to stare out the window, watching the cars go by on the street that felt like it was miles below him. He glanced over at the clock on his wall, each quiet tick giving him a small sense of comfort.
Maybe because he was sure of when each one was coming; something that never occurred in his life.
Bucky sighed, realizing the time.
"Happy birthday," he whispered to himself, watching the clock tick a few times after midnight. A small but sad smile spread across his face as he turned back to the window, watching the somewhat organized chaos of the New York City streets.
Bucky had fallen asleep on the window seat, curled up under the blanket and leaning against the wall. He constantly tossed and turned in his sleep, the nightmares making him restless. He jolted awake, breathing hard and sitting up straight. After a moment, he sighed and leaned back against the wall. The feeling of the cold metal dog tags around his neck was oddly a comfort to him; he would take any memory from before the Winter Soldier that he could get. He never wore them during the day, though, because normally he had enough distractions to keep his mind off of things.
He held the tags in his right hand, holding his closed fist up to his chin. He looked out his window, looked out to the early risers walking the sidewalks that looked like specks from his vantage point so high in the tower. The faint orange and pink streaks of a sunrise had begun to make their way onto the horizon, and he knew there was no chance that he was going back to sleep if the sun was already rising. He sighed and left his blanket on the window seat, standing up from his newly discovered comfort place and folding his hands behind his head. He leaned back, taking a deep breath as he stretched his back.
He crept across the room to the door as quietly as he could, careful not to wake anyone else. Bucky opened his door with extreme caution, not sure if there was a creak or a sound that could alert someone that he was leaving his room. When it opened in complete silence, Bucky slipped out of his room and shut the door equally as silently behind him. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his black shorts as he crept to the stairs; he deliberately avoided the elevator, because his first priority was keeping everyone else in this hallway asleep.
He felt like he needed to do everything perfectly, and to him that meant causing no distractions or disturbances in his time here. He was constantly afraid of screwing up, because if he
screwed up then that meant someone was bound to dislike him for it.
He had many experiences with it.
He crept as silently as he could, the hardwood floors cold against his bare feet. He took the stairs three flights down until he came to the kitchen, because he had nowhere else to go. He decided to play the "glass of water" card if anyone else happened to be there at the same time. Even though he knew that no one would buy it, he figured that it was his best bet.
The last person he expected to see, if he expected to see anyone at all, was Percy. But this was who he found, leaning over the island countertop with an untouched glass of water sitting in front of him.
"What are you still doing up?" Percy looked up from his transfixed gaze at the countertop.
"I got thirsty," he said, looking down to the cup of water. He wrapped his hand around it and took a sip, putting it back down and leaving it.
"I was going to say the same thing, but we both know that's not true for either of us. What's on your mind?" Percy put his chin in his hand as Bucky sat in one of the stools on the other side of the island countertop.
"You know how they are. The nights, I mean. You probably do, you know, with all the…" Percy trailed off, not needing or wanting to finish the sentence. He and Bucky had Iris Message conversations about the different experiences they had, and had even begun to talk about it in Wakanda. But so much had happened to both of them since Wakanda, and since cell phones were off limits Iris Messages were the only way to go.
And they were expensive for long conversations.
Bucky looked down at the countertop, tracing the small gray streaks in the marble with his gaze.
"Yeah, that's kind of why I'm down here. The best thing I figured out to do is to just look out the window, because you can think if you want to but you don't have to. You can just watch the world go by, and you don't need to understand it. You just sit back and watch it happen," he said, standing back up to get a glass of water that he wasn't going to drink.
"You seem like you've given it a lot of thought," Percy replied, his eyes following Bucky as he walked to the sink and back.
"I've had a lot to think about, and I needed a good way to do it." Bucky sat back down on the stool across the small countertop from Percy.
Percy stared down into his cup of water, using his powers to make a small whirlpool in the center of the glass. He played absentmindedly with the water in his glass, making it arch up and flow around above the lip of the glass.
"So I'm not the only one that does that," Bucky said with a grin, using his powers to mess with his cup of water.
"I do this all the time, especially at night. I guess I do it because it's something I can control. I can't control what happens while I sleep, what happens in my mind, so I decide to do something I can control," Percy explained, moving his fingers around his glass as he played with the water. Bucky looked up from his cup of water, watching Percy as he absentmindedly manipulated his water.
"Percy… I want to show you something, after we sit here and tell each other why we're here."
•••
Steve normally slept fine, but since he knew that Bucky was next door probably having a horrendous night, he couldn't sleep. He tossed and turned, laid on his back and on his sides, even his stomach. He couldn't help himself from wondering about his best friend, because even if he wouldn't admit it to anyone, he needed Bucky. Because when he had discovered Bucky to be the Winter Soldier, he was able to go back to his childhood and remember. After the ice, he hadn't been able to think about when he was a kid for long before something he thought about reminded him of Bucky. And when he thought of Bucky, he thought of the train. And then he ended up in a state between awake and dreaming as he thought of their best times.
Steve folded his hands behind his head, sitting up and leaning on his headboard.
He finally got up to go check on Bucky, slowly opening his door and looking to see if he was asleep. Steve should've known better; Bucky wasn't going to be in his room if he was having nightmares.
His first thought was to look on the roof, so he walked out of his room and took the stairs up to the roof. As he stepped out onto the concrete roof of AvengersTower, he couldn't help but go to the edge and look out on the NYC streets that were so far below. The cool air hit his chest as he slipped his hands into the pockets of his pants. He had almost forgotten that the entire reason he came up here was to look for Bucky. His eyes scanned the rooftop, looking around for his friend. To his surprise, Bucky was nowhere to be found. He got a confused look on his face and shrugged as he walked back to the elevator door, going to look in the common areas of the tower.
The first place he thought to look was in the living room on the top floor. The elevator doors opened and Steve looked around to the couches, finding all the lights off and no one around. He pushed the button for the kitchen floor, knowing that he probably was going to play the "I was thirsty" card as an excuse for being awake at this hour. Steve glanced to the digital clock that Tony had installed above the floor buttons. It read four-thirty, an obscene time to be awake. But then again, he did enjoy runs in the morning. But not typically this early, not as soon as the sun came up.
He got out of the elevator to see Bucky and Percy sitting in the kitchen, talking and manipulating glasses of water. Just as he suspected, Bucky was trying to play the "I was thirsty" game. There was literally not a person on this Earth that knew Bucky Barnes to at least some extent that would buy that. Everyone knew that he had nightmares and infinite regrets of what he had done, and Steve hated that. He couldn't help but blame himself for what happened to Bucky; if only he had caught his hand on that train…
He stood and watched Bucky and Percy talk for a moment, seeing his best friend able to relate to someone and actually smile a bit. Steve grinned, Bucky's happiness becoming his own. He got into the elevator and went back into his bedroom to check on Bucky's birthday present.
Flashback
HYDRA, 1990
Bucky sat in the cement room that never had enough; enough light, enough heat, enough comfort, enough food. He had lost track of the time he'd been in the room, and at this point it could've been days or even weeks. The time he spent in the room was hard to fill, simply because there was such an abundance of it. Everything he had to his name was in this room, and that added up to just about nothing.
He sat under the "window", if you could even call it that. It was a simple square foot of space cut out of a cement wall, with pieces of iron rebar about three inches apart over the outside. It was about six feet off the ground; even with his eyes, providing a not-so-interesting view of an alley and the brick wall on the other side.
Bucky heard a small sound outside, even over the sound of the street just a few yards away from his little window. He carefully crept over to the gap in the wall, putting his face up to the metal bars to try and get a look outside. He saw nothing, so he sighed and sat back under the window.
A short while later, he heard the sound again. He wasn't sure what it was, just that it was something he had never heard here before. He didn't want to get back up again since he hadn't seen any sign of anything the first time he looked. He saw a shadow over the typical four lines that divided the square vertically. His curiosity got the best of him, and even though he was the Winter Soldier he was surprised to see the white cat standing in the window. It had perched itself on the three-inch thick wall between two iron bars.
Bucky tilted his head, eyeing the cat cautiously. He wasn't sure what to make of this change in his daily routine.
If by routine you meant sitting in a cement block all day.
He walked to the window and put his right hand on the cement next to the cat's feet, carefully touching its leg. The cat meowed at Bucky, almost making him jump and jerk his hand away from the window. He moved his hand to the cat's back, running his hand along the smooth white fur. The cat's tail swayed outside the window as Bucky carefully stroked its back. All of a sudden, the cat stepped onto Bucky's shoulder, making him flinch. But when he realized that the cat wasn't going to hurt him, he relaxed and held the cat carefully. The cat played with the sleeve of Bucky's t-shirt, batting at it with its paws.
"Alpine," Bucky whispered. "That's what I'm going to call you."
Bucky sat in the corner, watching the cat across the room walk in near circles.
As the sunlight in the window changed over to moonlight, Bucky could feel himself drifting off to sleep. He didn't fight it, because he couldn't remember the last time he had slept. He had a thin brown blanket that he always kept neatly folded in the corner of what he called his "room" that he pulled over himself as he laid down on the cold cement floor. Alpine had sauntered over from his area on the other side of the room, looking at Bucky curled up in the corner with curiosity.
The cat laid down beside Bucky, right in front of Bucky's hands that rested in front of his chest as he slept. In his sleep, Bucky's hands curled around the cat and pulled it under the blanket with him.
End Flashback
Bucky had told Steve the story of how he had found a cat in one of the HYDRA bases he was in, and how he had befriended it. When Bucky told the story, he always included how it had made him remember. Little things, like how Steve had put newspapers in new shoes if they were a bit too big.
Hence Steve's inspiration for adopting Bucky a white cat for his birthday.
Steve opened the crate he kept the cat in when he left the room, careful not to knock the food or water dish over with the wire door. The cat walked toward Steve's hand, Steve rubbing the cat's head gently between his ears.
Steve finally laid back down in bed, pulling the comforter up to his shoulders and falling asleep.
•••
"Bucky. Bucky. Happy birthday, man."
So yes, if you've ever read the marvel comics or know of them, the cat was a reference to the actual Alpine in the comics. I thought it would be a little bit of happiness in this depression pit of a chapter… :)