Run (A Bucky Barnes Recovery Story)

86 Remembering

He didn’t know how long it had been or what had happened and he was just beginning to remember where and who he was.

It was dark now and Natalia had been asleep, so hours must have passed and he missed them. The last thing he remembered in the continuity of the day was electrical sparks from his left arm, dripping in water, the back of his head smacking the wall, and then everything was a haze, in a deep fog.

He had thought it had been difficult earlier, when he had nothing but Steve and Natasha and the next day to look forward to. He thought it had been hell not knowing, with an emptiness in his skull and a plethora of dark rooms, but he realized that the true hell was the exact opposite. What really destroyed him was the knowing.

He had his identity now, he could see everything, everything that hadn’t been completely and irrevocably burned out of him, and every hate thought, every feeling of revulsion and bitter shame, returned in full force. Now it was more than feelings, more than vague ideas of what he had been and what he had done.

Now, the true trial began because oh, did he have something to hate now.

He remembered the breakdown he’d experienced months ago upon remembering in sudden detail that he had murdered the Starks. This was like that, he realized, except that this, this returning of memories, dwarfed the one memory that had very nearly destroyed him. This was the big drop, the climax, the point of everything that had been leading up to now. This was everything, everything all at once, everything he was unprepared to handle. This would be the thing that would kill him. He could actually feel himself relapsing.

And in a sense, he still had nothing. Now, he had this damned, wretched identity to live with, but for it, he had traded what he’d really wanted all along. All the progress he had made towards that goal of happiness, all the work he had done to get better, to be better, vanished like it had never been there. He realized he had never felt so weak, not in months. Must he truly make that trade? Could he not have both? Was he so cursed as to not have the luxury of memories and happiness together? It was one or the other for him. He didn’t deserve to have both.

“Where are you going?”

Away. Run until you reach the edge of something and jump. Who cares what’s at the bottom, just jump.

“Out,” he said.

“Are you okay? Maybe you should stay here.”

“I-... No. No,” he replied.

“Well then, let me come with you.”

“Stay away from me,” he said back. “Don’t-Don’t… Don’t touch me.”

“Buck, you’ve been disoriented all day. Stay here, sit down, we’ll talk about this.”

“I’m not disoriented. I know what I’m doing.”

Steve’s hand was on his shoulder and Bucky felt a reality of where he was and what was going on slam into him. He pulled away from Steve frantically, grinding his teeth together, squaring his feet, trying to ignore that pounding of run run run in the back of his head.

Because for once, it wasn’t just that in his head. He saw murders and torturing, he saw Steve 2014, Steve 1945, Steve 1932, so much all at once and so overwhelming, it hurt, it pained him, he didn’t know what to do with this information overload and suddenly, it was down to fight or flight. He didn’t realize he was breathing hard.

Everything was coming into him now, he was realizing his surroundings instead of numbly travelling.

It was dark. Natalia was back in the bedroom. Steve was in front of him, stopping him in front of the door, touching him after he told him not to. Everything rose up inside him with a resentful bite.