Entry for Day 17 of Marvel Whump Madness, sponsored by Trekkiehood

*mild trigger warning

Ever since he’d found out Bucky was alive, it was like the PTSD that already seemed to half-dictate his life had done a complete takeover. Before, it had stayed almost entirely in his dreams, affecting only his sleep… and what he could do when he got little to none of it. He’d thought that felt like living in hell. This? This was hell.

    He spent every hour he could trying to track down his best friend. He knew that didn’t help his mental state, but he couldn’t care less. Bucky was out there, and he needed to find him. They were brothers in everything except blood, and he loved him five hundred percent more than he cared about his own life. This was the very least he owed him. And, he needed him.

    But everything he had was still proving to call horribly short, and he was running out of new ideas. The sleep depravity certainly didn’t help to clear his mind. Now, the nightmares never left him. Every time he closed his eyes, every time he even tried to doze off for a few minutes, they were there to torture him. He relived that day on the train almost nightly, before his mind took him further, to the fate of experimentation and brainwashing Bucky had actually fallen to, a fate Steve knew was much worse than death. If only he’d gone down… if only he’d at least tried to find his body. He had no idea what HYDRA had done to Bucky, and that made everything that much worse. The things his mind came up were almost unimaginable… and yet he knew that when it came to HYDRA, they were also possible.

    So, he spent his nights reliving the worst memories of his lifetime and imagining what the worst of Bucky’s must be. Then, he walked into every day exhausted and haunted and received no break from the torture his own mind inflicted upon him.

    Loud noises made him visibly jump at the very least, or dive under tables at the very worst. Eating made him feel like he was going to throw up. He was always on edge, always keyed-up, to the point that if he didn’t have something to fidget with, his hand quivered. If he was made to sit still for too long, which happened whenever he was called into a meeting, he felt like he was going to go insane. And suddenly, he was terrified of heights. Not only for himself, but even more so, for his teammates and anyone around him. If he saw them too close to even a railed edge, he was instantly back on the train, and he couldn’t breathe… when he was lucky. When he wasn’t, he yelled out loud.

When he was in battle… when he was taking down what was left of HYDRA or whatever else he and the rest of the Avengers decided to do, things got better. He was a soldier, and when he was being one, everything got a little easier. The loud noises, in particular, ceased to bother him, and his mind was back to its normal levels of focus… until he was off of the battlefield again. But the fear of heights only got worse.

And he wanted to die. It was this burning desire that floated at the edges of everything he did. While he dove under the table because someone dropped a pan, he also wished they would just shoot him and get it over with. While he stood paralyzed at an edge, he also wanted to just step off. When he woke up at night screaming, all he wanted was to go and end it all. Before they set out on a mission, and again before they stepped off the jet, he knelt and silently prayed. Part of that prayer was always that this would be his time, and he’d go down in action. But it never happened.

Sam was really getting worried.

    He understood the PTSD better than anyone, but he also knew Steve’s was getting worse instead of better. But no matter how many times he tried to get his friend to get help… or even to talk to him about it anymore… he got held a little further at arm’s length. He knew there was something even deeper going on, but he couldn’t make any progress with what he could see, never mind what his friend was hiding from him.

    Steve knew he truly cared, and he knew he was trying to help. He even knew he was right.

    But he was Captain America, and Captain America didn’t see a counselor. He didn’t take medication or go to the doctor for the demons in his head. Captain America dealt with PTSD like it didn’t exist. He didn’t ask for help. He didn’t ever let the weakness show.

    He knew perspectives had changed, but part of his stubbornness revolved around the way people like him had been seen back before he’d gone under. Back then, it’d been called battle fatigue. And it was a weakness… something you hid. Because if you didn’t, best-case scenario, you and your manhood were looked down upon by everyone around you. Worst-case scenario, you were taken to a mental hospital.

    At the point he was at, Steve would have been being locked up. And even if he knew now he wouldn’t be, he couldn’t get that out of his head.

    Besides, he wasn’t even a normal soldier. He was an Avenger. He was Captain America. And the rest of the team seemed to be dealing with their own trauma just fine.

    But just keeping everything inside got to be way too much very quickly. So, he turned to other things to cope. First, he started working out… obsessively. When he got to the point when he had no idea how to make it any harder, and it was no longer enough, he had to layer something else on top of it. That’s when he’d made the first cut on his wrist.

    Two weeks later, there were more than he wanted to count. It didn’t fix the PTSD, and it didn’t make anything else go away. But it made it so he was able to continue to hide the things no one knew about. And it gave him something to do to himself that was short of ending his own life. He knew it was wrong, he knew it wasn’t how he should cope, but he was at the end of his rope. Being alone was hell like nothing else, whether it came in being triggered even more easily than usual, or just in being subjected to the screams of his inner demons with nothing to quiet them down. And when he couldn’t avoid solitude without letting out a hint that he was struggling, or when he had to be alone because he couldn’t hide the pain any longer, cutting kept him company.

    So, no matter how much more it made him hate himself, no matter how terrifying it was when Sam made the slightest comment about why he was running in a jacket in sixty-degree weather, he kept doing it.

    Sometimes, he was shamefully eager to be alone again, because he didn’t feel like he could take another breath without the help of the pain. But more often, he dreaded it, because he knew what he was going to do, and he hated himself for it.

    It was one of those more common days.

    The night before, he’d had the worst dream of his life. After everything his sleep had put him through over the past months, he couldn’t believe he could say that with so much confidence, but he could.

    Then, he’d been subjected to a three-hour-long meeting with the rest of the team. He’d gotten so keyed-up that Natasha had noticed and had him draw on her hand to calm down. She pulled him aside after it was finally over.

    He tried not to meet her gaze, but her eyes demanded it, catching his and not giving him the option of looking away.

    “You okay there, soldier?” she asked quietly.

    Steve swallowed hard and took a deep, shaky breath. “Yeah, I… I’m fine. I just…” He shook his head slowly, unable to finish the sentence. “I’m sorry.”

    “Hey, it’s okay, Steve,” she replied steadily. “It’s not like that. I know these things are hard for you. But you seem even more on edge than usual today.”

    Finally, he was able to tear his gaze from hers and look away. “I’m just tired.”

    She exhaled heavily but nodded. “Yeah, I know,” she told him softly. “Can I help? Get you some food… come up and sit with you while you get some rest… anything?”

    No matter how badly he wanted to say yes, to beg her to, he shook his head quickly. “No. No, it’s fine. I’m fine. I just went to bed late last night.”

    She took a breath to say something else, but before she could, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and looked at the text there, then swore softly.

    “I gotta go,” she told him reluctantly. “But hang in there, alright? Grab one of us if you need to.”

    He nodded, but reinforced, “I’m fine.”

    She squeezed his arm once, then turned and left the room. Most of the others had already headed out, and when she had too, it was only Steve and Tony left there.

    Steve knew it was time for him to face the music and go to his room. But he just couldn’t. He hated himself for it, but he was terrified to, and there was nothing he could do against that.

    Desperately, he searched his mind for some excuse to stay, just a little bit longer… something to bring up and talk to his friend about. Tony was going through some files, but he’d be done soon, and Steve needed to act now if he was going to do it naturally.

    “We need to take care of the base outside of London,” he said finally. “Losing it is gonna affect Hydra’s entire presence in Europe.”

    Tony nodded in agreement as he put away the papers and looked up. “Say the word and we’ll be heading out within twenty-four hours,” he told him simply. “You’re the Captain.”

    For once, Steve wished the older man would argue with him… just so that the conversation would last longer. He still couldn’t face the idea of solitude, so he desperately went on.

    “After that, we need to focus more locally. We’ve barely touched HYDRA’s American presence, and it’s one of our biggest threats.”

    “Where are you thinking?”

    Steve shrugged slightly. “Around here, mostly. New York, D.C., places just like this. The more people there are, the easier it is to hide.”

    Tony considered that before nodding slowly. “I’ll have Nat start looking into it.”   

    Steve frantically searched his mind for something to progress the conversation. “How do you think the team’s doing”

    His friend looked up for real now, meeting his eyes before he could look away. There was an understanding written there that terrified Steve.

    “Good, I think,” Tony said at length. “We’re working together better, we’re communicating. Reading each other on the battlefield better.” He hesitated before adding mildly, “what I’m not sure, though, is how you’re doing, Cap.”

    Steve’s stomach clenched in terror as soon as the words registered in his exhausted brain. The feeling was joined by a fresh wave of self-hatred. How could he be so stupid?

    He opened his mouth to say God only knew what, but his friend went on before he could.

    “I know that look, so you better save your breath and not tell whatever lie you’re about to.”

    “I’m not… it’s not…” Steve floundered desperately anyway. “I… I’m doing fine.”

    “I just told you to save your breath with lies,” Tony sighed. “I’m not stupid, Steve. You don’t eat, you wake up screaming every night, you have a bad trigger in public at least three times a week, you have to draw on Nat to stay calm in a meeting. Not to mention you risk your life a little more recklessly every mission we go on, and none of us have seen you in short sleeves in two weeks. What’s up?”

    Steve stared at the ground, unable to force his eyes up to the other man’s. “I… I’m not… I don’t.”

    “Steve,” Tony cut him off wearily. “I’ve done this, alright? I’ve played this game. It’s the I don’t want to be alone game where you just make up excuses to get people to stick around. As someone who’s played before, here’s a pro-tip: the only way you can win is by just telling someone what’s going on and asking them not to leave you. You should try that with someone who you may not always get along with, but who cares about you a lot and is there for you no matter what.”

    Steve opened his mouth, but no words came out, like he was too terrified to speak.

    Tony sighed, walking over to where the solider was standing. He laid a hand on Steve’s shoulder and squeezed for emphasis. “Steve,” he said quietly. “we’ve all been where you’re at. We’ve all been there. Just sit down and tell me what’s up. I promise you’ll feel better after.”

    Like his legs just suddenly stopped working, Steve dropped into the chair behind him. Tony nodded in approval, then pulled up another and leaned forward with his eyes locked on the super soldier’s face.

“You can do this, Cap,” he encouraged softly. “Now get it off your chest.”

I have a second part planned.