Hello dear 🥰 Thank you so much for participating in the game 😍
Since my brain does refuse to acknolwdge the concept so far, you too get a little drabble-ish thing 🥹 This time only with 600 words, Bucky, and a flavour of angst with hurt/comfort 😇
ever so softly
warnings: mentions of blood and violence, anxiety, sensory issues and hypersensitivity and PTSD
A/N: divider by @firefly-graphics
Sometimes, your hands shake.
You’ve got a tender heart, people would say; a codename for those who get overwhelmed with the world, with people, with the noise and smells and strange textures and tastes, with emotions; with anxiety.
Your own body, your own damn brain was often your worst enemy. You were your worst enemy and you hated it with passion, especially on days when you somehow had no energy left but for that and spiralling down the void of terror made of your own synapses.
On days like these, like on every other, Bucky holds you, whispering soft words of solace and encouragement into your hair, tender lips and gentle voice, creating a protective bubble of silence and peace, tucked safe and far away from the world.
On days like these, he embraces you closely – unless you cannot bear his love for the moment, despising yourself for it all the more – and helps you put together the pieces of your tender soul you feel have imploded inside of you and suffocate you with every attempt of breath.
He sooths you and promises – begs, in truth – to keep you. Loving you,
ever so softly,
reminding you that you can choose and do the same and until you do, he will. For both of you.
And on some days, you do too.
Sometimes, Bucky’s hands shake.
It is a funny little glitch, he supposes, once he has the capacity to be sardonic with himself, which is always; his metal hand, science perfected, precious chunk of vibranium crafted to faultless functionality on engineerism, and it trembles as much as his flesh hand.
Bucky Barnes is an old man; a reborn man, haunted by an army of ghosts and undead. Doctors in his old days called it shellshock; the fancy modern name for it is PTSD.
Some days, images of blood, violence and death run on the silver screen of his mind like the most messed-up horror flick, following him through day and seeping into his nights, sleepless; or worst, consumed by nightmares than never end, because they are memories of his own actions.
His soul weighs too much to bear, drenched with blood and guilt that no penance can wash away.
Sometimes, you help with the cleanse despite it.
You take his shaking hands – sometimes his very own, sometimes the glorified invention attached to his body – and lead him to the living room where on the shelves stand his little treasures; one supposedly beautiful thing next to another, small wooden statues he had carved himself, rough around the edges but otherwise delicate, a reflection of his gentle torn soul. You do not speak a word, you do no point, letting him see what you see. To make him see that what he only perceives as a pair of hands soaked in blood and wrongdoings, had made good and beautiful too.
And even in the dead of night, you walk him to the most special room of the house, of your home, his steps hesitant, but his heart too weak to resist. Helpless and already yearning, he can never say no.
In those no longer trembling hands, you gently place the most precious thing he has had a generous hand in creating, with utmost love.
Tears burning in his eyes, he cradles your baby, his baby, to his chest with one arm, his other curling around you, pressing you to his side, lips attached to your temple. You linger in your embrace until his tears of grief and guilt turn into ones of acceptance and happiness.
Because he loves and he is loved,
ever so softly
and every beat of his heart, your heart and his child’s, promise him that despite all the pain, everything will be okay.
I hope you enjoyed the little angst but with a sweet note in the end for a change🥰
Thank you for reading and @murdock-and-the-sea for sending 💕
First one is canon to the blog, second one is the Peter the First verse, the last one is for a fanfic that I keep thinking about writing but I never do, even when I have a thick ass notebook dedicated to writing it so I could easily access it and write without worries, why do I never write??
