Ready Set Breathe (A Steve Rogers Destruction Story)

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Steve ran over the scenario again and again in his mind. Bucky had scared him when he said those things, he really had, and Steve realized now why they sounded so familiar because they were things Steve thought and said often.

And as much as he didn’t like it, didn’t like it at all, he realized now what Bucky was trying to do and it was clever and eye-opening. He thought about the things Bucky said, relived his own panic when he believed Bucky might have the same death wish as he did, and he was still angry to find out that he had been lied to.

But at the same time, it made a little bit of sense. Bucky had said his love for Steve was unconditional, and he remembered months ago, Natasha yelling at him after Bucky had been wiped that ‘there’s nothing you can do to make James hate you’. And he tried to believe it.

Because here was the problem. Here’s what made it hard. Steve may have had all the proof in the world that he was loved and wanted and that he shouldn’t die, but the hard part was translating that proof into something his heart could believe, could understand. He told himself time and time and time again. There’s nothing you can do to make Bucky hate you. You aren’t a burden. You can live. But the hardest part was believing those things inside him, but he thought maybe he was starting to. At least very slowly.

Steve sat on the edge of his bed, trying to cling to this feeling of being a little okay, and took Bucky’s journal in his hands. He studied it and turned it and opened the worn pages.

 

Things are getting better, and I can talk to Steve now, Bucky wrote. There are no words for Natasha. She’s wonderful. I don’t remember much, but that hasn’t stopped me from loving them and loving Steve all over again.

 

Steve repeated a mantra to himself.

You’re not a burden, you’re not a burden. There’s nothing you could do to make James hate you.

He remembered growing up and being told he was worthless because he couldn’t do much. He was struggling with all he had to turn that over in his mind. He didn’t want to be suicidal. He didn’t want to think himself better off dead.

And of course, because Bucky always saved him, because Bucky had practically come back from the dead to save him, the next line in his book made Steve’s eyes sting with tears.

 

I don’t know what I would have done without him, scrawled Bucky’s handwriting. He’s my best friend. And he was right, I need him. I don’t know what I would have done.

 

When the doorbell rang, Steve jumped and snapped the journal closed in his hands. He walked to the door and Sharon was there.

“Oh good,” she said. “I thought something might be wrong.” Steve raised an eyebrow and Sharon shrugged and explained. “I was, uh,” she said, and leaned forward to put her finger to the door beside them and tapped out h-e-l-l-o, then shrugged. “You didn’t answer.”

“I was busy,” Steve replied.

“Your face is red,” Sharon said and she stepped closer to him and he stepped back. Sharon looked concerned. “Are you okay?”

I’m trying to be, Steve thought.