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"Give him space – guys back up, back up."
"Pulse is steady, he's breathing fine. You scared us for a second there, Barnes."
"Bucky? Are you okay? Can you hear me?"
He floated back to lucidity through what felt like clouds of thick, saturated air, or perhaps layers of smothering, warm cotton as the dream-like haze faded from his brain.
His limbs felt tingling and unreal, while his mouth tasted distantly like bile and wet saliva, though his tongue was heavy and dense within his mouth as if it was made of lead and were incredibly swollen.
When Bucky opened his eyes, seven hovering figures swarmed in front of him and the world suddenly fuzzed in colourful hues, bright saturation and the sense of familiarity – as opposed to something dimmer, icier than what he would have expected, although his foggy, dreamy memory couldn’t remember why.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, freezer burn." A bold voice pierced through the numbing haze, drawing Bucky further from the depths of his abstract dream world where everything floated, and instead edged his intangibility back to the grounding present. The faces were still blurring shades of colour and shape within his unfocused eyes – especially where the ones in the back was talking – but Bucky thinks he could place them, even if he couldn’t remember how.
“If you thought you could get out of games night by having a seizure, you were wrong, Barnes.” The same bold, loud voice said again, and Bucky wanted to laugh at it for some reason, if he could get his mouth to move. “You landed on Boardwalk; pay up."
He saw a shift amongst the bodies from where they stood further away. A smaller, very red-coloured one hit the obnoxious one on the arm and he gaped at her.
"A little compassion would be nice, don't you think?" She scolded, and Bucky focused on her unbelievably red hair to bring his focus and lucid back down to Earth from wherever his mind escaped to.
"I agree," the tallest one said, and he reminded Bucky of stars and galaxies and the Milky Way, which was super confusing since Bucky wanted to escape the fantasy of his hazed dreamworld, rather than continue to bask within it. “Your bedside mannerisms are terrible, Stark. I feel that should we continue the simulation of economic development and investment, we must first attend to our dear friend who was convulsing not twenty minutes ago."
Oh. Oh. Yeah that makes sense, Bucky thinks, but he was too occupied with the colourful hues of this reality from the muddled dreamworld to pay much attention to anything else, and was very content in letting the warm, rainbow of familiarity huddle and bustle around him.
The bold one, like Howard Stark but not – Tony, Bucky remembered – was back to conversing rather obnoxiously with the starry, galaxy man again. "See, you're only saying that 'cause you're in jail for the third time, Shakespeare."
The Star Man (an alien? a 16th century playwright? a god.) – scoffed. "It was preposterous," he exclaimed, and the ‘unfair whining’ disgusted as annoyance sounded very unlike Bucky’s foreknowledge of what a god was supposed to sound like. “I didn't commit any offence – let alone commit one thrice. I was a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen and did not deserve to be put in prison for reasons unknown."
"Can you guys shut up over the damn game and maybe help us assist to the medical situation over here?" A voice closer than Tony exasperated. Ram – Ron – Rhodey said.
Tony gestured to the closer faces beside Bucky’s body who were laying their arms on him, checking his pulse, running their fingers through his hair, and Bucky was melting into their comfort – their completely security, while they awaited for him to piece his reality back together until his clarity returned, entirely warm and patient. If he were any more awake, he would have shown more appreciation – but they knew that, Bucky knew. They all did, because they looked out for one another, without needing anything in return, because that’s how families worked, Bucky had come to learn from their time together.
Stark knew this as well, even if he was currently being obnoxiously nonchalant about it all. Bucky wouldn’t hold it against him, their dynamic was a strange one, and frankly, he would be more distressed or freaked out if Stark suddenly turned into a mother hen like Steve.
"He's got a doctor, his boyfriend and an archer with him. He'll live."
The woman with fire for hair hit him on the arm a second time. Her name was Natasha and she was a fighter, a protector without wanting to show it, even when it came down to their little found family – and Bucky liked that about her. "Again. Empathy wouldn't kill you, Tony."
"You're right.” He replied, though it didn’t sound any more sincere, thank god. “Barnes, you good?"
"Mmm," He tried to say, not really sure if they were words, but his mouth was still laced with cotton, despite his lucidity returning in clarifying waves.
"See!” Stark exclaimed, and Bucky could see at least everyone rolled their eyes. “Perfectly fine in a totally non-verbal, incapacitated kind of way..."
"Ignore him," Banner was saying from beside him in that hushed, comforting Doctor way whilst he finished taking Bucky’s pulse and monitoring his breathing. “You're doing alright, just take it easy. This one was a little longer than the others."
The next face Bucky saw come into focus was Steve, and the rush for lucid calmness from his hands gliding through Bucky’s hair was enough for him to feel dizzy again, though in a more familiar, solidifying way that had warmth spreading throughout his body, and reality seeping back through this mind faster than he’d thought possible.
"I thought he wasn't supposed to get them anymore with the new medication."
"The meds manage the seizures – they won't be as frequent as they once were, of course, but this is something that he'll always have to deal with. It might not seem like it, but it will be easier."
"'M alright, Ste..." Bucky thinks he said, and hoped the words were the correct order, correctly language. Steve smiled a soft, bittersweet smile down from where he was trailing his fingers gently down Bucky’s cheek, and Bucky knew he understood.
"I just hate seeing you in pain, Buck," Steve worried and it was so undeniably, stereotypically Steve that Bucky wanted to laugh and call him a dumb punk.
The truth was, he really wasn’t in pain. Sure, his head was a little loopy and Bucky was having a hard time focusing on the oversaturated colours of the world, but his family was with him. Steve was with him, and that was enough. It was everything. It somehow didn’t hurt in the way it was supposed to, but Bucky was damn well okay with that.
"’M okay. Promise," Bucky reassured again, and thinks, after all these years, I’m still the one looking after you. Yeah, he was on ground, postictal and his brain was still piecing the world and itself back together from the dreamworld’s haze of incomprehensibility, but there was never going to be a time where Bucky Barnes wasn’t going to make sure Steve Rogers was okay.
Neither was Steve Rogers vice versa, Bucky knew.
"Why don't we get you off the floor, yeah?" The Archer – Clint asked.
And though that was probably a good idea, the world was still slightly fuzzy and his body wasn't quite up-to-date on the fact his brain was awake now, so then again, maybe not. "Can I just stay for a moment?”
Steve smiled that familiar, grounding little smile – one that hadn’t changed since Brooklyn – and caressed Bucky’s cheek, because of course he did. "Of course, Buck. We'll be right here."
Apparently the notion to lie on the ground was well received by everyone else. So well in fact, that Stark was leading a movement to sit on the carpet, as well. "Well in that case, floor monopoly it is! Thor, you get the board! Rhodes, I saw you take from my cash pile! And Barnes, you still owe me for Broadwalk."
Bucky huffed out a soft laugh, rivaling Tony with a stare disgusted as a challenge. "You know I'm good for it, Stark. I was winning, anyway."
Steve sighed at the unfortunate normalcy of their chaotic little family, but wasn’t able to hide his smirk from Bucky’s eyeshot. "And here I was thinking a seizure would end a game of monopoly without a doubt, but apparently not."
Maybe their family wasn’t all that typically, but he’d never wish it were anything else – chaos and everything.
"You wish, loser."