Revelations. For onthedot and oldfashionedhero

[trainwrecked]

Over the last couple of years, most of the dreams had abated, generally. Not like they had been the first months, at any rate.

But the return of the colder weather seemed to make them worse, to the point where Bucky'd taken, recently, to avoid sleeping as much as he could. Quietly and without disturbing Steve or Peggy, he thought.

Predictably, that didn't work for long. Eventually, he simply... nodded off, one late morning, when he was going through the morning press with a dictionary. (The Spanish morning press, thank you very much, he could read English without reference material.)

The dream started ... almost acceptably, with him climbing up a snow-thick slope. He'd had no map, no much reference about his starting point, back then, and his memory was spotty at best. And it hurt, hurt all the time. The missing limb, the cold, the exhaustion, the hunger, but mostly the missing arm. It kept him off-balance, it kept. Just being wrong. Reminding him of all he'd lost. All.

Suddenly, he reached a ledge, sheer rock face dropping down far bellow, right in font of him in the snow. He gasped and stumbled back, falling to his knees in the snow and trying to look-not look-look at the precipice. Creeping closer, despite the vertigo (it had to be vertigo, right? Nothing more?) He would have to go to the other side, to keep moving west, somehow. It felt too much, like even the smallest snowflake was weighing him down until he couldn't contemplate getting up again.

Then, there was crunch of boots in the snow behind him. Familiar boots, he'd woken up on the cot on the ground, looking at those boot, manacled because he'd killed two people when he was first recovered.

"It's no use, you know. No matter how far you get, we'll catch up with you. Maybe you could've run from us before you first fell, but now? Now you're just ours." He could swear he should be able to place the accent, but he hadn't been able to, this far. "Where are you running to, anyway? There was nothing there - nobody who won't spurn you, even if they remember you. They didn't come to even look for you."

He didn't answer. Just grunted, and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. Keep going.

But the voice beside him laughed, clearly amused, not impressed, by his action.

"Oh, now you make our work so much easier. You get to fall again."

And the other man pushed him. As hell, he could ear the voice from above. "Let's see what you lose this time, little soldier. Maybe this time you'll cause so much trouble. Maybe you won't know who you were..."

"No!"

It wasn't even a shout, as Bucky started up from where he'd slumped against the textbook's edge. It wasn't a shout, but it was a croak, full of despair and pain.

He fucking hated nightmares. And falling. And waking up shaking like a leaf, like a weakling.

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[onthedot]

He had barely twitched and the silence was warm and comfortable as they sprawled around the tiny, cramped apartment she had rented for herself in Brooklyn the moment they had returned from the war front. The moment she had known her place was here and not in England and so far away from those she had come to care for desperately. She had brought James with her. Made him really. When she could pull him from Steve's side in those brief weeks before he woke up.

But now they were all here together and while it should have, and frankly could have, been less awkward, there was always that undercurrent of fear of losing one another if anyone left.

Yet, even in the stillness of that morning, Peggy's eyes drifted back to James slumped form where he had fallen asleep over the paper. The idiot likely thought neither she nor Steve had noticed he wasn't sleeping. As if he could honestly hide something like that while staying in close quarters. So seeing him resting now, she was hesitant to rouse him.

Until she noticed the tremor.

Until he started mouthing words.

She rose from her chair and moved to kneel beside him, ready to shake him back into the present, when he did the job for her. Her hand instantly went to his face.

"James," her tone was forceful for all that it was quiet. "Look at me. They can't ever have you. You're safe here with Steve and I."