Run (A Bucky Barnes Recovery Story)

79 Move

The problem was, of course, that Bucky knew what he was. That was what he had now, Steve and that knowledge. It made him enraged, in a muted sort of way where nothing really seemed real, in a fire sort of way where everything else burned away, but his stomach didn’t flip anymore when he thought about it and he thought maybe that was a bad sign, maybe he was just too inhuman anymore.

But Bucky knew what he was, at the very core, when you stripped away everything else. All other aspects of him were extraneous, like a lie. He was a killer. He was a monster. And that was really all there was to it.

So Bucky sat in Steve’s room, leaning over his knees and staring at the ground in a brooding silence, considering how everything else he was seemed only a flimsy cover and it all fell away so easily, so disturbingly easily and left him only with himself the Winter Soldier and the way necks snapped under his hands.

Sometimes, Bucky wondered if maybe what got to him wasn’t the knowledge that he couldn’t live with himself. Maybe what really destroyed him was the knowledge that he could.

As Bucky tried to convince Steve that he wasn’t a burden, he wondered about the things eating Steve away inside and thought maybe it might be his own poisonous doing. Steve had never seemed so crushed. There was something going out in his eyes-Bucky was watching it and he only thought that maybe, it was his presence doing the crushing. Maybe Steve wouldn’t blame himself if Bucky wasn’t there to make him feel as though he had to. So after they finished talking and Bucky gave Steve something for his pain and watched him fall asleep, he stood and left his apartment and returned to his own for at least an hour or two. He just couldn’t stand to look at Steve and think those things anymore.

His own apartment was quiet and dark, just as he had left it a few days ago to meet Steve outside in the middle of the night. He only returned in spare hours like this, to take care of himself or just to be alone before he returned to Steve’s place to collapse on his couch and he knew this was exactly what Steve had done for him once and he allowed himself to feel a little pride in himself through the dank of his own personal self-hatred because if Steve would do it, then surely it was a step in the right direction. And it wasn’t just that, either. Bucky wanted to make it up to Steve. They wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for Bucky and the way that he was hunted. Steve was even more of a target now because of him and Bucky wanted to take care of him, felt this overwhelming need to help him, and he felt crushed when he failed. He had to make Steve safe.

He showered and shaved himself quickly, ready to return to Steve’s, until as he approached his door, there was a knock.

“Hello? James, are you home?” Natasha called and Bucky stopped. He didn’t want to open the door, he didn’t want to look into her face, so desperate, or hear her voice, so regretful. He loved her too much. But she had knocked on a day when he could taste the red-hot fire rage climbing up his throat and eating at him and he had to open the door, had to say hello, and then had to remind himself to be gentle with her, in everything from his guarded facial expressions to the softness of his voice. Bucky knew Natasha wasn’t fragile and that she was stronger than himself in every way, but when she made herself so vulnerable to him, all Bucky wanted to do was be careful with her. Because Bucky knew vulnerability. He understood deeply what it was to be cut open and to be raw unwillingly because he was raw and he suffered in a way that everyone knew he was suffering and Natasha had been gentle with him. He loved her too much. He wanted to return the favor. And while the fire and frustration itched to leap out of his mouth, he swallowed it back. He wouldn’t lash out at Natasha like he had lashed out at Steve days earlier. Steve still had the shadows of bruises on his face. Sure, he had anger and sure, he was angry about Natalia. But he wouldn’t, couldn't be angry at her.