Ready Set Breathe (A Steve Rogers Destruction Story)

15 Gun

Bucky was running before he saw Steve look down at his feet. He could feel himself screaming, but he didn’t know what he was saying. He hit the ice hard, his boots pounding into the thin layer, his arms pumping hard, cold air stinging his eyes, and he could hear the ice begin to crack after him and he only ran faster because it was giving way. Steve’s arms flung up above his head and he sunk so fast that Bucky could barely believe it was happening.

He could barely believe it was happening. He felt like he was moving in slow motion. He felt like he was in a dream. This wasn’t happening.

The hole around Steve began to gape wider and Bucky didn’t care because he put his hands up above his own head and kicked off and leapt into the water after Steve.

The cold shocked Bucky. He never would have been prepared for the way it reached into him and froze and he realized with a sinking feeling that his left arm had already stopped almost completely. He didn’t care. He kept moving.

He found Steve and wrapped his one working arm around his chest and began to kick violently until both of their heads broke the surface, out of the dark, dark water and Bucky saw Steve’s girlfriend standing there where the ice stopped and she reached and grabbed Steve and Bucky let her take him. The cold was beginning to stop his legs, he was starting to sink, until he felt Natalia’s hands around him, dragging him out, and Bucky was on top of the ice, dripping wet and beginning to freeze and his entire left arm was coated in a thick layer of ice already. It had penetrated deep, under the plates, into the circuitry and Bucky cursed everything because if it was ruined, he didn’t know what he’d do. He’d nearly given up everything to get it back in the first place.

He heard his own teeth chattering in his head. He was sprawled out on the ice and he took Natalia’s hand as she helped him stand, but his legs were weak and he just wanted to find somewhere warm. However, there were more pressing matters at hand and Bucky looked at Steve, dripping wet, his hair beginning to freeze over, and didn’t know what to think.

“W-w-w-hat the h-h-hell,” Bucky stuttered through the way his lips were freezing and he was shaking so hard he couldn’t pronounce the words fully. Steve was on his knees on the dead, frozen grass. He hadn’t gotten up. Sharon sat by him, her arms around his shoulders, but he shook anyway. He was staring at the ground with an expression Bucky couldn’t read, his mouth open. Bucky could see his breath in the air.

Bucky looked down at his arm and grabbed it at the shoulder because he was so afraid he’d lose it again. He looked back up at Steve.

“W-what did you” do what have you done “why d-d-did you” let yourself fall what have you done what have you done “Steve!!” Steve didn’t answer, didn’t even look like he heard. He just held himself, slumping on the ground, staring blankly and shaking. Bucky felt panic, he didn’t know what to do. Steve had let himself fall. He had nearly let himself die. He had nearly died.

And Bucky was so scared because Steve hadn’t seemed to care at all. But he needed to live. He deserved to live and if Bucky didn’t know what he’d do if one day, Steve let himself die and Bucky wasn’t there to save him. He could lose him. He had almost lost him that day.

In his fear, Bucky became furious. He raised his voice at Steve, he was shouting.

“How could you do this to yourself?!” He yelled. “Steve!! Answer me!” He began to try to walk towards Steve and he was freezing, his legs were stiff and he staggered, he was beginning to go numb, but as soon as he got close to Steve, Sharon looked over with venom in her eyes and pulled a gun out of her pocket. She was pointing it at Bucky. Steve was blinking, tears were running down his face and he didn’t seem to notice anything around him. He didn’t see Sharon and he didn’t see Bucky, but Sharon still had the barrel of a handgun in Bucky’s face. Bucky squinted at Sharon, stunned.

“Don’t you dare come any closer,” Sharon said.

“W-what,” Bucky stuttered, pure bewilderment. His words were slurring. His lips were freezing.

“He is a good man!” Sharon cried, as though Bucky didn’t know that. As though Bucky meant him harm. “Just stay back!”

“He’s my friend!” Bucky cried, holding his arm to his chest tighter, stepping closer. “Get your gun out of my face and let me talk to him!”

“One more step and I shoot,” Sharon said and Bucky stared at her, shivering violently, every breath painful because it was cold cold cold, and still disbelieving.

“I’m not going to hurt him,” Bucky said quietly, as if he had to prove it to her, as if he had to prove himself to anyone, but Sharon pursed her lips and glared.

“I don’t believe you,” she said.