[After]

[onlyforthedream]

My body is still in shock, or the memory of it, when I stagger and catch myself with one hand against a palm. My breath is pulling raggedly in my lungs and throat and every part of me feels raw, wind burned or frozen or scraped. The enormity of what we just went through is already slamming into me with the same kind of force as the waters of the North Atlantic and I feel such a powerful surge of nausea that I have to clench my jaw, breathe through my nose, and stay half bent against the tree.

Eventually my breath works itself free of the place it was coiled up and constricted in my chest and, eyes burning, I gasp, "Oh, God."

Comments

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

He's right, of course.

I've tried to tell him more than once, tried to make it clear, that having him back in my life, a friend and himself, again- even if it's a self he feels has been tarnished, or too shaped, by his time as the Winter Soldier- is the thing I'm most grateful for. He hasn't made it easy, and I haven't known how to go about it, really, but it's true, and if anything it's even more obvious in this moment. How many times have I relived that day, how desperate was I when the Avengers woke me for the first time? And here we've gone through it again, and for the first time at the end of it, he's not gone.

I barely nod before I pull him in, clasping his shoulder tight. He's solid, he's breathing, he's himself, he's here. He'll go back to Natasha tonight and teach a class in the morning, he has a life and he's living it. Whatever hell this place wanted to put us through, whatever message it wanted to drive home, damn it all, because nothing trumps this fact.

[onlyapassenger]

"It's okay," he mutters, returning the embrace. It's not, of course. There's nothing okay about any of this, but it bears saying nonetheless, the type of meaningless platitude that's necessary after a crisis. A false hope. "It's okay."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

After an extended moment, I pull back, nodding again, slightly, more to signify that I heard him than to agree. Neither of us are that delusional.

I ease away to sit, slowly, not as wearily as I feel, on a boulder half buried in the soft island earth. The fingers of my left hand immediately dig into my knee and that's where the tension stays. I run my other hand over my face.

"...I didn't mean to lose it, like that," I say, when my voice seems steady enough.

"I apologize. Are you all right?" I ask him, lifting my head.

[onlyapassenger]

The honest answer is no, but Bucky can't bring himself to voice it; not that there's much use in hiding the truth that's written plainly across his face. It's only through some miracle that he manages to stay on his feet once Steve goes to sit down, but Bucky's in no rush to join him, choosing instead to keep the slight distance and lean against the nearest tree, his shoulder pressing into the bark. Gaze turning to the ground, his chin tips downwards, and he shakes his head, the movement so slight he's not even sure it'll register.

With Steve calmer, it's more difficult for Bucky to tamp down his own ire. His skin feels tight from the effort, his every muscle tensed. It takes him a moment to pull together an answer he can stomach.

"I'll live."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

That's about the most I could hope for.

"...Want to get a drink?"

Not that it'll do a damn thing for me, but Bucky looks like he could use one.

[onlyapassenger]

The noise Bucky makes isn't quite a laugh, but it's close enough to count, humorless as it is. He looks up, though not at Steve.

"I want to get a bar."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"I think that can be arranged," I return with the same hollow tone that could, under completely different circumstances, have been filled out with humor.

"..." I stand, finding nothing else to add. I don't want to go off again, and I don't know how long I can stay steady, but for the moment we both seem to be breathing- coping, somehow- and given circumstances that means we're batting a thousand.