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“Doll?”
The pet name her boyfriend always used went in one ear and out the other, nothing registering in her brain besides the bombshell her mind had dropped on her just hours prior. She didn’t know how long she had been curled up like this, but from the stiffness in every joint in her body, she’d have to venture to say that it was way too long.
When Bucky walked into the adjoining bedroom, he was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of alcohol. The entire room reeked of expensive booze. And in the corner, curled up so small, was his girlfriend. A bottle of whiskey hung between her fingers, on the precipice of slipping right out of her loose grasp. It was half empty.
The sight sent his mind spinning. His girlfriend was not much of a drinker—and most certainly not a whiskey drinker. The only time he’d ever seen her drink was when she’d have those fruity little drinks at the bar or a glass of champagne at those stupid events he dragged her to. And even then, she drank it so slowly, she’d never feel the effects.
Something swirled in his gut, a premonition that nothing would ever be the same after this.
He approached his girlfriend slowly, the heavy footfalls of his boots echoing through the silence. Crouching down beside her, he was careful not to intrude on her space—not when something was clearly wrong. It was just as she had done for him many times before. But he never wanted her to be on the opposite side of this.
“Doll?” Bucky repeated himself. He reached out a careful hand, slow to give her enough time to pull away. It was only when skin met skin that she flinched away, eyes blown wide.
“Bucky?” She murmured, eyes glazing over. “When’d you get here?”
Furrowing his brows, Bucky swiped a thumb over her cheek. “You didn’t hear me come in? I called out for ya.”
She hummed low in her throat in response, eyes drifting to the right. Her head followed, listing to the side dramatically. He gasped when he saw the glimmer of blood across her temple, shining in the low light from one of the bedside lamps. “What happened?” He wiped a hand through the blood dripping sluggishly from her forehead down her face. His stomach swirled as the crimson liquid stained his hands like something out of his worst nightmare.
“The darkness… it w’s ev’rywhere,” she slurred over her words. Tears burned in her eyes as she stuttered over her next words. “I di’nt know… I di’nt think… he… oh god, Bucky.”
He blinked as she rushed into his arms, dropping the open bottle of whiskey for it to spill onto the plush carpet. He held her steady even as she shook with sobs. He ran his fingers through her messy curls, heart shattering with every whimper, every cry, every murmured apology that pierced his ears. When her sobs subsided into sniffles, he carefully pulled back. Taking her tear-streaked face into his hands, he frowned. “What did you see?”
She clenched her eyes shut, whimpering as the memories overloaded her brain. It couldn't be real, she told herself. She would’ve remembered something like that. “It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real,” she murmured, shaking her head as if that could clear the darkness creeping in, a void of shame and hopelessness she’d never felt before.
A pit settled in Bucky’s stomach. “Doll, what was it?”
“Oh…” she groaned, “I feel… Bucky, I feel sick.”
Bucky lifted her into his arms with ease, murmuring, “C’mon, sweetheart, let’s get ya to the bathroom.”
He held her hair back as she expelled nothing but clear liquid poison, murmuring reassurances after every heave. “That’s it, honey. Get it all out, alright? You’re okay. It’s all gonna be okay. I’ve got you.”
She slumped backwards into Bucky’s warmth, sobbing violently. Curling up on herself, she twisted around to hide her face in her boyfriend’s chest. “I’m so sorry,” she cried, holding on so tight—afraid that he’d leave her now that she’d completely lost it in front of him. “Stay ‘ere, please?”
“Don’t be sorry, and I’m not goin’ anywhere.” Bucky’s response was firm, his hands weaving through her messy hair. Terrifying as it was to see his girlfriend like this, he knew that she’d seen him much lower. She’d helped him pick up the pieces after every nightmare, after every flashback, after every violent outburst. Never once had she left him despite giving her a plethora of reasons to do so. And he’d be damned if he wouldn’t do the same for her. She deserved it so much more than he did, after all.
“I’m disgusting,” she said after a long period of silence, face still buried in Bucky’s shirt.
Bucky furrows his brows. He tried to get her to look at him, but she remained steadfastly attached to him. “Don’t say that, doll. You just drank too much. Your body was trying to get rid of it.”
“Not that,” she whispered, tightening her grasp around his shirt. He looked down at her white-knuckled grasp, noting the slight tremor that never quite left her body since she came back down to earth. It made him sick with worry.
“Then what? Because I know for a fact that you are the furthest thing from disgusting. You are the most-”
“You won’ be sayin’ that after I tell you…” she interrupted him, voice fading out suddenly.
“After you tell me what?” Bucky questioned, voice firm. He didn’t want to leave any room for argument. Nothing would ever make him think less of his girlfriend. The woman who single-handedly drew him closer and closer to the light. The woman who never failed to bring a smile to his face. The woman who stood by him regardless of how difficult it could be. “‘Cause there’s nothing in the world that could make me think of you like that.”
She bit down a whimper, not low enough so that Bucky couldn’t hear it, although not for a lack of trying on her part. He felt her shake her head against his chest. Something akin to desperation rose inside of him. He didn't know how to make her understand, didn't know how to pull her into the light when he was made of nothing but shadows and darkness. He couldn't be her sunshine on a stormy day, not like she could for him. He was right all along; she deserved someone better, someone who could bring her out of the darkness. Someone who wasn’t blood-stained and cold, someone who was dripping with the warmth needed to mend a broken heart.
“My father… he raped me,” she said, releasing the words like a bomb into the air.
Bucky’s heart stopped cold. His hands froze in her hair, messy locks entwined around his fingers. The words tumbled around in his brain, knowing, but not fully registering the full weight of her words. As soon as they settled, a boiling anger rose in him, explosive and all-consuming. He silently seethed, wanting nothing more than to find the piece of shit and rip him to shreds. His girlfriend was the definition of sunshine, the most pure and holy figure he’d ever met. How dare her own flesh and blood father try to take that from her? How could anyone ever try to pull her into the darkness?
He heard her breath hitch in response to his silent stillness. She tried to pull away, fearing that Bucky was as repulsed by her as she was herself, but he held her steady. “I am disgusted,” he said, “I’m disgusted by that piece of shit who never deserved to have a daughter.”
“I didn’t even fight back, Bucky,” she cried, wanting to make him understand.
“And how old were you?”
Her brows creased at the random question. “What? Uh… I don’t know… maybe like ten or eleven.”
Bucky pulled away from her to look her in the eyes, needing her to understand him. “Sweetheart, how is a ten-year-old girl supposed to overpower a grown man? He was the adult. He knew better. He should have never even looked your way.”
“I know, but I just… Why didn’t I remember that before now? What even happened? Why was everything so dark?” Her eyes grew as wide as saucers, her brain finally catching up to the implications of Bucky being there too. “Oh god, did the darkness get you too? Oh, Bucky, are you okay?”
Of course, she would be worried about him. Even after her darkest hours, she still made Bucky’s well-being a priority. “I’m fine-”
“Don’t you dare say that you’re fine, James Buchanan Barnes. God, here I am being a complete clusterfuck when you went through so much worse. God, Bucky, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to take care of me-”
Bucky interrupted that thought straight away. “Don’t ever apologise for needing to be taken care of.”
“But-”
“No buts,” he insisted. “You uncovered something really traumatic. It’s okay to not always be okay. I’ll always be here to pick up the pieces.”
She huffed out a choked-up sigh. “That’s my line.”
“Yeah, well, I’m adopting it.” He sighed, looking down at the tear-streaked, puffy face of the woman he would take down the world for.
“I feel so… so dirty,” she murmured, lowering her head in shame. “I feel used and… and violated. How could he… how could he just…” She choked on a sob, not able to complete the sentence, not able to put to words once again the horrifying reality that had violently blindsided her.
“I don’t know, doll,” Bucky murmured.
“I wanna take a shower,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes and yawning. “Feel gross.”
“Okay, doll, just… is it alright if I stay? I don’t want you to slip and fall. I won’t look or anything—just don’t wanna leave you alone right now.”
“It’s not like you haven’t already seen me, Buck.”
Bucky rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding her inquisitive eyes. “Just don’t wanna make you uncomfortable, sweetheart.”
She hummed, a smile spreading across her face. “You’re the sweetest man in the whole entire world,” she said, leaning in and laying her head on his chest. Bucky flushed at her words; no matter how many times she'd said things like that to him, it always sets loose a horde of butterflies fluttering inside him.
“I’m just doing what anyone else would in this situation,” Bucky said, always quick to deny her praises. Because although they made him feel like he was walking on cloud nine, sometimes it worried him how low her standards were. She giggled at him, the alcohol clearly not having left her system. She mumbled something under her breath, too quiet and jumbled together for even his ears to pick up.
“Lemme start up the water,” he said, sitting her down on the toilet lid. He waited until the water was at the right temperature before turning around. She already had her top off and was struggling to unclasp the lacy bra from behind her. “Need a little help there, doll?”
She nodded her head and allowed him to gently unclasp the undergarment. She quickly rid herself of her leggings and underwear before stumbling over to the shower. Bucky’s heart raced as he heard her stumble to the shower, avoiding looking in case it did bring her discomfort—she never did explicitly state that it was okay for him to look.
He leaned against the wall, listening to her lather her body in soap. His attentive ears heard her breath hitch ever so slightly, the movements ceasing suddenly. He pushed himself off the wall, brows furrowed deeply. “Doll?”
His heart cracked upon hearing her break down. He watched the shadow of her figure slump down to her knees, the sharp sound of bone meeting the hard tub. “Bucky?” she whimpered, opening the curtain. Her hair was drenched, clinging to her face. Tears mixed with the water pouring down on her. He approached with caution akin to that of a man approaching a wounded animal. She reached out for him, her hand leaving suds and water to soak into his leather jacket. He didn't hesitate, then, climbing into the bathtub with her, holding her as she devolved into sobs. As they faded into hiccups, he asked her: “You wanna get dried off?”
“No,” she said, “Gotta get clean, gotta… gotta get clean.”
“Okay, baby,” he said, his voice calm and reassuring. “Let me help you?”
“Y’don’t have to,” she murmured into drenched leather. It was a weak protest, one that Bucky knew full-heartedly that she didn’t really mean. She always did this, always tried to give him an out whenever he tried to help her.
“I want to,” he reassured her. Grabbing the cloth from where it had hit the ground, he lathered it up with more soap. He was gentle as he wiped it across her clean skin, never lingering too long. When he’d finished, he grabbed the shampoo from the shelf, lathering up her hair and massaging it into her scalp. He rinsed it out with praises intermingled as she droopily tilted her head back. He reached for the conditioner next, plopping a dollop onto his hand to work into the ends of her hair.
By the time he was done, she was lax in his arms, like putty in his hands. He turned off the water and wrapped her shivering body in a large, fluffy towel. Once her body was dry, he dressed her in her favourite fluffy pyjama pants and an oversized t-shirt he was pretty sure once belonged to him.
He tucked her into bed, quickly changing into some dry clothes from his go bag before slipping out to grab a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin for the morning. Finally, he slid in beside her, revelling in the way she immediately drifted to his side in her sleep. As he held her in his arms, he made a vow that no one would ever hurt her again, and anyone who does, or ever has, will suffer the consequences.