Cold.

He was so cold. And yet he was warm at the same time, sunlight on his face and flashing into his eyes from where it reflected off of the metal and glass surrounding him. He shivered even as sweat rolled down his forehead, over his temples, and dripping off of the point of his chin.

Rain.

It was raining, even though there was sunlight. A sun shower? No… no, it was mist rising up from the ocean surrounding—

Surrounding his Jaeger.

Why was there sunlight and misting water inside his Conn-Pod?

He looked to the left, startled to see a gaping hole taking up nearly two thirds of the Conn-Pod—how had he missed that?—with wires dangling everywhere, shorn off, sparks flying, hydraulic fluid dripping and then being washed away by the accumulating mist.

What? What was going—

Bucky.

Bucky was…

And that's when he knew he was dreaming. That's when Steve Rogers knew that he was in the grips of an oh so familiar nightmare; one that wouldn't leave him alone for the life of him, and which he could never seem to escape, no matter how hard he tried.

Bucky was gone, he was dead, and Steve had to relive it constantly.

One would think that once he recognized this nightmare as exactly that, that he'd be able to pull himself out of it with a simple thought—it was something that his mother had always told him as a child, and for some it seemed to work.

One would also think that since he was so successful within the Drift, so successful at maintaining contact with his partner, with not chasing the R.A.B.I.T., that even in sleep he would be able to remove his mind from any nightmare it wished to. That he could sleep dream- and nightmare-free as often as he wished.

Hah. No.

Just because he could ride the Drift as easy as he could breathe, just because he had trained in it for years, trained his mind to obey him, didn't mean he was more capable of escaping a nightmare than he'd ever been. In fact… Steve thought that perhaps the Drift—being able to Drift—was what was keeping him trapped here. That the vivid memory recall of the neural handshake and subsequent long periods of Drifting together in your partner's mind, memories, and thoughts was what made it easier for his mind to dream so vividly, and to trap him within.

Whereas before dreams and nightmares has been easy for his enhanced body to recall, now they were vivid… a curse. Something inescapable, where before he'd been able to set aside the memories and dreams if he so wished.

But now he didn't think he'd ever be able to escape.

Now he was forced to endure watching his best friend, the man who had been on the verge of becoming more to him… now he had to watch his best friend die, night after night, in vivid detail, every single piece in place, just as it had played out that fateful day.

At least this time he'd become aware of being trapped in a dream after the fall itself—not like he couldn't remember every detail of the event explicitly, in any event. Fuck, could he remember it. The feeling of helplessness as Bucky's gloved hand began to slip from where it was gripped around his wrist, as it slid lower and lower until finally they were holding on just by each other's fingertips, desperately trying to grab more of a hold on each other…

Steve had been the only mooring available to Bucky, everything else ripped out of the Jaeger's Conn-Pod by the Kaiju, and Steve… Steve had failed.

Bucky's eyes… he would never forget the look in those eyes as their fingers touched for the last time—through fucking gloves, for Christ's sake!

The look had been filled with understanding, bravery, and… and forgiveness.

Forgiveness that Steve didn't deserve, because Steve. had. failed.

The worst part?

The worst part was that Bucky hadn't made a fucking sound as he fell.

All Steve had been able to hear, all he could hear now in this dreamscape, was the breaking of the waves against the metal of their Jaeger and the slight hissing of broken pipes and lines surrounding him. Surrounding where Bucky was supposed to be.

A scream torn from the throat of the injured Kaiju doing battle with another Jaeger in Brooklyn Howler's place filled Steve's awareness with both dread and relief. Because what came next… what came next was Bucky's death, magnified and amplified and shared through the Drift connection they'd shared at the time.

The Drift connection Steve swore he could still feel something of.

Within moments, his whole body seized, and a feeling as if he were being torn apart, atom by atom, consumed him.

There was no more time for thinking.

There was only death.

Steve woke with a scream clenched within his jaw. He'd learned that even his subconscious mind refused to let voice to his torment where others could hear him. Even within the confines of his rather large room, he knew that others would be able to hear through the walls that were just thin enough for louder sounds to be heard by the multitudes traversing nearly every hall of the Shatterdome, at all hours of the day and night. He'd learned to be careful with his grief.

He'd shared enough of Bucky's death with the public as it were… he didn't need to share the constant and recurring nightmares with the whole world as well. The entirety of LOCCENT had heard his death, the cameras had captured it from within the Conn-Pod and without, the entire Dome knew before he'd even arrived back to medical, and the entire world within the next half hour. And then there was the public funeral, the memorial, the near-constant interviews and talk shows and articles and letters in the mail and op-eds and the official investigation and review conducted by the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps and just… too much. They had taken too much of his Bucky.

No, they couldn't have anything more of him. Whatever was left was Steve's. The small, small part of him that was left within his mind, nothing else, not even a body to go vis—

"Fuck!" Steve shouted, throwing his blankets off and throwing himself from off of his bed, dressed in the same clothes as he'd come in with last night. Sweat dripped off his brow and flicked from the tips of his hair as he shook on the ground on his hands and knees, trying his best to get his breathing back under control.

He'd been recalled from his mission a whole day and night earlier than expected—they'd still had time left on the Breach Event countdown, but apparently there was someone arriving whom the Directorship had wanted him to meet. Someone who had changed their arrival date at the last moment. The Directorship had given no other info than that, but obviously the person was important if they were calling him back to personally meet with. His mission wasn't an especially important one, but the mere fact that he'd had to leave Natasha and Clint behind to complete the remainder of the mission on their own was something rather… unusual. Outside the norm.

Something to be wary of.

So he'd arrived late last night—Sam having been sent to get him quickly back to the Dome, so at least it was a pleasant trip home with someone who actually treated him like a human and not a goddamn legend even after seven years working alongside him—and had then promptly fallen asleep, tac gear and all. Even his shield hadn't made it to its stand. It was nestled between his bed and the end table where it must have fallen from his grip after he'd thrown himself in bed, but at least he could concentrate on the familiar red, white, and blue pattern to help calm his mind.

Perhaps the clothes he'd been wearing—similar in many ways to the suit he wore in the Jaeger's Conn-Pod—had been what had set off his nightmare… who was he kidding? He'd never been able to piece together a pattern as to what made his nightmares worse or better or disappear at all. They came whenever they wished, lasted however long they wished, and hurt him just as much as they wished.

He'd stopped trying to vie for control of them long ago, accepting them in some way—yes, knowing that was quite fucked up, thank you very much—as his due for letting Bucky die. For letting him fall from his grasp into the heaving depths of the ocean.

Sighing, Steve set the last dregs of the memories, the nightmare, aside—suppressing the guilt at how much more quickly he was able to be rid of them these days than in the past—and started to move on with his day.

There was no sense in dwelling on something he couldn't change.

At least, that's what the therapist had told him… when he'd gone. He hadn't gone back a single time after the psychologist cleared him for active duty once more. It was his choice. He was fine.

He ignored the voice that was clear as day inside his mind, the one that sounded just like Bucky did inside the Drift, telling him he was being an absolute idiot.

Shoving that aside as well, Steve went about his day. Or, at least, as much of his normal day as he could get before he was called to his meeting.

He gave his shield a brief brush of his fingers, and then rose to his feet.

It wasn't quite 0500 but he shucked his grimy clothes with gritted teeth, stepping into the shower and dialing it as hot as he could stand it—anything to get rid of the chill of the Arctic from two separate occasions—and thanking God once again for whoever's brilliant idea it was to set them up with as much green technology and systems as they could, years before the private market had really even started to turn that way. Geo-thermal heating, cold water dispersion and filtering from the cold ocean around them, even one of Howard's industrial arc reactors—the only one being used outside of a Stark Industries factory, at least at the time—and a number of other systems that he still didn't quite know the names for. It hadn't exactly been at the top of his list of priorities.

All that mattered was that he could have as many endless hot showers as he wanted. An absolute luxury, especially for times like these.

Forty minutes later he had washed, shaved, combed his hair, and put on his uniform—not something he normally wore, but apparently this was an important meeting, and he'd likely not have any time to run back and change out of his daily wear if things went like they did with being recalled early from his mission. He let himself out of his room and locked the thick metal door behind him, then made his way to the mess hall to grab a quick bite to eat. Earlier than usual for him, but he was foregoing his normal crack-of-dawn run and workout for whoever this bigshot was. Wouldn't do to make a poor, sweaty impression, now would it?

He nodded hello to Darcy and Loki where they were sitting at a table just inside the entrance to the mess. They had their heads pressed close together, murmuring quietly to each other, and he raised a brow at them as he came to a halt moments after Darcy waved him over. Loki sat back, expressionless as was his wont, but Darcy was all mischievous smiles and way too much cheer for her usual at this time of the morning.

He'd have to keep an eye out for trouble, it would seem, he thought with a surprising flash of good humor.

"Hey Steve, we weren't expecting to see you until tomorrow afternoon. Mission go alright?" Darcy greeted him, even as Loki only nodded at him. Her brows drew down and she darted a glance behind him, obviously looking for Natasha and Clint. "Are Nat and the birdbrain doing okay?"

Steve smiled at her. Her concern for everyone she saw as 'hers' was always quite touching, at least to him. "Yeah Darce, they're good. I just got called back early to talk to somebody with the Directorship—"

"One Anthony Edward Stark, I presume?" Loki drawled.

"I—" Steve paused for a moment. "I don't know. They didn't say. Why would you think it's him?"

Loki gave one of his grins that reminded everyone, including Steve, way too much of a shark. "Well, the shipping containers which are keyed to his own personal codes are one indicator."

"Loki!" Darcy gasped, and Steve wasn't quite sure if she was pretending her shock or not. Sometimes it was really hard to tell with the woman as she had a penchant for the theatrical. "Don't tell me you… oh come on." Steve thought she looked far too diabolical as she grinned at Loki.

"Fine, I won't tell you." The Asgardian looked entirely too smug.

Steve sighed. He interjected before they could get lost in an increasingly convoluted series of plans for mayhem, "Tony Stark is here?"

"Not yet, I don't think." Darcy shot a look at Loki, who gave a brief shake of his head. "But my little birds told me he's due any time today, tomorrow at the latest."

"You have been watching far too much Game of Thrones, Ms. Lewis," Loki said in that silky voice Steve had come to associate with him and teasing.

"Oh come on, surely you of all people approve," Darcy shot back. And before Steve could ask any more questions about their incoming visitor or any other Dome news from the last few days, they were bickering about the finer merits of Baelish and Varys.

Steve rather disliked the both of them. Actually, he disliked pretty much every single character still alive on the show Thor made him watch each year.

What a depressing show.

Speaking of depressing… Steve realized that there was no one else to eat breakfast with—those two were out since he didn't particularly feel like joining in any Game of Thrones debates this early in the morning… or ever again, really, if last year's nearly all-out war over the rights and wrongs of Daenerys were any indication. With the queasiness of his nightmare weighing on him, and feeling a little thrown off his normal routine anyway, Steve grabbed an apple and a bran muffin and then wandered off towards LOCCENT, dodging easily and without thought through the throng that was starting to increase in density as the morning bore on.

Perhaps he could slip down to see Loki whip the new pilot cadets into shape at 0700. That was always a hoot.

Throwing himself into paperwork, Steve nearly forgot the entire topic of Tony Stark—it's not like he wasn't important, just… not to him, not really—until the very man in question's voice caught Steve's attention, telling them that he was coming in to land. Telling, not requesting, like any other aircraft had to do, or risk being shot out of the sky.

Steve grimaced, and realized that that pretty much confirmed the sinking feeling that he'd been working himself towards in his subconscious, which was that his meeting today with the Directorship and an unknown person of importance… was with Tony Stark himself, owner and head of R&D for Stark Industries, both national and international branches.

It wasn't like he disliked the guy… not truly. He knew that some of the things Howard had said about his son before the former's death four years ago were to be taken with a grain of salt, and the same with the rumors and reports and the media speculation surrounding the man. He knew that. He'd never met the man in person, always missing him by a narrow margin, and Steve's ma had always taught him not to let others form his opinion of a person… but for that much to be reported, to be spoken about, to be gossiped about… it had to be true, didn't it? Some of it, at least.

And then the whole Iron Man thing. Gallivanting around the world like a vigilante, as if it were some grand joke to him, everything he was doing. Everyone he was killing. Sure, all in the name of good, all in the name of counterterrorism, all in the name of clearing the world of Stark Industries' corruption… corruption which had gone on under his nose. Corruption he should have been aware of.

He…

He really should shut the hell up and treat the man with at least a modicum of respect, and let their interactions be what he based his opinions of the man on. And if that didn't sound like a freakish mix of all three of Bucky's, ma's, and Thor's voices inside his head, he didn't know what did.

Christ. If only he was capable of being driven to drink.

When Maria caught his eye from across the room, standing in the large entranceway which acted as the gateway in and out of LOCCENT, Steve tried his best to do three things. He tried to center himself, put on his best face, and straighten his uniform as he crossed the room in long, confident strides to join the woman in a silent trek through the halls.

Moments after settling into his seat with a glass of water, the door opened just in front of the guest of the hour, and the first two of his three resolutions flew right out the window after the first four words out of the inventor's mouth.

"What. The. Fuck, Fury?"