We've had a ton of amazing fills around the idea that Bucky wants to hide his sexual abuse, but as I was pondering my love for that scenario, I thought: what if it was the exact opposite?
So Bucky's in therapy, and he finds it really helpful, he's really improving. He's gotten to the point where he feels the strong need to start talking through the sexual parts of his experience with Hydra. Only to find that he literally cannot. Maybe, throughout the entirety of or at some early point during his captivity, sexual congress with the asset was strictly forbidden, and in order to save their own skin, someone who raped him conditioned him to never tell a soul. All these years later, that lesson is still sticking around.
I am here for lots of pain as Bucky tries to get help for what happened to him, either from therapists or his closest friends, without being able to say a word about it.
+ Maybe he can still talk about his feelings re: his sexual assaults, so he spills his heart out and hopes someone realizes he was raped
+ People do figure out he was raped, but because he's so terse whenever the subject is broached, they assume he doesn't want to talk about it
+ Painful awkwardness: Bucky resorting to things like drawings or, hell, even charades as he tries to explain what happened
+ Bucky not only needs to unburden the weight of the secret off his chest, he also has to untangle a lot of feelings and ideas, like shame, self-blame, and self-doubt, and he wants to work through these issues with someone he trusts... but this would be a fraught experience even if he could actually talk about it
Bucky wants to talk about it, but can't
So Bucky's in therapy, and he finds it really helpful, he's really improving. He's gotten to the point where he feels the strong need to start talking through the sexual parts of his experience with Hydra. Only to find that he literally cannot. Maybe, throughout the entirety of or at some early point during his captivity, sexual congress with the asset was strictly forbidden, and in order to save their own skin, someone who raped him conditioned him to never tell a soul. All these years later, that lesson is still sticking around.
I am here for lots of pain as Bucky tries to get help for what happened to him, either from therapists or his closest friends, without being able to say a word about it.
+ Maybe he can still talk about his feelings re: his sexual assaults, so he spills his heart out and hopes someone realizes he was raped
+ People do figure out he was raped, but because he's so terse whenever the subject is broached, they assume he doesn't want to talk about it
+ Painful awkwardness: Bucky resorting to things like drawings or, hell, even charades as he tries to explain what happened
+ Bucky not only needs to unburden the weight of the secret off his chest, he also has to untangle a lot of feelings and ideas, like shame, self-blame, and self-doubt, and he wants to work through these issues with someone he trusts... but this would be a fraught experience even if he could actually talk about it