Captain America and Bucky Barnes Imagines

4. STEVE: In Your Dreams

Word Count: 1.5K

           

It's a blustery fall midnight when Steve Grant Rogers finds himself breaking into the home of the girl he loves—the girl who once loved him. The girl had been you. He's standing outside halfway in the crunchy flowerbed beneath the dining room window that you ignorantly always leave wide open. He's tried to tell you before that you've got too much blind trust in people. You're never guarded. But then again, you don't live in the same world that Steve does; with Hydra agents and alien invasions. You're a pretty little girl next door with a cat and two goldfish and normal stresses like paying the bills on time.

Steve hesitates in pushing in the screen of the window. He takes a deep breath in attempt to calm his fidgeting fingers before finally breaking the threshold. He manages to catch the screen before it hits the floor on the inside and makes a noise.

He knows you'll already be asleep, even without Director Coulson's gadget that shows you lying in the bed on the other side of the house.

Steve gracefully climbs into the quiet home. His eyes widen and then soften when he spots that damn orange cat sleeping on the fireplace. He never liked that thing, but you insisted on getting him and naming him Cheeto. Steve would never admit it, but he has a soft spot for felines now because of you.

Steve is eerily silent as he stalks into the home. In his ear he can hear the SHIELD director remind him, "Get the file you lost and then get out. She'll never know any differently."

He scans the dark room. "It would be a lot easier if I knew where I lost it."

"Just get looking," Tony Stark's voice joins Coulson's. "You don't wanna be there for too long."

No kidding; just standing here in the kitchen makes his heart break with misery. There's the stove where he used to make you breakfast while you'd read off the morning's news. Then there's the spot on the counter where he'd like to put you so that when he'd kiss your lips you'd be just as tall; always resulting in a sweet giggle. On the fridge there's a picture of the two of you together that's been there for ages. It's from one of your first dates: he'd taken you to the pier. You both look so... happy.

He hasn't felt that way since you've been gone.

"Steve."

Steve hears Tony's voice in his ear and knows he must see his stagnancy on the x-ray camera from the van outside.

"Sorry. I'll start looking." No one questions the hoarseness of his throat or the dreariness of his tone. They all know how much he loves you.

Steve goes to the bookshelf in the living room.  All of your favorite books are there, but nothing else. Oh, and a snow globe he'd gotten you while he'd been in India. You've always wanted to see the world.

What breaks his heart the most is seeing the home the very same way it was before. You haven't changed a thing. You haven't moved on.

He still hasn't found the lost file. He internally curses and then moves on towards the next most likely place—your office. He did a lot of paperwork there, and you always tried to tidy up after him when he'd made a mess. Maybe you accidently put it someplace strange.

But Steve's feet cement into place before walking by your bedroom door. The portal is cracked—a bit of lamplight streaming through. He swallows heavily. He can smell your lavender perfume. He can almost taste the chai tea in the air.

Then, he hears your voice.

"I dreamt of you last night."

Steve's frozen in place. He swallows heavy and slow. Cautiously, being very careful not to be seen or heard, he peers into the doorway.

There you sit—cross legged on the bed with a book in your lap. On closer inspection, Steve realizes it's not a book at all. It's one of his sketching journals.

You're talking to him through the pages.

"Sometimes you're in my dreams, and sometimes you are the dream. Where I'm chasing after you before you can drive away and never come back—I usually don't catch you in time. We both know I've never been very fast." She traces some of the lines of the drawing with her fingertip—careful not to apply too much pressure to smudge the pencil. "But last night was different. It was a nice dream. You'd picked me up from work like you'd do on Fridays and take me down to the beach. Only this time you said it wasn't going to be the beach; that you were finally taking me to Rome like we've always talked about." Your hooded eyes are downward cast, and Steve would do anything now to be able to see their brilliant color. "My mom wants to take me to Rome. I think she thinks that it's going to help me heal or something like that. But I told her I don't want to go. You and I had talked about it for so long... I don't think I'd be able to go with anyone else."

Steve's broken heart twists and turns in his chest until he feels as though he's nothing but an empty pile of meat standing in your doorway.

Part of him wants to hear more. The sensible side of him forces him to go. He knows deep down that he won't be able to handle much more of your soft, sad whispering and dainty lover's tears.

He finds the file in your office. It's gracelessly wedged between a dictionary and a world atlas. Steve finds himself pausing before leaving—fingers twitching slightly with desire. Then, to his own surprise, he takes out the world atlas. He carefully sets it down on the floor just beneath the shelf as if it's taken a fall. The pages fold open to a shot of a beautiful city in Italy—a city called Rome.

You've always believed in miracles and signs. Maybe, Steve thinks, he'll get lucky and you'll take this as one. Maybe you'll go on that trip with your mom. Maybe he won't feel like he's ruined your life, and maybe he'll finally be able to sleep at night without crying.

Back on the street Steve finds the black van. He climbs into the rear—pretending not to notice the silent, pitiful stares of the rest of his team.

He carefully hands the files off to Nat. "Here. I got them."

She's staring at him with sadness in her eyes. "Steve..."

"I'm fine." He gives Nat his back and goes to the front of the van just as it starts moving. Up there, Coulson drives. He eyeballs Captain America from the side for a moment before finally speaking up.

"I know what you're going through, and it's hard. But it will get better."

Steve doesn't really know if he believes that, but he doesn't think the pain could possibly get any worse.

"It's for the safety of everyone involved, Steve," Tony pipes up from the backseat as if the Captain hasn't heard this a million times before. "Hers, yours, the whole freaking world."

"And who knows? Maybe you'll be able to get back together after all of this," Coulson tries to offer some optimism.

Steve grunts. "After the hell I've put her through? I don't think she'll ever want anything to do with me again." He stares dazedly out the window to the park where you used to pet the neighbor's dogs. "She's miserable."

"It's been three months. You can't expect her to have totally moved on," Nat says.

Steve sighs. He's not sure if he wants you to move on or not. His mixed feelings give him nausea.

They pass a newly adopted bridge. The sign is one he's never seen before. He hasn't even been to this town in the three months that you've been apart. The bridge now has a plaque that reads: CAPTAIN AMERICA MEMORIAL BRIDGE.

"Like I said before," Steve sighs with a tear struggling to stay in his eye, "I don't know if she's going to ever be able to trust me again after she finds out that it was all a lie." He remembers it all—hearing your sobs from the other room when they'd told you he'd been crushed beneath a fallen building saving children in Prague, watching you at the flag-covered coffin from afar in the black dress and veil, and seeing the piles of flowers people were leaving at your door. You never did anything with them except deliver them all to his grave.

You'd been his everything; hell, you still are. There's only one thing in this world that Steve knows for sure; one fact now that keeps him up at night through the chaos of his world.

Living without you is worse than really being dead, and no matter what he does, he'll never be the man you deserve ever again.