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marvelstoriesepic · 6 months ago

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Angstober (day 11)

Pairing: Avenger!Bucky x Avenger!Reader

Prompt: Wake up

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: Bucky is losing it; mentions of panic attacks; angsty angst

Part two Part three

Angstober Masterlist

Bucky hasn’t had trouble sleeping for about two years now. That’s about how long you’ve been together. That’s about how long you’ve been sleeping in the same bed as him every night.

It’s been 25 months since you’ve gotten together, but in truth, the serrated edges of his nightmares began to soften long before that - all because of you.

You’ve always been a dependable member of this team. Skilled, efficient, and wholeheartedly committed to your work. Yet, what you’ve done for Bucky and what you did every day since then and still do to this day, outshines all of those qualities.

You’ve shown him patience - not the suffocating kind that hovers or pities, but a quiet, resolute belief in his strength. You saw something in him when he couldn’t do it himself. Little by little, day by day, night by night; you made him believe that he still had something to fight for, something to live for, and that there is a place for him in a world he wasn’t meant to see.

Your presence, your smile, your voice; all the little things that identify you - it all gifted him the reprieve of the guilt he was slowly drowning in. And you pulled him out of the water, teaching him how to crave the air that was lost, breath by breath.

He knows he shouldn’t rely on anyone with an amount so heavy, it would terrify anyone else. It might be dangerous. But he needs you. It’s that simple, really. You’re the only thing keeping him afloat, despite how long you’ve been helping him remember independence. He doesn’t want independence. He wants you. Because he won’t ever find as much comfort in himself as he finds in you.

So, this is a feeling he isn’t quite used to anymore.

Laying in bed, eyes unblinkingly staring at the ceiling in the dark, eyelids burning in exhaustion but not able to shut. His body aches for rest, but his mind won’t allow it.

He inhales slowly, forcing the breath deep into his lungs, following the breathing techniques you taught him in those early weeks; when you helped him through his panic attacks. He hasn’t had one in a long time, but he recognizes the signs all too well.

And it traps the racing thoughts in his mind.

Instinctively, his arms around you tighten. Your slumbering form lay peacefully and wam atop his chest and he lets it ground him. He lets it - lets you - tether him to the reality his spiraling mind so desperately needs.

His muscles are tense as he clings to you, seeking stability in the steady rise and fall of your breathing against him.

He exhales slowly, a deep sigh that he feels ripple through his entire body.

He put so much effort into convincing himself it was nothing. Just harmless smoke. It didn’t have to mean anything, anything barbaric. But that’s what Hydra is known for. Wickedness, Inhumanity, Evilness - the list can only go on.

That smoke was invisible. And Hydra loves to play invisible. Hiding in the underground and pretending they don’t exist.

Once again, Bucky’s mind, cruel and ruthless, drags him back to the mission earlier that morning. Anxiety claws at his resolve and he takes in another breath almost aggressively. It’s as if his subconscious is trying to prove to himself that this wasn’t just some non-toxic mist you had been exposed to for mere minutes on end.

Steve’s voice crackles over the coms, talking about something important no doubt, but Bucky’s attention is locked elsewhere. His senses are attuned to just one thing - your breathing. Your comms are on and Bucky knows about which corridors you are walking through to retrieve a file for Fury.

You’re not supposed to engage in combat, unless perhaps on the way out but the path should be cleared. So, then why are your breaths coming out faster and far from the rhythm he loves to listen to.

He waits a few seconds, his instincts flaring, trying to reason with himself. Trying to get him to stop worrying himself out of his mind. But the sound of your breathing doesn’t sit right with him, and the longer he listens, the more uneasy he becomes.

Carefully, he calls out your name, ignoring whatever Steve might still be saying on the other end. There is a pause - he clearly interrupted the captain - and then your voice comes through, soft and reassuring. You know how much he gets concerned for you, sometimes just needing to hear your voice in confirmation everything is fine.

“How far are you?” he asks, voice a little tighter than he’d like. Steve hasn’t picked up on where he got interrupted. He gets it too.

“Almost there. Just down the hall,” you reply, though there is a slight hesitation, a pause, another unsteady breath. It’s subtle, but Bucky picks it up, brows furrowing. You’re contemplating something, weighing your words and his steps begin to falter, own breathing getting even heavier.

“There is something odd, though.”

His heart squeezes and he tries to swallow that lump in his throat, but it remains stuck, halfway blocking the way for air inside his body.

“What is it?” His response is immediate, urgent. “Do you need backup? Want me to come over? I’ll be on my way-”

He tried so hard to sound casual but the laugh coloring the tone of your next words tells him he wasn’t at all subtle in his feelings.

“No need, Buck. I got it. The air just feels a little weird here, that’s all. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Do you have trouble breathing?” So far underground, it’s almost to be expected that the air is different, but he needs to know more, craves to ask a thousand more questions but he refrains himself. You can handle yourself. You don’t always need him to breathe down your neck, hover over you like the miserable man he is.

“I can breathe just fine, Buck,” you sweetly soothe again, letting him take the time he needs to gather his thoughts around your well-being.

He exhales, the tightness in his chest easing up a little bit which spreads awareness that his whole team just heard his ridiculous worries over the shared coms. Heat creeps up his neck and he cringes inwardly. Though he wouldn’t change a thing and he sure as hell will check in on you again when the nerves rise once more. And they will.

It was only thanks to Tony’s tech that Bucky even found out what had happened - that you had walked straight through the invisible smoke, breathing it in the whole time and letting it enter your body with every gulp of air.

The surveillance had picked up traces of the strange substance, the air you had said felt weird. But you hadn’t seen the smoke. None of you had. And now, Bucky feels like he’s losing his grip.

He hates this helplessness, this stifling feeling that there is nothing he can do but watch and wait. Watch you, observe your every movement, listen to your breathing, analyze your body language, trying to decipher if something is off. Waiting for the shoe to drop.

You had told him countless times that you feel fine, that nothing feels different and you don’t like to see him this worried, but his mind loves to go to cruel places. And his concern for you is too extreme, running so deep, clinging so tight, that the need for you to feel okay almost hurts him physically.

Tony and Bruce are running tests, trying to figure out what the hell that smoke even was and how harmless it really is. But the waiting is torturous. The tick of every second feel like stabs to his heart. Bucky doesn’t trust harmless, not after everything he’s seen. Not after everything he’s lost. And he won’t put you on that list. Because if he had to, he’d add himself right after. He lost himself once and he will again if you’re no longer with him, falling to much greater demons than ever before.

And so, he watches. It’s all he can do. He watches you like a hawk, nerves fraying and senses tumbling, torn between the need to protect you and the agonizing reality that, for now, he’s powerless to act. His mind races with worst-case scenarios, his imagination conjuring all the ways this invisible thread could hurt you. And yet, there is nothing he can do - nothing but hope that Tony and Bruce figure it out before it’s too late.

The waiting feels like it’s driving him mad.

Bucky waits till sunrise, the first light of the day bleeding through the thick curtains. He hasn’t even noticed it had gone brighter outside, only acknowledging it when your skin begins to glow under it, making you look like an angel sent from heaven.

He hadn’t slept, not even for a moment, his eyes not leaving your peaceful body. Every sound you made, every small shift of your body as you slept, every breath you took, he noticed. He spent hours, gently running his hands over you, trailing his fingers over the familiar contours of your form, pressing his lips so softly against the parts of you he could reach without disturbing you.

At some point; Bucky carefully, reluctantly, slips away from beneath you, and quietly into the bathroom. The cold splash of water on his face stings, but it does nothing to shake the weariness clinging to him.

The man in the mirror staring back at him is hardly recognizable to him. Dark circles shadow his eyes, deep and heavy, his gaze dull and hollow, lacking the fire you ignite in him. When he doesn’t normally sink into a pit of worry. His brows sag with the weight of exhaustion, his expression almost foreign in its desperation.

You won’t be happy when you wake up. He can basically hear you chastise him in his head and he really wants to smile at the thought but since no other thought this night had been a decent one, he doesn’t know how at the moment.

Bucky’s hands grip the edges of the sink, tightening, until he might have been worried about breaking the porcelain if that thought wasn’t so irrelevant to him right now. A long and heavy exhale leaves his chest, his head hanging low and eyes squeezed shut. He forced himself to press his lips together, not to let out a sound that would perhaps wake you up.

He tries to be in control of the rising wave of frustration and utter helplessness that surges within him, pushing it down as his chest constricts.

It takes a few more minutes before he feels composed enough to return back to you. He releases his grip on the sink, hands flexing before letting both, flesh and metal fall back to his sides. With a last glance in the mirror, he walks out of the door.

The sight of you, still peacefully asleep in the exact position he left you, quiets his mind just enough for at least a small moment. With silent steps, he approaches you, slipping carefully back into bed without making a sound. Slowly, he wraps his arms around your body again, drawing you close, pressing you against his chest, feeling your warmth.

You don’t stir as Bucky settles in, pushing his nose into your neck, closing his eyes, and inhaling deeply - a breath that is filled with your sweet scent.

Bucky isn’t sure how much time slips by as he keeps lying there with you, watching you, breathing you in. But when midday rolls around and you haven’t stirred yet, he decides to wake you up. He might get lucky, being able to bath with you and having you curled up on his lap during a nice breakfast afterward. He craves your voice. He needs to hear you, needs to be soothed by the sweet sound of it, telling him you’re okay and you love him. Perhaps even telling him some silly story about how Sam embarrassed himself in front of you girls. That happens more often than not.

He wants to float in the calm of your presence, to be lost in the way you reassure him, relaxed in the rhythm of your words, comforted in the warmth of your arms.

So he starts with the gentlest of touches, his lips brushing along the curve of your neck, trailing kisses along your skin. He moves to your shoulders slowly, taking his time as if each kiss carries the unspoken weight of all he’s been holding back. When he reaches your cheek, he whispers, soft and low, just for you.

“Baby,” he murmurs, his lips close to your ear, letting the heat of his breath coax you from sleep. “Sweetheart, time to wake up.”

He continues his kisses, lingering, tender, while his body shifts slightly as he props himself up on one elbow, hovering above you just enough to reach more of your skin. His hand moves to brush your hair gently out of your face, his thumb stroking your temple. “Y/n.”

You don’t react, so he continues trailing his kisses over your shoulder, along your arm and back up again, nibbling on your skin.

Bucky is no patient man, but he always has been with you. However, it never takes this long to wake you up. It comes with being an Avenger, always alert, even in your sleep, and usually, the first few touches of his lips are enough to coax you into consciousness.

But you keep lying beneath him, without moving a single muscle, chest rising and falling with every steady breath and tension builds in his middle.

His tone drops, voice louder, getting more urgent. “Doll,” he says, hand cradling your face, gently turning it toward him so he can see you clearly, hoping for even the slightest response. “Come on, baby, wake up. Come back to me.”

He searches for any sign, any flicker of consciousness in your expression, but there is nothing. You look peaceful, serene even, as if you’re merely lost in a deep, calm sleep. There’s no sign of distress, no discomfort, but that only worsens the hollow dread forming in the pit of his gut. Something is wrong. He can feel it. He knows

His pulse quickens, heart pounding violently as fear takes root. His hands, so tender before, now move with desperate urgency. He shakes your shoulders, lightly at first, hoping to watch you open your eyes and greet him with that sweet smile upon seeing him, the one that is so good at melting away his worries.

You don’t stir. You don’t do anything.

“Y/n! Wake up!” he pleads again, voice cracking, panic taking hold of his voice and settling in his bones. His breathing lost any sign of rhythm since the last day but it grows shallow now, ragged, horror rushing up his throat, alarm ringing in his ears.

He is leaning over you, shaking you with more force, more insistence. Leaning closer and pressing his lips to your forehead in an almost rough kiss, he calls your name again, voice strained and sounding foreign to him.

“Show me those beautiful eyes, baby, come on,”Bucky pleads desperately, trembling hands holding your face, shaking it, just like your shoulders, your arms. But the only movements your body does are the ones caused by his touch, your body still limp beneath him, eyes closed, breaths deep.

“Don’t do this to me, baby, please. You don’t get to do this.” His voice breaks, the words barely making it past the lump in his throat. “Come on!“

But there is nothing. No flutter of your eyelids, no soft sound from your lips. Just silence. The kind that makes his blood run cold, terror crawling under his skin, like he’s never felt before. “Wake up!” He is shouting. Vehement, cracking under the weight of the fear flooding in his chest. It strips him bare, leaving him more powerless than he ever was before.

A sound rips through his body, dry and dreadful as it leaves his lips and he isn’t able to acknowledge the tears tracking down his face.

Without wasting another second, Bucky scrambles away from you, his body moving on sheer instinct, his mind only consisting in utter panic. He shoves the blanket off in one harsh movement, throwing it to the side and scooping your limp form into his arms. His heart is pounding so vigorously, it’s as if it has a life of its own, threatening to tear right out of his chest.

The moment you are secured in his arms, he runs. His legs feel weak, but he pushes forward, every step fueled by the thought that something is wrong. Terribly wrong. He crashes through the door, protecting your body with his. His voice echoes down the hall, frantic and full of a terror he’s never known as he yells.

Bucky should have known better.

Hydra doesn’t deal with harmless. He knows that better than anyone.

But even with all the horrors of his past, all the things he’s lost while under their control, nothing could have prepared him for this. Nothing could have ever come close to the agony of the very possibility that he might lose you. Lose you to them. Lose you because of them.

You had been the one to help him to the light. You were his light. You gave him a reason there is something worth holding onto. Your love for him. His love for you. But that very darkness that Hydra plunged him into, now came sneaking back to take the one thing that matters most. The one thing he would die for. The one thing he would die without.

He’s running but it feels like he is falling. Endlessly. Into a void of despair and all he can do is scream into the emptiness, hoping somehow he can pull you back before it’s too late.

He doesn’t even know who he’s calling for. Steve perhaps. Bruce. Tony. It doesn’t matter. It won’t ever matter again. Because if there is no you, then there is nothing worth remembering anymore.