Ready Set Breathe (A Steve Rogers Destruction Story)

51 Sick

Sharon had asked permission to enter Steve’s apartment from Barnes and he, in a panicked mess after Steve’s accident, nodded to her an absent yes. The landlord was compliant, too. It was amazing what one could do, Sharon realized, as a former SHIELD agent with an injured superhero.

She tried not to feel too uncomfortable having entered Steve’s apartment without him, and the silence and the lived-in appearance, so abruptly interrupted, was almost eerie. Sharon only wanted to help, she wanted to do something for him to make it easier. Because, after all, she had to believe it now, his… Suicidal tendencies. She had to face it now, as much as she hadn’t wanted to. Steve was in danger and he was compromised and really, it was all Sharon could do not to burst into tears.

Because Steve wasn’t a story her great aunt used to tell her. He wasn’t Prince Charming. He was a person and he was still someone she hardly knew, despite how many stories she could recall of his perfection, and he was facing the aftermath of all that he’d seen.

Peggy had told her so many stories, all of Steve saving people and making smart decisions and charming everyone with his sweetness. Sharon had only ever heard stories of his valor, his wonderfulness.

But this, this was not a story of wonderfulness. Sharon knew what she was witnessing, what story she was watching unfold in the apartment next to hers, and it was one of destruction.

In all honesty, Sharon had never believed that there could be a story of Steve Rogers’ destruction. She’d been too enthralled in the fanfare to imagine the aftermath.

But regardless, there Sharon stood in Steve’s apartment, realizing that the stories she knew might only be one thing-stories-and she packed some of his things for him. Clean clothes, for when he got better, and the drawing notebooks off his coffee table to help him pass the time.

By Steve’s bed, Sharon found a small, leather bound journal, and wondered if it was personal to him, if he’d want it. It looked worn, and when she picked it up and turned it over, she saw the pages on the side made thick and warped by ink and, maybe it’s another drawing book? she thought. So she opened it to check.

It was not a drawing book, Sharon realized, and it also wasn’t Steve’s handwriting. It was messy and black and frantic and Sharon’s mouth dropped. But it was open now, she’d seen words, and she stared.

 

He doesn’t know what it’s LIKE to lose EVERYTHING because hes wrong i have

nothingNOTHING

They took EVERYTHING from me laid me out on a table and even took my humanity

I literally make myself sick. All those murders, all those years, things done with my hands and Steve says it’s not my fault but when I’m puking in the bathroom at 3 AM because I had nightmares of ripping people’s throats out, it’s hard to believe him.

 

Sharon snapped the book closed in her hands, her mouth still open, stomach turning, and she felt at once as though she had seen too much because she had walked in on some terrible secret she wasn’t supposed to know. This was… This was not Steve’s.

Temptation gripped Sharon to sit down and read the entire thing, or at least read more, because now all she could see in her mind was Barnes’s-no, Bucky’s-dead eyes, and she wanted to know more, she wanted to understand.

But she couldn’t. It wasn’t her book and they weren’t her secrets and he wasn’t her friend.

Instead, Sharon set the book back down where she had found it and hurried out of the apartment and empty brown eyes and scrawled black words haunted her.