Chapter 15
Then
Steve was half asleep when he heard a noise come from Bucky - a strangled half-scream, half-grunt. He jolted upright, and in one fluid motion he threw off the comforter and turned on the light.
Bucky wasn’t quite awake, but he wasn’t quite asleep, either. He was gasping for breath, gurgling, sucking desperately at the air but taking little in. His face was strangled. His eyes were clenched shut, as if in pain.
“Bucky!” Steve yelled. Then again, more urgently, “Bucky!”
He knew that waking up someone in the throes of a night terror could be a dangerous business. But he was worried Bucky might choke to death. And whatever Bucky was experiencing, Steve knew it must be awful. Gingerly, he put a hand on Bucky’s good arm and shook him gently. When Bucky didn’t react, kept gasping, Steve started tapping his face and yelling his name. “Bucky! Wake up! Wake up!”
He pulled his hand back to give Bucky a gentle slap, and Bucky’s hand suddenly came up to grab Steve’s arm. Bucky’s eyes flew open and for a second, Steve could see only the Winter Soldier. Cold, calculating. Ready to neutralize the threat. But then, Bucky’s clouded expression cleared a bit and his eyebrows, knit into a tight v-shape on his forehead, relaxed downward. He was breathing heavily, fighting for oxygen. His face was beet red.
“Steve?” he croaked. He looked at his hand, which was still grasping Steve’s forearm. “Fuck,” said Bucky. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“I’m fine, Buck,” said Steve solemnly.
“You’re bruised.”
“I’ll heal.”
Bucky sat back, looking defeated. Too tired to talk. Still trying to recover from whatever horrors lived inside his head.
Steve passed a glass of water over to Bucky from his own nightstand. “Here. Drink this.”
Bucky obliged, drinking greedily until the water spilled down his lips and chin.
Steve gave him a moment. Then he said, gently, “Can I touch you?” He still asked this question even though Bucky never said no. He wanted Bucky to feel totally in control of his own body. And asking him every time would hopefully heal whatever neural pathways in his head that were broken down during the years he spent as a slave to HYDRA.
Bucky only nodded. Steve wrapped his arm around Bucky, pulling Bucky close to his chest and cradling him. He smoothed Bucky’s hair repeatedly, whispering reassurances. There they sat together until Bucky’s breathing returned to normal and the shaking in his body slowed.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Steve finally asked.
“I was back in that cell,” he said. “It was the worst time. The time that got me transferred out to another facility.”
Steve didn’t press for details, but once Bucky started talking, it was like he needed to clear out his brain.
“I’d just returned from a difficult mission. They’d sent me to kill a girl, barely 18. I don’t know why. I didn’t ask questions. Maybe she knew something she shouldn’t have known. Anyway. She begged me for her life.”
Here, he shuddered.
“While I was the Winter Soldier it was almost like being two people. There was the mercenary part of my brain which only cared about finishing the mission. And then there was whatever part of my conscience was still in there. And somehow when she begged for her life, I hesitated. It was just a moment of indecision. But it cost me everything.”
Bucky took a sip of water before continuing. “The girl got away. I’d never lost a target before. I just watched her run, like I was frozen. Of course, it didn’t last long. I pursued her, and shot her in the head.” He shuddered again. “But when I was taken back to HYDRA, they beat me to within an inch of my life. Tied me up with my arms and legs spread. Whipped me, kicked me. Raped me. Violently. I was on the floor, bleeding, and they just kept going.” Bucky paused. His shoulders were starting to shake slightly. “I was absolutely sure I would die. And I didn’t really want to live. All I felt was these men breaking my body, and all I thought was, “Good. Let it be over.” At some point a broken rib punctured my lung. And I was wheezing, trying to breathe. The guy on top of me — I don’t know his name — just laughed. The more I tried to get a breath in, the more I wheezed and cried, the more he enjoyed it.”
Steve felt it again. The ice water in his chest. The horror and the anger at what his friend had been put through.
“The worst part is what they were punishing me for. It was because the person inside me wasn’t dead. They were trying to kill the spark of humanity that had kept me from killing that girl. And I learned, you know. That humanity gets you hurt. Compassion doesn’t get you anywhere in the end. Because there I was on the floor, being punished for it, even though in the end she was still dead. In the end, it seemed like everything that was human about me could only bring me pain. Sometimes it still feels that way.”
Bucky buried his head into Steve’s chest and his body was wracked with violent sobs.
“Buck,” said Steve softly. “I wouldn’t be alive right now if it wasn’t for that humanity. If you hadn’t recognized me. If you hadn’t pulled me out of the river. I’d be dead right now.”
Bucky didn’t say anything, but Steve felt wet tears soaking into him.
“Bucky, there were so many horrible things that happened to you. But you survived them all.” Bucky started to protest. “No, you did. You’re here. You’re alive. You’re doing good for the world. You’re not hurting people anymore. And the part of you that did hurt people? It wasn’t really you.”
“I still want to hurt them,” said Bucky, his voice flat and cold. “The men that did that to me. I want to find them and wring their necks and watch the light go out from their eyes.”
Steve contemplated that for a second. “Would it help?”
Bucky shrugged.
Steve moved his hand down Bucky’s hair, to the back of his neck, to his shoulder blades, watching Bucky’s skin turn to gooseflesh with that gentle touch. “Sometimes the best thing we can do is let go of that anger and hate. Let go of the killing. Sometimes it’s harder not to kill. But I think if you start down that road of revenge…where will it ever end? You’ll be hunting them forever.”
Bucky sighed. “You’re probably right.” After a beat, “Well, I won’t seek them out. But—“ he added, “if we ever happen across one of them, I won’t fucking hesitate. Would you allow me to have that, at least?”
“Yes,” said Steve. He was hoping that day would never come.