Ready Set Breathe (A Steve Rogers Destruction Story)

7

After Bucky had been taken back from Hydra, Steve was very happy. They were together again, and Steve was healthy and they were serving that grander purpose that Steve had been dreaming about ever since Pearl Harbor. Steve had never been happier and Bucky knew it.

But by a different token, Bucky realized that up to that point in time, he had never been more miserable. Not even under Zola’s horrible experimentation, even when they cut him open and sewed him back up and injected him with things that burned, this was the true trial and this was the true torture. Because this was the time and the place that Bucky began thinking of himself as a monster. He didn’t know what he was anymore, he didn’t know what they’d done to him. And he certainly wasn’t like Steve, because Steve was pure good, but Bucky, well… To be honest, he’d never been quite sure. But he wasn’t altogether optimistic that whatever they’d injected into him was anything particularly human or particularly good.

And Steve noticed then, at least the emotional change in Bucky. It was difficult not to notice, because Bucky smiled less and laughed little and he spent a lot of time on his own, staring and thinking. Steve was at a loss, Bucky could tell. He didn’t know what to do for Bucky to make him okay again and Bucky tried to pretend, but most days, he failed.

Then, one night, Bucky woke up, covered in sweat and feeling his blood buzzing throughout his entire body, and he only managed to crawl out of his bed and stumble to the garbage can before he began puking violently. He felt like his entire body was fighting itself, and he realized quickly that it was the inhumanness inside him, doing away with whatever was left of Bucky and his humanity. Steve woke up then, and the rest of the guys in the tent, and they helped him lay back down, but Bucky couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

This became common then, that Bucky would become ill, seemingly without reason, and Bucky in his shame would never even consider talking to Steve about the real reason why. In fact, Steve didn’t know about the half of how sick Bucky was. He got up in the morning with the rest of the guys, did the exercises and worked as hard as he could force himself and tried to hide from Steve the color draining in his cheeks. He often woke up in the night and only just made it outside of the tent to throw up. And over the course of that two weeks, it only got worse.

By the end, Bucky could barely get out of bed. He couldn’t hold down food, he was delirious, he was running a fever. He couldn’t stop Steve from knowing then, when he was confined to his bed because he couldn’t stand up without falling down, and Steve was devastated and enraged. And Bucky tormented himself on his sickbed with thoughts of what he was and how he had been made less and he was almost grateful that his body was rejecting this, whatever it was, and that hopefully, he’d die quickly.

But of course, Bucky didn’t die, and the next morning, he woke up and was stunned and almost disappointed to find that everything was okay. In fact, everything was more than okay, he’d never felt so alive. But it didn’t make him happy. As Steve celebrated his miraculous healing, Bucky wondered then if he hadn’t rejected the serum, what had he finally become?

He discovered soon after, when a bullet grazed his arm during a raid and the blood stained his sleeve, but when he went to check it later, his arm was completely fine. Bucky stared for a long time, rubbing his skin that had healed impossibly, sitting out alone behind the medical tent, studying the unmistakable hole and the dried bloodstains on his uniform.

Bucky reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his switchknife and, before he could think about it and stop himself, he was pulling the blade across his forearm, one hasty swipe, and he felt the pain and saw the blood bubble to the surface, but as he was replacing his knife, he watched in horror as it all begin to close up. It took only five minutes, but Bucky’s skin stitched itself back together until there wasn’t even a mark left on his flesh.

In disgust, he collapsed to the ground and puked.

For the next few weeks, Bucky found a dark new pastime to occupy him in secret while he considered his faded humanness. He cut himself open with any sharp edge he could find, in different places, deeper and deeper, recording his healing time, wondering exactly what this made him now. And he knew Steve couldn’t do this, he’d sewn together enough of Steve’s wounds himself to know that this was unusual, even in the field of super soldiers. And no one knew; it was Bucky’s horrible, nightmarish secret and he kept it pretty well until Steve walked in on him one day as he was opening his forearm for the third time and Steve gasped. In one fluid motion, in fear, Bucky slipped his knife back into his pocket and put his bleeding arm behind his back.

“Bucky, what happened?” Steve cried and started to step forward to him, but with every foot Steve got closer, Bucky backed one away and concentrated on feeling his skin pull itself back together, trying to tell without seeing when he could put his arm back in front of him again.

“Nothing happened, what are you talking about,” Bucky said.

“You’re bleeding,” Steve said.

“I’m not,” Bucky replied.

“You need to get that looked at!” Steve cried.

“I really don’t,” Bucky said with a deep frown and he was backing up until he hit a bunk and couldn’t go any further and Steve jumped and grabbed his arm out from behind his back and Bucky hid the relief in his face when he saw his arm entirely healed. There was no trace that there had ever been something wrong. Steve held Bucky’s wrist and stared down, incredulous, until Bucky pulled his arm back. “What’d I tell you,” he said quietly, breaking the silence.

“I saw blood,” Steve said.

“You’re seeing things, Steve-o,” Bucky replied and raised his eyebrows at Steve. “There was never any blood.”

“But-” Steve said and Bucky cut him off.

“What, did I just will it away then? I cut myself and then I wished it would fix itself??” He said and Steve’s face hardened.

“That’s not what I said,” he said.

“Congratulations, you caught me,” Bucky said bitterly, moving away from Steve now and rolling his sleeve back down. “I’m magic.”

“Why are you being so defensive??” Steve cried, whirling around and throwing his hands up at Bucky, leaving. “I thought you got hurt!”

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky said as he opened the door to leave the bunker. “Stop thinking that.”

“Yeesh, Buck,” Steve said, but by that time, Bucky was already outside and he didn’t know if Steve remembered that now, if Steve had put it together, because he hadn’t mentioned it, but Bucky thought about it as he winced at the pain of one of his fingernails breaking down the middle and watched it seal itself back together. He let go of a tired breath and thought spitefully, I’m magic.