the undefining of steve rogers (stucky)

five

steve pages through the dictionary that natasha gives him. he's not reading, because it's a dictionary, he's just looking through the words. he wants to find one to describe what he feels. hurt doesn't cover it. pain isn't agony enough. guilty doesn't begin to touch at the solid weight in his throat that won't go away.

desiderium: desire for something lost. longing. grief for everything you don't have. impossible to hold or touch, a concept just a bit too fluid to grasp. words slipping off your tongue once, but never again. i love you i love you i love you -

steve writes that one down. he has a collection of words now, for when sam asks him how he feels. "anguish," he says once. sam only nods. the list is getting longer. his scratchy handwriting makes the list look unorganized and chopped up, something resembling his thoughts. chopped up. nothing is in its rightful place anymore. his rightful place is next to bucky. bucky is dead.

suicidal ideation: thinking about dying, thinking about killing yourself. wanting to do it. wanting to take the shield in the corner and break it into a million pieces until there was not a single inch left of captain america, who killed his best friend, not a single touch of captain america, who sacrificed everything he was supposed to protect. wanting to take the gun natasha made him keep in the northwest corner cabinet for safety reasons and wanting to press it against the roof of your mouth and discover the taste of bullets.

eventually, steve runs out of dictionary. there aren't enough words in the world to describe how empty he is. there's a website that tony shows him between pitying glances. it has lists of words and synonyms in other languages. he doesn't have fun scrolling through it. he doesn't feel any piece of himself heal. sam thinks this is an unhealthy coping mechanism. steve doesn't care. he wants to be unhealthy. bucky is unhealthy. everything hurts, but he's been hurting for so long that it doesn't matter. all he feels is the aching in his veins.