Chapter Text
I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream...
- Lana Del Rey, patron saint of angsty fanfic compliant music
It was hard to go to sleep that first night after the serum had reconstructed his body. He had muscles which bulged in strange places, extra height, nothing at all familiar. Steve had always slept on his side before, usually curled around a pillow (or maybe the arm of a friend, once upon a time). Now nothing felt right except to lie flat on his back on a firm surface, which just felt plain strange in itself.
That was the first night he dreamed in such vivid and clear tones he woke up gasping and shivering in shock. He'd been standing witness to the world as it burned, men and women and children fleeing through cities bursting with fire, and he'd ran to try and help and got nowhere. He'd found himself inside a complex of dungeons and tunnels where the flames licked around the walls, and kept running. He'd come to a central room in the complex, a glowing square floating at its centre like a power source, the heavy sound of opera - Wagner - pounding into the air, where the dark silhoette of a man in uniform was standing at the edge, watching the world burn through the windows, arms behind his back.
The heat felt clammy and real, though he thankfully wasn't burning, just felt it on his skin like an unwanted touch. As he drew near, the man snapped around and Steve lurched back at the sight of a grinning red skull face, smothered in flames. He grinned at him and began to laugh, wildly, madness infused in the sound.
"Ve won!" the creature proclaimed in a German accent, and laughed more as it stomped towards him, red hands outspread.
Steve had backed up, afraid, not knowing what to do, and he woke up with his ears still ringing from the sound of that terrible laughter.
It would be some time before he came to understand the meaning of that dream, and the ones which followed it. They were fairly sporadic but every time he found his way into that searing hot complex from the burning streets, where people were dying and he was powerless to help, he would wake with his skin crawling with disgust at that disfigured red face. He always felt trapped in those dreams, pulled unwillingly into a madness he could barely comprehend. They made him feel out of control and nauseous and Steve would have to run for hours to get those images, all that fire, out of his mind.
The dreams plagued him for almost a year while he was on the circuit, persuading the American public to buy bonds and help the war effort. Sometimes the man with the burning red skull for a face would tell him to leave, that he was intruding, and sometimes he would throw his words around about being the pinacle of mankind and destined to rule the world. One one occasion, Steve tried to punch him and missed. In the moment of distraction, the man threw him out of the window and he'd fallen through a vortex of fire and blood that made him actually vomit when he woke up.
One night, as he stumbled through the flames and headed into the building where the burning skull man stalked, he heard something new. He could hear screams echoing from somewhere on the other side of the building. Something clenched inside him immediately because, unlike the dim echoes of people in the streets who were in caught in the hellfire flames of this place, he knew this voice better than he knew his own. And all he could think was, "Bucky? Bucky? Where are you? Bucky?", as he ran, searching and searching.
That was how Steve finally found a haven from the flames that had taken over his nighttime thoughts; a door which led him into their old apartment in Brooklyn. It was the first place he'd come to where the fire was being kept at bay. The frightening screams had diminished to soft and painful whimpers by this time, and he didn't pause to admire the detail of the happily remembered living room that he had unexpectedly discovered on the periphery of his nightmares. He knew at once that the sounds were coming from the bedroom and he was at the door in a second, trying the knob, trying to open it.
"Bucky?" he yelled, and banged on it. "Come on buddy, talk to me. Bucky?"
There was no answer and the door would not be budged.
If he pressed his head against it, listening, he could hear faint voices speaking, not clear enough to hear the words but with the sharp toned edges of a German accent more than apparent to him. Then something started to buzz, like a drill, and the screams overwhelmed him.
Steve woke up in a full body sweat, shaking from head to toe. There had been no way to contact Bucky since his division of the 107th were sent to England for hardcore training with the SAS. He'd wanted to write to him, about the whole Captain America thing, but what could he say anyway? He'd spent months talking Bucky's ear off about enlisting, trying to join up and failing, and then made it into the Army only to get shipped out to perform on stage. Important work, sure, but not what he wanted to be doing.
On those nights when he found himself trapped in those lucid dreams, he only found his way back to that room a handful of times. The twisting complex where the burning skull man lived was vast and labyrinthine after all. When he did, he could never break into Bucky's room, so he tended to sit outside it, talking through the door, trying to find out what was wrong, telling him how much he missed him. Every now and then, he would be rewarded with a pathetic whimper of a 'Steve?' and when he woke up, he would feel like an invisible hook was tearing into his chest, pulling him to somewhere unknown. He hoped the real Bucky was alright wherever he was, though he mostly tried not to think about it.
Then came the fatal day in Italy when Peggy Carter informed him that the 107th Infantry had been captured by the Nazis and he'd thrown everything away for the chance to save Bucky. He had been more than ready to walk through the thirty miles of enemy territory separating him from his friend without any second thought. He would have done it barefoot, over broken glass, if it meant seeing his friend's face again; the news of Bucky's capture and possible death was a gut punch that brought a lot of feelings to the surface.
Steve had always known it was a possibility that he wouldn't ever see him again, that the final hug they'd shared as Bucky headed out to be shipped off for England could be the last. In finding his way into the army soon afterwards thanks to the intervention of Dr Erskine, he'd reconcilled that, even though he hadn't made it into the 107th - not for lack of trying, lying no less than four times during the enlistment tests about his father being on the 107th and dying heroically - he too was heading to the front line so he was in as much danger as Bucky. Then, on being signed up as a 'showgirl', as Captain Phillips would one day dub him, he never had the words to try and explain it to Bucky, that he was safe and warm on the circuit, surrounded by the sort of beautiful women Bucky would have liked, while his friend crawled through trenches and lived from day to day on the front lines, risking his life for his country. No matter how many times he was told that he was inspiring the nation to contribute to the war effort and making a bigger difference than any one soldier, it never really rang true to him. He felt useless; a tiger in a cage, claws clipped, teeth blunted.
Being confronted with the news of Bucky actually being in trouble was a horrifying reality check. He'd been lucky to have friends in Peggy and Howard Stark, who believed in him enough to fly him into enemy territory and give him a chance. He'd been lucky to get inside Johann Schmidt's Hydra base where the remaining soldiers of the 107th were held without being spotted and from there it had been a simple matter to break them out and give them the chance they needed to escape.
None of that luck meant a thing though. It was the luck of finding Bucky the way he did, barely clinging onto his mind, strapped down to a bloodstained table and covered in dirt and injuries, that near reduced him to tears of relief. But even as he hauled Bucky to his feet and led him out of there, he couldn't help but feel an odd sense of deja vu in the dark corridors of the base; as though he'd followed some indistinct map in his mind, left over from those recurring nightmares, to find Bucky and then lead him out as the place began to self destruct, fire licking up the walls the way he had dreamed.
Running into Johann Schmidt, that moment he pulled his skin away to reveal the red skull that had been haunting his mind for so long, was heartstopping. He couldn't for a moment guess what it might mean, beyond that concerning sense of having predicted the future somehow. He looked into the eyes of that creature and saw the madness that he'd witnessed over and over in his nightmares reflected back. But there had been no time to dwell on it; the base was falling apart and Schmidt and Dr Zola were gone. He had to get Bucky out of there.
"Go! Get out of here!" he yelled as the beam Bucky had hauled himself across fell into the fire below, trapping him on the other side.
"No! Not without you!" Bucky yelled, demanding, with more strength that he had any right to have left.
Steve looked at Bucky, his face, and knew he had no choice but to try and jump. No one else could have persuaded him, but he wanted to do it for Bucky. And so he did.
The march back to camp through enemy territory, the 107th following him, with Bucky firmly attached to his side, was a blur. It took two days and nights to make those thirty miles with so many wounded in tow, and he didn't even think to sleep. Bucky was silent but strong the whole time, giving Steve strength like he always had, even though he knew it should have been the other way around after what he'd been through.
When they were back at base camp, Bucky wouldn't stop to rest until every single injured member of the 107th was seen to. Even though Steve had walked at the front of the group, he knew that they were also partly following Bucky, their Sergeant, their brother in arms for the past year. He cut a more serious figure than Steve was used to, though he recognised the pinched expression he wore all too well, since it was the look Bucky had always got when playing nurse to him during his more sicky days.
Only when he was sure that everyone would be alright did he allow Steve to lead him by the elbow to his housings in the temporary pitch set up for the visiting performers. Bucky protested that he could find his own damned bed, but exhaustion made him more pliant than normal. And Steve was feeling very selfish; he wanted desperately to fall asleep next to him again, the way they used to sleep in their little apartment in Brooklyn, so he would wake up and see Bucky's face. After honestly thinking he wouldn't ever see him again, Steve felt a desperation for that reassurance that he'd never allowed himself to feel so fully before. Bucky was home to him, and he was more homesick than he'd ever been his whole life.
He dreamed of the fire and the complex again that night, but it was different; a smoldering mess, half broken down. Steve actually found it easier to get out of the heat and find the door that led into the safety of their apartment. Once inside, he could hear the usual sobs and whimpers coming from behind Bucky's door. The big new difference was that, this time, when he tried the door knob, it finally turned. Steve was able to open it up and was dismayed to find that the door didn't lead into the room he remembered, with the creaky double bed and sackloth curtains, it led into the nightmarish laboratory he'd found Bucky in before.
Just like he had in real life, he unstrapped Bucky from the table and this time, he carried him right out of there, into the living room, slamming the door behind him. Steve dropped down onto their old couch, with the springs working their way out on the right corner, and cradled Bucky to him.
"Steve?" Bucky blinked, like he was coming out of a dream himself.
"I'm here."
"Steve," his friend sighed and smiled at him. He then frowned a little. "You look different."
"I joined the Army, remember?"
Bucky squeezed his eyes shut at that. "No... no you're at home. You're safe." He exhaled, deeply, relaxing into his arms. "You're safe."
"Sure, I'm safe," Steve agreed, and with the certain knowledge that this was a dream, he touched his fingers all over Bucky's face the way he never could in reality. He wanted to feel his skin, his hair, his pulse, desperate to confirm him as alive, even though he knew it was a meaningless facade. "You don't know how much I missed you, Buck. It ate away at me."
"Yeah. Me too. I used to hear you in my head sometimes. Only thing that kept me sane." Bucky snuggled into him, causing an explosion of warmth in Steve's chest. "God, don't go away now Steve. I'm dying out here. I can't do this."
"Don't say that. You're doing great."
"Sure, pal."
It was so strange, the way he could actually feel Bucky in his arms, how he smelled exactly right, how he could feel the tickle of his hair under his nose when he craned his neck to press his lips against the crown of his skull. There was still a sheen of surreality to the whole thing, the room just that little bit hazy, the view of Brooklyn outside hard to decipher, though that was partly due to the infection of orange flames still consuming the city. All the furniture was in the right place and the three still life sketches Steve had allowed Bucky to pin up on the wall (he'd vetoed all his portraits) were exactly where he remembered, plus the table in the corner with one mismatched seat and their radio on it was just so, but the old wallpaper was a little off and the threadbare carpet was a little blurry. They looked like memories, faded in the parts where he hadn't paid enough attention, collected together to make a vague whole that remained familiar.
Bucky was eerily exact, though, right down to the freckle on the left underside of his jaw that always made its way into Steve's practice sketches of him. The sensation of touch felt right too, as if he really was there, nestling close, letting Steve run his hand over his face and through his hair in the way he always wanted to, but never dared.
"Feels good, Steve," Bucky hummed, a small smirk playing about the corner of his lips, his eyelids fluttering open and closed contentedly. "I'm guessing I really died on that table like all those other poor schmucks they took before me, huh? Figures the first angel I meet would have your face on him."
For that, Steve pinched him, and it made Bucky's eyes snap open in surprise. "Hey, you're alive you jerk. And I ain't no angel."
"The hell you ain't." Bucky grinned up at him with the genuine smile Steve hadn't seen once since the rescue. "You're a godammed vision," he said, ardently, and stroke a hand down Steve's face, thumb slowly brushing over his bottom lip.
Steve squirmed a bit, knowing that the real Bucky would never say things like that to him, even if he really thought them, or touch him like that. The real Bucky was rough and tumble, a real guy's guy; the affection was there, sure, but it was restricted to the happy crinkle at the corner of his eyes and their gently traded insults, or at most a pat on the back or snappy hug. Steve thought it should have bothered him that the version in his dream was so obviously sweet on him, since that said a lot about him, but he couldn't bring himself to worry about it. Not when he'd been so scared he'd never see this face again, in dreams or otherwise.
"You're not so bad yourself," Steve sighed, enjoying the chance to be honest. "Scared me Buck, getting yourself captured like that."
"Yeah. Guess I really did take all the stupid with me, huh?"
They laughed gently together, before Bucky's forehead suddenly crumpled into a frown and Steve felt him shudder, right through his body.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"What?" Steve insisted.
"Nothing. Just... I don't feel like I'm alive. There was a moment on that table, when they stuck the light rays on me that last time, I could feel my blood boiling and my eyes burning and I thought, man this is it, this is really it. What a shitty way to go. And I was never quite sure if I really woke up. Something's been off ever since. I'm... rearranged."
Steve felt a pang of hurt stab in his chest and hated his imagination for taking what he'd saw in that room, the needles and the saws and the lights, and turning it into a narrative of what must have happened to his friend. "You look just fine to me," he said, and ruffled his hair. "You want to try rearranged, look at me. I've been blown up like a balloon. First few days after they did this, I kept walking into things 'cause I couldn't get used to how tall and wide I got."
Bucky flat out giggled at that, his hand flying to his mouth to cover it.
"S'not funny!" But Steve never could resist laughing along when Bucky made that sound. It was his absolute favourite sound in the world and totally infectious.
For the first time in a long time, Steve woke up completely rested and with a happy swell in his chest. Bucky was sleeping soundly next to him, all the dents from his ordeal and the every day worries marring his features smoothed away at last; close enough to touch too. Steve knew he didn't have the nerve to try, but so long as Bucky was within reach at least, he knew things were going to be alright.