ghosts and ghastly wounds

The blood trickled out of Bucky’s nose, splattering onto the floor. Another drop joined the first, landing right next to his slipper-clad feet.

“James?” Natasha watched as Bucky’s spine seem to give out – he hunched forward, his back facing her, stumbling a few steps ahead to grip the countertop.

A noise escaped Bucky’s throat. It wasn’t the kind of pain Natasha would associate with physical injuries or nosebleeds – it was the kind of pain she had associated with nightmares, traumas, fear and regret. She heard it almost every night, amongst the sounds of the sheets rustling as Bucky writhed in his sleep and the slam of a fist punching a hole into the wall if he couldn’t get out of his head soon enough. Natasha had nightmares too, of the Red Room, but she would only startle awake with a racing heartbeat and the feeling of her skin crawling.

“It appears that Sergeant Barnes is in distress. His blood pressure and heart rate has –“

“Shut up, FRIDAY,” Natasha snapped.  FRIDAY lapsed into silence immediately without even finishing her sentence. She hastily set the carton of milk she was holding onto the island and slowly laid a hand on Bucky’s heaving back. “Hey, hey, you’re here. You’re here,” she said gently.

He sounded like he was choking on air. He howled like an injured animal, folding over himself. The countertop cracked in his clenched fists. Natasha wanted to hold him so badly but she was terrified of invading his space. She watched helplessly as he went down onto his knees, crawling somewhat blindly, leaving smeared trails of blood behind before curling into himself and rocking back and forth.

“James, please look at me,” she begged. The blood was smeared all over his face, staining the knees of his sweatpants where he was hiding his face. Her hand hovered uselessly over his figure, not sure what to do, despite this probably being his twentieth mental breakdown since escaping Hydra.

“Good morni—“ Steve stopped dead in his tracks in the kitchen doorway, a newspaper in his hands, old-fashioned as always. His face crumpled seeing Bucky in pain and shaking so hard Natasha could swear she heard his teeth chattering. “Bucky,“ Steve said, like trying to calm a scared animal. “Hey, it’s all good, I promise you –“

There was a glint of Bucky’s metal arm as he launched his fist in the air followed by a heavy crunching sound. The next thing Natasha knew, Steve was flat on his back with Bucky screaming on top of him.

“FUCK! YOU!” he screamed, between pummeling Steve’s face with his metal fist exactly the way he did on the helicarrier years ago. “FUCK! FUCK! YOU!”

Natasha was holding on to his waist, trying to get him off of Steve, who was feebly raising his hands up in self-defense but never once hitting Bucky back. “James! Stop!” Bucky was still screaming, the words coming out inaudible. “Steve, get the fuck up,” she hissed, catching Bucky’s elbow in the mouth. She tasted blood on the back of her teeth.

“I DIDN’T! – I DIDN’T WANT – ANY – OF – THIS,” Bucky wailed so loudly that Natasha thought her bones were rattling. She wasn’t going to forget the pain and wrath in his voice any time within the century.

Steve struggled with Bucky, the whole time pleading and telling him stories about Brooklyn, of their childhood, but Bucky wasn’t listening. He had disassociated, engulfed in madness.

Finally, Steve managed to roll himself out from underneath Bucky’s legs. Bucky was now screaming in Russian, begging someone to stop, to not lie to him, his legs kicking out in blind rage. Steve helped Natasha restrain him from behind, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and arms, as Bucky continued howling and sobbing.

“What – what’s he saying now?”

“He’s saying ‘You’re lying,’” Natasha replied, moving to restrain his legs instead. “That he’s not dead.”

“Who? – argh!” Bucky’s fist managed to hit Steve on his temple.

“Fuck if I know,” Natasha said through gritted teeth. “James? James. It’s me. It’s me, honey.”

He was still screaming; sometimes wordless screams of anguish, sometimes desperately shouting “NYET! NYET!” Natasha felt tears burning her eyes.

With his arms and legs restrained, Bucky’s struggles eventually slowed down. He wept brokenly in Steve’s arms, sobbing too uncontrollably to catch his breath. Steve held Bucky’s head gently in hands. “Shh, shh. I got you, buddy,” he whispered, tears rolling down his face. “I got you. It’s all good.”

Natasha noticed how splotches of red were blossoming all over Steve’s face, his cheekbone already turning into a purplish bruise. He was going to look a sight tomorrow. Belatedly, she sloppily dragged her palm across her lips to wipe off the blood that was seeping out of the cut. Bucky was still mumbling in Russian, his voice dropping low. Natasha’s head perked up when she realized what he was chanting.

“Steve,” she said levelly. “Let him go.”

Steve looked at her blankly. “What?”

Natasha decided it was safe to loosen her grip on Bucky’s legs, now that he wasn’t so hostile. She recited the translations flatly. “He’s saying, ‘Get him off of me’, ‘Don’t touch me, please stop touching me,’ and ‘I won’t let you.’”

Steve was staring at Natasha, looking startled. He released Bucky almost immediately. Natasha saw the exact moment his heart broke when Bucky crawled away from him on trembling knees and arms, crying so hard she thought he might throw up. His nose was still bleeding.

“Bucky,” Steve softly, almost like he didn’t realize he was saying it out loud.

Bucky responded with a guttural “Fuck you.” He was faced away from Steve, and promptly vomited onto the floor, his fingers scrabbling on the kitchen tiles.

Natasha’s throat felt tight. Her vision blurred and she blinked the tears away. Steve, the stubborn idiot, shifted over to Bucky on his knees. “Bucky, why are you sayi–“

“GET AWAY FROM ME!” Bucky screamed in Russian, twisting around to swing his metal fist against the side of Steve’s face. It connected with another sickening crunch and Steve fell sprawled onto his back, looking at Natasha helplessly. Bucky might have lost his super-soldier enhancement and peak human function, but he was still strong and the metal arm was still made of vibranium.

Bucky heaved and gagged, looking right at Steve, and another stream of water vomit escaped his lips, splashing onto the floor with drops of blood from his nose. “Don’t—don’t touch me,” he gasped in Russian between retching.

Steve sat up slowly, his mouth hanging open questioningly, silently asking Natasha for translation.

“You have to go, Steve,” Natasha said.

Steve looked like she just kicked him.

“Just, just go,” Natasha repeated, crawling over to Bucky on her hands and knees, so she wouldn’t intimidate him. He was still heaving, but nothing was coming out. “Go,” she hissed.

Steve got up slowly and quietly walked out the door, his concerned gaze lingering on Bucky. Natasha noticed he was limping. It didn’t matter. Come tomorrow, they will all be healed and right as rain, except for Bucky.

She rubbed his back in gentle circles, speaking to him in Russian. “You’re done, James. You’re empty. You’re done.”

He panted on all fours, blood dripping steadily into the puddle of watery sick. She laid her hand on his forehead – as expected, he was running a fever. “We have to get your temperature down.”

“I want him dead,” Bucky said, almost inaudibly.

Natasha swallowed. “James…”

“I want him dead.” Bucky’s voice broke on the last syllable.

Natasha crawled closer to him, so they were face to face. “Pierce has been dead for years,” she said quietly.

Bucky’s face crumpled. “No – I want – I want him dead.” He sat back on his legs, chest heaving. “Dead.”

Natasha brushed his long brown hair out of his hazed, trauma-addled eyes and cupped his jaw. “That was not Pierce.”

Bucky looked at her for a moment, his eyes shifting back and forth in confusion.

“That was Steve.”

Bucky shook his head and crawled away from her, his breathing heavy. “Don’t say his name.” He tried to get up, but before he could even stand straight, he tripped over his own feet and stumbled back down. “Don’t…don’t say his name.”

“James,” Natasha said, walking over and immediately kneeling back down in front of him so they were level, “do you know who I am?”

“You’re Nat,” he replied, without missing a beat. That was good. That was a good sign.

“Where are we?”

Bucky’s eyes darted around them. His breathing picked up again. “I…I –“

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Natasha cut in quickly before he had another panic attack. “We’re in Stark’s Tower. In New York. It’s 2017.” Bucky’s hands were shaking, so she held them. They were cold, even the flesh one. “Pierce is dead. Hydra is gone. You’re safe now.”

Bucky swallowed. “St…Stark.”

Natasha nodded encouragingly. “Yes, Tony. He’s out on a mission with Vision and Wanda. They’ll be back soon–“

“I killed his parents,” Bucky whispered, finally switching back to English. His voice so dead that Natasha almost wished he was screaming again. “Howard, Maria…” The veins in his forehead stood out as his tears overcame him. “Poor Maria.”

“No, that wasn’t…that wasn’t you.”

“Howard,” Bucky sobbed. “He was my – my friend. I –“

Natasha wiped his tears away from his face, her own dripping off her chin. “It was a long time ago. They made you do it.” His nose was still bleeding worryingly.

Bucky seemed to crash back into his own body, his crying stopping abruptly although his body was still shuddering from silent sobs. “I hurt Steve.”

“He’s fine,” Natasha assured him. “He’ll look hideous tomorrow but he’s fine.”

Bucky stared at her, his lips quivering. “I hurt you.”

Natasha crept closer so they were nose to nose. “I don’t care,” she said, not breaking eye contact. This close, it looked like Bucky had three eyes. “I don’t care. You’re here now.”

Bucky broke into sobs again, babbling apologies and saying he wished he was dead. As long as he was still speaking English, that was already half the battle won. Natasha held him tight, her hand carding through his tangled hair. “Put me back to sleep, put me back to sleep,” he garbled into her neck, clutching onto her for dear life.

“We’ll get through this,” she said fiercely. “We’ll crawl through this, I don’t give a fuck how.”

Bucky sobbed and sobbed, until he collapsed and was sobbing into her lap, folded over into himself, still on his knees. Natasha stroked his back – which was arching upwards as he curled inwards as if he was trying so hard to make himself small and disappear – over the protruding ridges of his spine.

They were silent for a while, besides the sound of Bucky falling apart. Every time he came undone, it was a little bit harder to collect all of him and put him back together. Sometimes it seemed like some of his pieces simply went missing.

“I don’t – I feel like my body is…like I need to crawl out of them,” he sniffled when he was calm enough, lying sprawled half in her lap and half on the cold tiles.

“I know.”

He sat up, still unsteady. “Nat. Nat,” he said urgently. “I can’t. I can’t do this anymore—“

“Stop saying that.” Natasha tried to hold his hands again but he waved them away. His nose was still fucking bleeding.

“No, I can’t live with all this—“

“I know, honey, I know.”

“No,” Bucky moaned in frustration, getting his feet under him. His mismatched hands were fisted in his hair. “No, you don’t know. Stop – God, stop saying that you do.”

Natasha felt her insides clench. “I know you,” she insisted, getting up as well. “I know what it’s like – the stuff they did to you, I was there,” she said, her voice breaking and rising higher to be heard over his agonized muffled cries.

“But you don’t know!” Bucky yelled so loudly that Natasha automatically shuffled backwards. She had never been afraid of him until…well, until now. “You – everything they did to you, you were – you – they raised you, to be…to work for them. I was their slave. When they punished you, they punished me a hundred times worse!” Spittle flew from his lips as ranted incoherently. “It was always my fault – I was too lenient on you, I summoned you out of your dorm room, I, I—“

Natasha’s hand went to her stomach. She felt too big yet too small at the same time. Bucky was right. He got blamed for everything; even if Natasha was the one who failed to eliminate a target, Bucky paid for it for not being a good enough trainer. And when the Red Room found them together that one night…Natasha got away with a few whippings and starvation, but she could hear Bucky screaming every day from the torture chamber until she was finally burned clean from his memories. They also did other…unforgivable things to him with the excuse getting him to forget her faster. They had made her watch. Bucky would always lay bleeding and staring blankly with empty eyes by the time they each had their turn with him.

Even if neither of them did anything wrong, they still tortured Bucky just because they could.

“They –they taught you how to fuck men to—to get away with things, but I was the one they fucked!” he shrieked.

They had shoved her in his line of sight, every time, and slapped her across the face in front of his dead eyes. Normally he would bark at them to leave her alone, or at least flinch when he was too injured to even move a finger, and it would tip them off that he hadn’t forgotten her. Even his eyes would just give it away when he looked at her. One day, after what felt like months of torment, he didn’t react at all. They knew it was done.

Natasha had always wondered, deep down, in the back of her mind if Bucky was simply too tired and just wanted it to end. He was an assassin – a good poker face was a prerequisite. She wouldn’t blame him if he did.

She never saw him again. Until Iran. He was cold and empty by then, devoid of everything of the man she loved, drained to nothing.

“Pierce would – Pierce—“ he choked, shoving his fist into his mouth to keep whatever else that was trying to escape his mouth inside.

“James,” Natasha said quietly, defeated, like Bucky had absorbed all of her energy and was spending them all reliving those horrors.

“He would—he would tell me to—to call him Steve,” Bucky blubbered. He made an agonized sound through gritted teeth. “He would—he would make me, and – Steve was dead – he made me—dishonor Steve’s memories—“

Natasha felt her blood run cold. She never knew this. She had known Bucky for fifty years and had never…

“I---I didn’t want to – he made me, he – he said he knew, that Steve and I used to, to…” Bucky crouched on the floor, chin tucked into his chest, hands over his head, like he was trying to protect himself from…from everything.

Natasha just stood there, looking down at him, feeling like the walls around her were tumbling down and the floor was caving in beneath her feet. Maybe this was what it felt to lose your mind.

“I—I never told you, I—I’m sorry,” Bucky choked, peeking up at her like he was afraid of her.

“It’s okay,” Natasha whispered hollowly.

Bucky got up abruptly and snatched a knife from the knife block.

“James—“ Natasha started but before she could even blink – he was still as fast as ever – he jammed it into the seams of his shoulder where the metal melded into his arm. Blood sprayed around like they were in a low-budget snuff film.

“GET IT – OFF!” he roared.

“Stop,” Natasha cried, trying to rip it out of his hands. After all, he wasn’t a super-soldier anymore, and Natasha still had her own version of an enhancement serum in her veins. Bucky managed to twist the knife right where it was fused to his clavicle, successfully wedging it in despite his howls of agony. Natasha yanked it out of him with all her might, and threw it so hard it slid all the way across the room and under the kitchen table. Blood was spouting from his shoulder, and he was turning pale. In the chaos of fresh blood gushing out of him like a broken pipe, Natasha managed to notice the one leaking from his nose had finally stopped. Like that was enough to make any difference now.

“Get it off. I need it off,” Bucky pleaded. He was swaying on his feet from the blood loss. Natasha held him in place with one hand staunching the wound and the other on his chest, keeping him from toppling over. “Please, this is all I ask,” he whimpered.

As if he was a puppet with his strings cut off, his body went limp and his weight dragged Natasha tumbling to the floor with him.

“James?” Natasha slapped him lightly on his cheek, unintentionally smearing his own blood onto his face. That was when she noticed the wispy red glow floating around him.

Tony’s voice rang loud and clear. “FRIDAY, alert the medic.”

Fuck, Natasha forgot all about FRIDAY. Her head whipped up to see Tony and Wanda standing in the kitchen doorway, watching them sympathetically.

“Vision is with Steve,” Tony said by way of explanation.

Natasha zeroed in on the matching red glow on the tips of Wanda’s fingers.

“I wish someone had done this for me,” Wanda said calmingly, “when things got too painful to bear.” She looked sad and burdened beyond her years, her fading accent somehow making it even more so. “He’s fine.”