Chapter Text
Bucky heard Steve stir awake on the bed next to the lounge chair he was lying on, and decided to open his eyes. It was 6am and he’d been awake for a few minutes. His throat was still a little sore and his eyes were burning, but the man opened them anyway.
“Where am I?”, Steve asked, clearly confused.
“In the hospital, you broke your leg during the fight yesterday and passed out,” Bucky informed him carefully and Steve lifted his blanket to check on his leg. That’s when he noticed what he was wearing: A hospital gown. He looked at his arms in shock and quickly moved to cover himself beneath the blanket again.
“It’s okay,” Bucky told him. “I saw them.” He was referring to the several cuts and burns on Steve’s arms; The doctor had informed him about them the night before.
Steve had been wearing long-sleeved shirts for the past few weeks but he was one to get cold quickly so Bucky hadn’t especially been worrying because of that. And sex… Well they didn’t have it a lot because Steve was shy and if they did, it’d be in the dark and focus would lie down there. But now that he knew, he felt stupid.
“Oh,” Steve said. Bucky saw his hand starting to tremble beneath the blanket.
“I’m not going to force you to tell me about it now, but I’ll want to know why you would hurt yourself so much.” When Bucky had first heard about his boyfriend’s self-harm activities from the doctor, he had cried. And he was close to doing it again. It just showed him how many times he should’ve been there when he wasn’t. And it made him feel like shit.
“I… I mean.” He could see his boyfriend trying to form words. “I can’t. I’m…” And he saw Steve’s face fall and he looked out of the window. “I’m sorry,” he said in such a horse and broken voice that Bucky’s heart started aching again, and this time so hard it felt like it’d been hit by a wrecking ball.
“No. Don’t you dare apologize. This is not your fault Steve,” Bucky reassured him because that was what the doctor had told him. “And I’m not going to let you promise me you won’t do it again. I want you to talk whenever you feel down, or angry, or upset.” The man had been doing research all night long and he knew that what most people thought, that people who do that do it for attention, was definitely wrong.
“It’s just…” he started, “I can’t control it.” He wasn’t crying like Bucky was now. He’d grown used to hurting himself and he still thought that he deserved it. He’d done it ever since he’d been out of the ice. And Bucky had only been back with him for a year. And Steve had stopped caring. The little scars from five years ago were long healed and he felt lost without them. Why Steve didn’t know. Actually, he was only apologizing to Bucky, not to himself.
“I know. That’s why I want to help you.”
Steve nodded. The only problem here was that in fact, he didn’t want his boyfriend to help him. He’d been fine with hiding them. It had been his little secret. But now that it wasn’t anymore, he felt stupid. And he wanted to punish himself for letting people see because the nurses and the doctor must’ve seen them too. And soon the press would know what a desperate little shit he was because he couldn’t manage his emotional unsteadiness.
Bucky got up and walked over to him. Steve held on tightly to the bed cover so that Bucky wouldn’t even think of lifting them, but he did anyway. “Come on, let me see again.” After a while of them pulling around at the blanket, Steve gave up and Bucky pulled it away.
He took the youngster’s forearm into his hands. He pulled it close to his face and then started planting kisses on every single scar there was.
Steve felt tears falling on his arm while he was being kissed by his boyfriend. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this, I can do it alone,” he said just to calm his conscience because well, he did feel bad about the tears that were shed by Bucky here. But he just couldn’t bring himself to feel bad about his own misery right now.
“Obviously you can’t,” Bucky lifted his head and it gave a sting to Steve’s heart to see the redness in his boyfriend’s eyes.
“Neither can you! No one can,” he said angrily because this whole situation made him angry. And it made him even more angry when Bucky started crying harder because Steve couldn’t control his rage. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just... I’ve tried to stop. I really have. It’s just not that simple. And I have scars anyways.”
“No, you’re right.” Bucky’s voice was croaky. “I just don’t understand… How can you care so little about yourself?”
“I used to.”
“What happened?”
“I grew resistant.”
“We’ll figure this out. I’ll help you.”
It was two days later when Steve was released from the hospital and taken back to his and Bucky’s shared flat in New York. Bucky was carrying all of the his belongings while Steve was hobbling to the car on crutches.
It was summer and Bucky had only given Steve a shirt, some slippers and shorts. Nothing to cover his forearms.
Unnecessary to say that Steve was feeling super uncomfortable once he sat down next to Bucky. He crossed his arms in front of his chest as for them not to be seen too obviously in case there would be paps around.
“Stop that,” Bucky said once they’d turned on the main road.
“Stop what?” Steve asked, annoyed.
“Covering your arms. No one will see.” Bucky’s eyes were focused on the road, which made Steve even more frustrated.
“I’m cold,” he said and rubbed at his forearms to make that statement more obvious.
“You’re not. It’s 80 degrees outside,” Bucky said, still focused on the road. Steve not being able to cover his arms had been a suggestion made by a psychiatrist, not by him. And it was hard for him too, not just for Steve because he hated seeing the scars himself.
“I am! Just let me have a jacket or something,” the man requested in an angry voice and looked the other way.
“Look. I don’t like this either okay?! It’s this or fucking therapy sessions! And I know little Steve wouldn’t like that either so just fucking deal with it!”
This made Steve shut up for a moment. He had never really had an argument with Bucky, let alone heard the man curse. And it made him angry that he’d messed up once again, bringing furious tears to his eyes. Bucky noticed his silence and looked over. Steve was leaning against the passenger door, arms put into his shirt and looking smaller than even before the serum.
“Look,” Bucky started after a while. “I didn’t mean to upset you or anything. I just don’t know what to think about this.” Steve could see the tired look on his face and he knew the man hadn’t slept well, if he’d slept at all, in the past 2 days. He scratched at one of the pink burns on his wrist, which was what he usually did when he was nervous.
“You don’t have to think anything about it. I was okay and I still am. If it had been bad, I would’ve told someone.” He looked back at Bucky, whose eyes were still fixed on the road.
“How long has this been going on?” Bucky asked when he turned onto the highway. The man’s voice was barely audible; He was close to tears again.
Steve was quiet for a while. “I don’t think I should- “
“That’s not what I asked you,” Bucky interrupted in a stern voice. He wanted to know right now, he would not give Steve time to think about this question and make the situation sound milder than it was.
“Okay. I started using… objects on myself… When you fell off the train and I woke up in the future.” He would not tell Bucky about before that. That would only upset the man more. He could see that his boyfriend was trying not to cry.
They were only a few minutes away from their flat now and he didn’t want to cause a scene.
Once they arrived on their floor of the newly built apartment building, Steve went, or rather hobbled, to their bedroom and took off his shorts and shirt. He was looking through the closet when Bucky entered, the suitcase in his hand. “What are you doing?”
“Oh,” Steve said and turned around. He had a Patriots sweatshirt in his hand now. “Just getting changed.” He put it on and felt a dozen times better with long sleeves.
“Steve I…” Bucky started and sat down on the bed. “I talked to a psychiatrist.”
Steve turned around, making big eyes. “Do you really think that was necessary?” He sat down next to Bucky.
Bucky raised his eyebrows. “Is that a serious question? Have you seen your arms?”
“Yes but… I haven’t killed myself. Or tried to.” Steve was not suicidal. And that was simply a confirmation for him that he in fact didn’t need a psychiatrist.
“Babe. Do you really think you only need a psychiatrist if you’re suicidal? You’re hurting. I don’t want you to do that for the rest of your life. Please,” Bucky’s voice was pleading and broken and for the second time today, Steve knew his boyfriend was about to cry.
“Don’t,” Steve said and put a hand on the man’s thigh. The super soldier looked at Bucky thoroughly. The first tear left his eye just moments after that. Within seconds, they were hugging, Steve on Bucky’s lap and the man’s face buried deep in his sweatshirt. Steve was stroking the back of his boyfriend’s head. “You know I can’t promise you I will stop.” This was part of his life now and he couldn’t imagine living without his destructive habit.
“I know,” Bucky said and lifted his face out of Steve’s sweatshirt. He wiped at his eyes. “I’m sorry.” He stroked Steve’s back. “But you’re my little boy and I want to take care of you. Please allow me to.”
“Okay,” Steve said simply because he was tired of fighting and because he couldn’t stand seeing the man he loved upset.
“Thank you,” Bucky said and Steve remained silent. “Harry Potter marathon?” The man suggested after a while and got an eager nod as an answer. It was early afternoon, so they would be able to watch a few of the films today. “I’ll prepare the snacks and you can go set up the TV.”
And they did just that. Steve was finished after about a minute because well… There wasn’t really a lot to do, so he decided to go to the bathroom before they’d start. That turned out to be the worst idea he’d had all day because once he’d arrived in the bathroom, he saw the cabinet above the sink, where, inside his toiletry bag, he hid his blades.
And he couldn’t resist taking one out and sliding it across a clean part of his left forearm. He’d needed this. He hadn’t been able to relieve from all the stress and the sadness and the anger in about 3 days. That usually wouldn’t be a problem, he could go weeks without hurting himself but at the moment, the time was simply too stressful and with Bucky finding out about this, he felt lost. He cut himself another two times and then cleaned the wounds; They weren’t big and stopped bleeding after a few seconds. Nevertheless, they left light red scars that looked obviously new; he would just have to keep the sweatshirt on.
He discreetly hid all of the blades back in their box in the toiletry bag and joined Bucky on the couch, who had brought two buckets of ice cream, about 10 cans of soft drinks and a big bowl of popcorn.
“Where were you?” He asked once the boy was sitting next to him.
“The bathroom.”
They passed the reminder of the day watching the Harry Potter movies and only got up to go to the bathroom. It was hitting midnight when Bucky saw Steve’s eyelids growing heavier and heavier. “We should go to sleep,” he said and Steve mumbled something no one could understand. So Bucky did the only thing plausible; He shut off the TV and carried him up to their bed because around his leg was still a cast.
He took off Steve’s sweatshirt and lay him down in bed, then shut off the room light, turned off his little nightstand light and lay down next to the boy.
Steve was falling asleep by now, not noticing Bucky checking out his arms.
“What are those?”
“What?” Steve asked, pretending that he didn’t know what Bucky was talking about. Why would he even take off his sweatshirt in the first place?
“Please,” Bucky whispered but Steve wouldn’t let him have it.
“Answer me!”
Steve flinched once again. He had managed to make Bucky that angry a second time. “I’m sorry.”
“This is not okay. What do you do it with? Where do you hide it?” He could tell by the tone of his boyfriend’s voice that he wasn’t even sad anymore, just plain angry and it made Steve upset.
“It was just too stressful! How would I be able to deal with this any differently to how I did it in the past 10 years?” His eyes were full of furious tears again.
“I don’t know maybe talk to me! This is what relationships are supposed to be for.”
“But look at how upset you are about this! I don’t want to upset you anymore than I already did.”
“Are you being serious right now? That is not the point. You should’ve come to me from the day I promised you that I’d be there for you.” And the sadness had returned to Bucky’s voice. Steve had never seen Bucky cry this much before. In fact, he had only seen him cry three times: When his father had left the family for good, when Steve told him all about what they’d experienced together, and when he’d had a terrible flashback caused by his PTSD.
As for Bucky, he had never seen Steve cry. And Steve was happy about that. It had got pretty close several times yet he’d always managed to catch himself or leave the room without drawing much attention to it.
“Why do you care so much about me?”
“I love you! Don’t tell me that I’m not showing you that.” And there they were again, Bucky sucked in a sob and stared at Steve through the darkness.
“You care more about me than I do.”
“I know.” Steve couldn’t stand this situation. Not at all. Bucky was crying next to him and he desperately wanted to hug the man. Which was what he did.
“I’m so sorry,” he said as he pulled Bucky closer.