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

Bucky doesn’t talk about the time in the shower. He doesn’t draw away or change in any other way – he seems determined to pretend it never happened. Steve, to his shame, goes along with it, but he does decide that if Bucky isn't going to tell him what he wants, he'll just have to start asking the right questions.

He starts with "Can I?" when they're in bed, pressed up against each other and Steve is about to slide his hand under Bucky's shirt. He gets a shivery "Yes," and the muscles of Bucky's stomach jumping under his fingers. Then, "Can I take your shirt off?" "Can I kiss you here?" as he starts to work his way down Bucky's neck, "Can I use my tongue?" over one nipple and then, "Is this okay?" as he moves lower. Bucky keeps saying "Yes, yes," right up until he shoves Steve away. There's a moment when Steve is lying on his back, one hand automatically gone to the place where Bucky kneed him in the side, and then Bucky spits, "If you wanted me to beg for it you could have just told me so. Isn't that what you wanted to do?" he goes on, almost contemptuous, "Talk?"

"I didn't – I didn't mean that," Steve manages. He's filled with horror at what Bucky must have thought he had been trying to do, but even more there's the sinking feeling that despite his best efforts this is happening again. What he doesn't expect, then, is to feel Bucky reach down to touch his hair and hear him say, "No, I guess you didn't."

When he looks up, Bucky has his legs drawn up and his left hand covering his face. Steve starts to reach for the hand in his hair, then remembers and goes for Bucky's knee instead. "Why don't you tell me why it sounded like I did," he tries.

There's a brief silence, then Bucky says, "You have to remember what I said that time. That I was – it was fun, for them. And sometimes part of the game was – well it wasn't always games, and there were a lot of them, but one them was making me beg. They got a lot of milage out of that one. Sometimes they wouldn't let me remember between times, so they'd make me beg to be touched and then ask me why it wasn't good enough. Or if there were women I would – they would do what they wanted, and then what was wrong with me, why wouldn't I –" He cuts off and starts again. "They would call me names for that. That was a popular one. Tell me what I was and then if I repeated it enough, sounded like I meant it they might –" Bucky's hand still covers his eyes, but Steve can see the corners of his mouth twitch down for an instant before he swallows. His hand spasms on Bucky's knee – he can't help it – and in return he feels Bucky's fingers circle gently in his hair. Steve remembers to breathe.

"I guess I know you didn't mean it like that, but in my head I'm still waiting for you to start –" He cuts off, takes another breath, and finishes, "Don't ever make me beg."

“Never.” It comes out out before Steve can even think about it. He turns his face up and says it again against Bucky’s palm. Above him, Bucky makes a noise that might have been the start of a word and suddenly he’s pulling him up, pressing his mouth against Steve’s again and again as he rolls them over.

“You gonna let me try something?" Bucky asks, looking down at him.

Something turns out to be stripping him naked and jerking him off. It's a program Steve gets with almost embarrassingly quickly. The fear in the bottom of his stomach that Bucky thinks this is some kind of return favor burns off with the way Bucky keeps looking at him. It's something between hunger and wonder, and Steve has never felt this exposed before. Bucky's sitting back against his spread thighs, knees bracketing him in, and between that and the way Bucky keeps staring down like he wants to drink up every inch of him it's almost overwhelming. Steve reaches out, tries to hook his fingers under the waist of Bucky's jeans to pull him closer. Bucky jerks away.

For a moment he thinks he's blown it for the night, then Bucky says,

“You can touch me, just don’t do that.” Then, “Please touch me.”

As Bucky's right hand moves steadily on him, first a little dry and then slick with lube, Steve does his damndest to touch every part of him he can get at, and Bucky leans into his hands and lets his mouth fall open but he won’t let Steve near his fly. It can’t be comfortable, but he keeps his metal fingers clamped over his erection, doesn’t even undo the button. Sometimes he shifts a little and Steve watches his face change with what he hopes is relief, but he always catches himself. It’s in one of these moments that Steve blurts out,

“Tell me what you want – if you could have me do anything –”

“The other night,” Bucky says before he can finish. “When you let me use your mouth. I think about that sometimes, I –” He breaks off. “I don’t know, you tell me.”

“I think about it too,” is the first thing Steve can think to say. He feels like a pervert for admitting it, that he gets off to things Bucky can’t, and like a clown for saying it so awkwardly, but Bucky’s eyes fall closed and his left hand shifts so he’s riding the heel of it, so Steve stumbles on. “I liked it, when you put your hand in my hair and the feeling – we could do it again, as long as you wanted before we –”

Maybe Bucky got where he was going, because he shook his head and gasped out, “No, pretend I never told you, pretend it’s still normal –”

“I don’t care about that stuff, Bucky –”

Above him Bucky screws his eyes shut, he grinds back against Steve’s legs and twists his hand, and Steve’s body snaps tight as he comes.

Once his head stops spinning he reaches up and says something about needing a few minutes before he can get it up again, but Bucky shakes his head and doesn’t move.

“What do you want to do now?”

Bucky takes a shaky breath. “I’m going to go into the bathroom,” he says very firmly. “You’re going to stay here.”

Steve cleans himself up with his own undershirt, which makes him feel like a bit of a slob but not enough to decide not to do it. He spends an inordinate amount of time shifting around on Bucky’s perfectly comfortable bed, pretending to himself that he’s paying attention to that and not the sound of the faucet being turned on, then off, then on again in the bathroom. He ends up staring at the wall, where there’s an enormous abstract painting, multicolored shapes that could be comets or flowers or fire on a white background, that Bucky certainly hadn’t picked out for himself. They had ended up living in what Steve supposed was Avengers Tower now pretty much by accident. He had finally found Bucky – or more like Bucky had finally let himself be found – and Steve had realized that they had nowhere to go. The nearest thing he had to a home was a military base, which was the last place he wanted to take Bucky, and anyway, he had started feeling more and more like maybe it wasn’t a good idea for him to live near regular people. The next villain or wanna-be villain who came at him might not do it as neatly as a bullet through the apartment wall. Fortunately, Tony was one of the few people on the planet who would respond to, “I need somewhere for me and my superpowered and possibly-unstable friend to stay, maybe indefinitely, P.S. we may be followed by technologically or genetically-enhanced Nazis,” with, “No problem.” But interior decorating hadn’t exactly been a priority for any of them.

Bucky emerges wearing a towel that he drops before climbing into bed. When he presses himself against Steve, his face, his groin, and the skin on the inside of his thighs are shockingly cold.

“For a while I thought if I did it with another person, that would be enough,” Bucky says against his neck, and then, quieter, “I wanted you to be enough.”

A/N can confirm that this will indeed be AoU noncompliant, partially because I'm not prepared to rejigger what little plot there is to accommodate the cast of thousands required, and partially because I already implied that Clint and Natasha used to fuck.

T H I S I S A M A Z I N G

I screamed when I saw it updated!! especially love the horribleness of the first part with saying yes/begging. nooooooo. I don't fully understand what Bucky was trying to do toward the end? will it all become clear in time?

Poor Steve – he's trying to do the right thing. They both are, really, though with varying levels of success.

Oh dear, I did wonder whether I was being too coy at the end. Cold water on a wash cloth will kill an erection, and it will also help hide redness in your face if you've been crying. (Obviously if you go right ahead and put your cold face against someone else this sort of defeats the purpose, but... What can I say, Bucky is a very confused young man). This is also the mysterious thing he went and did in the bathroom after their first time.

(na)

it will also help hide redness in your face if you've been crying

*whispers* no

Oh I actually meant what was he trying to do with Steve when he already knows that doesn't work? Did he just want to try it again?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 6/? -- ERROR FREE

(Anonymous) - 2015-07-25 05:35 (UTC) - Expand

OMG, you can't believe how much I waited for this to update! I love you!

And I love you too, anon! :D

what what wHAT is happening omg

this fic hurts all the best ways

*smiles, twirls imaginary mustache+

I am squirming. On one hand this is emotional porn for me, and on the other, I am SO SAD

I mean I cannot believe Hydra managed to ruin consent checks for Bucky. I love this awful new twist in their tortuous sex life.

Alright, well, what's not so sad is that they're still making progress along the road to making it work. I was thrilled to see Bucky actually explaining his reaction / talking about what they did to him -- there was more squirming for me, because his story hurt but in a BEAUTIFUL TRASH way that made me want to read about it for approx twenty years. The particular cruelty of using this bit of conditioning to torture him! It's so evilly inventive! There must be a hundred layers of mindfuckery just in that one paragraph: making him beg, then humiliating, taunting, and blaming him when he can't 'appreciate' what he begged for. At the end of which I suppose they usually fucked him, which, man, I can only imagine left him wondering what's wrong with him, that that's what works...

On that note, he mention of female rapists in this story is great. How women would fit into this fic is something I'd idly wondered about, and you took it to probably the worst place possible: they get to use him and mock him for not performing! There's an additional deep well of terribleness in making him repeat 'what he is' until he believes it, at which point he's rewarded with more torture.

The image of Bucky curled up on himself in the bed, hand over his face with his mouth twitching as he makes himself talk about trash = I can't, I'm leaving, this is too much, if I had this on a poster it would become the wallpaper in my basement

For some reason one of the things that hit me hardest about this was the exchange about the blowjob. It's just really... messed up, and sad, that getting a blowjob, or any kind of sex outside this one particular variant, can only ever be foreplay for Bucky. They really are starting to make it work, and that makes it better, in a way, but also worse, because they're so sweet when they get it right and I just want them to be happy. (Well I don't really, because then where would I get my misery porn, but I love them and maybe after they've suffered enough they can go out for ice cream or something.)

+ "I wanted you to be enough" GOD

Oh Long-Winded Commenter, I cannot believe I didn't reply to you! Also yes, just when Steve thinks he's found a solution it turns out that trash, like sand, gets everywhere.

I... I have to admit one of the reason I consider doing some kind of Bucky Outtakes Version is that I TOO would like to read about humiliation, non-con begging, and fucked-up sex games for twenty years, preferably in all the detail that the character won't go into out loud. (Like Bucky is not going to say "And then they smacked me around and called me a queer," but oh anon they did). I sort of regretted only starting to think about the issue of gender (for lack of a better term) until part-way through because I wondered whether Bucky might feel ambivalent or resentful about getting with a man – since his chances of finding a sexually-compatible woman are pretty minuscule – or second-guess his feelings, like is he really attracted to Steve or is he just gravitating to the nearest available dude (and should thus keep his mouth shut, since Steve deserves better).

One of the things that hit me hardest from the prompt – besides the potential for id-fuel – was the profound loss of control. You want to have sex? Only on one set of terms. Someone else's terms. For the rest of your life. And forget about masturbation. And since a huge part of recovery – from sexual assault and also I imagine from comic-book brainwashing – is regaining a sense of control the tension there seemed terrible and fascinating. Yes, they are starting to blunder through it – although Bucky is still framing consensual sex in terms of 'use' and Steve still thinks it's vulgar to say 'cock' out loud.

(Bucky might feel cynical and hardened, but "maybe my terrible sexual reprogramming will go away if the right person touches me" is some straight-up Romantic shit).

Steve is going to finding trash in his ears for weeks :(

Iiiii would be there for Bucky Outtakes, where we see all the evil creativity Bucky would never describe Hydra exercising on him. Bucky getting shamed for something they did to him is... something I would happily see included in every fic, there's never enough. Re: gender issues: there's so much interesting & painful potential there! For one, from the perspective of the rapist women of Hydra, Bucky would be the perfect sex toy. There's no chance he'd get them pregnant, or come before they did, and he could go multiple rounds during girls' night if he kept it up. He'd probably be raw from the chafing by the end, but who cares? Then Bucky's perspective -- it would be so sad if he were second-guessing himself. Actually I think this Bucky, out of all the possibilities, may be the least tortured about gender. This Bucky loves Steve and accepts being attracted to him and even thought of him as ~the right person. Imagine if he were insecure about being queer; or didn't remember being attracted to Steve before; or, the worst option, if he were straight. Of course if you follow those issues too far down the rabbit hole, then it's an entirely different fic. For the record, I think it works that this fic is more streamlined.

Yes! And ideally, Bucky would learn to accept and own his sexuality, but no matter what workarounds he finds and how well he copes, there's the inescapable fact that he, well, has to have sex in the bed someone else made for him. He can make the sex consensual and even empowering, but he still can't leave the bed. Which would be terrible enough on its own, but with the additional horror of it being the result of years of rape and torture... I imagine that's the kind of thing where you learn to deal with it, and then ten or twenty or thirty years later you have a day where you're furious again. But this isn't decades later. It's right at the start of his recovery. :) (<-- SMILE FOR PAIN)

They start sleeping together after that. In a way it’s familiar – they’ve been doing this since you could jam both of them and Becca onto one mattress when Steve's ma worked a night shift. Bucky still kicks in his sleep, and he still doesn't have the grace to wake up when Steve gives up and kicks him back. He still stretches every which-way and makes a noise like he's dying before he actually gets up in the morning. But the differences are unavoidable. Neither of them need that much sleep, for a start. Bucky takes a handful of pills every night. He says they're mostly for pain and Steve doesn't feel like pushing about what rest are for. And then there's the arm. It takes Steve a while to notice that unlike the rest of Bucky, it doesn't move in his sleep but stays put, like an anchor or a weight. It means during the night he'll turn outwards to face the window, but never in towards Steve. But it’s not all hard. The first time Bucky turns off the light by flicking a penny at the switch from across the room Steve starts laughing from sheer surprise, and then he can’t stop. Bucky starts off indignant – "It's easier than getting up and going over – what, you ass?" – then starts off himself until they’re slumped breathless against the pillows.

They hadn't lived together long when they were younger, but when they did there was one brutal winter when they ended up in the same bed more often than not. Steve's bed, really, since it was against the inside wall. Squeezing in together meant twice the body heat under twice the blankets and no arguing over who got the hot brick wrapped in flannel. Steve would argue about taking a turn on the outside, but Bucky's answer had always been, “Don't be silly. Somebody's gotta block the draft." Sometimes when he wakes up in the night Steve stares at Bucky’s back, thinks about how they’re both broader than they were then, than they ever would have been, presses in behind him and thinks, Somebody’s gotta block the draft.

They trade off bedrooms. It turns into a joke, “Hey, want to come back to my place?” like they aren’t clearing away the dishes from eating the same supper together. Sometimes Bucky says no. Steve always says yes. They touch plenty, but it never goes further than that. Steve has a series of furtive, guilty orgasms in the shower, thinking about men and women with bodies as cold as Greek statues doing almost-nameless things to each other.

It’s only a matter of time before SHIELD comes back in one form or another. Steve spends what feels like three quarters of his day trying to coordinate the patchwork of federal agencies, state agencies, and private companies trying to take up the slack. It’s not that he misses the authority – although sometimes he privately longs for the days when he didn’t have to sit in meeting rooms trying to get two department heads who not-so-secretly hate each other to play nice – or that he can ever forget what had been hiding under it all. But there’s too much money and time and work being wasted now, and things he knows are slipping through the cracks, and sooner or later this improvised network is going to buckle. So he plans, and gives what he privately refers to as “the talk” as often as he can to small groups of former SHIELD agents and people he’s almost sure will be part of the next generation. The premise is simple: Always ask questions. If something looks a little strange, follow up on it. Verify it for yourself. Go outside your chain of command if you think you have to. Don’t assume someone else will catch it. Don’t get complacent. But sometimes he walks out feeling like the biggest fool in the room.

This is what Steve knows: Bucky once told a guy at a party that he had some kind of bureaucratic job. But you don’t know someone nearly all your life without knowing what their face looks like when they’re lying through their teeth. Steve remembers the way Bucky had looked at the guy, like someone staring down a train on a dare. The other man hadn’t bothered to hide his disappointment and quickly made his excuses. Steve had looked over at Bucky standing alone and looking practically smug about it, and wondered what the hell either of them was doing.

That had been early on, when Bucky sometimes seemed like a stranger. Steve also knows that he has an ID from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Bucky had left his wallet lying open on the kitchen table once. As funny as it is to imagine him as some kind of modern Prohibition Agent, Steve will go find a hat to eat if that’s the real story. But when he thinks about asking he thinks of their eyes meeting at that party, and Bucky staring him down the exact same way. Bucky leaves the Tower every weekday morning and is back by the evening. Some days he complains about physical therapy – Steve assumes he’s doing the other kind of therapy too, but he isn’t going to pry – or something that happened on the subway – “I tell you, you’re not gonna believe this guy.” Steve ignores his own lecture. He doesn’t ask questions.

The dream clears away like morning fog on fast-forward, and as he floats towards consciousness Steve tries to grab hold of its threads. He had been trying to go – somewhere to deliver – something, and when he was crossing a stream a lady – a naiad? – a lady who lived in the stream or maybe was the stream reached up and asked him to join her. He wasn’t sure at first, but her hands or her hair or the water had wrapped around his calves and felt so warm and good, and as he sank down she put her arms around him and –

He’s in bed, awake, and his god damn erection is digging into the small of Bucky’s back.

Steve starts to roll away, fuzzy-headed and ashamed, when Bucky’s hand whips back to grab his shirt.

“Wait. I want to do it now. Like this.”

It’s still before dawn, the sky outside beginning to match the lights of New York but not quite bright enough yet. Steve’s first touch is tentative, but Bucky presses back against him, practically in his arms, still so relaxed it’s no wonder he had seemed to be asleep. He keeps his eyes closed, but his breath speeds up and his cock thickens against his thigh as Steve tries to touch every piece of warm, solid skin he can get to. He strokes up his side, across his abs and pecs. When he gets to his nipples Bucky gives a little shake of his head, small enough that Steve might have missed it if he hadn’t been watching closely.

“You tell me when you’re ready,” Steve says, his voice still rough, and it gets him a nod and a noise of assent.

He keeps going until both of them are panting and sweaty enough that their skin sticks together. The hand that had grabbed Steve’s shirt is now clenched in the fabric of his boxers, keeping his hips maddeningly still even as Bucky pushes back against him. It’s getting to the point when Steve thinks he might shoot off anyway and ruin the whole thing when Bucky hooks his own thumbs into his waistband, just like always. Steve pulls back to watch him, half-naked in the morning light and swearing softly as he scrabbles in the drawer of the bedside table, and something like affection and disbelief and wonder twists in his stomach. When Bucky reaches back between his own legs Steve starts to touch him again further up, thumbing the line of his collarbone where it shows at the neck of his shirt and further up – the side of his neck, the curve of his throat, the hinge of his jaw. He drops a kiss on Bucky’s temple, acutely conscious of his own stubble and the taste of sleep in his mouth. Bucky turns so that Steve gets a better view of his face and it hits Steve like a blow when he realizes that this is the first time he’s seen him honestly, unreservedly given over to pleasure.

When Bucky finally gasps, “Now, you can – In me –” Steve doesn’t have to be told twice. The slide is agonizingly slow, smooth, and hot. The angle isn’t great for him and he can’t get much traction, but Bucky’s is clenched on his hip and he lets himself be guided into a rhythm of rolling, shallow thrusts. Steve shoves his face into Bucky’s neck, into his hair and the taste of salt on his skin, and doesn’t muffle his moans.

The warm, hard fingers of Bucky’s left hand on his are a surprise. Even more when they grab his wrist and move down to his cock. It’s almost straight up against his stomach, pre-come smeared down the shaft. Steve guesses at the right grip as Bucky sets a pace and then doubles it. He lets go, and Steve keeps his hand moving, shoving himself up to try and tell if it’s the right call.

The light from the window is shockingly bright. Below him, Bucky has the back of his metal hand pressed against his open mouth, and as Steve watches he tips his head back, throws their bodies together, and comes in Steve’s hand.

Oh my gosh, I'm:

1)So happy this updated
2)So interested to hear about non-sex/relationships part of their lives! I didn't know that stuff was going to be in here! I'm excited!
3)So impressed with Bucky turning off the light with a penny, he is my hero
4)SO HAPPY THAT BUCKY CAME!!!

I'm happy to have gotten it out!

I'm also glad that it's interesting rather than an unwanted diversion, haha. I often find myself reading fanfic wondering what the characters are supposed to be doing all day, particularly Bucky, who doesn't even have a handwave-y nominal day job. (Look, nobody can go to therapy and the gym all day. :P). So in part this was my attempt to give my answer.
I was trying to come up with practical things you could do with a metal arm and superhuman aim when that one presented itself. For the record, it's one of these: http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NTA3WDUxMg==/z/VjAAAOSw8lBTow08/$_35.JPG He might be good enough to hit a single-pole, but the angle would be a bitch to get.
~~Boy let me tell you, so is Bucky.~~

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 7/?

(Anonymous) - 2015-07-25 07:24 (UTC) - Expand

OMG, you updated! I love you!

I love you too, anon!

HOLY SHIT BUCKY CAME

And for the first time since Hydra!!

But to backtrack: Aww, you know, Steve is avoiding asking if Bucky takes any pills for his mental health -- but I, as a dumpster diver, expect all those mental health pills, and am sadder that Bucky apparently deals with chronic pain. Chronic pain is a real bitch and I don't see it a lot in Bucky fic. But anyway, Steve and Buck are so cute, with there "come back to my place?" and the penny-throwing! Bucky Barnes, what a talent.

I like that you gave us information about the non-trash happenings with the inevitable SHIELD rebirth, and also that Bucky goes out every day to do Something. Even though it's nice that he's not just moldering at home, I find it a little sad that Steve doesn't feel he can ask what he does all day! If he truly works for ATF he at least needs to be mocked for it.

The sex scene was amazing because like

THEY FINALLY MADE IT WORK

and it was great down to the details. I love what close attention Steve paid to what would and wouldn't work for Bucky -- like noticing he didn't want his nipples touched, or rising up to make sure the handjob was going over well. ALSO THE IMAGERY. Steve with his face shoved into Bucky's neck; Bucky coming with his metal hand covering his open mouth! The joys of emotionally intense trash erotica <3

I'm dying to see where the next installment picks up after this!

I've seen a few metas talking about how Bucky's arm probably has more internal anchoring and the stress that and the sheer weight of it would put on his body, particularly his spine. At least here it's going to get better with time and treatment, because blah blah handwave supersoldier serum – in my defense there's canonical implication that cryofreeze has some kind of weird effect on healing, because the scars around his shoulder still look fairly fresh.

Like I mentioned above, there are so many fics that leave me going "But what does Bucky DO all day?!", so this is in part my attempt to answer that question I guess. To go further... well, that, I feel, would be telling. :P

Even a post-trash relationship can't be eternal torment! I wanted to show a little of why/how these guys like each other – in the flirting and the domestic stuff – and then yes, they finally made it work! In a scene that practically had vaseline smeared on the lens, contrary to Bucky's protestations early on.

I hope not to leave you hanging for long!

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 7/?

(Anonymous) - 2015-07-28 15:05 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 7/?

(Anonymous) - 2015-07-28 17:10 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 7/?

(Anonymous) - 2015-07-28 20:24 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 7/?

(Anonymous) - 2015-07-29 00:15 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 7/?

(Anonymous) - 2015-07-28 19:29 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 7/?

(Anonymous) - 2015-07-28 21:19 (UTC) - Expand

No pressure, but I hope this hasn't been abandoned!

I'm hoping to get an update by the end of the month – although in all honesty, I've been hoping that every month since August. <_<

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 7/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-15 22:39 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 7/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-16 04:33 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 7/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-16 04:34 (UTC) - Expand

They lie together for a while afterwards, Steve dozing against Bucky’s shoulder, drifting in and out of sleep as light slowly fills the room until Bucky finally slips out of bed. When he comes back, freshly-showered, shaved, still doing up the buttons on his shirt cuffs, he pauses in the doorway to look Steve up and down just as shamelessly as Steve is looking at him. Finally he laughs and shakes his head.

“You go ahead and lounge there, mister, but some of us gotta work for a living."

Steve responds by miming a luxurious stretch and nestling down in the sheets, which are very comfortable against his bare skin, in a dramatic swoon.

"See, this is what I can't believe people still don't know about you," Bucky goes on with a laugh in his voice. Aren't you supposed to say 'Oh no, the Sentinel of Liberty never sleeps in'? Maybe it's time for my first press leak." He imitates a newspaper hawker's cadence. "Exclusive, exclusive! Only in the Tribune! Captain America an irredeemable smartass, shows no pity for for close friend's delicate condition – oh for God's sake," he adds when Steve stiffens, "That was a joke. I can still make those, can't I?"

There's a moment when Steve feels like he's suddenly on a highwire, not sure how he lost his balance or how to find it again. Then he shoots back with, "I dunno, you never could before."

"That's exactly what I'm talking about." Bucky goes back to buttoning his shirt, shaking his head. "You're lucky you're so cute," he adds, mock stern, "Or you'd be stuck with your own cooking for breakfast."

Funnily enough, it’s the crack about having to work for a living that sticks in Steve’s craw as he dresses. He’s glad Bucky is doing whatever the hell he does all day – having nothing to do and nowhere to go can drive a guy crazy, Steve knows, and he imagines having your head fixed all day long might do the same. But while Steve had gotten fixed up with, well, with more money than he’d ever dreamed of when he’d gotten out of the ice, Bucky’s back-pay seemed to be stuck in an endless loop of reevaluations, revisions, and re-approvals. It’s not about the cash to Steve, it’s about respect, that Bucky isn’t any less deserving than he is. But Bucky doesn’t seem to care as much as he does, and Steve knows there are plenty of people who need it more and have waited longer, so he steps on the urge to go in and throw his weight around. He lets it be.

He wakes up to an ache in his body, a crick in his neck, and Bucky's voice saying "Aw no, aw Jesus.” He flounders for a moment, then Bucky says, "Just get up off the floor Steve, please, come on," and it comes back to him.

He grabs onto the hand reaching down for him and clings onto it like he's never going to let go. "You're okay?" he manages, voice still rough.

"I'm fine, just get off the goddamn floor." Bucky sounds almost like he's in physical pain.

They end up on the edge of the bed, clinging onto each other's forearms. Steve keeps looking Bucky up and down, biting back the urge to pat him down for injuries that he doesn't have, even if he does look like someone's hit him in the stomach.

"What happened last night?"

"I don't know," Bucky says, sounding as miserable and desperate as when he was begging Steve to get off the floor. Then, "Why don't you tell me what you saw."

After a few false starts he goes with, "We were in bed. We were – fucking. About to fuck." Specifically, Steve was trying to take his time and make it good for Bucky, not just something that thad to be gotten out of the way. "I was reading you all wrong, Buck, I’m so sorry –”

“Steve, for the love of God, save it. Just tell me.”

Bucky’s face had been as blank as the Winter Soldier’s, except instead of that awful intensity there had been next to nothing. Steve had talked to him, shaken him, even finally slapped him across the cheek to try to knock him out of it, but the only response he could get was a breathy, half-mumbled, “Yes sir,” every time. If Bucky had ever sounded that dopey when he was in his right mind, Steve would have given himself a stitch trying not to burst out laughing. This just scared the hell out of him. In the end, he tried saying, “Go to sleep,” in the firm-calm voice he used for nervous crowds. To his horror and relief, it worked. Or at least Bucky turned over, closed his eyes, and started breathing deeply and evenly.

Steve had stumbled back. His hands were steady, but he felt like he should be shaking. He couldn’t stop thinking about what else he could have said and had Bucky just turn over and do it, and let him do it, it wouldn’t be anything that –

For a desperate, wild moment Steve wondered if he should call someone, then dismissed it. He wasn’t a danger to anyone except himself or very possibly Steve, and Steve could handle that. He could handle just about anything except more of what he’d just seen.

“Then I took the spare blanket and set myself up on the floor,” he finishes. “I didn’t think you should be alone.” Steve leaves out the part where he couldn’t stand still, he was so angry and heartbroken he felt his skin was crawling. He had paced around the room for a good while, and then he’d done pushups until the nervous energy started to bleed off. For Steve, that was a lot of pushups.

Bucky had listened quietly, one hand steady on Steve’s back, so it was a surprise when the moment he was done he was up on his feet, turning away and saying in a rush, “I know what happened, I won’t let it happen again.” He was wearing yesterday’s boxers and one of the long-sleeved shirts he slept in, and if Steve hadn’t grabbed at the shirt’s hem he probably would have been half-way to the door by the time Steve said his name.

“There’s two of us here. Come on, Bucky, I want to understand.”

“Yeah, well maybe I don’t want you to understand!” Bucky pulls himself free, backs up a few steps. “If I’d had a choice,” he goes on fiercely, “You never even would have heard about any of the shit that happened to me. I’m sorry, I know that’s not how you want it. But that’s the truth, Steve. The last goddamn thing I want is for you to understand it.”

Uuh yes, perfect! All the kudos to you for picking this up again! <3

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 8/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-01-29 03:15 (UTC) - Expand

It's so wonderful to see more of this :D

I like that the comedown from their first successful attempt at banging is so casual and normal; there's a lot of drama and pathos inherent in their messed-up situation, and these sweet everyday kind of interactions do a good job at keeping everything grounded. Also I LOVE their teasing each other, and that moment where Steve slips up and regains his footing through insult -- love expressed through trash talk is the best kind, bless them.

I empathize with the thing stuck in Steve's craw because, out of everything going on in this fic, I have also ended up weirdly fixated on what Bucky does all day. WHAT DOES HE DO. WHERE IS HE. WHY IS IT A SECRET AND WHY IS STEVE AFRAID TO ASK? Here is my best guess: he owns a little run-down button store, one of the ones that just sells hundreds of varieties of buttons. He uses his world-class aim to thread needles for people.

And as for their next sexual disaster, the imagery of Bucky going all doll-like is absolutely horrifying, and I am both tender-hearted and brokenhearted for Steve, working through the horror with PUSH-UPS (STEVE ilu) and then sleeping on the floor! That being said, I really love that they didn't just fuck once and then everything is hunky-dory; they're still figuring it out and stumbling over landmines. Also <3 all the new and exciting ways you figure out for their attempts at sex to misfire! I don't think Bucky ever freaks out in the same way twice. He gets angry, or he runs, or he goes blank, or... It's part of what makes your characterization of his trauma feel nicely multifaceted, and at the same time it calls up all this horrible resonance, like, how many different ways did they fuck him up that he's got this huge range of responses? I mean, the whole thing where Bucky knew exactly what had happened -- how often has he gone through this?

Lastly maybe the thing that breaks my heart the most is actually their communication issues? Because Steve just wants to stop stumbling around in the dark and Bucky doesn't have the slightest inclination to reveal more awfulness than he's had to, and both of their needs are valid and understandable, and I just want them to BE HONEST. DAMMIT. -- oh, I finished writing this comment and then it occurred to me how sad I was about Bucky's line "if I'd had a choice." He didn't have a choice in being raped, or needing to keep having sex the way they made him, or in admitting any of these things happened to him. The least dignity the world could afford him would be to preserve his secrets, but no. It's too sad.

Anyway, thank you for the great update and please take as much time as you need with this.