Work Text:
“Is that blood?”
There were voices in his head ripping and tearing at his mind. They were inside of him, all around him poking and prodding at him in places all attempting to steal away his humanity. To them he was merely a tool of destruction, a monster made of madness, but there was a part of him still struggling to hold on.
“Steve!” he could hear himself crying out, begging for a reprieve from the tortures that had haunted him. Time had passed, but they were still there deep inside of him threatening to take away all he was in favor of taking him back to the place where he was lost as the killing machine that they’d made him. To them, he was merely a pawn in their nefarious game, a means to an end put forth to change the world around him. Through their control he’d done so many awful things—so many unforgivable things that he would never truly recover from. There was blood on his hands…so much blood and destruction. So much pain and torment that he couldn’t help but cry out on the verge of being swept away by madness.
He was broken. He was a mere fragment of the man he once was and at night he knew that he couldn’t escape that. It was always there with him, haunting him and keeping him from the second chance that he’d promised he would attempt to reclaim in his life. He was lost—so afraid of the world around him now that he was merely a relic of the old world caught up in a life that had been stolen from him long ago. He’d lost himself and through it all his saving grace had been the one man who’d never let him down. There was only thing that had pulled him back from the edge on nights like these as he found himself trapped in a remnant of the past he’d put behind him.
“Steve,” he mouthed to himself as sweat carried over his body, breaking through the haunting memories and the dark dreams of a life he’d put behind him. In the darkness he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think and as he found himself caught up in the height of a panic attack gasping for air, he let out a pinched choking sound. He jolted upright, feeling the sweat soaked sheets around him until his shaky fingers found the strength to reach out beside him seeking out the one comfort that always put his mind at ease during nights like these. It was in these dark hours that he found only one true solace away from the others when he was wrapped up in the arms of the man that he loved…
“Only he’s gone,” Bucky choked up on the words realizing that his peace and serenity had left him when Steve had found himself returning to a life of second chances. Steve left this world, returning to the one they’d long since lost in their struggles, going back to the woman that Steve had always wondered about. In the end after all the promises to be there for Bucky, Steve had given into the ultimate temptation returning to a world that had been forgotten and bypassing the promises to be at Bucky’s side through it all—helping him find a way to stop hating himself in the waking hours.
“I’ll always be at your side Buck,” Steve had promised, but the words were in vain as Steve had willingly walked away from this world in favor of finding his own happiness.
At the time Bucky hadn’t begrudged him that. Everything inside of him wanted to scream out and beg him to stay, but he’d already done enough damage to Steve’s life. He’d already caused him far too much pain and now as Bucky sank back into the empty bed, reaching out to touch the cold sheet beside him as his pain carried over every inch of his body. In remembering the way that Steve had spent a great many hours at his side, staying with him through the night and whispering sweet promises in his ear after the nightmares took control, Bucky found himself overtaken by sobs, lost in the darkness without the only person who ever truly meant anything in his life.