Ready Set Breathe (A Steve Rogers Destruction Story)

37 Heal

Self-harm trigger warning here everyone. -BB

What good was healing if Bucky couldn’t heal the things that mattered, like the heart of his best friend? What did it matter if he healed when all the important things were still sick? Bucky contemplated this a lot, and hated himself for it, for the way that he couldn’t help Steve, for the way Steve stared at him desperately, eyes red and shining with tears, and no matter how Bucky yelled, he could rarely get anything through to Steve, not really. It was like something was lost in translation from the emotions in Bucky’s heart to what Steve managed to force himself to believe in his head. Bucky didn’t know how to be more blatantly obvious.

His book, that was an ‘end of the line’ statement. That was an expression of friendship, of love, of trust, and still even that had difficulty convincing Steve, with his sick heart. Bucky looked down at his new book, the pages beginning to wrinkle with the ink and wear on the inside as he kept a close record of everything with loving detail. He was at a loss.

What good was healing. What good was it.

Bucky kept record of one thing inside his head only, and that was his healing times. The deepness of the wound, the time it took to seal back up. Bucky rubbed his right forearm, scarless and as clean as though he’d never even scraped it, and thought of those times.

He started in on his upper forearm, near his elbow, digging with his pocketknife until there was a deep groove in his flesh and the pain was beginning to make him shake and he set his knife down and looked at it, checked the clock, watched it pull back together. Half inch deep, seven minutes, give or take some. He wiped up the blood and tried again. Three fours inch deep, starting time now-

“James?”

Bucky’s head snapped up and he didn’t have time to hide what he’d been doing because blood was actually dripping off his arm and Natalia was already in the room, her eyes wide and both hands clapped around her mouth. Bucky put his bleeding arm behind his back and ignored the sting and put up his left hand as though to calm her.

“Don’t be scared,” he said. “It’s fine.” Natalia took her hands away from her mouth slowly and gaped at Bucky.

“Did you do that on purpose?” she asked hoarsely and Bucky couldn’t lie to her, but he didn’t want to answer either. His silence became answer enough and he watched her face grow red and she put another hand to her mouth again and looked away, stunned.

“It’s fine,” Bucky tried again and Natalia looked up at him with venom in her eyes and she pulled her hands away and was advancing on him, slamming her open palms down on the counter across from him, leaning into his face until he had to pull back, feeling the heat of her anger there.

“No!” She growled. “It is not fine!! You can’t do this!”

“Why?” Bucky cried. “It doesn’t even scar, it barely hurts.”

“Because…,” Natalia let out a sob and clapped her hand over her mouth again before she regained control of herself. “How do you not see, James, because it’s unhealthy! Because it’s harmful.”

“It heals,” Bucky said.

“I mean psychologically!” Natalia shot back. “Don’t tell me you think doing this is healthy. Don’t tell me that.”

“It’s not unhealthy,” Bucky said, his arm still behind his back and he could feel his skin coming together again, muscle fusing back into one, and remaining blood run in rivulets down his arm.

“It is!” Natalia cried. “Healing or not, that’s not the point! The point is that you think it’s okay to harm yourself, regardless of whether or not you heal, that’s not okay!”

There was a quiet then, and the tension in the stare between Bucky and Natalia was legendary. He hated to argue with her. He didn’t like the tension. He wished he could make her happy.

“What if you hurt yourself too deeply one time?” Natalia demanded and Bucky shrugged.

“I just won’t,” he said.

“But you could,” she replied, losing tempo now, her voice sinking into a desperate whisper. “You could lose too much blood. You could do permanent damage.” Bucky looked sadly into her face and he felt his arm whole again, so he pulled it back from behind him and held it up to her.

“Natalia,” he whispered, lifting his eyebrows almost pleadingly. “I’m fine.” Natalia walked around the counter hurriedly and he turned to her, wiping the blood off his arm with a towel to reveal no cut, no scar, not even a scratch, and Natalia, with tears running down her cheeks, took his arm in her fingers and held it up to her face and studied him.

“Oh, my darling,” she said to him in Russian through her tears and kissed his arm where she had seen his knife dig. “I’m begging you to stop.” Bucky reached forward with his other hand and cupped her cheek and she looked up at him and Bucky knew he couldn’t make any promises.

Because, really, what good was healing, in the long run? What good was it anyway.