In All My Dreams I Drown- Steve Rogers fic

[RiversD]

Title: In All My Dreams I Drown
Fandom: Marvel/Captain America
Character: Steve Rogers
Author's notes: Thought this would be worth posting here as a fever/coughing fic. Written for a request for feverish, angsty Steve and Bucky being the only one able to comfort him in this state (years of experience and all that) Set post-Captain America: Civil War, so I guess he's hanging out in a bunker somewhere? Plot somewhat sparse, fever dreams, anxiety and traumatic memories abound.

 

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He was drowning, icy water creeping across his chest to tighten around his neck. He couldn’t move, couldn’t even feel his legs, couldn’t feel anything much but the freezing weight of the water drawing him into the dark. Steve hung on and tried not to cry, tried not to let fear swallow up his last few moments of thought. But the water was spilling across his face now, forcing its way up his nose, into his throat, making him choke uselessly, his body fighting to survive what his brain knew would be a losing battle. The water was everywhere, heavy as lead. He felt as though he was being squeezed from all sides. The plane was slipping away underneath him and he couldn’t breathe…

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Steve jerked awake with a spluttering cough, still feeling that tight, squeezing sensation in his chest and throat. He rolled onto his side, coughing helplessly and trying to get a grip on where he was. Not underwater. That was important. His fingers fisted around fabric- bedclothes, probably. It was still dark, and he was still too cold.

“Steve?” There was a click, and a sliver of light cut through the darkness. Footsteps. Steve shuffled back as someone approached the bed,

The figure paused just before the bed, then knelt down. A moment’s thought later, she slowly raised her hands, letting him see that they were empty. She. Yes, this was a woman. Red hair, glowing gently in the light from the doorway. He should know who she was.

“Steve, it’s okay. You’ve had a nightmare.”

The woman reached out slowly and steered his arm back to his side.

“I know you,” he gasped, and the woman nodded encouragingly.

“That’s right, you do. Crap, I think your fever’s higher. Bruce only gave you some stuff an hour ago… I’m Natasha, remember?”

There was a beep as she held a small device close to his skin.

“Yes, y-you’re a spy.” Fractured recollection spilled across his mind. The burr of airplane engines, such a different sound to those he’d been used to; Natasha’s grinning face, mocking him even as he jumped; falling, and then- water, cold, cold water, swallowing him whole…

Steve felt his body tense, reacting before his brain was fully aware of its own terror. He shrank away from Nat until his spine scraped the too-cold wall on the other side of the bed and he flinched from it.

Her hands were raised, palms out, conciliatory.

“Steve, it’s okay. I’m on your side. I’m your friend.”

“I- I know that…” Steve was breathing too fast, trying to understand why he couldn’t understand, trying not to just start crying again out of fear and pure confusion. Natasha glanced down at her device again.

“106? Holy- Steve, you shouldn’t be working yourself up like this. You need to relax.”

“Can’t. I can’t-”

The tightening band in Steve’s throat cut off the sentence. A voice in the back of his head was telling him that he knew Natasha, that he could trust her, but he couldn’t turn that into reality.

You’re trapped. You’re dying. They’re coming for you. No way out…

“Go ‘way!” He managed, his voice turned into a frightened squeak.

He heard Natasha stand up.

“Alright. Alright, I’m going. Just… relax, please?”

She backed away. Steve heard her voice outside the door, but the words were blurred.

He laid his head back down on the bed and unfolded his limbs a little, if only because it was too much effort to do anything else. His head ached, but it had nothing on his chest, which felt as though it was trying to shrink away from the rest of his body. Every time he coughed it was like being sucker-punched.

He was definitely sick, he realised. Nothing felt right. His body felt too hot, but everything he touched felt painfully cold and set him shivering all over again. His memory wasn’t working, either, rejecting all attempts to access it. He didn’t even remember getting sick in the first place. The world had become reduced to a single, stretched-out, miserable now.

That would be the fever. Natasha had mentioned a fever. She said he needed to relax. Perhaps he should try to sleep, but the very thought made his breath start to shorten again. He could feel the water there, waiting.

A hushed argument was taking place outside his door. Steve tried to listen, if only to block out the lapping of waves on the edge of hearing. He couldn’t catch everything, but that was okay. It meant he had to concentrate.

“…can’t give him any for another two hours.”

“…hasn’t worked, Bruce! You know his metabol… cant you even…”

“He doesn’t trust me. I’m not sure I should go in there.”

“It’s Steve, Bruce. He trusts you.”

“Well he normally trusts you too, and I notice you’re…”

“…not helping me…”

The words were getting harder to follow. Steve felt as though his head was becoming weighed down. His tongue felt too big for his mouth as well. He swallowed thickly. It hurt.

“Look, he… nervous of doctors, okay? Something to do with… even when he’s well, I can’t…”

“Yes, but you said if he doesn’t relax he’ll just…”

Steve yawned. That hurt as well, but it didn’t seem to matter quite so much now. Things felt further away.

“I can’t predict everyth… where… Sam…?”

 “…said if anybody…I don’t…”

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He was running through trees, shield strapped to his arm, the voices of the Howling Commandos on either side of him. He could feel his own heart pounding with every step, breath short his chest. The trees thinned out and there below them was the Hydra base, tucked into a gully. He ran for a handy cliff-edge, leapt for a roof… went through.

He plunged into darkness and fell flat on a wet floor. He managed to roll, but something was wrong with his legs. They wouldn’t push him up. The door of the Valkyrie slid to above him and suddenly the water was thundering in, ice-cold, stinging, smothering. He couldn’t get up and he was going to die…

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Awake. Gasping, choking, burning in his own skin, but not drowning. Steve hugged his knees and whimpered between spasms as his chest punished him for that moment of panic. His nose was running, but he didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. He sniffed and rubbed it against his pyjama-clad knees instead.

That triggered a fresh round of coughing, plus a couple of sneezes that led to him discovering a half-emptied box of tissues on the nightstand. Grunting with the effort of even this much stretching, Steve dragged it into bed with him and went through several rounds of tissues before the whole thing became too exhausting and he fell back onto the bed with a congested moan.

Soon, or perhaps not- Steve couldn’t tell if he had lost consciousness for a while or not- he realised that he could hear voices outside his room again. One of them sounded like the spy- Natasha.

“Are you sure about this?”

A new voice, calm and collected. Somehow it comforted Steve that someone around here was feeling calm.

“Look, I know the guy isn’t exactly stable, but I’ve seen how he is around Steve. And Steve trusts him, even when he really shouldn’t.  I think it’s worth a shot.”

There was a scuffling sound, and what sounded like a sigh from Natasha. “Alright. Bring him in, then. But you’re responsible.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll be right behind him.”

Then another voice, this one sounding like its owner hadn’t had cause to use it in too long.

“Let me see.”

Silence, just long enough for nervousness to come creeping back up Steve’s throat, then the sound of the door opening, and light.

Steve tried to push himself up to get a look at the figures entering his room but barely made it halfway before a harsh coughing fit undid his balance and he collapsed back down onto the sweat-damp pillow, choking into the fabric.

Fingers brushed his hair back from his eyes, then reached under his burning cheek to free his face from the pillow. Steve wheezed uneasily as he was settled back down on his side, able to get a look at the man now crouching at his bedside.

In this position, much of his face was obscured by long, dark hair, but Steve could make out cool, grey eyes, and a soft-looking mouth set in a firm, serious line. He reached out his other arm to unknit a knot of blankets, and Steve saw that despite the delicacy of its movement, the arm shone like a gun barrel in the dim light.

He lifted a trembling hand and placed it over the metal one, which stilled, its owner waiting for Steve to make the next move. The hand under his was cool, but not as cold as he had half-expected. More than that, it was wonderfully familiar.

Steve traced his way up the metal arm, remembering by touch. His fingers slid inside the sleeve of the man’s t-shirt and found the join, a thin line of scar tissue belying the extent of the surgeries behind it. He withdrew his hand and used it to push back the curtain of hair.

“Buck?”

The man’s face barely moved, but his tone was lighter than his expression.

“Yeah, it’s me. I’d have got a haircut, but we were moving fast, and I don’t trust the bird man with scissors.”

Behind him Sam sighed. “You know I have a name.”

“Sure.” Bucky slid his flesh-and-blood arm under Steve’s back and raised him, bringing him to rest against Bucky’s chest. Steve coughed and spluttered as he was moved, but once he began to relax against Bucky, his breathing started to sound a little less horrifying. Beneath him, Bucky sighed.

“Extra pillows, Steve. When are you gonna learn?”

“Too much effort.” Steve muttered into his shirt. Bucky was warm, his comforting heat seeming to reach out from his body to wrap Steve up in itself.

“Yeah? Sounded like you were finding it real easy to breathe all curled up down there. There’s a trade-off in these things.”

Steve managed a strangled chuckle and coughed weakly.

“Just bad at being sick, I guess.”

“You’re only working that out now?”

Bucky rubbed gently up and down Steve’s back, some of the delirium-fuelled tension sloughing blissfully off as he did so.

Still uncertain, Steve clutched at Bucky’s shirt, winding the fabric tight to his fist.

“Stay?”

In response, Bucky dragged his own legs up onto the bed, pushing Steve to one side where necessary, and pulled the box of tissues into his own lap.

“’course, Steve. When have you ever known me not stay?”

Half-lost to the warmth of the past already, Steve squirmed his face against Bucky’s chest and smiled.

“Mmm. Thank you, Buck. You make things easier.”

“That’s my job, kiddo.” Bucky muttered. Perhaps triggered by a sound behind him, he twisted his head with a protective growl, then carefully relaxing again when a moan from Steve reminded him that his friend could feel his unease.

“You don’t have to hover so close, Feathers,” he said, before turning his eyes back to the super-soldier in his arms. “This, I remember how to do.”

[SneezyHolmes]

Ah, I loved this!  

[queenie]

Omg, Rivers! The Sam and Bucky banter at the end is Very Important to me. Also Bucky being more himself than himself taking care of Steve. It's perfect. 

[Elektra]

Very cool:)