Little Secrets, Little Bucky

Baby Steps

Hey guys! I had a pretty rough go of it in the last few weeks, and then to make things even worse I got hit with writers block! Thankfully I'm feeling much better now and I appreciate your patience! There is something I wanted to talk about real quick: This book is NOT MDLB. It has nothing to do with the kink known as ageplay. I have had several people add it to reading lists labeled as 'DDLG' or 'MDLB' and I am very grateful to the people who realized their mistake and moved it. If I somehow missed you adding it to a reading list like that, please move it. I don't judge what other people do, but it makes me uncomfortable for my story to be grouped in with a kink. If you have questions about the difference between age regression and ageplay (there are several!) please feel free to reach out to me! I am a caregiver and I'd be more than happy to answer your questions.

Anyway, onto the chapter!

TW: Self harm (scalding showers, scrubbing skin to the point of injury, no blood, no cutting), references of what happened in the previous chapter (sexual, physical, and emotional abuse) (No graphic descriptions at ALL), severe self hatred, implied issues with food that can certainly be defined as an eating disorder although it won't be outright discussed in this chapter

To Y/n, the next three weeks seemed to fly by. They went home early from their vacation after Bucky started having panic attacks every time a stranger got too close and the moment they stepped foot in the tower he disappeared into his suite. She had tried to coax him out, sitting beside his door and singing lullabies at night. She could hear him on the other side, sniffling every so often as he listened to the familiar sound of her voice, but he never opened the door, never so much as unlocked the deadbolt. She wrote him notes, reminding him that she loved him and would be there whenever he was ready to open the door. She tried anything she could think of to make sure he knew she wasn't going to abandon him; no matter how hard he tried to resist she had made it her mission to get him to understand once again that she loved him.

On the other hand, Bucky felt like the last three weeks had crawled by. He could hear Sarkissian's voice in his head when the memories surfaced, telling him over and over what he really was. Pathetic. Worthless. Unlovable. Weak. It had to be his own fault that he was suffering like this, some part of him knew that. Some part of him had always known that. He couldn't sleep, haunted by the memories that wouldn't stop resurfacing. Every time he tried to rest, to lie down and let sleep take him, the nightmares would come. He'd wake up screaming, desperately begging for the pain to stop and the hands to leave him alone, but they never did. So he began avoiding sleep, instead throwing himself into getting stronger.

Every time he looked in the mirror he couldn't help but see how soft he had become. He wasn't pure muscle and bone like he had been so long ago; Y/n's gentle care and love had made sure of that. But he was weak now. If he had been stronger or looked more intimidating, those people wouldn't have laid their hands on him. He stopped eating, only letting himself have exactly what he needed to stay alive, and only when he couldn't keep going any longer. His new priority was getting stronger, working out almost constantly in an effort to protect himself. He had to be better. He had to be perfect. It was his own fault that he'd become a target, and now he had to fix it.

He tried his best to stay busy, not letting himself even look at any of his little things. He made the mistake of trying to regress a couple weeks after they returned home, and ended up completely destroying the stuffed lion he'd been carrying on that awful day. He had ripped it to shreds, tears streaming down his cheeks as he tried to cleanse himself of any reminders of those people. All he wanted was his mama. He desperately wanted to go to her, to crawl into her arms and hide until everything felt okay again. But at the same time he knew that it wasn't an option. She'd leave if she saw how badly he was hurting, how ruined and vulnerable he truly was. He knew it. She'd given more than he ever expected from her, but the idea that she could possibly want him like this felt entirely impossible. He needed to be better. He needed to be stronger and better looking and as perfect as he could possibly be. Then he could have her back. Then he could be who his mama deserved.