#i feel like he'd be especially prone to falling asleep in the bath when bucky's not back yet and he's that much more raw and depressed

[fandomfluffandfuck]

I feel like I just saw a meta about how Steve may or may not be unable to take baths as a result of his history of, y'know, crsshing a plane straight into arctic waters, but I can't find it now--and now I'm thinking about how his PTSD probably does interweave with water and bathing but maybe it's, on good days, at least, attached specifically to cold water.

So, he can have a nice, steaming hot bath after a mission to relax his muscles, but if he accidentally falls asleep in the tub and wakes up a few hours later with the water gone cold? Then, all bets are off and he's waking up with a surge, hyperventilating until he's dizzy while his memories of what it was like to first wake up after being thawed overlaid by his existencial nightmares of being frozen entirely in ice, unable to move, unable to scream, unable to do anything but feel ice-cold down to his bones, crushed by the weight of frozen water and by the loneliness of being imprisoned in an unmarked grave.

Oh, Steve.