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

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

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.

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Steve had thought they’d work their way up to the hard stuff over a few weeks or months. He would prove to Bucky over and over again that it was safe until at last Bucky opened up to him, or at least didn’t hit out when pressed. But he supposes they really aren’t cut out for taking it slow. Steve doesn’t feel angry by the time he storms into the living room. Instead it’s the same grim calm that takes over when a mission goes belly-up. They’re going to work this out. There’s simply no other option.

Bucky looks up from his novel, opens his mouth to says something and shut it when he sees Steve’s face.

Steve slams the handgun down on the coffee table and watches Bucky’s expression fly from shock, show a fleeting moment of what might be fear, and finally set in anger when he demands, “You went through my dresser?”

For one wild moment Steve considers saying yes just to see what would happen – would it be better or worse if he met Bucky’s expectations? – but this has to be about the truth. “No, you left your laundry in my room last night so I washed it with mine. I was trying to put your socks away.”

Bucky tosses his head back with an easy manner that Steve can see right through. “So what, you’re my parole officer now? ‘Cause nobody told me that there were any terms.”

“I don’t give a damn about the gun, keep it on your night stand for all I care. Buy twenty and hang them on your wall! What matters is I had no idea, and I live with you! I know you want your privacy. You want to keep what’s personal to yourself. And I’ve tried to understand that. But I live with you, I sleep with you, and you still won’t trust me with anything and it’s killing me, Bucky. Half the time I don’t know what you’re thinking, I don’t know what you’re feeling, I don’t even know what you do all day!”

“I can’t tell you that.”

Steve throws up his hands. “There’s the problem. Right there. All I’m asking is for one simple fact and even that’s too much.”

Bucky leans forward, and something earnest in his face catches Steve’s attention. “No, I mean I can’t tell you.” It takes Steve a moment to process the weight of his words.

“And I guess everything else is classified too, huh?” It’s a nasty jab and Steve knows it.

“You know what,” Bucky starts, voice raised and lip curled. Then Steve watches him gather himself, or maybe let go. The aggressiveness and the fake arrogance bleed away, and when he sits back in the chair he looks tired and a little nervous. “What do you want to know?” he asks more quietly.

“I just want to know that you trust me, Bucky. That I can trust you.”

“How can I prove that? What do you want me to do?” Bucky tugs nervously at the hem of his shirt, and Steve has just enough time to think Not some fucked-up sex thing before he asks “Do you want me on the table? Over your knee?” His eyes flick to the gun and Jesus Christ, Steve doesn’t even want to think about what that might mean.

“I want you,” Steve says firmly and clearly, “To talk to me. I want you to listen to what I say to you. And I want you to try and believe me.”

Bucky sounds half-way back to normal when he waves a hand at the couch. “Sit down, I’m gonna get a crick in my neck looking up at you.” They end up sitting kitty-corner to each other, close enough that their knees would bump if Steve moved forward, they could hold hands if – if they did that.

“I’m sorry about the gun,” Bucky says abruptly.

“The gun isn’t what matters. But thank you.”

“I don’t see why the other stuff matters, though. You really meant what you said the other night?” he demands. “It really doesn’t do anything for you? Because it would be okay if it did. You wouldn’t be the first one. I get it.”

“No you don’t.” This time Steve can’t keep his voice from rising. “I care about you. Why is that so hard for you to believe?”

“You can forgive me,” Bucky says venomously, “if I find it hard to believe that you’d get with someone who used to try and suck enough dick to earn the privilege of getting one up the ass if it didn’t turn your crank, not that you seem to mind the party tricks I picked up –”

“No,” Steve cuts him off, “You’re not going to do this. I am not going to play this game again. You’ll tell me I don’t want to hear about it and then you’ll kick it in my face. You want to know what I think? I think you’re scared. And you think if you can drive me away then you won’t have to think about it anymore. But you’re wrong, because you can’t keep secrets and lie to yourself forever and because I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me. So we might as well start talking. And since you asked,” he goes on, “Yes. I would. I don’t care about what anyone did to you. I don’t care what they made you do. I don’t care what you might’ve done yourself when you were in your right mind. I don’t even care about the sex, not if you wanted to stop. I care about you, Bucky. And I hope you care about me.”

There’s a long silence, then Bucky swallows and says, somewhat thickly, “My ma used to say that you’d argue with a locked door.” Steve just shrugs, because contrary to popular belief he won’t argue with anything that’s true. “I got one condition,” he goes on. “You don’t argue with me. I mean, if I use a word you don’t like or maybe I tell something like a joke, you don’t have to laugh but you do have to let me tell it.”

Steve opens his mouth to say I’m not gonna let you put yourself down like that, I’m not gonna let you tell it like it’s funny because it’s not funny. Instead he says, “I’ll try if you try.”

Bucky’s smile is a little weak, but it reaches his eyes. “Then I guess you’re stuck with me too.”

(OP)

YES. I LOVE THIS. It's so SATISFYING to have them finally lay their cards on the table -- and especially for Steve to find a way to negotiate past Bucky's bullshit, and for Bucky to actually let him. I was very proud of him in that moment where he sits back, consciously de-escalates, and lets go of his defensiveness. The description of him as tired and nervous after he lets the bravado fade saddened my heart.

But I live with you, I sleep with you, and you still won’t trust me with anything and it’s killing me, Bucky. Half the time I don’t know what you’re thinking, I don’t know what you’re feeling, I don’t even know what you do all day!”

YES!! Steve speaks words from my heart! SO SATISFYING. They're in such a difficult situation, and the character dynamics you've built up are so complicated -- I feel like I have cried about this before, but! they love and want each other enough to keep trying past the point the challenges would have defeated many people, and yet they also spend a lot of time self-sabotaging because of bad communication. Bucky is always ready to jump to the worst conclusion, then go on the attack. Which, alright, those are understandable trauma reactions (and, furthermore, characterization that slays me in wonderful ways), but then neither of them have any idea how to establish a framework where they can work through these problems together. As great as it's been to read the attempts they've made to patch shit up when it goes wrong -- the conversation where Bucky was cleaning the WS uniform comes to mind, or the one outside the shower door, or when Bucky thought Steve was making him beg, those were highlights -- I feel like this is the first time they've really talked about the heart of the problem. And, as aforementioned, after all those problems, IT WAS SO SATISFYING. I don't want to use the phrase "emotionally orgasmic" but... yeah, I'm gonna.

PLOT STUFF: BUCKY HAS A CLASSIFIED JOB????? WHAT IS HE DOING

Bucky tugs nervously at the hem of his shirt, and Steve has just enough time to think Not some fucked-up sex thing before he asks “Do you want me on the table? Over your knee?”

lmao I love this. Not just the fucked-up sex thing, but that Bucky's fucked-up sex things have reared their head so frequently that Steve's learned to see it coming. I read his little comment in such a world-weary tone. It's a kind of subtle awfulness when horror becomes commonplace!

Steve thinking about holding hands. Noooo, so sweet, no hand-holding was such a cruel thing for me to put in the prompt, I regret everything.

someone who used to try and suck enough dick to earn the privilege of getting one up the ass

I continue to adore each and every way Hydra exploited Bucky's broken dick to torture and humiliate him. It's all the emotional torment of being made to beg to come jacked up 1000x because that requires penetrative rape. Oh, poor Bucky. It just hits me sometimes that it's no surprise he's so angry and fucked up and defensive. But also: Bucky's disbelief that it doesn't turn Steve's crank when he talks about his abuse. It's like he knows I'm here... reading...

And you think if you can drive me away then you won’t have to think about it anymore.

So, we talked a little about Bucky as a recent escapee of a situation where sex was about use/abuse. And this line struck me in relation to that. He's got sexual trauma to wrestle with, years of horrible memories to fight down, a fucked-up worldview to unravel, and he doesn't yet recognize what happened to him as rape, though it seems that realization might be percolating in him. He has to think about all this whenever he has sex, and it's a lot to think about, and it must feel so, so scary. It would be a lot easier to just not have sex. Yeah, no wonder it seems sometimes like he's trying to drive Steve away.

"I'll try if you try" not even exaggerating: so romantic ;_;

I'm super glad it did what it needed to do! One of the complicated things about this Bucky is that when he can step back and take time to think he definitely is aware that his perceptions and expectations are warped, but then when emotions are running high and the chips are down he reverts to that warped worldview with added vicious defensiveness. But then when he has time to cool down he realizes that maybe he made a mistake. Rinse, repeat. Although this time he's able to break the cycle.

Yeah, like... Bucky keeps hitting out out of fear, which is completely understandable and not his fault but at the same time, Steve's only human, and this has been really hard for him too. Someone less bullheaded and tenacious might well have chosen to step back rather than go through that, and that would have been a reasonable decision TBH. I think on some level Steve needed some reassurance that Bucky loves him too in order to go on. (I don't like using the L word because it generally turns your fic into a soppy mess, but there you are). They've tried really hard, but neither of them really knows what they're doing – you'll notice in that shower door conversation, Bucky shuts it down by saying they'll talk about it later and then they never do.

WOULDN'T YOU AND STEVE LIKE TO KNOW

We and Steve and Bucky are all lucky he managed to avert going full-on fawn response there. (You said no? Is it because you want me to do something with the gun? I don't mind – I want to! I love it! Here, let me show you...)

If you think about it, they seem very physically comfortable with each other in TFA, it seems reasonable to extrapolate that they would do that kind of thing. Or at least would if it wasn't indelibly associated with power and control in Bucky's mind.

As we may already know I read that prompt and went "Did someone say degradation and mindgames?" ("I dunno Tom, I don't think he's demonstrated to us that he really wants it yet." The Winter Soldier, hands zip-tied behind his back just ro remind him of his place, tries to choke himself on his fourth cock of the night. Five minutes later, "All that just to take one up the ass. You must really need it, huh? Oh, what's that? You don't?" "I need it, sir."). I mean, he's looking at Steve and going "What's in it for you?" because the idea that Steve might want to hear this because he cares and wants to understand still hasn't sunk in. If he's not getting off on it, why won't he just drop the subject like Bucky tells him to? (Similarly to the scene where he can't quite figure out that Steve's fetish isn't doggy style or BDSM, it's mutually-pleasurable consensual sex).

Bucky needed to do what he had to to shut his human parts down and endure, and that included a lot of victim-blaming. Steve has in some ways the luxury of looking at this and going "This is just what evil men do with power." Bucky can't stop thinking there must be something more, and I think he still can't quite accept how bad it really was. He's okay (according to... himself) with the sex, but less so with the fact that Steve won't just shut up and let him not deal with anything. Hence his "You CARE about my FEELINGS? Fuck you!" attitude. But Steve isn't someone who just lets things alone, and we all know that even if he did that it would be fine until it was a disaster.

There's nothing like a cycle of lashing out, realizing you made a mistake, feeling guilt and fucked up, and then doing it all again to warm a trashbaby's heart. Aw... and yeah, like I said, I have all the empathy for Bucky's defensiveness, but also for Steve feeling so clumsy and attacked all the time. I hope that now they've laid some groundwork for good communication, they can work through this shit better in the future. ...I also don't object to more viciousness I love that too. I'm easy!

it seems reasonable to extrapolate that they would do that kind of thing. Or at least would if it wasn't indelibly associated with power and control in Bucky's mind.

And wrestling with not being able to do things they'd do in a heartbeat were it not for trauma is sooo great. Soooo much sadness.

"I dunno Tom, I don't think he's demonstrated to us that he really wants it yet." The Winter Soldier, hands zip-tied behind his back just ro remind him of his place, tries to choke himself on his fourth cock of the night. Five minutes later, "All that just to take one up the ass. You must really need it, huh? Oh, what's that? You don't?" "I need it, sir.

A standing ovation for you. And a firm YES to everything you wrote about the clarity of Steve's stance vs Bucky's; Steve hears the stories and understands that Bucky was helpless. But it's a totally different thing to live with the reality. The visceral details, which Steve can't imagine, can generate so much shame and pain. And Bucky's pain is SO huge -- uncountable rapes and humiliations over decades -- that it's no surprise he's erected some mental barriers to avoid confronting the true severity of what he endured. It must feel safer to pretend it wasn't as nightmarish as it truly was. Same goes for victim-blaming. I thiiink we discussed this over on Tempered; Not Tamed, but I can see Bucky blaming himself because nothing, not even being culpable in his own torture, is worse than having to process how deeply helpless and controlled he truly was.

"if I use a word you don’t like or maybe I tell something like a joke, you don’t have to laugh but you do have to let me tell it.” Oh, baby

Setting us up for an uncomfortable "Whats the difference between humor as a coping mechanism and humor as denial" scene, perhaps.

Aw, hell. Bucky trying to solve things with sex will never not kill me. <3
Love how Steve finally digs his heels in.

Yes, it was about time!

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

oooo, I really like that Bucky is insisting that Steve accept his attempts to process his traumas as jokes. It must have been frustrating when he's just trying to get stuff off his chest and Steve's like "no that's wrong, you're wrong to feel that way."

I have a lot of empathy for both of them. On one hand, Bucky's fighting to feel in control, to be able to have things and talk about his experiences on his own terms. On the other, for Steve that could mean choking back his own reaction that it wasn't funny, it was terrible and wrong and shouldn't have happened.

Love this! Will there be more? ^^

There will be! I'm an extremely slow writer (as you might see by the timestamps ^^;) and am filling something in the spoiler post right now, but hope to have an update soon.

Under him, Bucky tosses his head and shoves his hips up to meet Steve’s. His eyes are shut, his mouth hanging open, his left hand fisted in the pillow case while he jerks himself with his right, and when Steve thrusts into him he makes a desperate noise in the back of his throat. Steve works the angle of his hips, feels the clench and drag of Bucky around him. Bucky’s heel digs into small of his back, urging him on.

Bucky arches his back up and clasps a hand over his mouth when he comes, and the sight makes Steve even more determined to fuck him through every last moment of it. His own orgasm comes soon after, his hips stuttering before he buries himself deep inside Bucky and comes, hissing his name through clenched teeth.

Steve doesn’t mind Bucky getting up to wash after sex His own inclination is to lie there in the afterglow, lazy and stupid and indulgent, and he doesn’t care if he does it by himself or not. But after the water turns off he hears Bucky pad quickly, purposefully out of the room.

His first thought to himself is Go clean up your mess, Rogers, his second is to be ashamed of it.

He finds Bucky on the little balcony. At this height the wind must be criminal, but the glass walls and ceiling keep the wind out and the warmth in. There are big, year round plants that Steve doesn’t know the name of and some things that look like futuristic beach chairs.

Bucky is slouched in one of them. His eyes flick to Steve as he comes in and settles himself in the next one over, but he stays silent.

“Nice night,” Steve tires. He considers saying something dumb like Wow, the Chrysler Building sure looks great tonight, then bursts out with “Bucky, talk to me.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Anything at all. Come on, we said we wouldn’t play this game anymore.”

“If you think this is a game, then you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bucky shoots back heatedly.

“Why? Why don’t you tell me what that would look like?”

That gets a stony silence. Then Bucky bursts out with, “You want to know what I’d think if it was someone else? I’d think, that poor bastard. How’d he ever let himself get broken down like that.” He puts a hand up to his face, like he’s shielding himself from Steve or the other way around. “I wish I got to have some dignity. I wish you didn’t have to see me like this.”

“You talk like I’ve never talked about anything – anything hard with you. Do you remember the night after we buried my mom?” Bucky doesn’t say anything, but his shoulders stiffen so Steve presses on. “I don’t think I ever got that low, or that close to giving up.” He still feels a knot of sadness and shame when he thinks of it. He had turned away to wipe his eyes on the sleeve of his pajamas and suddenly he couldn’t stop crying, no matter how hard he balled up his face or held his breath. “You didn’t try and soft-soap me, you just stuck around and heard me out. Even when it was just nonsense and self-pity.” He had said “I’m gonna get sick and that’s gonna be it”over and over again, and the more he thought about it the surer it seemed, and he couldn’t stop. He was scared to be alone, scared for the future, scared that next time grit and determination wouldn’t be enough for him just like it hadn’t been enough for his mom. Bucky hadn’t moved his arm from around Steve’s shoulders, hadn’t said much except the occasional “You don’t know that,” hadn’t argued when Steve always came back with “I do.”

“Or the time we were living together and I got pneumonia. I’d cough so hard I threw up on myself, and you had to drag me to the bathroom. You think I had any dignity then?”

“Of course you did,” says Bucky from behind his hand.

“So give yourself the same courtesy. Or at least believe that I can.”

The ensuing silence is long enough for Steve to start thinking Great, and me left out here alone looking like a dope, when Bucky speaks.

"Let me tell you something. When you get out of cryo, you're lying there on a table or on the floor with IVs sticking everywhere an IV can go – arms, hands, neck, feet, the whole thing – and your brain feels like oatmeal. It's like when you wake up and you can think but you aren't really awake, so everything feels a little real and a little like a dream. That's when they get to work on you. They do the triggers and failsafes first. Mission objective and parameters. And then if they have someone good, they can make you think you're anyone, believe anything. It was mostly making sure I remembered my loyalty to Hydra and whatever value system they were using that week, the free world or the Warsaw Pact or whatever. And then sometimes they'd give me a cover. It’s in there so deep that no one can torture it out, because I’d believe it with every last cell in me. Every so often someone would figure out that they could get themselves a little something that way. You want a hellcat, a loving boyfriend, a blushing virgin in your bed three times a night? You got it." His mouth twists into a humorless smile. "They all thought they were so smart, too. Sure buddy, you're the first person to think of that one. You just keep telling yourself that. But yeah, half the time I really did want it. Or at least I thought I did. And then sometimes I was the only bargaining chip I had." At Steve's choked-off noise, Bucky shrugs. "It's not like I had any cigarettes to trade. The rest of it was just orders."

A/N: I know I'm not the fastest writer and that this story has been inching along for a very long time, and I want to take the opportunity to thank everybody who has been willing to stick with it. I am so, so grateful for your patience and your support and I love you all.

TL;DR – group hug in this trash pile!

We love you more <3

*rolls around on the floor*

Thanks for updating! <3

The best thing about these slow updates is that I get to re-read the whole thing every time! :D

And -- oh man, so many lovely painful moments here -- I don't think I've ever read such a good Steve-coping-with-mom's-death bit. And noncon sex being Bucky's only bargaining chip... *cries sad trashy tears*

A!a, you did it again! Every new chapter of this is an absolute treat (I've read this update a number of times already) and this remains one of my favorite stories in the dumpster. *continues to camp out here for the foreseeable future*

(OP)

Loved this update :D

1. The sex scene was smoking hot. Back arching! Bucky with his heels digging in! Shoving his hips up! ALL VERY, VERY GOOD STUFF

2. And actually the sex being so hot and successful makes the downswing that follows even sadder? Like, with all the other attempts at sex that went wrong during or after, there's an obvious cause. There's always a moment that sets Bucky off. Here, though, it all works out fine, and still Bucky has to go off and brood about how humiliated, broken, and undignified he is. There's nothing undignified about what just happened, but sex -- or at least being fucked -- is so indelibly associated with humiliation for him that he can't see that. It's so sad and it's a deeper, longer-lasting problem that Steve's learning curve on where not to touch and what not to say. There's no easy fix here.

3. Also that they're getting better at communication but they still have to work at it. <3 No easy fixes.

4. It is extremely telling about Steve that he thinks having cried after his mom died was a serious indignity -- comparable to the indignity Bucky feels now. I have been known to cry because I got a bad haircut. What the fuck, Steve.

5. I will repeat for this venue: I love how thoroughly you've fucked Bucky over. If he'd just been subjected to repeated command rapes, your good old-fashioned trash party, then he'd come out with a handsome array of deep-seated issues. But that was not enough! He also traded sex for favors, so on top of learning that essentially sex is torture, he gets to learn that his body is a thing to be bartered. But because these two things together haven't yet totally destroyed his sexuality, you also threw in the violation of his mind; they were able to trick and manipulate integral parts of him, his emotions, his perceptions; it's a miracle he's been able to trust and pursue his own desire to the extent that he has (and I wonder how long it took). You haven't left a single square of solid ground for him to stand on.

6. "It's not like I had any cigarettes to trade." I LOVE THIS LINE not only because it speaks to the forced commodification of Bucky's body, but also because I am a sucker for anything hints at how truly devastated and dehumanized he was. Even prisoners have cigarettes. Bucky, on the other hand, had no possessions -- or money, or friends, or memories, or choices in anything from whether he killed to how he wore his hair or when he slept. All these little details that fill out the picture of how controlled and empty his life was keep my black heart beating. My Bucky Barnes Problem is... ongoing.

Please sir, may I have some... more?

"Good morning, I'd like to speak with the editor please."

The receptionist of the New York Morning Express looked Steve up and down with the expression of someone well used to dealing with whatever happened to drift into a New York lobby. "Do you have an appointment?" Next to her, the security guy puts down his phone and gives Steve a slower, more-deliberate once over.

"No." Steve's in street clothes and he realizes he has his earphones dangling around his neck and a copy of the Express crumpled under his arm.

"Then I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for you, sir - if you have a comment or opinion you'd like to share you can always email us, yoursay@nyexpress.com"

Steve draws himself up, assumes his most authoritative voice, and starts patting his jacket pockets for his wallet. "Ma'am, I'm afraid I'm going to have to -"

He never gets to finish because every phone behind the desk begins to ring at once. The receptionist holds up a finger at him and turns to start answering frantically. Then someone's at his side, and Natasha says in his ear, "We're leaving right now."

She gets one hand on the small of his back and the other clamped around his elbow, and since the only alternative is starting a fight right there in the lobby Steve lets her steer him out the doors and onto the street. Once they've merged into the pedestrians she says just loud enough for him to hear, "What the hell did you think you were doing in there?" She's wearing a blond wig with bad roots and glasses that make her eyes look enormous.

"What was I doing there, what were you doing there? And let go of me."

"Call it women's intuition," Natasha says, swinging them around a corner. She jay-walks them to the other side of the street and stops just long enough to tap a card against the security pad on one of the gates that block off the gaps between buildings before shouldering both of them through. She does let go of Steve’s elbow to jerk her chin at one of the fire escapes. "Give me a leg up."

Steve folds his arms. "I revise my question, what are we doing here?"

"Have you ever tried to find a private place to talk in this town?"

Steve makes the jump up easily after her and they climb up a few flights before settling on a step which is neatly situated between a blocked-off window and one that shows a sliver of a storage room. Steve, who has indeed tried to find a private place to talk in this town many times, is a little impressed. Though not enough to tamp down his annoyance.

“You shouldn’t have dragged me out of there. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I just wanted to talk to him." Steve paused as a sudden horror hit him. “Oh God, you didn't think I was going to beat him up, did you?"

"Of course not." Natasha waves a hand. "I'm sure you would have gone in and talked about the fifth estate and the nature of the public interest and what his mother would say if she could see him now. And tomorrow that headline would say Captain America Threatens Journalist. And if you're lucky,” she continues, raising her voice slightly when Steve opens his mouth to respond, “The story won’t have the words ‘rumored gay affair,’ and if you're very lucky, they won’t run that photo again with it.’”

That fucking photo.

"Have you seen this?" Steve brandishes the Express at her. The headline reads CASH FOR KILLERS? FEDS CAVE ON NAZI ASSASSIN PAYOUT. The photo is an old one. Steve's seen the original. Someone wrote "Canal Zone, 1974" on the back like it was a vacation snapshot. Bucky's staring into the camera, eyes glassy and mouth hanging half open. He looks, to put it bluntly, high as a kite. His hair is dirty, and the whitewashed wall behind him isn't particularly clean either. The Express had put a stock art picture of a stack of bills next to it just in case someone missed the point. "Nothing on this page is true." Steve knows he's shouting now and he doesn't care. "Absolutely nothing! It's not a payout, it's his back pay! And Bucky isn’t a – a Nazi, he was a prisoner of war and they tortured him and –”

Natasha’s hand on his elbow again stopped him mid-sentence. A dark-haired woman had stepped into the storage room. Steve and Natasha waited, silently, as she got what she needed and left.

Steve kept his voice down this time.

“This isn’t an opinion. It isn’t a different view on the facts. Everything here is a lie, and a newsman should know better, anybody should know better than to print it! I came back and they couldn’t trip over themselves enough to get me my back pay! Bucky comes back and for the same thing, he has to wait a year and a half – and then this! After seventy years of, of – you saw those files, the whole world saw them, I don’t understand how anyone could look at that and still write this trash!” The Morning Express is in two pieces in Steve’s hands, torn down the middle. He isn’t sure when it got that way.

Natasha squeezes his elbow. “Those files were like an inkblot test,” she says, her voice calm but gentle. “People saw what they were going to see.”

Steve looks at her, the set of her mouth and the calmness of her body, and it hits him that this is what she’s always thought. “You released them anyway.”

“It was the right move to make. But nothing turns on a dime. I knew that, and I think James always has too.”

Steve’s righteous anger has started to ebb, but hearing Bucky’s name makes him realize with a jolt what an idiot he’s been acting like. He should’ve thought about Bucky first instead of storming off to grandstand at some hack journalist. What this is gonna do to him –

Steve pulls himself up. “I need to go home. If he hasn’t seen this ...” And even more, Steve realizes, if he has – “I should be with him.”

Natasha’s response is to stand and start down the fire escape with him. “How did you hear about it?” she asks as they make the jump down to the alleyway.

“I left early and went running. Stopped into a bodega to get a Good Humor.” Steve had been in line at the counter when he had seen the Morning Express’ cover. He’d grabbed the paper along with the ice cream, thrown down the first bill that came out of his wallet on the counter and walked out, the woman behind the counter yelling “Hey mister, you want your change?” after him. The next time Steve thought about his Good Humor was in a subway station in Midtown, when he stopped to throw the mostly-melted packet into a trash can.

Natasha’s mouth quirks down. “Someone’s asleep at the switch.”

He knows what she isn’t saying. SHIELD would never let this happen. But they’re working with a patchwork of too many organizations trying to do the work of one. Everybody probably thought that “media watch” fell under someone else’s mandate.

“That’s a project for tomorrow.” Steve pushes the heavy metal door open and they step out of the shady quiet of the alley, onto the sidewalk and into the brightness of the late afternoon sun. “Thanks for bailing me out back there.”

She’s turning to leave already, but Steve can see the flash of her smile as she goes. “I’m just filling in until you get a professional.”

When Steve walks in, Bucky is leaning against the back of the couch in his shirtsleeves, rolling up his cuffs. He looks up and says something right at the same time Steve bursts out with, “We gotta talk.”

“What’s going on?”

“Someone talked to one of the city papers about your back pay. It’s coming through soon,” Steve adds. Fucking hell of a way to find out. “The way they decided to spin it – I’m sorry, Bucky, it was wrong.” He stops to take a breath, and Bucky says,

“Is this about the Express?”

“You know?”

“I saw it on a news rack when I was getting my coffee this morning.” Bucky says it like it was a headline about a dancing dog or a movie star breakup.

Steve doesn’t know what to do. He was ready for Bucky to be off-kilter already, morose or pent-up angry. He was ready for him to snap and call Steve names or say that he deserved it anyway. He wasn’t ready for Bucky to shrug it off like it was no big deal, especially when Steve didn’t think he should be shrugging it off.

Bucky pushes off the couch. “Don’t spend too much time on this stuff, Steve. You’ll make yourself crazy.”

“I’ll make myself crazy?” Steve demands before he can listen to the voice in his head telling him to just thank his lucky stars and let this go.

“Yeah,” Bucky snaps, and there’s the edge Steve was waiting for. “Something like this was always going to happen.” He grabs for the corner of the torn Morning Express poking out of Steve’s jacket pocket, flicks through it and holds up half the cover next to his face. “People look at me and this is what they see.”

“It’s not true.” Steve steps up and before he knows it they’re right up against each other, thigh to thigh, mouth to mouth. “Nothing on that page is true.”

“Doesn’t make a difference,” Bucky says, but when Steve presses a kiss on the corner of his mouth he lets him.

Steve doesn’t see Bucky for the rest of the evening. He resigns himself to it, until Bucky shows up when he’s getting ready for bed, slips into the room with a quiet knock and into the other side of Steve’s bed. He lies down like he’s always here, and Steve takes the hint. In bed, with the light off, he rolls on his side, presses his face into the hair at the nape of Bucky’s neck and tries to block the draft.

The next morning, Steve steps into his not-officially-an-office on the Tower floor that houses Not-Actually-SHIELD to see that someone has left a tabloid-style newspaper on his desk. He glances at the masthead – the Daily Bugle – and unfolds it to look at the headline.

TAKE THE FU EXPRESS – TABLOID SMEARS NY NATIVE SON BARNES, CALLS AMERICAN HERO “NAZI,” “KILLER”

He texts Natasha a photo of it.

Her response, two minutes later, is a screenshot of an article on the Bugle’s website – a blurry photo of the two of them stepping out of the alley door yesterday titled CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BLACK WIDOW IN BACK ALLEY TRYST?? – and the caption Don’t get too hopeful. They also think I have three secret love children.

A/N:

I have sometimes called this story "porn with plot tumors." I couldn't write porn or feelings, so I gave in and wrote a bit of plot tumor.

The Daily Bugle’s headline is based on this (incredible) Daily News cover: http://15130-presscdn-0-89.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/CfZpQU0UkAAQyIN.jpg

J. Jonah Jameson definitely wrote a sanctimonious essay about the importance of journalistic integrity right before he went back to yelling at Peter Parker to get him a photo for their upcoming “Spiderman: Threat or Menace?” article.

I love this story so fucking much, thank you for sticking with it. Also I didn't realize tumors could be so awesome.

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 12/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-12-21 18:42 (UTC) - Expand

a!a, I'm so glad to see that this fic hasn't been abandoned! And there's plot bits, no less! (Guess who's been waiting forever to find out what Bucky's secret job is? XD)

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 12/?

(Anonymous) - 2016-12-23 05:35 (UTC) - Expand

The next time they’re in bed, it’s a disaster. Bucky doesn’t want Steve to touch him, doesn’t want to touch Steve, doesn’t want lube. He just wants to turn onto his front, body and voice tight, and demand Steve to fuck him dry. When Steve says no, Bucky swears at him and calls him a coward.

“You need to calm down.”

“Oh, so now you’re picky! Now you care!”

“That’s it,” Steve announces, because someone has to be the reasonable one. “I’m not doing this.”

“What,” Bucky demands, still too loud and too angry, “I didn’t make it how you like? I didn’t beg for Sir’s cock nicely enough? Shoulda blown you if I wanted any tonight?”

“You’re out of control and I’m not gonna help you push it any further.”

“Yeah, well this is what the fuck you get. This is what I am. This is what I want. You can’t admit that you’re like everyone else, you want it all your way, you –”

Steve wrenches Bucky over and grabs the sides of his face so that they’d be looking right at each other, if Bucky opened his eyes. “You want to talk about what I want?” he demands. He knows his voice cracked on the last word. “I want you to stop treating me like I’m trying to rape you. I want you to stop lying to me. I want you to tell me what you’re really afraid of!”

At first Steve thinks he’s gone too far, and he almost doesn’t regret it, because this is what the fuck you get indeed, but then Bucky says, quietly and roughly, “I like it.”

“Well I oughta hope so, because otherwise –” it comes out before Steve can stop his mouth.

“I mean,” Bucky goes on in the same voice, “You might as well use me raw, or cuff me and cane me, or plug me so I’m open and I never get to forget how much I asked for it because I like it. I always wanted it. Even back before, when we were younger. I dreamed about it. Getting – Getting –”

Jesus, he can’t even say it. “So what you’re saying,” Steve says in a deliberately over-cheerful voice, “Is that I’m giving you what you always wanted.”

Bucky bursts out with one of the wettest laughs he’s ever heard. He keeps laughing for a little too long. Steve’s palms are damp against his cheeks. Then he opens his eyes, fixes Steve with a look, and says, “Just keep your fucking tongue in your mouth.”

Bucky’s lips on his are a shock. First lips, then teeth, then Bucky’s whole body is surging against him as he rolls them both and kisses Steve breathless. It’s overwhelming – Bucky’s body on his, his own hands pulling them closer, Bucky’s hair around his face and Bucky’s tongue in his mouth.

And then just as suddenly he pulls back and Steve is left looking up at Bucky’s face, the glint of triumph in his eyes and the smirk playing around his mouth.

“I hope you liked that.”

“I did,” Bucky says, wiping his mouth and looking so pleased with himself Steve wants to ask him to do it again. But before he can, Bucky rolls away. “Nothing else tonight, though. I can leave.”

Steve pushes himself up, stops himself from reaching for Bucky’s hand. Don’t hold my hand, don’t hold my wrist. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

They’re in bed with the lights off, and Steve should probably let it rest, he knows Bucky probably wants him to let it rest, but he can’t.

“If I kept – giving you what you wanted, did you really mean the stuff about the,” he cut off before forcing himself forward, “The – bells and whistles?”

“Not really.”

Steve said, “Good,” before he could stop himself. He knew there were some folks to whom that stuff was just a game, and they didn’t mean anything by it. But if he imagined himself with some kind of stick or a plastic accoutrement for a person’s privates, he didn’t know if he would die of shame or disgust first. He couldn’t imagine doing that to anybody, least of all Bucky. Least of all after everything he’d hinted about.

“Forget that shit.” Bucky’s breath was warm against Steve’s shoulder, and he could feel the vibration when he spoke. “I let myself get rattled and I say stuff. You shouldn’t listen to it. I wish you’d forget the shit I said the other night too, Steve. I wanted to keep you away from it. I wanted to keep you – clean.”

“Well, I can’t do it. Won’t.”

Bucky sighs, “Just my luck,” and they both know it’s an automatic joke.

Steve wakes up with Bucky pressed up against his side and his left arm, the one that doesn’t move when he’s asleep, draped over him. So Bucky hadn’t wanted to tell him at all, Steve reminds himself. He had wanted to hold onto what pride he had left. He wanted, however wrongly, to keep Steve safe. That was why Steve couldn’t let on how much it got to him. How his mind wouldn’t stop poking at the edges of what he knew, turning over all the awful possibilities. He can be at work, or getting dressed, or walking down the street, and suddenly he wonders what it was like, the thing that made Bucky so twitchy about even the idea of holding hands. He thinks about how easily Bucky had offered to gag himself, imagines a rag stuffed into his mouth, or maybe his lips wrapped around something obscene and purpose-bought. He sees the image of Bucky on his back, on his front, as faceless men do nameless, disgusting things to him. And now Steve thinks about Bucky saying he wanted him to stay clean.

He turns over and presses his face into Bucky’s chest, and tries to block out the part of his mind that can’t seem to stop imagining ways that he was hurt.

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 10/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 10/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 10/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 10/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 10/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 10/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 10/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 10/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 10/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 10/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 10/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 10/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 11/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 11/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 11/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 11/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 11/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 11/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 11/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 11/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 12/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 12/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 12/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 12/?

Re: Bucky can only come with penetration -- Smash All Your Mirrors, 13/?