40 Cold

"Bucky's up there," Steve cried and the color drained out of Natasha's face.

"Oh," she said. "No. He should be at home."

"I know," Steve said and he reached out to bash another attacker in the face, but instead watched a bullet from above sink into his chest. "He's going to-"

"Relapse," Natasha breathed and squeezed her eyes shut for a half a second. "He's going to trigger himself."

Steve shivered as a fierce wind blew and snowflakes began to spiral around him. He hated the cold, he hated it, hated it.

"We have to finish up here fast," Natasha said. "Get to him!"

When the threat began to diminish and finally, it seemed as though he had fulfilled his purpose, the Winter Soldier collapsed against the wall behind him and sunk down to the ground. He touched his hand to his face and found that even though he knew it was freezing, he couldn't feel the cold metal against his numb skin. He was shuddering violently, and he couldn't attribute it all to the cold. He knew Natalia and Steve would be looking for him and suddenly, he didn't quite want to be found yet, not until he could come to himself. He knew tears were running down his face, but he couldn't feel them.

At least Steve was safe. At least they hadn't touched Natalia. He may be cold and he may be scared and he may be a monster, but at the very least, the people he loved were okay. It had all been worth it.

The Winter Soldier could hear people coming for him and he remembered handlers hunting him down and he stood up and looked to the open window and made an escape route in his mind and was gone into the cold before Steve burst into the room, yelling, to find only Bucky's shuffled footprints in the dust.

It was getting darker and darker, but Natasha and Steve searched for Bucky all night. Natasha got them coats from their apartments and Steve wrapped himself up and shivered and Natasha had an extra coat for Bucky over her shoulder, one with two sleeves instead of one. Steve pretended not to see Natasha rubbing tears off her cheeks and Steve felt awful. He couldn't find Bucky, couldn't save him, again, as the snow piled on the ground and Bucky was missing.

He found Bucky eventually, sitting on the ground in some alley, letting snow rest on his shoulders and the top of his head, wrapping his arms around his knees and staring forward blankly. His lips and the tips of his flesh fingers were blue. His rifle sat beside him underneath a sheet of white and Steve fell down next to him.

"Buck, come on," he said quietly and tried to help Bucky stand, but Bucky shook his head slowly and refused, so Steve scooted up close to him and brushed the snow off his body and threw his arms around his shoulders, even though the cold of his left stung Steve's skin. "Why did you follow me? Why didn't you stay home?"

"D-d-d-," Bucky stammered, his voice hoarse.

"Okay, okay, we'll talk about it later, come on, stand up," Steve said and finally, Bucky let himself be led, up to his feet, hobbled back onto the sidewalk underneath the lights were Steve could see ice inside the plates of Bucky's arm again and the tip of his nose looked frostbitten. Steve sucked in a breath and immediately pulled off his coat and wrapped it around Bucky's shoulders because it was clear who needed it more, and he pulled out his phone and speed-dialed Natasha.

"We're a few blocks from the apartments," Steve said and he could hear Natasha let out a breath of relief.

"Na-n-nat-," Bucky said breathlessly and Steve turned to him just in time to see his eyes roll up in his head and his knees give out. Steve leapt forward and caught him and, with a free hand, he quickly hailed a cab and loaded himself and Bucky inside.

At the apartment complex, Steve was able to wake Bucky up just enough to have him climb out of the car and lean against Steve as they hobbled into the building. The warmth was a shock and Steve hugged Bucky close and took him back into his own room where Natasha waited anxiously to help them.

There was blood on the carpet, Bucky noticed, and he saw Natalia pull her pant leg back down over a stab wound she'd stitched herself when he stumbled in, leaning against Steve. His right ankle hurt, in that numb, muted, frozen way. It was probably sprained. He had landed on it wrong after his jump from the window and had been lucky to have sustained only that. But he couldn't feel his fingers or his face and the cold made everything sore.

Bucky heard Natalia insist that Steve rest on the couch and he transferred Bucky into Natalia's hands gently. Bucky stared at the ground and let himself be pushed in one direction to the other. Everything inside him felt a little bit collapsed as Natalia walked him into their room. She was talking to him, gently, quietly. He started trying to pay attention. Everything hurt, inside and outside.

"Okay?" Natalia asked. "Is that okay?"

"What okay," Bucky muttered.

"Your arm is frozen again. We should take it off to help warm you up," Natalia repeated herself and Bucky looked over at his left, stiff and coated in ice, and reached over with shaking, numb fingers to flip the switch on the back of his shoulder and disconnect his frozen arm. Natalia helped him take it off and set it on counter. "Now your shirt," Natalia said and Bucky shook his head.

"Cold," he said. "I'm…"

"I know you're cold," Natalia said. "Which is why I'm going to warm you up. Trust me." He let her push him onto the bed and strip his shirt and jacket off and bundle him up under covers and quilts, and then she did the same and wrapped her bare arms around his chest under the blankets to warm his freezing body. The heat grew and Bucky felt his eyelids grow heavy again as he melted, half-naked and one-armed, into Natalia's embrace.

After a time, Natalia whispered in Bucky's ear and Bucky was just awake enough to hear her.

"How are you feeling?" She said.

"I…," Bucky said hoarsely. "I don't want to… To be that again," he mumbled.

"You're okay, you're okay," Natalia responded. "Why didn't you stay home?"

"And leave you," Bucky said and scoffed. "Leave you."

"You trained me, James," Natalia said. "I can defend myself."

"Steve-,"

"Is superhuman," Natalia interrupted him and nuzzled her face into the freezing back of his neck. "This hurt you."

"I couldn't stay home," Bucky said. I hate myself, he thought.

Steve, it was more than the threat of the yellow suits with the bombs. Bucky had to be there to protect him from himself, to pull him out of the water in case the ice broke under his feet again. In case he broke the ice under his own feet.

Natalia sighed as Bucky began to drift further into sleep.

"I know," she said quietly and squeezed his body tighter against hers.

In the living room, Steve tried to rest, aching, on the couch he'd spent many nights, and no matter how heavy his eyes felt and how he yearned for rest, his entire body was tense and he spent a good portion of the night staring darkly at the ceiling and trying to rub the feeling back into his fingers. Eventually, he fell into restless sleep.

He dreamt that night of ice and Bucky falling out of the open window and when a bomb exploded under him, Steve jerked himself awake and hugged himself, shuddering.