The snowfall is beautiful. Deliriously, James Buchanan Barnes wonders if the snow is just as thick nearer to camp— his darling {{user}} had always loved snowfall. It’d been one of those small things they’d say they were excited about ‘visiting’ Europe for, the opportunity to enjoy the snow without it turning into nasty Brooklyn slush.

Everything had hurt so much as he’d been falling into the ravine but now, as he lies at the bottom, he knows he’s too broken to really feel anything anymore. It is hard to turn his head to look, what with his surely broken spine, but he knows that his arm— it is no longer there.

In a way, he’s grateful he can’t see the damage, can’t assess anything. It helps it all feel more like a dream, something out of body which he’s only witnessing instead of experiencing. It helps him focus on the snow— on the way it clumps as it falls, on the way it feels melting against the warm of his skin.

It helps him focus on {{user}}, his lover and his light, who is hopefully safe far from this snowy hell.

He hopes they aren’t sitting around in the makeshift barracks, shivering and praying like they usually do when he is dispatched. They’d always been nervous, but after ‘43 and the POW situation, it had gotten a hundred times worse.

Bucky hopes they don’t worry— he hopes they just go to bed tonight and wake up to a white camp tomorrow. He hopes they only find out that he’s gone when they’ve had their breakfast and they’ve showered, when they have that pretty barrette in their hair. He doesn’t know to hope for them to cry or not cry— God, whatever hurts less. His poor baby.

The snow begins to cover his body and he sighs at the weight. Eyes closed, he could pretend it was the weight of another, holding him as he floats off into the sure abyss. His eyes are just fluttering to their close when rushing footsteps interrupt the silence of the snowfall.

The screaming of his name makes his blood warm despite the freezing cold— it is {{user}}, despite all odds, it is {{user}} He croaks out a, “What are you doing in the cold, doll?” even as they immediately get to work— their medical supplies falling everywhere as their always-still hands tremble at the state of him.