"Come here," With almost no effort whatsoever, he pulled her to his side, his fingers brushing across the bare flesh of her side as her shirt rode up.
"I didn't know this was part of the deal," She mumbled, hoping he couldn't see how red her face had gotten. He chuckled and she could feel it rumble through his chest.
"Of course. I want you to be comfortable," Well...she was. Externally. Internally she was a train wreck of emotions and buried primal urges.
Soon, Thor's breathing evened out and she took comfort in knowing he was asleep. For a second she considered trying to break free of his grasp and put a little distance between them. Instead, slowly as not to wake him, she slipped her leg over his and fitted herself against him. She had never slept with someone like this before and it was pure bliss.
Unfortunately, that bliss was doomed. Despite her comfort, she slept restlessly that night. She tossed and turned, soon gone from Thor's side once she was unconscious. Something black and poisonous prodded her mind and terrorized her thoughts. After being trapped in the nightmare for what felt like an eternity, Nina finally awoke, breath heavy and a thin film of sweat coating her skin. Once conscious she recognized the darkness immediately. It was Bucky's.
The thought of falling into that again was enough to deter her from sleep. Carefully, she got out of bed and snuck out of the room. She didn't know where she was going or what she intended to do. She simply let her feet guide her. They took her down a story and into the living area and kitchen, where she figured she would get a glass of water and sit in silence for a while.
To her surprise, she wasn't alone.
"Hey," Bucky raised his eyes, just as surprised to see her as she was to see him. She felt exposed under his icy gaze, like he knew she had been thinking about him.
"Hey," Bucky said back, setting his half full glass down on the marble counter top.
"I wasn't expecting anyone to be up," She said, walking into the kitchen and getting a glass for herself.
Bucky shrugged. "I don't sleep much," Nina didn't find that very surprising, all things considered.
"I haven't been either, but I blame Steve for that," She leaned next to him, both facing out into the living area at the couch and black TV screen. There was something about empty, open spaces that Nina had always found comforting. She found herself dreaming about them with an unusual frequency, now that she thought about it.
"What was it this time? Your new roommate?" Bucky suggested, almost sounding a little sarcastic.
"No," Nina let out a breath. She was embarrassed by the whole situation and didn't really want to discuss it. "I had a nightmare and figured I would clear my head," That was something Bucky could relate to. More often than not, that was why he was up there by himself in the middle of the night.
"What was it about?" She hadn't expected him to ask. He hadn't either actually. The words came tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them.
"You," Nina didn't look at him, but could feel his eyes as he turned them on her. Instead, she traced the veins of gray in the counter top with her finger.
Bucky's jaw flexed as he withdrew his gaze. He hadn't forgotten about her trip through the hellscape that was his mind, but he had tried. If nothing else, he hoped the effect it had on her was temporary. Now that he knew he was haunting her dreams, there was no hope left to have.
The two of them sat in silence, neither knowing what to say to the other. Nina was starting to wish she had stayed in bed. The kitchen wasn't any less full of dread and tension than her bedroom was. She felt herself deflating. If things could just be okay for more than a few hours…
Nina's thoughts were interrupted by the loudest sound she had ever heard coming from somewhere outside. She and Bucky both jumped, their eyes snapping up to the wall of windows to their left. An orange and red ball of fire was curling into the air, lighting everything around it as if it were the sun. Bucky ran to the widows, trying to calculate what had just happened and where. At the same time, alarms started going off within the building itself.