Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Bucky has nightmares.

He’s always had them—or, since HYDRA, anyway. Everyone knows about them, he knows that; knows, even, that before Tony modified a floor of the tower for The Screamers, the team could hear him shouting himself awake every night. The move to the Nightmare Floor was— humiliating, to say the least. Rather, it would have been, if Nat hadn’t been sent down too, if Steve hadn’t come.

They’re both gone now. So that's, y’know, a thing.

And the nightmares have just been getting worse. Bad to the point where he’s locking his door again, since they’re more terror than dream. He could hurt someone like that, and then where would he be? More guilt—more nightmares.

It’s really for the best that he keeps his door locked.

The rapid ascent of terror would be startling, if it weren’t for the whole dying for ten months thing that happened a while back, harkening in the next round of horror. And Steve, packing up, leaving a note on their— Bucky’s desk, shield in Sam’s hand and a vague five year timeline of his activities. Venturing into the wilderness on some fucked up, intergalactic, time-based victory lap, which is— just like him, really.

Six months, three weeks, and five days until his supposed return, and Bucky just counts down the days until then in the gym with a speed bag.

But the nightmares. Bad is probably not a big enough word for what he dreams—graphic, violent, recreations of stuff he’s only read about but can’t remember, things he’s seen and things he’s done since. His team—his team, Steve and Tony and now, now—

It’s fine though. In general, everything’s fine. Tony stuck around, a friendship springing up in Steve’s absence—complicated in its own right—which is nice, if a little confusing. Really, everything is totally, one-hundred percent fine.

Except that he dreads falling asleep, he can’t stay asleep, and he drags himself out of bed in the morning feeling the weight of every bone, every break, every pop that crunches beneath silver metal fingers he hasn’t seen in almost ten years. With his door locked, and no one to occupy the spaces around him, the last four years and a half years have been spent shouting into the uncaring darkness, with nothing to shout back. There’s no comfort here, only the black haze of night. It’s been working for him, though. The quiet. It doesn’t make the nightmares better, but at least no one’s around to bitch at him for waking them up.

Until a week ago.

One week was all it took for Bucky to, once again, spread his misery around like some sort of reverse Midas. Didn’t even have to be hands-on about it, just had to exist in the same space to turn lovely to shit. One week for Bucky to make yet another member of his team resent his very existence, one week—

Peter moved in across from him last week. For what it’s worth, Bucky did throw a fit—privately, mostly, if in front of Sam counts as privately. How was he supposed to greet Peter, “Hello, fellow screamer?” —actual nonsense. Skulked around like a toddler being forced to share his toys, all bad attitude and muttered nonsense that, in hindsight, was petulant at best, but probably came off as patronizing and unkind.

Bucky tries not to be unkind, really.

But Peter is—

It digs, having Peter down here, knowing there’s something that makes this floor his floor too. A darkness, a verbosity of sound, a too-much-ness that the others seem to handle just fine. And whose fuck-ass idea was it to put Peter across from him, anyway? Tony couldn’t be satisfied with one “Scream Queen”—or whatever the hell he’d called them—he just had to go and enlist another, huh? The irony isn’t lost on Bucky that Peter is the best of them, while Bucky is— who he is. The proximity alone is enough to draw Bucky’s ire, since he’s spent the last five fucking years trying very hard not to get attached.

He’s seen how that turns out, and Peter deserves more than whatever blood and guts the Avengers can give him. Knows that much, at least—just look at him.

Not that Bucky looks.

He doesn’t.

Bucky does not notice Peter. He just knows he exists, y’know? Vaguely and from the outside. Doesn’t not-not-notice Peter though. At first, not-not-noticing that he wasn’t around, and then not-not-noticing that when he was, it was sort of like looking at a ghost. So aware of him, it’s insufferable, because who the hell does Bucky think he is, looking at something so good? Forcing himself into not looking and not-not-noticing and—

And also, right now, with Peter bang-bang’ing on his bedroom door, voice raised to say words that Bucky can’t quite hear, still coming out of the flash-bang of a dream that felt so clear, so visceral, he doesn’t even have to try to recall it. It’s right there on the forefront of his mind, branded behind his eyelids. Covered in sweat, shaking from being thrown from sleep to waking, Bucky tries to clear his head enough to hear whatever Peter’s yelling through the door.

“Seriously, Barnes, open the door or I will,” Peter shouts, knocking on the door again. More quietly, but still with that hard, irritated edge, “this is ridiculous.”

Right. This is ridiculous. Fuck him running, this is stupid is what it is. Bucky, pulling himself out of bed; Bucky, padding half-asleep to the door; Bucky, opening the door and Peter—all five-foot-eight of him—staring up while Bucky stares down. Not-not-noticing—just seeing. God, seeing the hell out of him.

When did the seeing start? The not-not-noticing?

It’s a horse he’s been circling for a while, and Bucky’s not sure he’d be able to pin it down. Gun to his head, maybe he’s always not-not-noticed Peter.

“You need help, dude.”

That’s putting it mildly.

“My room is right across from yours—”

Something Bucky is explicitly aware of.

“—and the floor might be soundproof—”

A thing he’s thought about too many times.

“—but my door is not. I can’t sleep with you”—Peter thrusts his hand out, waving at Bucky—”like this.”

Here’s the thing—for all the pressure on his mind to not get attached, Bucky can’t help but see Peter’s little acts of devotion. Casual observance, ‘cause who the hell else is he gonna observe? Sam? Don’t make Bucky laugh. Peter’s something he can look at in passing, a beautiful thing that he wouldn’t dare touch. Sort of like an exhibit in a museum—Peter, some delicate, intricate piece of china to Bucky’s wrecking bull. It’s something he does in idle, tracking Peter with his eyes. Like right now, scanning his gaze across Peter’s face, catching the jump in his jaw at a suppressed— something. Not quite anger, but close. Magnetic, Peter—Bucky can’t seem to tear his eyes away long enough to form a cohesive thought.

It’s easy to tell himself he resents Peter for this, for being all enigmatic and tactile, passing out smiles in between the blank, empty stares into a middle distance that only Peter can see.

What— what is he saying?

God, this is the most emotion Bucky’s seen out of Peter since that near-death-experience Peter had a week ago. Matching Bucky’s scrutiny moment to moment, brown eyes searching and narrowed, a depth to them, and behind that depth, a drowning sort of doleful.

It’s the drowning that makes Bucky keep his distance from Peter, and the policy of not getting attached, ‘cause, well, Bucky’s had nearly five years to figure out how to thank Peter for the whole inventing time travel and bringing back the Avengers and being generally good and moderately well-adjusted while doing it thing, and yet standing here with Peter, the only thing he can think to do is something he is absolutely not allowed to do.

There’s a Look, Don’t Touch sign invisibly plastered on every inch of Peter, put there by Bucky’s own hand, his own mind, and right now, in the hallway's yellow brume, he’s tempted to ignore it. Tempted and tempted more, because Peter’s so close that Bucky can practically feel the breath wafting out of him, can smell his skin and taste the ache and melancholy coming off him.

“So?” Peter presses, reproach replacing frustration. “What’s the plan? Because if you think I can just ignore—”

“Buy some earplugs.” It comes out as a flat grunt, cutting off the end of Peter’s sentence. Quickly closing the door, locking it, staring at the doorknob like it might jump right off or burst into flames or in some other way betray him and leave him in the angelic light of Peter’s wake. Bucky just stands there until he can hear Peter suck in a breath and sigh it out, stomp across the hall, and then the hard click of his latch. No lock sliding into place, though.

Angelic? Christ, has Bucky lost his ever-loving mind? He cannot, flat out and hands down, think about Peter as fucking angelic. Not with all his shit, and definitely not with the nightmares.

The ones he’s been having about Peter.

A call came less than a day after Peter finished unpacking, routine as anything. A minor, next-to-nothing alien—cross-dimensional being? Bucky can’t keep track anymore—thing that Strange needed muscle for. Normal; or, as normal as it gets for whatever’s left of their rag-tag group. Bucky had been doing his regular not-not-noticing of Peter in his flight between buildings. Trapped in his own firefight, he missed the actual moment it happened. Just heard Peter’s gasp, his quick, “Shit, falling!” and managed to look up in time to see Peter, for the first time in all the years they’d been teamed up, actually tumbling out of the sky from twenty stories high.

In his dreams, every night for the last six nights, Peter hits the ground.

In reality, Tony swooped in, a knight in shining, red-gold armor, and brought Peter safely to the ground. Bucky couldn’t do much but say, “Nice catch, Tone’,” and try with every fiber of his being to focus on the thing in front of him. Typically, Bucky’s single-minded, focused and machine-like.

The momentary distraction felt weighty under Bucky’s self-chastisement.

Later, he did the math. Added in Peter’s assumed weight, his resistance, heal time and terminal velocity—all that. Even being generous, bad outcome every time.

The fact that he’d griped with Peter moved in felt like a non-issue after that, and in the morning when he woke from his first dream about Peter, he actually was thankful that he could walk out his bedroom door and see Peter putzing around in his own bedroom, murmuring to himself and thinking, and then smiling—fucking smiling—when he caught Bucky’s casual but calculated monitoring.

Until about two minutes ago, Bucky hadn’t hated sharing a floor with Peter, all his reservations aside. It was getting lonely, being on the floor alone—if there’s anything Bucky hates, its loneliness. Isolation creeps in and takes root until Bucky becomes its hostage, and Peter being there, taking up a space that had felt so, so empty? It’s fine. Good, even.

Besides the recurring nightmares. That’s an issue too, right? ‘Cause Bucky’s nightmares don’t typically linger. What’s he supposed to make of that, the lingering?

Shit.

Bucky flops back onto his bed, sighing. It was bound to happen eventually, Bucky causing issues. He’d hoped it would take longer than one fucking week, but still, he’d known it was coming. This is why he keeps his distance, why he’s desperate for Steve to bring Nat back—though Steve himself can take the first available flight to fucking right off—and why he’s tried very, very hard not to give in to the pull of Peter’s gravity. Five years, but longer too, before Bucky’s second death. Not enough for Steve to have ever noticed—though Bucky’s not sure he ever would have—but still, Peter had been a lighthouse.

Peter at seventeen, catching Bucky’s metal fist in his hand, the first time he’d ever been stopped by something; Peter at nineteen, bouncing with enthusiasm when Bucky was allowed to join the Avengers, new arm in tow; Peter at twenty, chattering at Bucky about things that Steve had never had patience for, but that—after more than a year in Wakanda—Bucky could actually engage with. And then, Peter at twenty-one, looking as though he’d seen the entire world break apart and was left to pick up the pieces.

Because he was.

Haunting; yet another reason Bucky’s tried to steer clear. He doesn’t need any more hauntings. It was apparent in the hall, Peter holding himself rigid and away, a bird preparing to take wing, that drowning look in his eyes practically searing itself onto Bucky’s soul.

Bucky can not-not-notice all the live-long day, but he’ll never be able to unsee that look, unbreak that part of Peter that shattered in the aftermath of whatever happened on Titan. Even Tony won’t talk about it, though he’s got another scar to prove it happened. It’s unbearable, how badly Bucky wants—

It doesn’t matter what he wants.

“Shit,” Bucky mutters into his pillows. Flipping onto his side, he hikes the covers up and falls back into an uneasy sleep.

But the lingering.

That fucking dream is a skipping record, and the interaction that follows it—with Peter at Bucky’s door and Bucky turning a minced sentence into a fuck off—becomes one too. During the day, Bucky’s eyes drift more and more often to Peter, a trench of guilt digging itself deep enough for Bucky to bury himself in it like a grave. Bucky has no claim to Peter, no right to his mourning, and to dream about him? It’s crossing a line that Peter doesn’t even realize is being crossed.

Then at night, he’s so drawn to Peter that his words are more often spit through gritted teeth. Hands fisted at his side or tucked in under crossed arms, all to prevent that devious temptation from becoming an actuality. It flares as anger.

‘Cause first of all, fuck Peter. Who does he think he is to Bucky that he can try to talk him down from a nightmare? Bucky’s been careful not to reveal the depth of his— feelings. There’s no point, not when it would only work to ruin Peter. It’s what Bucky does.

He’s ruinous.

And second of all, that face. Simultaneously growing more furious and challenging night after night, working its way under Bucky’s skin. Either Peter’s waiting for Bucky to snap, or he’s giving Bucky more credit than he’s due. That whole Look, Don’t Touch thing he’s got going? Not-not-noticing?

Bucky’s gotta be kidding himself.

So, yeah, fuck Peter with his tender care and irritatingly perfect face.

But most of all, fuck himself and that idiot conscious of his, whispering that anger and fear aren’t the same thing. They can all go to hell.

The dreams just get worse as that first week turns into a second, which becomes three and four and soon, an entire month has passed with Peter all around him. Upstairs, downstairs, in his mind, a craving made physical. Christ, Bucky’s only one man. That sick hit of his body on the cement, Bucky watching from a million miles away and yet right there, so right there he could have caught Peter if he’d just moved a second faster, a little more. With no distracting missions, no tasks other than paperwork and trainings, Bucky’s hard pressed to find a way to escape it all.

Especially since Peter has become the place his eyes naturally fall in a room. Doesn’t matter how far from him he sits, how much he coaches himself into not looking. Now he’s been forced to stop accidentally on purpose ignoring him, the resolution to stay far, far away is becoming more fleeting and ethereal. Steve’s departure had prompted the need to flee Peter’s grace, but Steve’s absence isn’t what’s encouraging the want.

Nah, Bucky’s not stupid enough to believe Steve still has that much power over him. It’s in remembering how kind Peter was, the immediate forgiveness at the fight in Germany, the intelligence and the quiet empathy. Checking in during missions, coffee in the morning passed over with one of those casual, should mean nothing but definitely doesn’t smiles. Sometimes, catching Peter’s eyes flicking away with the hint of a blush, teeth pressed into that bottom lip. Coming back from MIT a little different, moving into the tower like he didn’t have anything better to be but a superhero—as if.

All horrible, all distracting, all picking Bucky apart. Like whatever’s been crawling around under his skin finally decided to set up shop in his brain, right over the Good Decisions part of his brain. That’s been demolished, replaced with a second, worse Bad Decisions corner.

Awesome.

It’s a thin line Bucky toes around his self-control, and with every intervention from Peter, every momentary meeting of their eyes or tilt of Peter’s head through the gloom, Bucky can feel that line growing thinner.

Did he say everything was fine?

Everything is not fine.

It just goes round and round with Bucky flailing awake and Peter there, the door the only impasse. Sometimes, when Bucky doesn’t sleep because he simply can’t face that specific agony, he can hear Peter crying. It’s loud and rending, and it tears right into Bucky.

Look, Bucky doesn’t cry, not anymore. There are parts of him that HYDRA simply erased, and the crying part? That’s one of them.

So, when Bucky sits in his room reading on nights he’s decided sleep is for the weak and impatient, why does his throat get tight at the sound of Peter’s sobs? He has to rub the tip of his tongue hard against the sharp edge of his teeth, just to feel something other than that extreme pressure, a building unease pillaring up inside him. Almost wonders if it isn’t worth sleeping, just to be free from the sound. It aches in him.

He almost gets up. Almost goes to the door. Almost stands in front of Peter’s room. Almost raises his hand to knock, the other already reaching for the door handle—but he doesn’t.

That line? Thinner.

Toeing? Closer.

Bucky’s tougher than a few—dozen—irritated interactions at night, right? The bright of day tends to bring clarity, where Bucky’s better at ignoring the band in his head playing Peter’s symphony. They barely talk anymore, since Thanos. Mostly just “Pass the milk,” or “I need to get past you.” Not exactly the height of conversation. They’re not working out the meaning of life at night, either.

Just Peter speaking through his door, “Please, Bucky, please talk to someone.”

Using his actual name now. Not Barnes anymore, so there’s no distance he can dredge up there. Plus, it’s not like he hasn’t tried. He has, okay?

He’s tried the talking, but if he’s being totally honest, a court-appointed therapist is about as helpful as the scrapped bits of his HYDRA arm, and Raynor’s probably the worst of them. Still, he calls her. Often, at various hours, and sometimes to her inconvenience—which he may or may not do on purpose, to be frank. They talk, for minutes, for an hour. She might— anyway, it helps with the brain stuff, the socializing stuff. Not so much with the dreams.

Sometimes, Bucky thinks Raynor believes he’s broken.

Maybe he is.

If he isn’t, the nightmares about Peter are certainly about to cleave him in twain.

And he’s tried pills. Mood stabilizers, sedatives, antidepressants, the whole lot. Not worried about his liver or his gut, but they make him— foggy, he has to take so many, such high dosages, just for them to do anything at all. The sedatives would only knock him out for a few hours, the mood stabilizers made him hollow, the antidepressants made him damn near suicidal. Spending the next few days after medicating cloudy and hungover only works to instill that flutter of anxiety in his chest.

Anxiety that’s growing, centering itself more and more around one thing—person—in particular.

Not fine.

Peter begging Bucky to talk to someone? Not helpful.

He got help. In Wakanda. That’s the cream of the crop kind of help. Nothing tops that, and as much as he loves Shuri, he can’t— going back would feel like walking backwards in his progress, and he just can’t.

It’s the anger, maybe. At Steve, at the second death, at having to wait around for the only other person who might understand what it is that’s so wrong with Bucky. All of that curling up to drive a wedge right between him and Peter, jamming the door tighter than any lock could. Not that—

Shit.

Raynor sends him a list of things to try, a list he prints and pins to the wall next to his bed. Crosses out meditation, ‘cause there’s just no way. That leaves yoga, reading, drawing—he used to be good at drawing. Still good, just boring now—sharing space with Sam, with Tony, with basically anyone that might be around that isn’t Peter. He has enough of Peter at night.

Googles mindfulness, just to satisfy Raynor’s homework and comes back thinking hard. Mindful about himself, this strange, stilted shit between him and Peter. About what it was, what it is.

Five years is a long time, y’know?

Five—well, almost six, now—years ago, and he might have even called them friends, he and Peter. Closer than coworkers, for sure. But now? In the after-shock of disaster, of Steve’s leaving and Peter being in and out, of Bucky burning up inside at the bullshit that is being left on a post-it, that distance feels unbridgeable. They’re both different now, right? Peter’s changed, certainly, and the anger that’s taken up such a huge space in Bucky is nearly insurmountable.

Really, what he wants is for Peter to leave him alone. There’s nothing Bucky can give, and having him there all the time is a singular reminder of that.

Everything is so not fine, it’s fucked.

But he keeps trying, following the steps, the list, even going so far as to write out the dream, as if getting it down on paper might help him forget that it’s been on replay for the last six fucking weeks. Nothing works. Nothing helps.

Every night in Bucky’s dreams, Peter dies; every night, Bucky wakes up shouting something unintelligible, already bolt upright in bed before he even registers Peter’s voice piercing the veil of his nearly lucid dreams. They’re so real, so physical—he’s losing it. Definitely starting to crack up. Part of Bucky wonders if he should just go. Somewhere else, somewhere far away or even somewhere close. Just not here.

“Try meditating!” Peter’s voice is so tight and tired, hard clunk of something solid, maybe Peter’s fist or his head connecting with the door. “Might help.”

Bucky blinks blearily around, at the thermostat, at the blinded windows, at the crack of light pushing in under the door, broken twice by the shadows of Peter’s feet.

“Go to sleep, Peter,” Bucky responds groggily without getting out of bed. Tonight, after whatever the fuck that was in his dreams, he can’t take looking at Peter. Might fall right off the deep end, make some disappointing choice that will land him further afield from all these tired attempts at pushing Peter away. When his phone pings a few minutes later with a single link from Peter, there’s no point in hiding the groan. It slips from his mouth with earnest vexation.

But he tries it. Not gonna put all his eggs in the meditation basket, but if it’ll get Peter off his back, that’s something, right? God does he need Peter off his back.

Sit still, check; relax muscles, sure; find a mantra to repeat—counting breaths, counting sheep, counting the number of fucks he has left to give, which aren’t many. He tries to clear his mind and focus on his breathing, but— Christ, it feels silly. The whole mind-body-spirit connection thing was more up Steve’s alley than Bucky’s, and after a few minutes, he drops his chin to his chest, chuckling to himself. The briefest impulse to text Peter crosses Bucky’s mind—instead, he rewatches the meditation video, focusing on the words, the light music in the background, anything that will keep his mind off Peter.

You can try repeating a phrase, sometimes called a mantra, if that helps you to focus yourself.

Bucky can do that. He can pick something light, keeping in theme with the silliness building in his gut. I am a rock plays monotonously in his head, the flat and even tone of his mental voice calling it up and up again. Calm breaths in and out, the static buzz of the bedroom, of technology, a hesitant whir as his arm shifts, and then something clicks in his mind. Just a bit, enough for Bucky to feel the tension start to drain. Down from the top of his head, spreading like cold water over his spine, shivering into the fingers of his right hand and sparking like feedback in his left. A beat pulsing through him at the same rate as his heart, and for the first time in many weeks, Bucky almost feels calm.

It’s annoying that it works, since in the morning, when Bucky opens his door and Peter’s door is open, and there’s Peter on his bed, chewing his thumb nail and staring at his computer, Bucky wants to thank Peter. Thinks about walking forward enough to knock on the door jamb, to say, “Thanks, Pete.” Walking away ‘cause Bucky’s trying to stay resolute.

It’s really, really not fine.

But he keeps meditating, centering his mind over that stupid sentence; in the daytime, it’s easier to see what mindfulness means. It means remembering where he’s putting his body, and setting himself down as far away from Peter as possible. Means when they’re in the Quin, Bucky’s in the cockpit despite his back tingling with pinpricks of wanting to turn. Means when his mind drifts to Peter in those soft, quiet moments behind his locked door, I am a rock returns forcefully.

If he could dial up the volume of his own mind, just to drown out that memory of Peter staring up at him weeks ago, he would. But it’s Peter that’s loud, huh?

I am a rock. Over and over again, in the night and sometimes in the day. A few days, and then a few more, and the nightmares aren’t better, but— things don’t work instantly, right? I am a rock— until a close call in the field ends with webbing twining through the more intricate nooks and crannies of his left arm.

“I’m so sorry, Bucky,” Peter says, first in the Quin while Bucky wipes his arm down with a wet cloth, close enough that Bucky can actually feel his nervous shudders. Then in the tower where Bucky only just manages to slip away while Peter changes. Again, twice in Bucky’s bathroom, where Bucky kneels on the floor beside the tub with a toothbrush and six inches of hot water, and Peter perches on the porcelain side. “Really, I—”

“You’re sorry,” Bucky whispers, nodding. “It’s fine.”

“Let me help, at least.”

Bucky shakes his head, but Peter doesn’t move, and Bucky doesn’t tell him to.

After that—

I am a net.

And that helps. With the nightmares, at least. Avoiding thoughts of Peter, pressing away Peter’s voice from beside him and in the closed, close bathroom, that’s harder now. So much harder, and Bucky really doesn’t want to spend time dwelling on thoughts of Peter. Scrambling his brain, confusing and alarming and way, way too fucking overwhelming. Too much, to go along with the too much of losing Nat, of Steve walking out, of being dead, again dead, and knowing that a kid barely out of high school fought tooth and nail to bring them back.

A kid.

Bucky is despicable.

He needs to get away from Peter. It’s hitting that fever pitch, the point of no return, the moment where Bucky makes a decision he can’t unmake, and he respects Peter so much that to even think it— absurd and ridiculous, the kind of laughable that makes Bucky the butt of every joke forever. The overwhelming pull Peter has on him is making him unfocused; can’t get enough of him, but every action is too much.

It’s fucking with Bucky.

Knock, knock. Gentle and quiet, questioning instead of demanding.

It’s happened before, once or twice. Peter will knock on his door and Bucky will answer, and the conversations are usually a “Goodnight,” from Peter and a “Night,” from Bucky. Not worth remembering, but Bucky has every second memorized. Pacing from the bathroom with his hair dripping down his back, Bucky sighs. This is the kind of thing that he can’t take, not tonight. It’s late, paperwork and field training to prevent another Peter slip, and by the time Bucky had practically dragged himself into the shower, it was already tomorrow. Now, that tomorrow edges in fast, Bucky’s so tired, and his nerves are run raw and ragged.

A mean edge is sneaking in under the exhaustion.

“Night, Peter,” Bucky says from the dresser, leaning against it to breathe.

I am a net.

Over and over again, feeling the words run slow through his mind.

“I need to say something.”

It’s like being struck, the sound of Peter’s voice. Not sharp or harsh, just hearing it at all. Bucky doesn’t cry—but emotion sticks his throat, and his fingers curl over the low edge of the dresser. All these weeks, he’s tried, hasn’t he? To push Peter slowly away, hope every little nudge of a glare or short, abortive response will free Bucky from Peter’s gravity. But he stands here, angry and aching, and totally caught. Shoves away from the dresser without a shirt, stalks to the door, flings it open.

Because anger is easier.

“What?” Bucky cuts out. It’s harsh, and so is Bucky’s blank face. He can feel the hardness in his eyes.

Peter’s seen Bucky shirtless before, to be clear. That first night, of course. A few nights—many more than Bucky would prefer, honestly—since, and today in the changing room, when he and Peter had sat across from each other just breathing, not really looking at each other. Now though, Bucky doesn’t miss Peter’s eyes glancing down, lingering, travelling slow at first then quickly back up to Bucky’s face. That’s worse, worse than the little smile tucked on his lips, enough to turn Bucky’s mind blue and flare loathing like acid up into his throat. In the dim light, the burn of blush in Peter’s cheeks is low and dark; Bucky suddenly feels naked.

This isn’t any different than other times they’ve stood opposite the threshold to each other, but there’s a snap to the air that wasn’t there before. Neither of them speak, not for a long few seconds. All that rage Bucky felt with the door closed dissipates, but fear replaces it. Not small, not soft, not easily broken; yet Bucky still hesitates to touch him, because Peter is precious. Bucky has ruined precious things. That exposed feeling grows when Peter, for the first time in what feels to Bucky like years, actually stutters over his words.

“Uh, I— okay, look, so— I think— I still think you should probably, y’know, talk to someone—” Peter’s voice trails off a little as he sweeps his eyes again over Bucky’s chest, lingering on the scars a half-second longer than everything else. Everything—the stuttering, the looking, Peter squeezing his fingers together so his knuckles turn white—digs right into Bucky, and he has to take a step back. A tiny one physically, a huge one mentally.

This is a lot for Bucky.

His grip on the door handle tightens, metal straining under his left hand. Touch sensors ping-ping in his head, warning him he’s using too much force—but they’re easier to ignore than real touch. Jaw tightening, back tensing, all to keep himself studiously in place, nodding at Peter’s words but not absorbing them. Peter is—damn it.

“Helpful,” Bucky replies dryly, a little tight. He’s searching for a way out of this conversation, trying to come up with anything that will get Peter away from him, so he can close the door and not look at him anymore. It’s the looking that got him in trouble in the first place, right? Needs to go back to not looking, not noticing. “‘Bout as helpful as our midnight rendezvouses.”

“Yeah, about those—” When Peter breaks off again, he does a better job of keeping eye contact. Long eyelashes, brown like earth and clay, the sweep of Peter’s nose down to his lips. Under Bucky’s studying gaze, Peter seems to squirm, just a little. “Sorry.”

Bucky shrugs, waiting for the point. Spiralling now, too. Trying to direct that spiral into anger and just hating himself for it.

“Anyway, if you ever wanted to— talk,” Peter continues, swallowing hard. It’s so clear that Peter’s concentrating hard, probably as hard as Bucky is, both their bodies straining towards movement. “I’m right across the hall.”

“I’m aware.” Bucky grimaces, clearing his throat. Scuffing a hand over the back of his head, Bucky tries to scrub away the thoughts clinging to the inside of his skull. The invitation to closeness is dangerous, the way Bucky’s mind is wrapped around Peter. He won’t even deny that’s the case, so focused on him in his nightmares, through the door, devastatingly enraptured in the most horrible way.

Peter shouldn’t have to feel responsible for Bucky, and Bucky absolutely will not let him, in whatever capacity he has the power to. Anger should be easier.

It’s guilt that drives him to speak.

“Uh, thanks, but I’m good.” Bucky’s flat-lipped smile is forced, his heart racing because this is not a slip, not a mistake—Bucky’s choosing the mean. “Night, kid.”

The drop of Peter’s face might be scarred onto the backs of his eyelids, that’s how vividly the image stays with Bucky in the days after he says it. A blink and you’ll miss it moment as Bucky swung the door shut, but no less permanent. It was low, ‘cause like Bucky said—five years is a long time.

Not-not-noticing as each continued reference of kid clawed its way up and under Peter’s skin. Doing science none of them could fathom, talking Tony into doing it with him, all because of some SHIELD research buried somewhere. Peter did that. Grown, running and swinging around, as super as the rest of them—more, in most cases—and yet still a child. Over and over again, digging into Peter like bullets, chipping off pieces of something bright and chipper until only the flat and the drowning were left behind.

Bucky’s never called him that before—perks of not being formally introduced until Peter was nineteen and in college, metal arm grabbing in Germany aside—and he hasn’t had a reason to. But in trying to unfuck his mind, draw that line he’s been toeing thicker, Bucky’s done the thing he tries not to do anymore. He went mean. Maybe it’s better this way.

If Peter just thinks of him as an ass, unsalvageable wreckage of the past, it’s good. Especially since there’s no reason for him to obsess over someone born when Bucky should’ve been celebrating his eightieth birthday. In fact, when he thinks of it like that, it pulls goosebumps onto Bucky’s skin, disgust reigning over sense. Probably why it was easier with Steve, right? Time’s a strange thing.

He continues to meditate. Switches back to I am a rock, just to try to avoid even the slightest, subconscious hint of attachment. It’s good, since Peter’s ignoring him. The door that was always open in the morning stays firmly shut. There’s no goodnight knock, no coffee passed his way. It would be almost funny if it didn’t make Bucky feel like he’s filling up with ice.

Not going to let Peter get to him, because he’s not going there.

Not now, not ever.

No.

Just—

I am a rock.

Alright, Peter does get to him.

Bucky grumbles as he rises up off the mat, glaring towards Peter’s calves. Shit, Peter got to him alright, about a dozen times over the course of an hour, besting him time and time again. It’s not entirely surprising—Peter’s fucking fast. Lightning quick, sometimes too quick. If Bucky didn’t know better, he’d be afraid of Peter. There’s a bruise forming and already healing on his hip, ‘cause sure, the mats are better than landing on pavement—but they’re not exactly cushy. He definitely feels like a fucking rock right now.

Sam sits near Bucky’s things at the window, chuckling to himself as Bucky ducks between the ropes of the training mat. “What’d you do to him?”

No point in answering that—plus, Bucky figures it would take too long to explain. Tips water into his mouth instead, staring down at the sprawling city below, thinking. About Peter, about what he did to him, about the fact that there wasn’t any point anyway. For all his self-pressure not to get attached, to leave all that looking and noticing on the other side of his closed door, here he is. Staring out a window like it might hold some answers on how to resist.

But he can’t help it, glancing over his shoulder to look at Peter. To Peter’s credit, he barely looks winded, standing with Tony, nodding as Tony talks. Arms up over his head, a little strip of skin shows on Peter’s stomach between the hem of his shirt and waistband of his sweats. Thoughts; the metal of Bucky’s water bottle groans. Peter wears that empty, half-there expression, the one that pricks at Bucky. He did that—or, even if it wasn’t him that put it there directly, he encouraged it.

Despite himself, it’s happening: Peter’s getting to him. Damn.

I am a n— rock. I am a rock.

“Probably just paying me back for waking him up every night,” Bucky replies softly. Smirking, he meets Sam’s gaze, burning up inside. “Gets pretty loud sometimes.”

With a look of shock, Sam splutters, “You’re not—”

“No, I’m not, you think I’m nuts?” Bucky nods towards Tony, at the calculated, narrow-eyed look he’s steered in Bucky’s direction. A little too knowing, piercing in the way Nat sometimes was.

Damn Tony.

Damn Tony and Steve and Peter, and most of all, himself.

Sam sighs. “Still bad?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Bucky says with a long breath of his own.

More than two months of the same dream over and over. Look, Bucky knows there’s probably some sort of magic something he could ask Strange about, but he likes that guy about as much as a punch in the mouth. Like a bad flick that won’t leave theaters, the same panic, the same crushing dread, the same agile, lanky body falling from the sky. A bad line—or a cut one—flailing above him.

And all Bucky can ever do is watch.

With Sam’s eyes on him, he takes another long drink of water, moving his fingers to feel out the new grooves pressed there.

“Steve’s gonna come back, Bucky,” Sam murmurs, patting the front of Bucky’s knee. Rolling his neck, he resists rolling his eyes, turning to watch Peter bounce from foot to foot.

“Sure,” Bucky replies absently. Blinks away, smiles down at Sam, and nods. “Couple months still.”

“You’ll be fine.” Patting Bucky again, Sam leans back to stare at his phone.

Right. He’ll be fine. Not that Steve has anything to do with that, or the proximity of his return. Something is loose in Bucky’s chest, staring at Peter. He’s not sure if it’s the proof that Peter’s stronger than him, quicker than him, or if it's in this moment of required physicality, where touch and talk have become a necessity—but Bucky is becoming unmoored.

“Again,” Bucky calls across the mat, dipping briefly to stow his bottle. “Swear to God, Parker, I’m gonna put you on your ass.”

When Peter looks at him, it’s like looking into a mirror, right down to the cocksure smirk and stiff, angry posture. It throws Bucky, has him hesitating at the ring’s border. The sight sets Bucky’s teeth on edge, so— predatory. Not Peter, not here at home; before missions, after, certainly. That red tinge of fury, hard set of his jaw, silent stalk forward with wild arms swinging—

Bucky’s in too deep.

Guilt at the anger, that makes sense; but that he has Peter so closely memorized? Knows his movements, the way he shifts from Peter to hunter. Peter’s avoidance of him has been like going through withdrawals, running Bucky through the wringer. Dazed, tired, confused, and utterly fucking obsessed with him. It feels like a full one-eighty, but is it?

Or is it just that the line got blurred and shifted so much in his own head, Bucky didn’t notice he was under Peter’s thumb until now, with Peter being all he can think about.

Shit.

Such a revelation should be met with a thunderclap, or maybe the earth splitting open to swallow him, but all he can feel is the waves of furious focus curling off Peter as he circles Bucky in the center of the mat. Bucky’s so suddenly aware of him that Peter’s every breath shakes through him. Christ, he’s not just wrapped up in Peter, Peter’s under his skin. He’s so in Bucky, Peter might as well be screwing him—and isn’t that just a thought?

All Bucky has to do is beat Peter, prove he’s still got his edge, that if push comes to fall, Bucky still has the reflexes to catch whatever comes down. Maybe it’ll make it better, cut some of that edge in Bucky. It could ease up that urgent, oppressive need to watch Peter when he swings. To repeat on each swing, I am a net.

It’ll be fine.

He’ll be fine.

A rear strike towards his left, but Bucky grabs right when he senses the feint and hauls Peter over his shoulder, dropping him flat onto his back. The breath is knocked out of Peter with a little gush; then Bucky’s legs are out from under him, room falling as Peter sweeps his body over Bucky’s. Arms pinned beneath Peter’s knees, he can feel the warm press of Peter’s thighs on his chest. Between breaths, their eyes meet—there’s heat in Peter’s gaze. A heat that goes beyond that of simple indignation or scorn.

Shit.

Hitching his hips up, he swings his legs around Peter’s middle and manages—through what feels like an act of God—to get his right arm around Peter’s neck, on their sides with legs tangled. Peter’s head stretches back, pushing their cheeks together. A strained noise exits Peter as he pulls on Bucky’s arm, cheeks flushing ruddy. Bucky knows—from experience, knows—Peter doesn’t tap out unless he’s about to pass out. Brief mercy, a little respite, and Bucky gives a little on his arm. Some breathing room—too much. Peter’s breathless chuckle is Bucky’s only warning before he’s on his back.

That too-fast action blurs even for Bucky, so one second he’s holding Peter between arms and legs, hot front to cooler back, and the next he’s face down, hands pinned in Peter’s iron grip. It’s nearly painful on his right wrist; the tinging of his left wrist warning excess external pressure. Strong. The weight of Peter, low on his thighs, and that residual murmur of sound in his ear, it’s driving Bucky crazy. Yeah, as if he’d ever find the strength enough to resist that. Royally screwed the pooch here, Bucky did.

“I give,” Bucky grunts. “Ge’off me, man.”

There’s no gloat or win in Peter’s steps as he springs off Bucky, just his mismatched socks padding away as Bucky pushes onto his hands and knees. When Peter ducks to a crouch, there’s labor behind his breathing. Catching his breath. Not just unmoored, drifting out to sea.

“I’m done.” The ripping of velcro as Peter pulls the wrap off his hands. One close glance, and Bucky can see Peter’s fingers are trembling. But there’s a disconnection on Peter’s face when he catches Bucky’s eye, the tired outside and the heated inside warring miserably in a pinched, angered expression. “Thanks for that, Barnes.”

Sitting back on his heels, Bucky stares after Peter. Too late, Peter already halfway to the door, Bucky mutters, “Sure, yeah.”

The silence in the gym is uneasy, a little stiff in the wake of the door slamming shut behind Peter. Bucky on his knees, Tony on a stool behind him, Sam near the window, all speechless from Peter’s residual anger. If Bucky thought he could get away with it, that he wouldn’t get shit from Sam or Tony, he’d chase after Peter. Some little romantic scene plays in Bucky’s head as he sits there frozen.

Tony clears his throat.

“Uh,” Bucky says, glancing from the door to Tony, then down to his still wrapped hands. “You got a tough one there, Tone’.”

“Lucky me,” Tony mutters. “Kicked your ass today.”

“Kicks my ass every day.” Mostly as an aside, mostly to himself, freeing his hands slowly. Peter was within touching distance, right? That pop to the air, the crystal clear reality that they were both holding themselves still and abreast from the other. And Bucky hadn’t slammed the door on Peter, but on his own fucking hand. He’s not even sure what it is about Peter—his quiet temper, or that nearly febrile care, all harried and intense? As though he’d decided all at once that he wanted to make Bucky his problem.

What a problem it is now.

“He’s good— Peter.”

Tony narrows his eyes a little at Bucky’s words, considering Bucky with a tilted head, some half-baked attempt at a smile. Chewing over the sentence, examining while Bucky’s gaze flickers away.

“Yeah,” he finally replies. “Sort of like a puppy, though. Kick him too hard, he won’t come back.”

Ah—what a visual, and what a warning. “Very graphic, thanks.”

Bucky hauls himself up to the sound of the other two laughing, nearly cracking a smile. That brief, overheated moment with Peter leaning over him replays on the mat. Over and over in his head.

“I’ve said it before, but—” Tony’s voice cuts off as Bucky starts to walk away. The chagrined look on Bucky’s face is intentional, maybe even exaggerated, as he turns to glare at Tony. “Be nice to the kid, yeah?”

Kid stirs that hit of self-loathing low in his gut, but he nods and— crap, isn’t being nice just a thought?

“Yeah,” Bucky says, nodding mindlessly. “‘Course, Tony. No problem.”

It’s a problem.

Immediately a two-fold problem, with the first being that Peter wants nothing to do with Bucky. What started as just casual ignoring is turning into full-blown avoidance. More often than not, Bucky falls asleep knowing Peter’s off prowling the streets of New York, and wakes up to an empty floor. It’s not just being alone, it’s being lonely when Peter is there. A quick, “Hey, Peter” is met by a grunted response. In the morning, Peter’s gone from the coffee maker before Bucky can even rise out of bed. At meals, skating by to grab a box or a slice or a sandwich, and then he’s disappearing around a corner or through a door again.

Like a ghost, and didn’t Bucky say he doesn’t need any more hauntings? Looking for Peter is more like hunting a phantom while armed with nothing more than a mag light and a prayer.

The other problem? That visual Tony put in his head, of Peter as a puppy, the plea to be nice to him, and somewhere in his head, boards are being pulled off the Bad Decisions part of his brain. But Peter? Not a puppy.

No, he is just a man with some very clear cut boundaries, and Bucky is inches from stomping all over them. Like he’s trying to wear Peter down—he’s not, he swears he isn’t. Doesn’t go so far as to force the lock the night Peter wakes up screaming instead of sobbing. He thinks about getting up when Peter’s door opens and there’s the pause of his feet in the hallway; then they shuffle away and moments later, the elevator dings. But he knows he can’t chug along being an ass until Steve gets back.

Two and a half months now, give or take. There’s private, careful prayer done every few days that Nat will be there, too.

In the meantime, he needs to get his shit together. Real together, not some temporary fix under the guise of pretend fineness.

Things still aren’t fine.

So he meditates more. Goes back to I am a net, for good luck. But still, night after night, dreams of Peter. Still, night after night, he wakes up shouting without Peter at the door.

Nothing works, either. He’ll enter a room and Peter will already be halfway out, some combination of precognition and speed, even though Bucky will have an apology halfway out his mouth. He doesn’t want to yell it at Peter across a room full of their peers.

Doesn’t want to yell it at all, if he’s being honest.

If it weren’t so frustrating, Bucky would be impressed by Peter’s persistence—it’s definitely the longest grudge he’s ever seen Peter hold. Like a brick wall, absolutely immovable, and Bucky is nearly at his wits end. A whole month—a whole month—of this passes, with one particularly bad day ending with Peter’s slammed door, the words “Go fuck yourself,” ringing in Bucky’s head. The quiet of the hall is bookended with the click of Bucky’s door, a tired, defeated noise.

“James,” Raynor says over the phone, sighing, “you can’t just one-eighty the man. It’s confusing, and honestly, insufferable.”

Bucky’s thought about getting another therapist. Not worth the effort at this point, seeing as he can barely tolerate five minutes on the phone with this one. “What am I supposed to do then, huh?”

“Have you tried, I don’t know, apologizing?” Her clipped voice is giving Bucky a migraine. Breathing in through his nose, out through his mouth.

I am a net.

Bucky knows how to apologize—he’d like to establish that. It’s easy, two words, he’s said them a dozen-hundred times to a thousand or more people. So it’s not that he doesn’t know how, it’s more that—well, the words feel meaningless. Doesn’t want to throw an I’m sorry out in a rush, just hope Peter might listen.

“Yeah, I’ve tried.”

Another sigh. “Tried with words? Or doing your usual thing of throwing everything at the problem to see what sticks?”

He also knows there’s no perfect apology, that catching Peter long enough to look him in the eyes, say the words and impress onto him how much he means them will be impossible. Just because he wants it to be right, wants it to be perfect, doesn’t mean it will be. Which is probably what’s stopping him, right?

That and the fear Peter might flip him off again. Like a knife to the gut, that.

It’ll have to be fine. Just a fine apology, maybe said with head tipped down at Peter’s door, waiting while knowing Peter won’t open that door. But Christ, he’d do anything to go back to how it was just a couple months ago. Nightmares, and Bucky waking to Peter’s voice, that soft and melancholy face looking up into his. Every night, Peter, and for all Bucky’s bullshit, he knows it comforted the hell out of him. Having someone there, someone who was willing to pull him out.

So, a fine apology. Soon, but not tonight. Tonight he lays on his back, murmuring I am a net at the ceiling until he falls asleep.

It’s yellow flickering into white and back down. Lights above him. Bodies, some dead and some moaning, on all sides. The hallway is endless, seems and feels endless. Bucky is a machine, a robot trapped in a suit of flesh, marching forever. Narrow, stinking hallway, red painted in streaks on the wall. Distantly, a hoarse, screaming wail. Almost familiar. Abstract. More abstract than normal. Jumping, stuttering, moving in blinding bursts—not at all the usual format.

With the muzzle over his mouth, he feels like a dog. Really, isn’t he the canine? Kicked once, then over and over again. And now, with the end of the hall growing suddenly close, the world narrows to a pin over that figure hanging like a pendulum, or a drop of water. Bucky would recognize him anywhere.

“Shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should you.”

Even as Bucky continues pacing forward, he can’t make out the man beneath a web of shadows. Each step is like running through sand. Compulsively deliberate, and all in slow motion. It’s a confused scene. One that’s played through him a hundred times, memorized from paper. The target is out of place and time. Forward, then forward again. The echo of an order whispers in his head. Voices. Dozens of them. All speaking in a language that no longer feels native. Kill or be killed.

Уврок, слеза, плоть, кость.

Семнадцать. Рассвете.

“I’ll kill you.”

“You won’t.”

Inching, pacing, moving closer until he’s within touching distance. There’s a gun in his hand. Was the gun always in his hand? The inverted face in front of him, blacked out like a censor strip. Upside down, breathing, shielded by cloth. So close, Bucky could reach out. Could touch, could push. If only to see the shadow swing back and forth. The barrel of the gun instead, pushed recklessly against the figure’s forehead. Easing, moving against the supple fabric. Sliding against skin with the pressure of the muzzle.

“You can’t hurt me.”

The hammer clicks back, and in the time it takes Bucky to blink—sluggish, almost drugged—the gun is gone, clattering along the ground.

Желание. Добросердечный.

“You’re a net.”

Then, the fighting. There’s reality behind the dream, a reality Bucky can feel tears in, the wet slide of them hot against his cheeks here. They’re strange and foreign in his body-made-machine. This dream is slipping right down into the part of him that exists in fear. It settles in for the night. It pushes the fight harder. There’s fists and ribs, the crack of bone, the angry twist of muscle. It’s a mirror of a lived experience. The metal arm—silver, different, not his anymore—twisted around that neck. Hard. Сложнее.

Tender skin bends as metal tightens down, leg wrapped and arm squeezing, crushing until a little, choked gasp—

Bucky should be embarrassed by his reaction to something that he, logically, knows isn’t real.

First, the yelling. Except, it’s more scream than yell, horrified and outraged as he forces his body into consciousness.

Then, the thrashing. Fighting his blankets to get out of bed, slipping his heel on the corner of the sheet, close enough to land hard on his ass and hit the back of his head on the edge of his nightstand at the same time. The loud CRkk of his head on the nightstand shudders through the room, nearly drowned out by Bucky.

“Fuck,” he shouts, clapping a hand to his head on instinct. Blearily, Bucky stares around the room, his vision swimming. In his half-awake, post-nightmare state, Bucky does start to cry. Watering eyes at first, then full blown tears. Pained gasps turning to sobs, chesty ones, the kind he hasn’t had since he found out he was free. It felt big enough to warrant these kinds of tears, and this?

This just hurts. A purely physical pain on top of Bucky’s soul-crushing grief. The pounding of his head, trembling breaths, and thinking all the while, I am a net. Doesn’t feel like much of one, silence on the other side of the door, still no Peter.

“Motherfucker.” No point in staying quiet. If he didn’t wake Peter up with the yelling, he certainly did with the falling, and Bucky’s not sure he’s even on the floor. What’s the point—what good will it do him to pretend he’s not in pain, not embarrassed? Nothing around to judge him but the darkness. Bucky gives over to the tears, welcomes them. Can’t make him feel any worse, right?

As if it wasn’t bad enough, the ceaseless nightmares of Peter’s death. He has to dream about killing him, too? Of course, of course. He would dream about that, and have that nonsensical saying thrown back in his face to boot. The only sound in his head now, covering up the resonating, repeating last gasp from beneath—

“Are you okay?” Tentative and soft, Peter’s voice, like he hadn’t been planning on saying anything. Pressing his lips together, Bucky chokes back another wave of tears at the sound, rounded, careful, directed totally at him.

“‘M fine,” he gasps out, choking on his own breath.

The doorknob rattles. “Did you fall?”

“I’m fine.” Trembling, Bucky searches the back of his head—yep, a welt a few inches long spans the curved back of his skull, but dry enough. Checks his hand to confirm, and no blood. It’s a sobering moment, a complicated one. Wants to look at Peter, see him breathing, touch to feel his slightly cooler skin. But looking at Peter feels— big. “Go back to bed.”

“You’re crying,” Peter says, a little more firmly.

“Peter.” Louder now, and trying unsuccessfully to hide the wobble in his voice. It’s too much—he’s not ready for this. And yet it feels so stupid, all this back and forth. Why do all his big realizations have to come in the dead of night? “I said I’m fine.”

If it weren’t for the super-hearing, Bucky might have missed it. Peter muttering against the door, seemingly to himself, “You say things are fine a lot.”

Bucky’s been shot more times than he can count, thrown through plate glass and off buildings. Stabbed, beaten, tortured—hell, ten or so years ago, he stepped off an overpass, landed on a car, and kept walking. This hurts worse. Tony may as well have lined the heated floors with vibranium, ‘cause damn, what the fuck? Even if he wanted to let Peter in—does and doesn’t, it’s complicated—he can’t move. Searing, practically blinding pain lashes the back of his head, high-tailing it down his neck. Plus, and this is the kicker, his ass. As if he hasn’t had it handed to him enough times recently, now it’s probably broken. Broken coccyx, concussion, Peter at the door; one of these things is not like the other.

Neither of them speak again, but Peter’s shadow doesn’t move, breaths coming short and uneven from the other side of the door. Heartbeat raised, too, agitated and quick.

“At least let me check on you.” Shit, if any time was the worst time for Peter to relent on his grudge, it’s now. Humiliation plays worse tricks than pain, though, and Bucky’s mind is more bitter than ever. “Don’t need you dying in your sleep.”

Shaking his head—fuck, bad idea; Bucky sighs. “If you can get in, I won’t stop you. But I’m not dying. Just”—chuckling, then blinking away another round of tears—”embarrassed.”

Curiosity might have killed the cat, but anticipation will see it buried. There’s a chance, however slim, Peter will force the lock. He can, and based on the click of the knob, Bucky thinks Peter’s considering it. Would barely take him any effort, Stark’s reinforcement or not. But Bucky hears him sigh, watches the shadow change, hears the slide of his body against the door. Peter, sitting. Peter—waiting.

“I can wait.”

It— Jesus, do his tear ducts have a fuckin’ quota? The wet slide down his cheeks has lasted longer than any instance before it; jaw working, Bucky huffs a quavering laugh through his tight lips. Where the fuck did Peter even come from—what badness in the world is so big and horrible that it needs someone like Peter to balance it out?

And why the hell does Bucky deserve it, when he’s done nothing to broker peace?

This moment is an armistice, an informal truce in a battle of attrition waged by Bucky alone. There’s no handshakes, no eye contact, only the treaty left to sign. That makes it Bucky’s turn. Peter showed up—despite everything, Peter did that.

“Peter,” Bucky starts, but—sighing again, “I think I broke my ass.”

That high, humming laugh that comes out of Peter is so— good. Again, good, but also light and refreshing. A cold Coke in the summer out of a glass bottle beside the East River. Mesmerizing like the ripple of river water, that song of breath. It gives Bucky the push to crawl—yes, crawl—across the floor to the door, rise enough to click the lock. Crawling, because he’s pretty sure he’ll pass out if he stands up, which is probably bad.

Doesn’t matter. Peter, here, at his door, and Bucky pulling that door open and swinging it away from him. It takes a lot to catch Peter off guard—Bucky knows how unlikely it is first hand—so the surprise that registers on Peter’s face, how he flops back and lands on his elbows, it catches Bucky off guard. Sort of knelt over Peter, wincing at even the dim light of the floor lights, Bucky watches that shock flare and then die down into a subtle hum, resonating up into a smile that—God forgive him—rivals the very face of Heaven. Bucky’s not quite crying anymore, but he could start again at that smile, all hesitant and directed totally at him.

“Hi,” he says, barely a whisper.

“Hi,” Peter echoes, matching his volume.

The concussion must have knocked a few screws loose in Bucky’s head, ‘cause suddenly—alarmingly suddenly, actually—the idea of kissing Peter suddenly seems very smart. It would be easy to lean in, rote and routine. God, does he want to. But there’s— shit, he needs to get the words out now.

“I’m”—clears his throat, blinks against the vibrancy of Peter simply staring at him—“sorry. About the kid thing. It was mean and— eh, I try not to do that anymore.”

“You don’t do a very good job,” Peter chides, affixing a more serious look to his face. But his lips still curl up at the corners, and his eyes aren’t lit by that burn of anger anymore. Didn’t Bucky used to be good at reading people? It was his whole thing there for a while, to look at someone or something and just know what was happening. Peter isn’t mysterious, not an enigma—but there’s something so reserved about him. Like the switch on his chatterbox got flipped after Thanos snapped and left only dust behind.

Bucky gets it.

He doesn’t like it, but he gets it.

The expression lifts, Peter’s lips twisting around before he speaks again. “I understand, though, y’know? It was— Mr— Tony told me I was being invasive and I should’ve just—”

“You talked to Tony, seriously?” Groaning, sitting back with a wince, but Bucky can’t take his eyes off Peter. It’s like they’ve been glued or magnetized. His body feels tense, a live wire—he’ll be sore tomorrow, he can already tell.

“—taken the hint, y’know—”

“Peter, please.” Bucky shifts again, that irresistible pull of Peter’s gravity drawing him minutely closer. “You were the highlight of my day.”

It just— slips out. The truth. It sobers them both enough for Bucky to finally disengage from Peter’s thrall, look away and wipe his damp face on the heel of his hand. Sort of wishing he’d put a shirt on before coming to the door, that naked feeling coming back swinging. His cheeks burn under Peter’s gaze, ears ringing from more than just his head. There’s no judgment in the stare when Bucky looks back, nothing but a return of that earlier wonder. Those brown eyes pan over Bucky’s face, seeming to settle and linger on the hard set of Bucky’s mouth before they blink back up at him.

Can’t stop thinking about kissing Peter. Definitely not all there upstairs, huh?

“Well.” When Peter bites his lip, Bucky’s fucking world tilts ninety full degrees, and he— is stupid, is what. “I figured you were sorry. Pestering me.”

In front of anyone else, Bucky would feel shame—that pinprick of humiliation at being caught injured, caught crying, caught outside of anything except calmly upright, disciplined. Sure, there’s Sam and Tony, and they’ve both seen Bucky at his worst—literal worst, even—but this is different, somehow. Peter is different, sitting here and looking at him without comment. As if it’s normal and routine, and doesn’t matter at all.

It’s shattering something in Bucky.

Which— shit. It’s fine. Actually, totally fine.

“So, it worked.” Bucky grins, left side drawing up more than the right, and he knows he shouldn’t be smiling right now, that this is serious and he should be serious. But Peter rolls his eyes and pushes up onto the heels of his hands.

“It did not work,” Peter rebuffs, shaking his head. “But I’m not just gonna— gonna sit around while— you— you fall to your death in the other room.”

Stuttering, speaking so quickly that his words trip over each other trying to leave his mouth, and Bucky’s enamoured by it.

“We’re probably even now, anyway.” Peter’s mouth pinches in amusement. “Kicked your ass enough times.”

There’s some response resting on Bucky’s tongue, words that could quip right back at Peter’s jab—but he can’t stop looking at Peter long enough to let them out. He’s sinking; thinking. Thinking a lot of things, some so blue he almost feels embarrassed to have a brain. But—

God, he’s perfect.

And it’s true. ‘Cause the silence lasts and lasts, longer than should be comfortable, longer than Bucky’s used to sitting in silence with any Avenger, even Steve. A bunch of fuckin’ yappers, the whole lot of them, but Peter takes to the quiet as much as he does to noise, and Bucky doesn’t feel the need to speak or move or even breathe, he’s so caught up in Peter’s windfall. It hits him like a freight train, just how much this—Peter—means to him; not all of a sudden, not overnight. It’s just so, so much clearer when he gets a chance to actually look at him. Bucky has to bite his tongue not to blurt it.

“You say my name in your sleep sometimes,” Peter admits, teasing expression vanishing under pinched brows.

It’s not surprising, exactly, just— unimportant. It should probably matter to him, the idea that Peter probably showed up the first time not out of concern, but confusion. But that’s only a half-truth, since Peter would’ve realized soon enough, and he kept coming back anyway.

“Makes sense,” said with a shrug, and it’s Bucky’s turn to linger his eyes on Peter’s mouth. A wish, a desire, an actual dream instead of a nightmare, and all so far out of reach—Bucky would never, could never— “Dream about someone enough, probably say their name once or twice.”

“What happens?” Peter asks. Casually, as if he doesn’t expect a response, or maybe knows already.

On a sigh, “You die.”

Shifting up from his hands, Peter scoots back and leans towards Bucky at the same time. It’s heart stopping, that image of Peter closing the distance between them, freezing Bucky in place. Just the breath of touch at first, a whisper over his hand, testing—Bucky’s eyes are locked on Peter’s a little wider than before. Blush rushes into his cheeks, hot and stinging at his eyes. When Peter’s fingers wrap around Bucky’s wrist, one squeeze before resting with a cool palm on the back of Bucky’s hand, he almost forgets to breathe. Skin on skin.

“Well, I’m not dead,” Peter says, and between the scrunched nose and the soft, soft voice, the fingers settling and then resettling, he could cry again. It’s certifiable, this shit. It’ll make him certifiable, at least.

“Yeah, good,” Bucky says, looking away, ‘cause he only has so much willpower and he’s not sure he can look at Peter and have Peter’s hand around his wrist at the same time. “That’s— good. I’m— good.”

Followed by a few stuttered and winced out nods of his head, and— Christ, a lesson in eloquence, for sure.

“You said you wanted to— check,” Bucky starts again, pulling his arm away just enough for Peter to let go and move back. “Make sure I’m not dying or whatever.”

Peter’s on his feet in an instant, too fast for Bucky to catch with the spinning behind his eyes, hand outstretched. Thing is— Bucky’s not afraid, per se, of getting up. It just seems safer, less like he’ll pass out and crush Peter—well, alright, Peter’s fast and strong, so probably no crushing, but still. A few long, long seconds pass before Peter stoops into a crouch.

“Can I help you?” Peter whispers, and it’s too fucking— tender. The little edge of worry in Peter’s face, hands fluttering in wait for Bucky to nod and agree, all anger lost and forgotten. He doesn’t deserve this; Peter deserves better. Kinder and more patient, someone penitent. In the gym, on that mat, Bucky had become a ship wandering out to sea—and here, on the floor, with Peter waiting silent and tolerant, he drifts no longer.

Peter anchors him straight into reality, tugging on that part of Bucky that’s more nightmare than daydream, holding it in gentle hands. Looking at him without pressing, a space without a name and completely out of time, but so fucking raw and real, Bucky can’t help but feel the permanence of it etching itself into the very fiber of his being. Nods, then shifts the vibranium arm away unconsciously.

“It’s cold,” Bucky warns, cutting his eyes down to the arm and back up to Peter’s face.

“I know.” Peter smirks, squinting at him. “So am I.”

Helping him up, one hand on Bucky’s right elbow, scorching despite the admitted chill of Peter’s fingers. The other moves without hesitation, touching without thought. Bucky stands, wobbly legs and pain spiking, and those hands are deft and strong, responding by feel alone to the way Bucky sways.

“Woah—” There’s not enough distance between their bodies; when Bucky’s hands push flat through the air, trying to balance his weight forward, his fingertips press against Peter’s ribs. There’s something steadying about Peter, the way he grips without moving, calm—serene, even. When the spinning almost stops, there’s still that beat of worry lingering in his brow, but the gaze is mostly just familiar. The way you look at someone when you know them, and keep knowing them.

And it’s tunnelling itself into Bucky. Devastating and breathtaking.

“Alright?” Peter’s voice is the same as it always is, pinching up Bucky’s lungs and twitching his jaw.

“I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that,” Peter mutters, rolling his eyes away from Bucky. “I’m not sure I should believe you.”

Shifting both hands to Bucky’s left arm, Peter moves to stand beside Bucky—hand on his shoulder, fingers on the bare skin of his back, alarms firing in Bucky’s head, warning him that this is dangerous, the most urgent and ardent type of danger, that Bucky’s on the precipice of something he won’t come back from.

He ignores it.

Instead, Bucky revels in the casual contact. Not just alone, not just lonely—starving. A dog chained up by feeble inaction, residual terror, that relentless presence.

“Ready?” Peter nods into the room.

Bucky’s had a concussion before—a couple of them, in fact. Honestly, given the other issues with his brain, he’s really not sure it matters how many concussions he’s had. The serum helps with the build up, cuts some of the pain, but slamming through a knocked around brain in twenty-four hours or less is no walk in the fucking park. He’s dizzy, sort of nauseous, with a pounding in his head that feels like a thousand jackhammers. Just the first step is enough to make the world spin again, but the steps after that are easier.

But Peter’s sweet. The kind of sweet that makes your teeth ache, letting Bucky set the pace, guiding Bucky steadily back towards his bed, pausing when he pauses. Curious eyes glance up, Peter’s head tilting to catch Bucky’s narrowed gaze towards the bed.

“That thing is evil.” Peter tries to hide it, and does a valiant job—but Bucky still catches the skirting end of a smile ghost over his lips.

“Sure.” But Peter steers Bucky towards it anyway, and Bucky doesn’t try to stop him. Probably couldn’t anyway, once Peter had made up his mind to put him there. It’s almost maddening, how sure Peter is in his every motion, clear command over every space he’s in. Where there had once been shy and stuttering, Peter breathes confidence. It’s so evident, Bucky would almost buy it—if it weren’t for that drowning that surfaces at night sometimes, or when he catches Peter staring flatly in front of him, moved to distance despite his immediate presence.

“How’s your ass?” Peter asks. It’s the first time Bucky’s seen Peter actually break that softly reassuring façade. The corners of his lips pinch in, and his mouth quivers with suppressed laughter; a blush paints high on his cheekbones and low against his collar.

“It’s fine.”

“Not broken then?”

Bucky just rolls his eyes, trying not to laugh at the teasing raise of Peter’s eyebrow.

“Sit.” Peter pushes on Bucky’s shoulders. More hands, more skin, and all that looming want in Bucky’s head. Not just for touching, but for something else, deeper and more lasting. There’s no word for it, nothing except Bucky sinking carefully onto the bed, wincing more out of instinct than actual pain. The lamp on his nightstand is still off, and his nightstand—

“Damn,” Bucky mutters as Peter walks away. It doesn’t even occur to Bucky to think Peter might leave, just leaning forward to investigate the chipped off edge where Bucky hit his head. The movement makes his head pound, a small whirl towards the edges of his vision. Better already, but still bad. The door clicks shut, bathing the room in darkness. After a short hesitation, the lock clicks too.

I am a net.

Loud, loud against the dark of the room and the padding of Peter’s feet, the little breath of, “Fri, lights low, please,” and Bucky’s room illuminating pale yellow from sort of everywhere. Peter’s strides are easy, hands tucked into his pockets. Socks mismatched again, one blue, one striped green and yellow and white. It’s what Bucky focuses on as Peter steps nearer, until their toes are almost touching.

“Can I”—Bucky catches a little of Peter’s movement out of the corner of his eye, gesturing to the space between them, currently filled with Bucky’s legs—“stand here? Check your head?”

Bucky’s brain? It took a hike somewhere remote. A wilderness without reception, leaving Bucky staring without speaking at the long line of Peter’s arm, cut off at the wrist by his pocket. Nodding, Bucky spreads his legs wide enough for Peter to step between them, trying not to think about the implications of his position, how tight the stretch of his skin feels when Peter’s so close, Bucky has no choice but to breathe in, senses flaring on each inhale and exhale.

Cooler, sure—but not cold. A high smell, hard and sweet at the same time, like ozone or chlorine. Not unpleasant or sharp, just—background. Peter’s soap, the smell of his detergent, the way he looks when Bucky sits back, tipping his head up with a little grunt. There’s no uncertainty in Peter, no hesitation in his movements. Why would there be?

He jumps off buildings for a living.

“Lean forward.” Peter’s hands settle on the side of his head, thumbs just brushing against his stubbled jawline. That twinge of energy from that last night races through the air; Bucky has to wrap his hands under his thighs to keep them to himself, so tempting is the idea to set them on Peter somewhere. Legs, hips, wrists—it was all so much easier to ignore when Peter didn’t live here. When there was some physical space between them, wider than the gap of their hallway. Now he lets Peter tilt his head down, shift him forward so his forehead rests against Peter’s stomach.

Peter’s fingers are gentle, brushing Bucky’s hair back and forth with almost not-there touches—Bucky’s gonna have a heart attack. Every particle of awareness left to him is centered on the feeling of Peter’s breath ebbing and flowing evenly, eyes closed and brow furrowed. A little hiss pushes from between Bucky’s teeth when Peter finds the welt on the back of his head. There’s just the slightest shift from Peter, a little forward and to the side, so his knee bumps into Bucky’s thigh and then stays there. Touching and touching, contact and contact; the panic pitches up, loudly screaming that Bucky cannot, that he should not. This is not— it isn’t something he gets to just have, Peter’s gentility.

And yet, they’re here, and it’s being dosed out in spades.

Relaxing, Bucky gives into the touch, just a little. Wants to experience this, the little, unintelligible mutters and Peter’s fingers sweeping his hair around, creeping one at a time down to test at the tight muscles in Bucky’s neck, humming as he skates those finger back up, laying his cold palm against the throbbing spot on the back of Bucky’s head. It’s not ice-pack cold, and it’s certainly not vibranium arm cold, but it feels nice, even if it quickly heats to match the temperature of Bucky’s skin. It took Bucky so long—he’s never worked quite as hard at anything, excusing his time in Wakanda, as he has to get Peter to talk to him again. Didn’t even do that right, huh. So, when Peter’s fingers curl over his shoulder, and he’s tipped back with that hand still cupping the back of his head, it feels a lot more like he can’t breathe than before. The gesture is surreal, and in less dire circumstances, it might almost be romantic.

“You’re not bleeding,” Peter says, and Bucky’s not sure if he’s making up the distance closing between him and Peter again, but it feels like he’s closer than ever. The fish-eyed quality of his vision, swimming and tunneling in the wake of confusion and pain makes it all the worse. “You probably have a concussion.”

“Been there,” Bucky says, trying for funny and falling flat at the dissatisfied twitch of Peter’s mouth, “done that.”

“I’m sure.” Fingers tuck a few strands of hair behind Bucky’s ear, dusting it off his shoulder as Peter just— stares. It shouldn’t be funny, it should be distracting, but Bucky feels reassured by the penetrating gaze, not alarmed. Where others see a predator in the most animal sense, Bucky sees something else. A reflection, a surety and steadiness, the way Peter looks not just to look, but to absorb. It could be unsettling if it weren’t for the open grace of Peter’s expression, softly illuminated by the light of the room. “Medical?”

“No,” Bucky says, almost shaking his head. “No medical.”

Nothing against the medical team in the tower, but between the needles and the plain, white sterility, it harms more than it helps. There’s nothing they’ll do for him except send him packing with ice and a couple Tylenol, and he’d rather stay here. Words are stuck in his throat, his body moving without conscious thought. He raises his hands, sets his arms on his knees, and gently, barely touches his fingers to the knee Peter has pressed against his leg. The cotton of his sleep pants, then the firm muscle beneath them. Peter’s jaw tightens, just a little, but neither of them move; Bucky can barely breathe.

There’s a stretched out beat of hesitation, waiting, even though Bucky’s not totally sure what he’s waiting for. Then Peter’s hands pat lightly against Bucky’s shoulders, and he steps backwards out of their tenuous almost embrace.

“Lie down, then,” Peter says.

Yeah, Peter is smaller and softer and gentler than Bucky, this much is true—equally true, that intense gravity Peter bears without conscious thought. Bucky hesitates, hating the idea of going back to sleep, the idea of seeing— that again almost worse than the heavy weight of sleeplessness. But he moves in the end, sliding back and moving semi-stiffly onto his side, and part of him thinks he should be glaring or scowling at the idea of being told what to do, but it just doesn’t happen.

What does happen, though, is a strange swooping sensation in Bucky’s stomach at the sight of Peter staring at him like he’s watching something totally banal. Not quite arousal, more like liking something so much, it winds him. One of Peter’s hands is lightly fisted at his side, tapping closed knuckles rhythmically against his leg. It’s doing something to Bucky. An unspeakable something. As though he’s being rewritten in Peter’s image.

Shit, is everything actually fine? Or has that just been Bucky’s comfort word for so long that he really can’t tell the difference anymore? Maybe everything isn’t fine. Maybe Bucky is short circuiting, hallucinating, or else, already dead.

Then, like he’s been cursed, Peter pulls Bucky’s sheets and blankets up over him, tucks them in under Bucky with thin fingers, like a parent might a child, and then sits down atop them, arms and ankles crossed. Long legs spread out in front of him, Peter sighs contentedly.

Contentedly sighs in Bucky’s presence.

Yeah, he’s bypassed unhinged and is headed straight towards breakdown.

“What are you doing?” Bucky asks, shifting away fast enough to have him staggering lying down.

“Sitting,” Peter says, stretching his torso up and over to look at the stack of books on Bucky’s nightstand.

“Right, but why?” In trying to look up at Peter, Bucky’s neck spasms and he grunts a defeated sound, closing his eyes against a blinding flash of pain. It’s agony just to tip his chin, but he does still catch that edge of that amused smile—the one with the dimple, y’know—glanced his way before Peter reaches out to investigate one of his books.

“You have a concussion.” Peter pulls a confused face at the book, flipping it around to stare at the cover art. “Which book is this?”

“The third one.”

“You’re reading it?” The confounded look transfers from the book to Bucky, humored smile growing bigger as a little, breathless sort of laugh piles out of him. Incredulous. And why not? Most of Bucky’s interests are private, reserved only for him. Glancing between the book in Peter’s hand and his face, Bucky shrugs.

“Yeah.” A little widening of Peter’s eyes, shifting the book open to the first few pages, frowning as he skims. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s a book, isn’t it?”

“It’s ‘The Farthest Shore’,” Peter mutters, shutting the book again. “I guess it’s fine, just… You’re just so— y’know, you.”

Bucky braces shifting up onto his elbow, and as he moves slowly, nothing swims too much and Peter doesn’t move either; not away, at least. Instead, he sits up a little more on the bed, might even scoot slightly closer. Bucky’s too busy watching Peter’s hands fiddle with the pages of the book.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Not hurt, just— it makes sense. All these assessments, the assumption that Bucky’s too stiff or stoic to read something fantastical.

“Dunno,” Peter says, fingers tapping against the cover of the book. “Just seems like something someone like me would be into. A nerd or— something.”

Bucky doesn’t like the mean edge in Peter’s voice, the little turn of his words against himself. It’s disheartening to say the least. “Yeah? You big into fantasy?”

“Uh,” Peter chuckles, and that’s enough to make Bucky look at his face, not wanting to miss the hesitant smile— front and center, and Peter’s tongue dashing out to wet his lips before he meets Bucky’s eyes. “More into sci-fi, really.”

Bucky considers this, then, frowning— “What about Star Wars?”

“That’s sci-fi.”

“It is not.”

“It is!”

“There’s knights,” Bucky lists, numbering elements with his left hand, “princesses, swords, a secret, hidden, evil guy. Textbook fantasy.”

“No—” Peter shakes his head, “it’s got science, it’s set—“

“A long, long time ago,” Bucky murmurs, and he’s not sure what convinces him to do it, but he pokes Peter lightly in the leg, grinning playfully at him.

“In a galaxy far, far away,” Peter continues, prodding him back. The strength Peter wields is strange, ‘cause Bucky can feel every time he holds himself back from touching too hard. Raised eyebrows and staring at Peter, Bucky holds his ground. Thinks about what holding Peter might be like, but— trying to stay focused in the haze of breaking off the leading edge of his nightstand with the back of his head.

“You think what you want.” Bucky shrugs as much as he can, leaning up on his side as he is. “But I know the truth.”

“Go to sleep,” Peter groans. “You got the first one of these lying around somewhere?”

Shaking the book back and forth a little, Peter’s face is innocent of intention, the noiseless plain of genuine interest settling the teasing edge out of his expression. It’s a little overwhelming—Peter is, rather. The kind of overwhelming that feels foreign at first, and exhilarating every moment after. Bucky feels trapped between those two sensations, not wanting Peter to ever go anywhere again, desperate to be alone and try to figure out what the hell this is. “You should go back to bed.”

“You have a concussion.” Repeating himself, as though it’ll make the illusion of Peter sitting here any less intense and confusing.

“I’ll be—”

Peter’s chuckling before Bucky can even get the words out, looking at him again, somewhere between mirth and annoyance. That laugh, little as it is, clothespins itself to Bucky’s insides.

“Don’t say fine,” Peter murmurs, grinning down at him. “Say fine again and I’m gonna have to stop pulling my punches when we spar. Fine.”

The mutters continue under Peter’s breath, but Bucky’s more dazed by the idea that Peter was pulling his punches. Already strong, and maybe it’s the concussion or whatever, but Bucky’s mind is tripping over itself to understand. The holds could be tougher, pressure harder, matches over faster—shit, Bucky might be too into that idea, a tightness which draws him that little bit closer to Peter, unconscious but painful movement.

“I’ll leave if you want me to,” Peter says softly, sitting forward to look at Bucky’s desk, squinting across the room at the bookshelves. “But I’d like to stay.”

I’d like to stay.

A balm, and Bucky’s been burned over and over, but whatever heat exists here is pleasant. Should ask Peter to go, would—but he doesn’t. Instead, he just lets out a soft sound, sort of unbidden, and lays his head down on the pillow again, only a few inches between them. The impulse to touch Peter returns; Bucky locks his fingers together under the blanket.

“On the bookshelf, third row, second set of books.” It’s hushed and mostly mumbled, Bucky’s eyes closing as exhaustion starts to overtake him again. “Got the word earthsea in it.”

The bed barely moves when Peter stands, and he only feels Peter climb back in because it’s so much closer. There’s the brush of fingers over pages, a short breath, then Peter touches gently against Bucky’s back, just resting one of his hands there intermittently between the shhkt of pages turning. At first, totally still, just the weight of his hand and a little of his arm resting near the metal-flesh join. Then, those fingers sweeping back and forth repetitively, soothing in a way that feels so— normal. It should set Bucky to action, that returning, patient touch; instead, Bucky feels his body relax a little more with each replacement of Peter’s hand, and he’s not sure when exactly, but at some point, sleep does take him.

I am a net.

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