Dumpster #2: ...'Cause a Hydra Trash Party don't stop

[trashmod]

Unholy hell-miracle achieved! Welcome to Bad Guys Do Bad Things To Your Faves 2: Electric Boogaloo. AKA the seamy sexual-violence-and-violent-sex underbelly of Captain America fandom, AKA the Hydra Trash Party kinkmeme. As usual, BLANKET NON-CON AND NSFW WARNINGS apply: just assume going in that everything in this landfill is unfit for human consumption.

Rules in brief: don't be a jerk except to fictional characters, warnings for particularly fucked-up garbage are nice but not required, thou shalt not judge the trashiness of thy neighbor's kinks unless thy neighbor is trying to pass off their rotting banana peels and half-eaten pizza crusts as a healthy romantic dinner for two, off-topic comments may be chucked out of the dumpster at management's discretion, management's discretion decrees that omegaverse, soulbond AUs, D/s-verse, non-superpowered AUs, and dark!good guys AUs are off-topic.

[Round 1] [Fill post] [Chatter post] [hydratrashmeme Pinboard archive (maintained by greenkirtle)] [Round 2 in flat view (comments in non-threaded chronological order, most recent last)]

Round 2 is closed; comments and fills in existing threads are still welcome, but all new prompts go to Round 3.

Comments

Re: Steve/Bucky, Steve tries to help Bucky deal with re-remembering trauma

[(Anonymous)]

This dumpster will make a beautiful home for our trash family.

Patting Bucky on the shoulder is welcome comfort, but hugs frighten him. Steve can play card games with him, but has to be very careful making idle conversation; asking too many questions stresses him out, he worries about giving the right answer. Steve would be so MISERABLE trying to frame his questions about Bucky's life, health, and emotional needs as "mission reports."

trying to find some kind of balance between encouraging Bucky to make his own choices and not overwhelming him with more than two kinds of fruit

YES see this is the exact quandary Steve would need to grapple with. He knows Bucky's favorite fruit is pear; does he pass him the pear every time, giving him no choice, or does he lay out the fruit platter and tell him he's welcome to whatever he wants, for what good it may do, even though Bucky always worries that it's a trap of some kind? Actually given his response to Pierce's offer of milk, Bucky might answer any offer of food with silence, unless it's directly commanded as "Eat this." Steve would feel so shitty taking control of Bucky's choices like that, even for his own wellbeing, but the only alternative is watching him struggle.

Re: Steve/Bucky, Steve tries to help Bucky deal with re-remembering trauma

[(Anonymous)]

While I was waiting for you, I knitted us some wall hangings out of these shredded coffee filters.

You have narrowed in on my very favourite recovery trope - Bucky assuming Steve is a handler (the world's kindest handler, who he desperately wants to please but is also terrified by, because he doesn't understand him) and Steve slowly, horribly, realizing this and then trying to work within it to give Bucky some sense of stability. I love this miscommunication that stems out of very legitimate and fundamental differences in how they understand human interaction. I don't know a lot of actual card game rules, but I can picture Steve noticing the game is going incredibly slowly and wonders if Bucky forgot how to play but it takes a few rounds before he figures out Bucky is very carefully ensuring that he (Bucky) appears to be playing normally but never actually wins.

I think Bucky probably also assumes anything good has a time or amount limit, and since Steve has not informed him of what that limit is, that means it's Bucky's job to figure it out and not be "greedy". Like, say Steve shares his bed with Bucky (this might be in the early days, before Steve realizes exactly how fucked up Bucky is and how he might interpret any kind of intimacy, even completely non-sexual) and Bucky is a little wary of why he's being rewarded so extravagantly out of nowhere, but he is also really happy:

So they're under the covers and it's warm and safe and dark and quiet and Bucky can't believe his luck, but as the minutes drag on, and Steve doesn't do anything, doesn't grab at him, doesn't bark "All right, that's plenty, soldier" and kick him right onto the floor, Bucky starts getting nervous. When is he supposed to get out? Steve is atypically generous, but if Bucky overstays his welcome there's going to be trouble. And if he leaves too soon and appears ungrateful there's also going to be trouble, and he'll never get to lie here next to Steve in the dark and quiet again. So his tension is just ratcheting up and he's lying there frozen, counting time (he's very good at this, since on sniping missions the asset has no business taking his eyes off a target to look at a watch) until about 45 minutes when he just slithers out of the bed in one quick motion and is on the floor in the other room before Steve even knows what happened.

And then when Steve goes to check on him, worried he'd done something to make him leave, Bucky assumes this means he left too early and gets freaked out, and so Steve now thinks bedsharing is not a good idea and doesn't do it again for a long time (which just of course confirms Bucky's original fears about miscalculating).

Re: Steve/Bucky, Steve tries to help Bucky deal with re-remembering trauma

[(Anonymous)]

different anon, just poking my head in to say you're an amazing genius. I love that trope so, so, so, so, so much. the combo of Bucky being heartbreakingly grateful and thrilled and responsive just at being treated kindly, and the fear and fawning response. I LOVE both of your scenarios. this has to get written.