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The sound of Steve’s keys jingling echoed down the stairwell, punctuating the thick silence that had settled over his apartment building. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but he was sure it was obscenely late based on the complete absence of other human beings. He hadn’t even seen a car pass by on his way up from the parking lot. He was used to being up at odd hours running ops, but SHIELD was its own special brand of strange. He unlocked his door, thinking only about how desperately he wanted to sleep. He wasn’t sure he’d even make it out of his jacket before the call of his bed became too much to resist.
He tossed his keys towards the end table in the foyer, expecting a quick clatter as they hit the wood. Instead, the keys arced straight down to the floor with a loud crack! Steve immediately snapped to attention. He missed? He looked to the spot where the table should have been, but the table wasn’t there.
His heart started pounding.
He looked back at his door, looking for signs that the lock had been broken or tampered with, but nothing looked out of place. One of Fury’s agents wouldn’t have come into his apartment and just...moved the table, would they? That was ridiculous. Still, someone did it. He hugged the wall as he crept towards his living room.
The end table stood further down the hall, half inside the living room and skewed as if it had been pushed before coming to an abrupt stop at the entranceway. Steve looked inside the living room, the kitchen, and his bedroom for broken glass, jimmied windows, even holes cut in the walls or ceilings. Nothing. As he came back into the hallway, every nerve shuddering with pent up energy, he turned his attention back towards the table.
Some of the lacquer on the side closest to the doorframe had chipped away as had some of the paint on the corner of the wall, confirming his theory that it had been pushed there. What really caught his eye, however, were the handprints.
There were two, both on the side opposite the chip. The shapes of ten fingers were outlined in fine frost, and although the apartment was too warm, even with the AC running, to preserve it, the frost showed no signs of melting. Steve reached out a tentative hand and brushed his fingers across one of the thumb prints. The gesture seemed to disrupt whatever phenomenon had been protecting the icy impressions, and as soon as Steve touched them, the prints began to disappear.
He stepped back and took a breath, trying to calm his nerves.
What the hell is going on?
This wasn’t the first time strange things had happened in his house. Sometimes boxes of food or empty glasses would tip over. Sometimes a cabinet door would creak open or suddenly fall shut. Lately frost had been forming on the edges of the windows even though it was still summer. Fury sent agents a few times to check the place out, stating that one could never be too careful about these things, but each time they turned up nothing. Nat had teased him about his apartment being haunted, and Steve never argued with her. After all, just a few months ago he’d been fighting aliens in New York City. Who was to say ghosts weren’t real? Even so, his ghost has never done anything like this before.
He walked back into the living room. He lifted up couch cushions, looked in the vents, turned the curtains inside out. Someone had to have broken in. Some kind of agent or powered person with a grudge, maybe even someone who knew about the strange haunting in his apartment trying to replicate the events to lower his guard. Maybe Fury was right and there wasn’t even a haunting to begin with, and whoever had been causing it was moving towards their end game. He would have to call Fury. If someone knew where he lived, it was a security risk they would have to deal with. He sighed as his search finally came up empty. No bugs or any other potential danger as far as he could tell, just like the last hundred times he checked, but that didn’t mean he was safe yet. There were still more rooms to check. He turned towards the kitchen. Then he noticed the cold.
It seeped out of the walls and washed over the whole room. His jacket, which was perfect for the gentle chill of a summer night, felt too thin all of a sudden. The air bit at his throat as he breathed, and his breath came out in swirling clouds. He looked up at the vent in the ceiling as he began to shiver. He held his hand up, but the air that came out wasn’t nearly cold enough to cause this.
He froze as he felt pressure on his shoulders. The cold there soaked straight through his skin and stung like the cut of a blade. Thick frost coated his jacket. His vision blurred and gained a blue tint, or...no. It wasn’t his eyes. There was something there. Standing in front of him, a shifting figure he couldn’t make out clearly no matter how hard he focused. A hot, humming sensation rose in Steve’s chest, but he forced it back down. He didn’t have any time to lose. He had to act, had to fight back, had to do something.
“What are you?” he breathed.
There was a face there somewhere. If it would just come into focus for even a second…
The figure didn’t respond to his question, but its energy seemed to shift. It felt erratic. Frantic. The pressure on Steve’s shoulders increased, as if this thing were gripping him tighter. The frost spread farther. The cold grew worse.
“Are you here to kill me?” he asked.
The figure stopped and immediately released him, flitting away and disappearing. As quickly as it had appeared, the frost on his jacket melted, and small droplets of water began running down his sleeve. Steve released a nervous breath, eyes darting around the room to see where the figure had gone, but it was nowhere to be seen. Still, he knew it wasn’t gone. The chill in the air remained, just as biting as before.
Across the room, the curtains rustled and flew back. Steve nearly jumped out of his skin as he spun towards the sudden movement. Frost began growing across the window in a thick patch. Curiosity overtook his fear as he walked towards the window. Soon all the glass was covered in ice and fog. Then the letters began to appear.
Steve, an invisible finger wrote, can you hear me?
“I can see you writing but, no. Have you been trying to talk to me?” he asked.
The letters disappeared, covered with a new layer of frost, and new words appeared on the window.
Have to talk like this then.
“Ok, what are we talking about?” Steve asked, “Who are you?”
For a moment there was no answer. A breath of wind passed through the room, soft as a sign.
Steve, it’s me.
It’s Bucky.
The name gave him pause, striking a painful chord in his heart that hadn’t been touched in awhile, but it didn’t last. He curled his hands into fists.
“Sergeant Barnes died almost seventy years ago defending this country. Who are you really? What do you want from me?” he asked, “Is this some kind of hologram? Or are you one of those enhanced individuals who keep turning up?”
I’m not lying.
“Like hell you’re not! Enough with the games. Tell me who you are.”
Bucky. You spent 6 months on my floor. After your mom died. Mom made you a quilt, the writing said.
Watching the writing slowly reveal itself was agony to watch. Steve couldn’t feel the chill in the air anymore. Instead the ice began spreading through his gut. A pang of nausea hit his stomach as the invisible writer finished the last sentence and fell silent.
“No that...this isn’t possible. ” he said.
Steve, we both know you’ve seen weirder.
A bitter laugh escaped him. The corners of his eyes began to burn.
Been trying to talk to you since ‘45, but you just had to go for a swim.
The air around him didn’t feel any warmer, but somehow the cold didn’t feel as harsh anymore. Steve could almost hear the teasing disapproval in Bucky’s words. It was a sound he sorely missed.
It’s me, Steve, I promise.
I’m home.