Yesterday marks 3 years since Endgame came out. I remember feeling back then like the MCU was good as done, but look where we are now! Also I feel so old.

Chapter 30: Out of the Darkness

A month passed. Bucky did not suffer from any of the nightmares among those he'd rewritten. But the ones he was putting off only got worse. He dreamed progressively more twisted, horrible versions of each of them. It got so bad that he opened his dream journal to try and rewrite them before his next appointment with Dr. Raynor, but once he put pen to paper all that came out were scribbles. Just thinking about the way those dreams ended made his hand shake.

Needless to say, he was looking forward to therapy.

Bucky relayed all of that to Dr. Raynor with complete honesty. She expressed her sympathies for his sleepless nights, but encouraged him that image rehearsal should help alleviate these nightmares the same as it did for the others. However, she agreed that alternate endings would be harder to internalize because, while it was much more peaceful in real life, Steve dying was a vivid memory, and therefore more difficult to replace.

"Talk me through the dream."

Bucky didn't even know where to begin. He'd decided today to tackle the more difficult of the two that continuously plagued him; the one where he was trapped in darkness while his friends begged for his help. His fingers tapped out a helpless rhythm where they rested on his knee.

"The top drawer of that table is full of fidget toys if you want one," Dr. Raynor pointed out.

How had he been seeing her this long without knowing that? Bucky opened the drawer and grabbed a bright red stress ball. His grip strength was so immense that it barely provided enough resistance to calm him so he grabbed a fidget cube instead, hoping he didn't end up breaking it but accepting that as a possibility.

"Everything's dark," he began. "Like…unnaturally dark. It always starts with Steve screaming my name."

His thumb worked the buttons on the side of the cube. Some of them clicked when he pressed them and some of them didn't. He preferred the clicking ones. Bucky took a deep breath and continued. "I would've gone to him immediately, but I'm stuck. There's this band holding me belly down on the floor. It's so tight it hurts. I try to claw my way out and my fingers scrape against the floor and bleed."

"Slow down, take deep breaths," Dr. Raynor encouraged.

Bucky hadn't even realized how close he was to breaking the joystick off the fidget cube. He took a deep breath and his chest loosened.

"None of that is real. We're going to create another story together, and that's the real one."

"Yeah, okay. It gets worse. More people pop up in the darkness around me. People that I know are dead. My other friends Clint and Carol. Mr. Nakajima's son RJ. They're all begging me to help them, and Steve starts coughing up blood," Bucky clenched the entire cube in his fist and forced another deep breath. "There's this growling sound, like a monster or something, but it's coming from everywhere, and they all get pulled farther away from me. They're screaming, and I'm screaming back that I want to help but I can't and my hands hurt from scraping the ground—everything hurts, really. When I finally get free it hurts even more, and I run to Steve first, but he's already dead. There's blood on his face and blood in his hair from my hands. I know I should try to help the others because they're still screaming for me but I can't tear myself away from him." Bucky wondered if he ran to help Carol or Clint or RJ if they'd die just before he got there. Probably, knowing his subconscious. "That's all," he concluded morosely.

Dr. Raynor nodded. "Okay."

"Now you get why I was putting this one off, huh?"

"Yes. What you just described sounds like a terrible dream."

"It is."

"How many times have you experienced it?"

"That one? Probably eight, ten times. It varies on how long I listen to them scream before I manage to escape."

"Okay. Let's go through this and change it up."

"I don't even know where you could redirect this one," Bucky scoffed. "It starts off terrifying."

"I've seen what you can do. You'll find a way."

"Okay…" Bucky sighed. There was no turning point in the dream that he could pinpoint. He sat there, silent but for the clicking of the fidget cube, for an entire minute before Dr. Raynor interrupted.

"Maybe it would be a good idea to start at the end. Come up with a happy ending, and then we'll figure out how to get there."

"Okay. First of all, none of them die. But that's…unrealistic."

"Dreams don't have to be realistic."

"Okay. Happy ending, happy ending…" Bucky strived for any idea. "What if…it just never happened in the first place."

"Oh come on, you can do better than that."

Bucky shook his head. "I don't think I can."

"Yes you can."

"Um…I want it to end with a hug. A really good one."

"Excellent. Who's hugging who? You said there are four people plus yourself in this dream."

"Whoever misses them the most."

"Okay. So we know they have to enter the dream at some point, and you have to be freed so you can hug back. How does it happen?"

Bucky ran his thumb over the ball bearing in the cube. Then he blurted out, "Natasha." She was the one to get him through the first few months after Steve. If anyone could pop into this dream and banish whatever dark monster was hurting his friends, it was her.

"Okay. So Natasha shows up, and…"

"She kills the monster. Whatever it was that was growling. And now it's light. Then, I guess, she cuts me free. And then I hug Steve."

"That sounds like a really good dream to me. And to Natasha as well, I'm sure."

Bucky managed a wry chuckle. He had no intention of ever telling her that he used her as a deus ex machina in his nightmare therapy. That would go straight to her ego. Dr. Raynor then made him talk through this version of the dream again, adding even more sensory details. His homework was to write it down in his journal and rehearse it once a day. Bucky really hoped this one worked.

~0~

Nick's boss chose him to represent SHIELD at a meeting with a team at Hydra Pharmaceuticals. The two companies were competitors, but still occasionally met to discuss business. He was thrilled to be selected, because it meant he was most likely first in line for the next promotion to become available. He was less thrilled, however, when he discovered that Hydra headquarters was barely ADA compliant.

Nick arrived thirty minutes early in case he had navigation troubles, his standard whenever he ventured into a new building. Thirty minutes was usually more than enough. He didn't account for the building's hallways to twist and turn like Daedalus's labyrinth, and for the Braille on the signs to be so shallow it was barely legible. Nick took the elevator to what he thought was the correct floor, only for none of the signs outside the rooms to match the floor number he thought he was on. He found a different elevator and pressed the button in that one labeled for his floor. This time, he was fairly certain he was getting warmer because the signs now matched the floor number.

Nick heard no footsteps in any of the hallways, and his cane touched nothing but walls and potted plants. He could hear voices from behind the many doors, but nobody offered to help him. Not that he would have accepted it even if they offered, not yet. His watch told him he still had ten minutes. Nick headed down a hallway—one of four branching off of the same central area. The numbers headed in the right direction, but he reached a dead end before he found his meeting room. "Fuck," Nick muttered. He couldn't help but wonder if this would've been easier with a dog. It at least would have made it more obvious that he was disabled to any person who happened to see him.

He turned around and headed back to the intersection, double checking all the signs along the hallway just in case he misread it. Nick checked the hall to the right. Another dead end. And a loose snag of carpet that his cane missed and he subsequently tripped over. Finally, he checked the last hallway he hadn't yet explored and found the right number. He heard voices coming from inside, so he poked his head into the room and asked if he was in the right place.

"Yes. You're Nicholas Fury, yes?" a man's voice asked.

"Yes."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Jasper Sitwell."

No fucking way. Nick recognized that name; this guy used to bully Steve and Bucky. Now he was working in the pharmaceutical industry. Small world.

Jasper Sitwell cleared his throat expectantly.

"Where would you like me to sit?" Nick asked.

"Oh. Right there is fine."

Nick assumed he was pointing. That was not helpful in the least. Did the white cane and sunglasses not give it away? Nick wasn't about to wander through the room bopping shoes with his cane until he found an empty chair. Fortunately, another voice spoke up, "Right next to me. I can show you."

Nick started towards the voice and extended his free hand. The person was smart enough to take the cue and guided his hand to rest on the back of the empty chair. From there, Nick easily took his seat, folded up his cane, and turned to face the table. He took off his sunglasses because he didn't think that looked very professional.

"Okay. Let's begin."

Despite his earlier challenges, Nick handled the meeting with, in his opinion, composed professionalism. He spoke clearly, not a mumble nor a stumble, and the people around the table seemed very receptive to what he had to say. Except Jasper Sitwell. Nick knew the guy must be an asshole for the way he treated Steve and Bucky as kids, but he'd hoped he'd grown out of it at least a little bit. He talked down to Nick, and he spent the entire meeting resisting the urge to bite back.

Ultimately, Sitwell's complete ignorance for Nick's blindness turned out to be just a little bit funny. He definitely didn't understand that Nick's hearing was just fine when he had a somewhat hushed, one-sided conversation in the corner after the meeting adjourned.

"SHIELD should be embarrassed. He didn't even shake my hand, how rude is that?"

Nick had no idea the man had ever extended his hand to shake.

"I sat right across from him the entire meeting, and he never once made eye contact with me when he spoke."

The person Sitwell was ranting to spoke up. Nick recognized the voice as the person who had actually helped him find a seat. "Jasper, Mr. Fury is blind. He can't make eye contact, and he probably didn't see your hand to shake. You didn't tell him you wanted to shake hands."

Nick could picture the dumbfounded look on his face. Honestly, the stupidity of some people amazed him. Once he heard Sitwell walk away, muttering to himself, he approached the other person. "Excuse me. I couldn't help but overhear; thank you for speaking up for me."

"You're welcome. Sorry about Mr. Sitwell. I honestly don't know why no one's filed an HR complaint against him yet."

"You could be the first," he said seriously.

"Maybe."

"While you're at it, the Braille on a lot of the signs in this building is nearly impossible to read. I ended up on the completely wrong floor."

"I'm so sorry. Yeah, I'll definitely talk to somebody about that."

"Thank you."

He'd better get that promotion after this debacle. When Nick got home that evening, he called Bucky to tell him about the reappearance of his old foe.

"You're serious? Jasper Sitwell? Are you sure it was the same guy?"

"Well I don't know what he looks like and even if I did it wouldn't make a difference. It's a weird enough name that I'm pretty sure it's him."

"Certainly sounds like him," Bucky scoffed. "What a dick."

"No kidding. I wouldn't make eye contact with him even if I could."

Bucky laughed so hard Nick had to pull the phone away from his ear.

"Ableist assholes are my favorite breed of asshole."

"Yep. Gotta love an ableist asshole. Do you ever get that thing where people force their help on you? Like they can't believe you can possible do things yourself?"

"Oh yeah. It's fucking annoying."

"The one arm works just fine, thank you very much. I don't want your hands all over my stuff."

"Most sighted people can't fathom simple daily tasks being done in the dark."

"As a sighted person, I can assure you that's true."

"There's nothing you can't get good at when you're forced to practice it for years."

"That's what my therapist told me about grieving."