I Just Wanted The Pain To Stop
It had been a week since you’d moved in with Bucky. You made sure to watch over him as much as you could. The first time he tried it, Steve was in the other room, so he found Bucky before the pills had started acting, and took him to the hospital. A week later, Steve had come up to you.
“I’m unbelievably busy, so I can’t take care of him. I need you to watch him so he doesn’t do it again. You wouldn’t have to pay any rent, that’s been covered. Please, Y/N, can you do this for me?”
“Of course. My other job isn’t going to well right now anyway. And it’s a full-time situation…exactly how much does S.H.I.E.L.D. pay for?”
“Everything. You do work for them, don’t you?”
“Okay, then I’ll be a full-time Bucky-watcher. Don’t worry, Steve, he’ll be okay,” you’d said, clapping him on the shoulder.
That was two months ago, and now you were sitting at the kitchen counter eating cereal, Bucky next to you drinking coffee.
“How’re you doing this morning, Buck?”
“Honestly, I’m having a good day, so far. I’m glad you’re here, it’ll keep me from doing something rash,” Bucky said, clearly still sleepy.
“Well, I’m glad. Do you want to do anything today, since you’re having a good day?”
“I dunno. I just woke up.”
“Alright. Well, tell me if you think of something,” you said, ruffling his hair then jumping off the barstool and padding over to put your bowl in the sink. “I’ll be in the living room.”
It took him a lot less time to finish his coffee than it normally did. It was Saturday, a lazy day. You were curled up on the sofa watching Netflix when he walked in, sitting next to you.
“You thought of anything?” you asked in a soft voice.
“Were you just going to watch Netflix?…” He paused. “I–If I hadn’t thought of anything?”
“Yeah, that’s about all.”
“I think I’ll just watch with you.”
“Okay, sounds good. You can cuddle up with me if you want.”
He smiled gently, a rare sight, though it was less and less of that as he recovered more. “I, uh, I actually wanted to talk first. We can cuddle after.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“How I’m feeling, how I’ve felt.”
“Mhm?”
“I–uh, you know feeling sad?”
“Of course.”
“Well, how I’m feeling, with the depression and all, isn’t sad. It’s more of…empty. I didn’t…don’t feelanything. All the things I used to enjoy, I don’t care about them anymore. And as you know, sometimes I can’t even get out of bed, I just have no motivation for living. It’s the worst feeling in the world. It…it hurts so bad, Y/N. Being empty hurts worse than feeling. And, when I tried to…you know, I…I didn’t want to die, I just wanted the pain to stop. And I think it’s like that with a lot of people who try to kill themselves. They don’t want to die, they just want the pain to stop.”
“Oh, Bucky…”
“I’m not done. I think people go to suicide as an escape, because they don’t want to…they feel embarrassed by how they feel, how much they hate themselves, hate living. So they don’t open up, they don’t get help. Or, I mean, they just forget that people care. You forget that people care when you’re like this. Some people turn to hurting themselves, so that they can feel something. Because they’d rather feel physical pain than emotional pain. And I…that didn’t work for me, as you…as you know.” He lifted the right side of his shirt to reveal three long, horizontal scars along his side.
“I just, at one point, I didn’t feel loved. But now I do. So, I just want to tell you that I’m sorry for any pain I’ve caused you, because I always think I’m being selfish, that I don’t thank you enough. Because it means so so much to me how much time you’ve spent protecting me and helping me recover. I’m…I’m sorry, Y/N, I’m so, so sorry.”
He started wiping away tears, and you were on the verge of crying. You blinked your tears away, taking his face between your hands. “James Buchanan Barnes, also known by his loving friends as Bucky, I promise you that you are loved, and that people care. You don’t have to kill yourself for the pain to stop. Trust me, I know. I have firsthand experience. You only cause me pain when you think you aren’t good enough, when you think you aren’t loved. You were only selfish when you tried to take yourself away from us, because damn, that would’ve hurt. A lot. And you are very welcome. For everything. You deserve to feel loved. You deserve to feel like you matter, because you do matter. You matter to me, and to Steve, and to Natasha, and to Sam, and to every damn person on this planet because god dammit, you are important!! And it pains me to see you so sad, but sadness, or even emptiness, sometimes, is part of life. And you’re living it. I’m sorry you have to live it if you don’t want to, but I wouldn’t want you off this Earth for anything.”
At this point, Bucky was smiling through tears. “Thank you, Y/N.”
“You’re welcome, Bucky,” you said, pressing a kiss to his temple and cuddling him into your side, ruffling his hair with your right hand. “Now, are we gonna cuddle and watch some Orange Is The New Black or what?”