fear itself

[deadthenred]

WHO: Bucky Barnes + ???
WHERE: the dreamscape
WHEN: vague pre-event beforetimes.
WHAT: three nightmares.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: feelings of inadequacy, vampires

[ In his dreams, it's 1943 again. ]

1)

[ Maybe you've had this nightmare before. Like showing up to take a final for a class you've forgotten to attend the whole semester, this is one that repeats.

There's a podium, a microphone— one of those old-timey, radio looking pieces. Behind the podium is an enormous star-spangled flag. There might be cameras in the audience, too, but the people out there are dark, nebulous, hard to see. One thing's for sure, though: they're all watching.

You gotta make a speech. ]

2)

[ The signs on the buildings here are all in French, but the soldiers are speaking English. They're crowded around their jeeps, mostly, biding time until reinforcements arrive and they can follow Patton up to the front. The only electricity right now is coming from batteries, and there are still holes in all the buildings from when the Germans blew right through, and the roads are still more mud than pavement.

Winter was unkind, in this part of Europe. It's still cold.

In fact, Bucky's teeth are close to chattering as he approaches the dark house, the street illuminated by memory, if not by lamplight. Some part of his subconscious knows what he's gonna find here. ]

Look. [ He turns to whoever's he's walking with, younger than usual, the cold snapping in his voice. ] Maybe we shouldn't go in.

[ A lot of people in this town have died, recently. Not all of them have stayed dead. ]

3)

[ The picture is black and white, but you can tell that the man's uniform is red, white, and blue. Captain America, the name blares in the tin of a radio announcer. He has the strength of ten men, the speed of ten horses, and the heart of a can-do patriot. He's the latest miracle of American engineering, and he's fighting on the side of freedom! So look out, Hitler and Hirohito—

And then the man smiles like a poster, except he's not a poster anymore, everything's all in living color. And he looks straight ahead, and says: ]

What makes you think you could ever keep up?

Comments

[deadthenred]

[ That jerks him out of the dream. Not all the way out of it, like a long fall into dark water. But enough to realize that he's not alone, here.

Which makes it better? Which makes it worse?

(What happens, usually, when his mind shows him this particular memory is: he tells her that it is not a bad thing at all. And she says that she'll show him, and he forgets about the rain altogether.) ]

I'm—

[ Still lost, a little, as he puts it all together. Bucky loves Paris, the way only an American can. ]

I'm sorry. I didn't—

[ He pulls himself back, awkwardly, almost slipping on the slick pavement. The rain comes down like a sheet between them. ]

This is real awkward.

[bornrussian]

[The rain is like a curtain around them, creating a little space for them out of easy view from the rest of the street. There should be other people around, cars zipping up and down the street.

If this is the corner of Paris that Natasha thinks it is, it's rarely quiet. But everything around the edges of him are blurred out and distant obscured by the rain and the dream in equal measures.

It should feel claustrophobic, but instead it comes off as somehow intimate.

He steps away, and Natasha's fingers curl into the air rather than strands of soaked hair and rain wet skin. She feels the loss like an ache as she lowers her arms and watches him through the rain.

Her brows dip into a frown, and the dream tugs at her and threatens to pull her under. But his words are a lifeline, keeping her head above water.]

This is a dream. [The words are almost stolen by the crash of the rain. She means them to be a strong statement, instead they come out as pointing out the obvious. Like saying this rain is sure wet.]

But I'm not dreaming you.

[deadthenred]

[ It's not a secluded part of Paris. The rain has chased some of the usual crowds away, but there was nothing private about it. It was only their closeness that made it feel otherwise, magnified by the stolen intimacy of memory.

Not that they were the only people kissing on the sidewalk in Paris. It was something all the American tourists did, according to the stereotype. But that was part of the thrill, too, standing revealed, in plain sight, ordinary. He never got to do that for very long. He's not really doing that now. He's just dreaming.

And he's gone and mixed someone else in it too. ]

No. This is all me. [ He brings a hand up to his face, like he could wipe the rain away. ] I didn't mean to drag you here.

[ He doesn't look at her. Still doesn't know what to say. ]

Y'know, Steve was always the better talker.

[bornrussian]

[There are conclusions to be drawn from the way his eyes won't quite meet hers. Does she still look like herself or the same but other? There's no way to tell now that she's so firmly inhabiting this body.

Natasha moves to stand next to him, shifts the umbrella so it'll cover them both, and watches the rain soaked street in front of them fill up with cars and people hurrying to get out of the rain.

They're still in a bubble. Untouched. The people looking faded like they were drawn with water colors as they duck past. Are they seeing the same things? She can't help but wonder. Maybe they're dreaming separately but at the same time.]

I've been pulled into worse dreams. [The words are offered with a certain wryness.]

A memory or wishful thinking?

[deadthenred]

If it were wishful thinking, it wouldn't be raining.

[ Though that had added to the romance, the way memories turn it all rosy, gilding the lily of everything. It was happening now, with them close enough to hide under the single umbrella.

He looks down, face breaking into something between a wince and a grimace, tightening his angles. Like that'll break the spell. ]

I can maybe— we can go somewhere else. [ The memories come from him, after all. ] But I can't promise it'll be good.

[bornrussian]

I don't mind the rain.

[Natasha gives herself a moment to watch the rain drops hit the puddles on the pavement, and listen to his breathing as they stand shoulder to shoulder.

It feels almost normal. A certain kind of homesickness rising in her chest. Oh to be in Paris again, standing shoulder to shoulder with someone who knows her. Except Bucky doesn't know her at all. Just like she doesn't know him.]

Dealer's choice, I guess. [She tilts her head back to look at him.] Or we could go to see the Eiffel Tower.

[Does the dream extend that far? Will it let them? She can feel something tugging at her, that weird dual perspective flickering before her eyes again. Like she's just borrowing the body from dream!Natasha and she's being pushed out.]

[deadthenred]

Sure. We can go to the Eiffel Tower.

[ It's visible from where they're standing, almost impossibly close, almost like it's been watching them, a tower of eyes in a city of light.

But as he starts to walk toward it, the city blinks. Suddenly, it's not raining anymore.

There's a Jeep parked in front of the Eiffel Tower, four men in hard olive helmets looking up at the tricolor flying at the top of it, caught high in the August sunshine.

Most of the time he's spent in Paris was back in 1944. ]