Hey so hope you all enjoy this. I know it's ben a long time. Thanks to all my reviewers and followers!
Disclaimer: I do not own Captain America.
Nightmares woke him. He shot straight up screaming and then just as suddenly clamped his mouth shut so that the sound wouldn't draw attention to him. Yet still he panicked, fighting his way through the layers of dream and disorientation back to reality. When he finally succeeded he sat on the floor of the warehouse gasping with his muscles alternately contracting and relaxing. He searched through his ragged and raw mind looking for an answer to what had just happened. Nightmares. The word surfaced from somewhere deep in his mind. He hadn't had nightmares in years. There were no nightmares in cryo, no dreaming. There was a faint indication in his brain that this had happened before, when he had woken up for other missions but the memories were behind years and years of wiping and reconditioning. Years of pain. There were memories of nightmares before those years though. Years when he had woken up in a tent gasping and sweat soaked. He shook his head. He couldn't deal with either of these sets of memories right now. He had had a nightmare. That was it. He lay back down and tried to go back to sleep.
Sleep was hard to come. His body needed it, required it but his mind would not quiet. It didn't want to go to sleep and be vulnerable against itself. He needed no more pain, no more fear, yet it was fear and vulnerability which kept him awake. So fruitlessly he lay with his eyes closed and wrestled against himself. Exhaustion finally claimed him as her prisoner and sleep chained him to her will.
When he awoke hours later, it was worse than the first time he had awoken. There were no nightmares this time. There seemed to be nothing. His brain cycled through information, data, trying to establish where he was, why he was here, what was the protocol he was required to follow in this scenario. But he came up blank because something was wrong and because of that instinct, none of the protocols fit. He was frustrated and, not afraid, merely resigned to his fate if he did not perform as he should. But his brain was short-circuiting between things. Between going to Hydra and knowing that he couldn't, between waiting for orders and knowing that no more would be coming save those from himself, between wanting to kill, to finish a mission to knowing that the mission was aborted, to remembering the man on the bridge, to remembering the man on the helicarrier, to remembering his words, to feeling like his world shattered all over again and none of the pieces fit quite right, to wanting to scream, to go back yet fighting to stay.
Numbness. It is a blessed relief when he remembers it. When it floods through him. Mission. His missions now. He had completed his first set. Next mission. He could be numb until the missions finished. The missions must not finish, not right now, perhaps not for days. He has had medical attention, food, sleep. He needs food once more and his wounds need checking on to ensure they healed properly. He can do that. They are his next missions. He sits up properly and begins them. There is not much thought in between that is not connected to the missions.
R&R Please!