Run (A Bucky Barnes Recovery Story)

80 Hellhole

Bucky brought Steve breakfast the next morning and asked him how he was feeling again, but this time, he meant about his physical wounds.

“I wish I could help you more,” Bucky said, sitting on the edge of Steve’s bed and turning over to look at him. Steve just smiled, shifting, and his face twisted in pain. Bucky pressed his lips together and looked down, swallowing, and thought. He hated the way he healed. It made him feel guilty, like he should be on a bed in pain, too. And it was so ridiculously inaccurate, because while he healed rapidly, horrifyingly rapidly on the outside, the inside only grew more and more sick. If he couldn’t heal his heart and he couldn’t heal Steve, why bother heal at all? “Regenerative properties really aren’t a lot of good here.”

“Yeah, if only,” Steve said. “Don’t worry about it, I’m a super soldier, I’ll be fine.” Bucky looked back up at Steve and tried to smile.

“Yeah,” he said and there was a pause where Steve closed his eyes and Bucky leaned over and pushed his own hair back off his forehead.

“Why did they even want me,” Steve said quietly after a while. Bucky stared into the carpet.

“Don’t be stupid, you know why,” he said and they lapsed into silence once more.

Bucky thought for one moment that maybe they had wanted to brainwash Steve and use him too, but he knew that wasn’t it. They couldn’t break anyone like they’d broken Bucky. They would harvest what they could from Steve, spend years doing experiments, pump Bucky with what they could find, like they’d always done. More serums and more experiments, always trying to make Bucky stronger and scarier and less and less human and then they would throw Steve away. Bucky shuddered, disgusted to think of it. He looked over into Steve’s face and tried to picture him safe and happy.

“Steve, you’ve gotta be careful, okay?” Bucky whispered. “For the both of us, okay?” Steve opened his eyes and looked at Bucky, whose face had gone white.

“Buck-”

“Have I mentioned that that is a hellhole?” Bucky cut him off, suddenly louder, suddenly all fear. “Have I brought that up? Cause it is and I can’t watch them… Can’t let them do to you the things they do to human beings.” Steve studied Bucky’s face for a long time before responding quietly.

“Okay, Bucky,” he said. “I’ll be careful.” Bucky realized now that he was scaring Steve and he looked away, taking a breath.

“Thanks,” he said and a long silence followed. Steve sat up straighter and looked at Bucky.

“You wanna talk about it?” He asked and Bucky shrugged one shoulder weakly.

“Not much to say that hasn’t already been said,” he said. “It’s a hellhole. You don’t wanna be alive when you’re there, but you are anyway and you have to stay alive. Thats the horror of it.” Steve swallowed loudly.

“I’m sorry,” he said and Bucky didn’t know how to respond. He knew what Steve was thinking. If that was the things they did to human beings, what did they do to people they didn’t consider human? What did they do to Bucky?