Who: Molly Walker and Bucky Barnes What: Ghosts :o When: late night Where: Their house Warnings: none Status: Closed/Complete
It had been a long time since Molly had had a really bad nightmare. She wasn’t stupid enough to think they were just going to go away, that she’d forget about them or something like that. She’d been through a lot, way too young, had watched her parents be murdered, almost died herself, been kidnapped and trapped in her own mind, hunted and used by the people she trusted and passed around like no one wanted her. She knew it was probably a miracle she was able to smile at all, but she liked Madison Valley, and being loved and wanted and safe. It helped, but it didn’t make the nightmares go away completely.
Usually they weren’t bad enough to have her waking up gasping, the whispers of the Nightmare Man lingering in her ears. She’d been there again, trapped in that apartment with him. All alone except for that feeling that she was in trouble, that he was watching her, and being trapped. She’d screamed for help, for Matt because he was the one who had saved her before, because in her dream, or was it a memory, he was the one who would come for her again.
The only person who appeared was the Nightmare Man, scaring her awake like had never happened before.
She scrambled to turn on the lamp beside her bed, trembling as she tried to chase away the dream. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, she could handle a nightmare on her own. She thought she could, almost had herself calmed down enough to move again, until she looked toward the window, saw his face in it.
Molly screamed, bolting out of her bed and down the hall without looking back, right into her dad’s room. She wasn’t a little girl, but right now she needed one of them. It didn’t even strike her that Steve wasn’t there, just Bucky in his bed.
***
Bucky had woken up an hour or so earlier when Steve slipped out of bed, but he hadn't been too worried about it and ended up dozing for the most part. He never slept well when he was on his own, but tonight was different. It felt a lot like it had in the beginning, when he'd been plagued by faces he knew he was responsible for killing. He was woken from his sleep by a sharp scream, but it took him a moment to distinguish that the scream hadn't been from his dream.
Not a moment later and Molly came careening into their room. Bucky caught her in his arms when she ended up on the bed, internally grateful that he had his typical sleep pants on. "Hey, hey, shh," he soothed, cradling her against him. Bucky rubbed his human hand up and down her back in what he hoped was a soothing matter.
"What's wrong, Molls?" She had her nightmares, he knew, but this just seemed worse than usual. Plus, Steve usually took this sort of stuff. His way of helping was cooking something or getting ice cream together in the middle of the night. "I've got you," Bucky promised as he pressed a kiss against her temple. "You're safe." Those were the things he liked to hear, after his nightmares.
***
From the moment he’d arrived, there’d never been a question in Molly’s mind about trusting him, loving him, relying on him. He’d become in a second almost as much her dad as Steve was, and the months that he’d been there had only solidified that. She didn’t care that he wasn’t usually the one she curled up on when she was scared, he was just as good. He would protect her just the same.
Curling in close, hiding inside his arms, Molly let him comfort her. It didn’t work as well as he probably hoped it would. She wasn’t easily calmed when her life was in danger.
“He’s here,” she explained, voice shaking as much as the rest of her. “He’s here and he found me. He’s going to trap me again.” It would be easy to look with her powers, she’d know for sure that she hadn’t just imagined it, she could tell her parents where he was and they would save her from him. But she couldn’t do it. The moment Molly looked for him, he’d see her. He could get into her head again, lock her away again, and there was no Matt to come get her if she got stuck there.
***
Bucky knew very little about what plagued Molly's nightmares. He knew she'd been kidnapped, but by whom and for what reasons, he didn't know. All he knew was that something was scaring her now and he wasn't about to let that last for long if he could help it. "No one's going to take you anywhere, Molls." She had to know he'd never let anything bad happen to her.
"Where did you see him?" Bucky had enough weapons hidden around the house that he could be well armed at a moment's notice no matter where he was, but he wasn't about to let go of his kid to grab the handgun in his bedside table without information. The house didn't feel different, didn't sound different, and he was usually keyed into his surroundings enough to know if something was off.
"Was he in your room? Outside the window?" Bucky kept rubbing her back and even started to rock her gently a bit without even realizing it. Maybe he wasn't so terrible at this comforting thing. "I won't let him hurt you." He'd die before that happened, and Bucky realized that it was because she was his kid, not because she was Steve's kid. All the more reason to go through with that idea he'd been toying with.
***
“He was in my window,” she told him, but that wasn’t the worst of it. “He’s in my head. That’s what he does. And I can’t look and make sure because when I look for him he sees me and he’s going to trap me again.”
Except she knew that wasn’t true. He wasn’t really there, couldn’t really be there, because she would know. She would have known as soon as he’d gotten there, she was sure of it, and she was sure she’d had to have seen him for him to know that she was even there.
She shifted a little, leaning against his chest rather than clutching in terror. “It was just a dream, right?” The question was more of a plea. “The Nightmare Man isn’t really here, right?”
He couldn’t be there.
***
He wasn't one to just dismiss threats, but even Bucky could admit that it most people posted on the network when they first arrived, and Molly had a bit of a leg up because she could find people very easily. It was possible that the Nightmare Man was just in her head, but he'd make sure. It could have just as easily been someone who looked like the Nightmare Man, but if there had been someone outside her window, he'd find them and get an answer out of why he'd been hanging around a teenager's window.
"I'll make sure he's not really here," Bucky promised. "And I know a thing or two about being haunted by the things in your head." He kept rubbing her back in gentle circles and he shifted so that it was a little less of a bear hug. Bucky loved Molly way more than he'd ever expected, and a lot of that had to do with the fact that she'd just up and accepted him without any hesitation. She was a great kid and she was his in everything but the paperwork.
"You're not the only one around here with nightmares, remember? Want to get some ice cream?" He knew better than to try to suggest going back to sleep so soon, but ice cream was usually a good choice. "Or, we could put up some more decorations. I think there's some that we haven't put up yet." That was partially true, because he hadn't figured out where to put some stuff, but that could be pretty distracting for a couple of hours. Worst came to worst, he'd get her present for tomorrow and give it to her a little early.
***
Molly was pretty sure that the way he was haunted by the things in his head was very, very different than having the Nightmare Man inside her head, in her mind,with the power to just close the doors on her and keep her there. His were probably memories. Hers was a real person. But despite that difference, she appreciated that he was trying to understand and make her feel like she wasn’t alone.
It was different than when she had bad nightmares and curled up with Steve. Steve was different. He was quiet and just wrapped her up safely, waited until she decided she was done being scared and then took her back to bed and checked around the room with her, just to be safe.
Bucky’s way worked just as well. Maybe better right now.
“Ice cream,” she said quietly after a moment’s hesitation. “Our house already looks like the North Pole threw up.”
She’d been saying that since the day they decorated. But it was very true.
***
"Ice cream it is," he replied easily, pressing another kiss to her temple. There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for this kid - for his kid - and he hoped she realized that. "You don't think I went a little overboard, do you?"
Bucky wasn't exactly apologetic for how into Christmas he got, since he'd always been that way and now he had the money to really go all out. He wanted to show the people he cared about how important they were to him, because he wasn't going to take a single day for granted in Madison Valley. He was very aware that this could be the only Christmas he had to enjoy, so he wasn't going to waste a second of it.
He waited until Molly made the move to get up, because until she was ready to go get ice cream, he was content to hold her and keep her safe. Bucky could admit that it made him feel better about himself that he could offer her that kind of protection and support for her.
***
“No. I like it.” The excessive decorations and the daily presents were actually great, and not just because she was getting stuff. She liked that it was all a gesture of them being a family and of Bucky loving them. She liked that she was included in that.
It took a few moments before Molly moved, but she made herself do it before she really wanted to. She hated acting like a scared little baby, even if that was exactly what she was right now, wanted to be seen like a grown up who could handle her bad dreams like one. To her, that was what she needed to grow up and not be treated like a little kid.
Even when she got up, though, she didn’t let go of Bucky. She kept a grip on his human arm all the way out of the room, scrambling around to the other side to put him between her and her room as they passed by it, staying there all the way downstairs. She only let go when they got to the kitchen and she needed both of her hands to boost herself up to sit on the counter. Steve would chastise her for that, for sure, but it let her see better than the table, just in case her nightmare wasn’t just a nightmare.
It didn’t feel like any nightmare she’d had before.
***
It meant a lot to him that she didn't think it was too much, especially since he'd put a lot of things in motion already to show her exactly how serious he was about being part of a family with her and loving her. Molly was one special kid, and she deserved the whole world. Bucky'd give her everything he could while he was in Madison Valley. "I'm glad you like it, Molls."
He stayed close to her as they headed down to the kitchen, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders when they passed her room. She was safe with him. Bucky knew she was probably still feeling a little unsteady, but he didn't begrudge her for trying to put on a brave face for him.
When they got downstairs, he went to the freezer to grab the chocolate chip cookie dough for her and the chocolate chocolate chip for him. When he caught sight of her on the counter, Bucky grinned. "Comfy there, kiddo?" He pulled the lid off the cookie dough and handed her a spoon. "I won't tell if you don't," he said as he offered her the ice cream container.
***
The offer, of ice cream and of letting her do something she technically wasn’t supposed to do, made her smile a little. It was weak, not her usual beam, but it was real enough and appreciative.
“Thanks.” She took the ice cream and just sort of poked at it for a second. She should probably tell him about things. She felt like she owed him some sort of explanation. No way was Molly okay with just being a kid who freaked out over a bad dream, she had those so often it would be stupid if she did, and had to run to her parents to chase monsters away. She wanted to stand up to them herself. But this was different.
After a moment, keeping her eyes on her ice cream, she said quietly: “The Nightmare Man’s the worst thing that ever happened.”
Worse even than watching her parents be killed. At least she’d been able to hide from that.
***
Any smile was a win in Bucky's book, so he counted it as a win and took a spoonful of his own ice cream. It wasn't often that he was interested in food that was cold, but nightmares definitely counted as a time for comfort food. His own was definitely chocolate, but frozen chocolate wasn't half bad at all.
He wasn't going to force Molly to open up before she was ready, but he did appreciate that she trusted him enough to offer up information about the Nightmare Man. Bucky had purposefully not pressed, and he trusted that Steve's minimal information was enough to get by. It meant something that she was starting to open up to him about her past.
"I'm here to listen," he reminded her, knocking her foot with his knee. Bucky had seen some really terrible shit and he'd done a lot worse, so whatever it was she wanted to tell him, he knew he could handle it. What he hoped he could keep under control was the protective nature he felt for her.
***
“He’s got powers too,” she went on quietly, paused for a little bit of ice cream. Ice cream helped, but having Bucky right there to protect her helped even more. She was defenceless against the Nightmare Man, her powers just made her more vulnerable. “But they’re different than mine. He reads minds, like Matt.”
She’d definitely mentioned her foster fathers in New York, how they’d taken her in when she’d had nowhere else, how she’d gone to live with Mohinder’s mother in India. What she hadn’t said was that the whole thing with the Nightmare Man had been the start of what had led to that.
“But he’s more dangerous. Because he can make a room in your head and he can lock you in there. He did that to me. He got to do that because I looked for him.” Because she’d opened up her mind to him in order to find him, and she didn’t have the ability to push him back, fight him off. She knew that he had no reason to come to her here, she knew that he was probably dead in her world; that was the only reason he’d have left her alone. But that didn’t make him any less terrifying to her.
“But he was there before, too. I dreamed about him for a long time. Dreams like the one I had.”
***
Bucky was appreciative of any information she would give him, so he listened intently as she told him about the Nightmare Man. Matt was the telepath and Mohinder had basically gotten the equivalent of the super soldier serum from their world. Maybe it wasn't so odd that she'd ended up with him and Steve as her guardians.
The obvious answer was to not look for him, no matter how tempted she might be. That required her trust in him and in Steve to keep her safe, which he knew was a big ask. Bucky knew what it was like to be haunted by his past and for the lines between dreams and reality to be blurred. When he'd first started to shake off HYDRA's programming, Bucky had thought he'd seen many of the people he'd killed in the past, some just a flash in the corner of his eye and some right in front of him.
"That's hard to live with," Bucky replied. He knew that, and it showed. "Trust me an' Steve, okay? We'll keep you safe, so you don't hafta go looking for him, even if it's just to make sure he isn't here." He'd go door to door, person to person, just to find out if there was someone who looked like the Nightmare Man to ease her mind.
***
“I know. I trust you.” That had never been in question. She trusted them more than she trusted anyone, but she’d trusted Matt too, trusted Mohinder too, and they’d failed her. There was always something and they’d just sent her away and forgotten about her in the end. Things were different here, she knew that, no one was looking to her to use her powers for them, hunting her down to make her use them; she wasn’t in danger like she was at home. But it was hard to feel safe when her dream had felt so real. When he’d still been there even after she’d woken up.
“You’ll make sure he’s not here, right?” Instead of her looking, Bucky could. He was weird and stalky sometimes but good at finding people if they were there to be found.
Molly needed for him to say yes. She needed someone to make sure.
***
"I will," Bucky promised. He set his own ice cream down and wrapped her in a big hug. He'd needed it, but he hoped it helped her feel better too. "First thing in the morning, and I'll have an answer for you by dinner time." Possibly sooner, but Bucky had made his point. She would know one way or their other tomorrow.
He would have to talk to Steve though. If the Nightmare Man was in Madison Valley, he couldn't stay. Bucky would never let a threat of that magnitude walk around Madison without consequence. Killing him would mean keeping Molly safe, but it provided a whole host of other complications that Steve would need to be aware of. That was a problem to face tomorrow, though.
After he pressed a kiss to the top of her head, Bucky pulled away to get back to his ice cream. "Speaking of dinner, what should we have? Steve an' me always had soup this time of year." It had been all they could really afford, but they hadn't gone hungry. Steve had always pulled through. It was hard to shake that worry that he'd get sick though.
***
The assurance helped the most. Knowing that she’d know for sure if she’d been dreaming or not helped. And until then, or at least until morning, she was staying with Bucky. Whether he wanted to or not. Whether it made her look like a little kid or not.
“I dunno.” It was the middle of the night and she was eating ice cream; how was she supposed to know what she wanted to have for dinner? “Soup’s fine I guess. As long as it’s not weird soup with mayonnaise or something.”
She’d learned very quickly living with Steve that a lot of what he thought was totally normal was weird and gross. And there was always mayonnaise on weird things. People in the olden days ate weird things.
“Where’s Steve anyway?” Belatedly she realized that he hadn’t been in bed, that he wasn’t downstairs. The only thing keeping her from panicking that he was gone was there was still a jacket draped over the back of one of the kitchen chairs and Bucky wasn’t worried either.
***
"He left about an hour and a half ago," Bucky replied with a shrug. Someone needed the big lug, and Bucky couldn't find fault with that. Steve was one of the best people to call when there was trouble. "He was putting mayo in soup?" He tried to think of which soups would call for mayonnaise, or what they might've used it for as a replacement item, but he couldn't really think of anything off the top of his head.
"I'll make chicken soup. Nice slow cook, and it'll last a couple days." His was usually designed to get loaded up with pasta cooked fresh each meal, so it'd last a bit longer when it came to feeding two super soldiers. "And I think maybe we can agree that Steve doesn't get to cook anymore." Bucky had done most of the cooking since arriving anyway, so it wasn't like there was necessarily all that much to agree to. They just didn't bring up bananas anymore because they weren't even real bananas anymore.
***
“Oh.” That was okay then. Molly wished that he was there too, two was better than one dad, but he couldn’t have known that she would need him if he’d been gone before it had happened, and she would try not to hold it against him. She was just glad that Bucky was there.
“No. I don’t know. He’s not bad,” Bucky was better, “he just makes weird things sometimes is all.” And other times he was actually a really good cook. Molly had decided ages ago that it was just when he cooked oldtimey stuff that it was weird, and when he tried out new stuff it was fine. So pretty much if he followed a recipe. “Chicken sounds good, though. I want that.”
Chicken soup sounded like home. Home sounded good.
***
"That's cause he's weird, kiddo," Bucky replied with a laugh. "He's good at following instructions from a recipe, so I know he's not a bad cook. He did a lot of the cooking growing up." That had been more because Bucky'd worked nearly all day every day just for them to have food on the table, so Steve had kept their apartment tidy and the food ready for when Bucky walked in the door at the end of a hard day.
"Then that's what you'll get." Along with her answer, because he'd damn sure have it for her by then. There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for the girl in front of him, which made him realize that he'd done the right thing in talking to Steve about the present she'd be getting on Christmas day. Bucky gave her another tight hug, lingering for a few moments because he needed it maybe more than she did. "Love you, Molls."