Who Am I? » [Stucky]

21. Digging Deeper

Smack! Pow! Smash!

Steve pounded the punching bag furiously. He had been training all night and into the next morning.

Wallop! Slam! Crash!

The bag rattled on its restrictive chain as it was sent swinging and twirling from the hook it clung to.

Wop! Slap! Wham!

More devastating punches were hurled at the sand filled punching bag, implanting themselves on the solid surface of the towering sack.

Steve sprung about on his toes agilely whilst hiding behind his tightly wrapped hands, staring down his offensive opponent through the gap between his hands.

He landed punch after raging punch.

He had so much livid anger running through his veins, so much frustration weighing him down, so much sadness drowning him. He was an emotional wreck, it was as if someone had injected him with a cocktail of emotions that changed like the direction of the wind.

His stuffy white t-shirt was stuck to his back, slick with sweat and glued to his perspired skin. Tears lined his eyes and he glared through the obscure teary haze as he thumped the punching bag.

He didn't know whether he wanted to shoot someone or shoot himself. He was confusingly torn between shuddering anger and crippling depression. His mind was a mess and he was lost in his thoughts as he battered the sack.

He sniffled and hesitated before hurling his next punch. Tears were leaking out in an endless stream; they had been for longer than he could recall. The night had been long and he could tell the sun was in the sky by now. His punches became weaker and weaker as the sadness drowned out the anger and he was left weakly flailing at the punch bag.

Out of the corner of his eye he could still see the file Natasha had given him about Bucky. He had tried to avoid reading it but it was like an itch he was trying to ignore, it was irritating him to no end, yet he didn't want to touch it. He had meant to pick it up and read into everything that had happened to Bucky, but he couldn't bring himself to unleash the horrors, they would only plague his restless mind with more trauma.

He carried on punching at the bag, wearing himself out and trying to divert his attention, but still that nagging sensation was niggling away at him, whispering in his ear and beckoning him with its siren call.

He punched it and tried to purely focus on his stroke, trying to land perfect hits every time. He tried to focus on the force and the angle of the shot. He tried to focus on his fist to avoid thinking about the file.

He couldn't think straight, and his punches were landed messily, askew and sloppy.

He gave up. He stalked across the room with eager determination and scooped up the file on the table next to his condensation coated bottle of ice water and flopped in the chair in complete exhaustion.

He flipped open the front of the brown file with a flutter of paper.

There was a piece of paper inserted into it that wasn't paper clipped with the rest. It read 'Since you don't speak Russian, I took the liberty of translating it for you. Natasha x' in sharp small handwriting.

There was a picture in the cover of Bucky in cryostasis, asleep and with ice flecks clinging to his paled blue face and a smaller one of the pre-brainwashing James Barnes in the corner next to it. He had never delved further into the folder before, for fear of what else it might contain; secrets that no man should ever have to hear.

He unpinned the papers, tossing the paper clip away, flipped through to the next page, where yet another sheet of paper had been slotted in as a translation. It was a collection of diary entries.