garbage all the way down (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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hydratrashmeme2015-09-09 07:23 pm
trashmod) wrote in hydratrashmeme2015-09-09 07:23 pm
Dumpster #3: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Holy shitballs, look at us go. Welcome to Captain America fandom's resident wretched hive of scum and villainy: ROUND THREE. AKA Bad Guys Do Dirtybadwrong Things To Your Faves, 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] [Round 2] [Fill post] [Chatter post] [hydratrashmeme Pinboard archive (maintained bygreenkirtle)] [Round 3 in flat view (comments in non-threaded chronological order, most recent last)]
Round 3 is closed; comments and fills in existing threads are still welcome, but all new prompts go to Round 4.
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] [Round 2] [Fill post] [Chatter post] [hydratrashmeme Pinboard archive (maintained by
greenkirtle)] [Round 3 in flat view (comments in non-threaded chronological order, most recent last)]Round 3 is closed; comments and fills in existing threads are still welcome, but all new prompts go to Round 4.
Re: Keep that dog on a leash, Pierce.
(Anonymous) 2015-09-10 03:16 am (UTC)(link)Fill: The Kind of Man Who Leads [5/6]
(Anonymous) 2017-02-01 05:24 am (UTC)(link)----
Blue-eyes won the night, but Rumlow had held his own, enough that he ended in the green. It could be that the Contessa had thrown a few hands intentionally. She fixed him with a hard stare at the end of the night and said to him, “Looks like I owe you,” before turning to Pierce to add, “I like this one.”
He bristled at the implications but kept his trap shut. Wisely so, as that led to Pierce seeing his guests to the door and an invitation upstairs when only Rumlow remained. Rumlow hesitated, moreso this time than before. Once burned, twice shy.
“You lied about command positions,” Pierce said casually, a hand resting on the banister. A sharp snap of his fingers and Barnes came to heel. Pierce pointed up the stairs and Barnes slowly crawled up them. Pierce watched the ascent, but Rumlow could feel the prickle in the air warning him that most of Pierce's attention wasn't on Barnes at all. “You’ve led a good number of incursions.”
“Unit command is different than sitting at the table in the war room. I'd rather be filing reports than reading them.”
Pierce waited until Barnes had cleared the top stair before he turned to Rumlow. “Steve Rogers thinks very highly of you and of your qualities as a leader. Nick Fury is inclined to agree.”
An awful swelling pride twisted in his chest, a knot of tentacles that squirmed and sought to fill the spaces between his organs. It was an uncomfortable feeling in the wake of being so thoroughly humiliated. Impossible to say if it was a biscuit meant to smooth things over. “And you, sir? What's your assessment?”
“You're smart, you're vicious, and if anyone other than the asset has a chance to take down Steve Rogers when the time comes, it's you.” Pierce lay a hand on the railing and nodded towards where Barnes had disappeared. “Last chance. If you want to understand why he obeys, this is your chance.”
Sometimes it felt like Pierce was a fucking mind reader. Or a puppet master, Rumlow thought, as he allowed himself to be pulled up the steps by invisible strings.
“Did you know that every single time we've had to force a major wipe, I've had to start from scratch,” Pierce said, leading the way into a bathroom that was larger than Rumlow's bedroom. Barnes perched waiting on the edge of a freestanding stone tub that looked like it was hollowed out of a split boulder.
The room was mostly white, tiled in smooth gleaming squares that didn't have the pretentiousness or hassle of marble but equalled the elegance. It fit with the rest of Pierce's home, everything clearly showing its price tag but none of the screaming overcompensation of the nouveau riche or the dusty pomp of old money. Before enlisting, as a teenager Rumlow had worked a construction crew, and refitting houses nudged up against golf courses had taught him a lot about the well-to-do. Alexander Pierce's home said he paid well for what would last the longest and serve him the best without unreasonable upkeep.
Rumlow regarded the jarring black and silver of the asset disrupting the clean lines of the room and reconsidered Barnes’s upkeep. “Why bother?” he asked. “Does it get easier every time?”
“Not at all,” Pierce admitted. He grabbed a folded towel off a cedar chest and tossed it to the floor. It slid to a stop in front of Barnes who twitched, muscles prepped to move; it wasn't until Pierce nodded that he slid off his perch to kneel on the towel.
“So why?”
“I learn something new every single time,” Pierce said, rolling his sleeve halfway to his elbow before starting the tap. “Such as how a hot bath is as welcome a reward as an iced dessert.”
Barnes stripped when ordered, leaving a neatly folded pile of clothes and gear plus an array of knives piled next to his boots. He returned to his towel and waited attentively as Pierce produced a shaving kit, setting out a mug, an old safety razor with ivory inlaid in its wooden handle, and a fresh blade.
Just seeing the small naked blade made Rumlow want to pick it up and stripe red cuts into Barnes’s skin. If they were shallow enough you could watch the wounds stitch themselves right up and then wipe away the blood, the skin beneath as good as new. Go deep enough though, and, well, there were a lot of marks and scars on the assets body beyond the ugly knots near his shoulder. Most of them healed too, just a helluva lot slower.
Pierce motioned for Rumlow to take care of the shaving cream while he dismantled the razor to screw the blade into place. “Just add a bit of water to the soap and whisk it around,” he said, offering the instruction whether or not it was needed. “It'll foam right up.”
The lather built into creamy peaks, a subtle, sweet smell rising up out of the cup. The squat brush handle matched the safety razor, and Rumlow found the weight of it in his hand oddly pleasant. It reminded him a bit of a billiard ball, lighter by far, but solid and purposeful for its size. He ran his thumb over the checkered bits of ivory as Pierce dumped a dozen rolled-up washcloths out of a shallow metal bowl and then dipped the bowl into the steaming tub to fill it.
Barnes had raised his arms up ready to receive the bowl and hold it. How many times had they done this that he was so well trained?
“What, no hot towel?” Rumlow said, as Pierce looped a dry white towel around his neck. He slid a matching cedar stool out from under the cabinet and set it directly in front of Barnes. He took a seat and stared straight into Barnes’s eyes. Barnes stared right back, calm in an unsettling way, he wasn’t begging to be touched now, but he was waiting with purpose, with intent. He’d wear the same look sighting down a scope with a finger on the trigger, Rumlow was sure of it.
It creeped him the fuck out.
“Some rewards come with diligent service,” Pierce said, the composure of his voice only amplifying the jangle of nerves along Rumlow’s spine. “Other rewards are reserved for more unique circumstances.”
“And which is this?”
“For you? Or for him?” Pierce’s glancing gaze didn’t beg a response. He held out a hand for the cup that Rumlow had worked to the brim with lather, and said, “Shut off the tap, would you?”
Little licks of steam rose into the air as the surface of the water settled to stillness. The sudden quiet magnified each rasping scrape of the razor across Barnes's cheek and throat. It hardly seemed like Barnes took a breath or swallowed, his adam’s apple quivering only once after the razor passed over it and up to the point of his chin.
Rumlow wished he were bored. Watching another man get shaved should be a dull if not tedious ritual, something that didn’t affect him in the slightest, but the sound and smell of it got to him somehow. He used an electric at home more times than not, a couple quick buzzing passes when the shadow on his cheeks started threatening to turn into a beard. He only ever really used a proper razor when he had a really hot date lined up and wanted to be baby soft in preparation for a thick pair of thighs around his head.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away from each swift pass of the razor, couldn’t help the stir in his blood each time Pierce cleaned it with a brisk swish in the bowl Barnes held. He noticed only after a while that at some point Barnes’s eyes had closed and that he himself was holding his chin up, echoing Barnes’s posture.
He shifted uncomfortably, felt the unease swell beneath his ribs again. He should’ve left. He could’ve been home by now, in the shower with a cold beer and this bizarre day swirling down the drain. The razor swept neatly over the hinge of Barnes’s jaw, Pierce’s knuckles trailing behind to test the closeness of the shave.
A few more passes and Pierce was finished. He took the towel in hand and gently wiped away the thin stripes of white left on Barnes’s face. Barnes looked younger. If he didn’t have the body of a brawler, he should be selling cologne in the glossy pages of a magazine.
Pierce dried his hands and pivoted to face Rumlow. He gestured at the space in front of him. “You?” he said, and at the sound of his voice, Barnes’s eyes slid open again. The illusion of youth vanished.
A small, sick part of Rumlow wanted to say yes. The awful, weak, trembling part that was at the heart of his squirming unease. No one would know if he took up the offer, and let Pierce’s sure hands take his face. The man already had all the power in the world over him, saw him fucked face down by his two-legged pet, what would it change?
Rumlow swallowed around the hard knot settled in his throat. His fingers had turned cold and brittle. “No thanks,” he said, sneering.
“Few things nicer than a proper shave,” Pierce replied conversationally. He stood and Barnes followed suit, dumping the clouded water in the bowl into the sink and then stepping wordlessly into the bath. One ritual down, more to go.
“I’ll clean ‘em,” Rumlow offered, gesturing at the brush and razor. He wasn’t so much anxious to help as to get things moving.
Pierce didn’t object, and let Rumlow clean and rinse and set things to dry as he attended to the asset with as much care as he’d shown in shaving him. He stretched Barnes's metal arm out, supporting it at the elbow as he wiped down the plates with a damp cloth, methodically cleaning the seams and joints.
This was maybe worse, Rumlow thought, glancing over as he finished putting the kit to rights. This felt like watching something he wasn't supposed to, uncomfortably intimate to the point of obscenity. He lingered near the sink and watched stubbornly anyway, catching it this time when Barnes’s eyes went to slits and then closed entirely, his mouth parting slightly as Pierce bathed him, the washcloth periodically disappearing under the water to run along his legs and groin.
“You like doing this?” he asked Pierce.
“I started in the field, you know,” Pierce said. He was washing Barnes’s hair now and didn’t look up from the task. “Nick and I came up together, though I was already running a desk by the time he joined SHIELD. Do you know what it is that makes a field agent successful? It’s not good papers or window dressing, and it’s certainly not money, though that of course comes in handy.”
As Pierce rinsed Barnes’s hair with a bowlful of fresh water, Rumlow made a vague sound, not sure where this was going.
“Success as an agent comes from being satisfied with the results of your work.” Pierce paused as he had Barnes rise and step from of the bath. He began to towel him off with the same thorough care, one limb and then the next, periodically catching the water that dripped from Barnes’s long hair. “Now, the wind can change at any time when you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be, doing something you definitely shouldn’t be doing, and you might get burned, or you might have to abandon an asset you’ve been spoonfeeding for weeks, months, years even. Where’s the satisfaction in that, you wonder? When all your hard work turns into nothing or bureaucrats back home shit on the intelligence you’ve gone through great lengths for…?
“Well it’s managed chaos, isn’t it,” Pierce continued. He wrapped Barnes in a fresh, fleecy towel. “You can lose a thousand battles and still win the war. So do I enjoy scrubbing down a fucking attack dog that can’t string two sentences together when he isn’t delivering a mission report? Not particularly, but he looks damn good after a wash, doesn’t he.”
With that, Pierce released Barnes, who still looked oddly sated. Rumlow wondered what Barnes would’ve been like if he'd been a fly on the wall. Would there be even less tension in him? Would he have responded to Pierce even more acutely? Was a shave and a hot bath really all it took to have Barnes willing to wear a collar around his neck and play fetch?
Barnes didn’t sink back down to the floor like Rumlow expected. Clean and groomed he was free to be a man, and his bare feet were silent on the tile as he led the way again.
Re: Fill: The Kind of Man Who Leads [5/6]
(Anonymous) 2017-02-01 05:42 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fill: The Kind of Man Who Leads [5/6]
(Anonymous) 2017-02-03 07:46 am (UTC)(link)Re: Keep that dog on a leash, Pierce.
(Anonymous) 2017-02-01 05:26 am (UTC)(link)