Numinous »« Bucky Barnes

THREE

habromania (n): delusions of happiness.

Bucky can't help but tense up at the thought of sleeping tonight. After last night, after the years of nightmares, years of waking up with sweat coating his face in a thick sheen, years of erratic heartbeats and shaking and terror have shaken him. No longer is it rest, but torture. One he wishes he could avoid.

Sadly, life is not as we mean for it to be.

Sleeping on a bed is not a luxury Bucky can give himself. Not because it's just another punishment for his actions, but rather due to the way it feels for him. It's too soft, comfortable, the mattress rising around him as his body sinks into it, forming a shape. It's suffocating, as if he's drowning, trapped in a mould.

Of course it's an over-exaggeration, but it feels like everything in Bucky's life are over-exaggerations nowadays. Nothing is normal, solid, as it should be. Everything is either exaggerated or simplified and nothing stays steady for him. He wants to think back to a time where they did... but there's nothing. His life's been worn and torn apart by wars, killings, the overwhelming reminder that he'll never be his own person. The person he wants to be.

Slowly lowering himself onto the ground, Bucky fixes his thin pillow, a deep sigh eliciting from his chest before he tugs his shirt off, leaving it on the couch beside him. His dog tags clang against each other noisily, the only sound in the room, in the apartment.

What might Steve be doing at this very moment? Dancing with Peggy? Watching TV with her? Having dinner with her?

Perhaps it's not the fact that Steve's gone that's affecting him the most. Perhaps it's the fact that Steve's found happiness in the perfect person, and that Bucky's given up looking. After all, what perfect person is there for a killer? Who'd be completely willing to give themselves to him, to put their lives in his hands?

And then there's Bucky. He'd never be able to tell them about his past. Who'd love him after knowing all that? Who'd be so willing to stay with him if they happened to find out? No relationship should be built on lies, and he's given too many to count. The Winter Soldier is one lie that must be kept.

Would he still be this broken after the war? If he'd never become the Winter Soldier, but made it home? Back in 1945? Would he still be closed-off, tortured by the things that had happened to him, the things he'd seen?

Lost in his thoughts, he hadn't seen the area forming around him slowly. The dark roads, the looming trees, the overwhelming complexity of the place he's in. He'd fallen into it, fallen into his nightmares without realising, and it takes him a moment to recognise the area around him.

Suddenly, the car blares, heading down, straight past him, and his gun points effortlessly towards one of the tires. A simple press of the trigger, ignoring the agonised screams in his head to stop, to stop living this out, the thing that split the Avengers, the thing that resulted in all that fighting, all that blood, and the tire bursts.