hydratrashmeme | 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.

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Round 3 is closed; comments and fills in existing threads are still welcome, but all new prompts go to Round 4.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sam rolled to the side of the mattress and rubbed his eyes. The house had the deep quiet of the middle of the night. Stark had crashed hard around 2300 and they'd agreed it was better to let him get some decent sleep, but that meant Sam was using his vintage air mattress. To his credit, Stark had tried to protest, but Sam's mama hadn't raised him to make a guest sleep on the floor when there was a bed available. At least the man didn't snore.

When Sam wandered out of the bathroom he headed for the living room instead of back to his mattress.

Barnes sat in one of the straight kitchen chairs that he'd set in the living room, a spot with very good sight lines to the condo entrances. Natasha was on the sofa, apparently reading in the light of one table lamp. She looked up as Sam entered the room; Barnes continued to stare ahead but Sam knew better than to think he hadn't noticed.

"I'm up for a while," Sam said. "Why don't you get some sleep?" Natasha gave him a look of mild surprise but he shrugged. "Seriously. I'm wired."

She thought it over and closed her book with a snap. "Thanks," she said as she stood.

Sam wasn't ashamed to admit he watched as she padded down the hall to the guest room where Clint slept. Obviously he couldn't make a move, but that didn't mean he was blind.

"You want coffee or something?" he asked on his way to the kitchen.

Barnes shook his head, so Sam only fished out one mug. When he was done doctoring it he went back out and dropped into Natasha's vacated place on the sofa. He was about halfway through the coffee when Barnes said, "You don't trust me."

Sam raised his eyebrows and swallowed his mouthful. "You have to admit it's hard to trust a guy who tried to kill me less than two weeks ago."

"You're right not to trust me," Barnes said. "I'll kill you all if it'll save Steve." Sam had not yet come up with a response to that when he continued, "I'll kill him if it will save him. I won't let them do this to him."

"This?" Sam repeated. There were at least three possibilities just off the top of his head; he wasn't sure which ones Barnes had enough self-awareness to mean--and he felt an urgent need to know what was going to count as a fate worse than death.

Barnes lifted his metal hand and spread the fingers. Sam felt a pang of pity, but Barnes said, "This is what people see, but this is nothing." He stared at the hand like he'd never seen it before, like it wasn't part of him. "Pain is bad, but pain passes." His eyes, pupils huge in the dim light, flicked up to meet Sam's. "I made myself forget things because it was worse to have them twisted. But some things I didn't forget in time, and only some of them are wrong, and I can't tell the difference." It was the most emotion Sam had ever heard in his voice. "I won't let that happen to him too. Do you understand?"

"I don't think so," Sam said. "Thank fucking God."

Barnes gave him the ghost of a smile, and Sam could have wept because he knew what Bucky Barnes was supposed to look like smiling; everyone had seen that film clip in elementary school. "You understand enough," Barnes said.

*

The next morning, Stark found a lead.

I'm really enjoying this and you are an angel for writing so fast!

I'm doing my best but right now I have to go to bed. :)

Oh god Bucky's speech. It's so subdued yet so powerful. <333

I love this story!

*hands you grapefruit peelings and a wet handful of teabags

Nomad was pleased that he got to walk to the truck by himself. He went handcuffed and surrounded by guards, and had to get into the cage at the end of the short trip, but that he walked on his own feet was a sign of his reliability.

Doctor Risman seemed edgy, worried or maybe irritated. He didn't like it. Knock it the hell off, he thought. It ain't good for 'em to see the captain like this. Then he frowned, because Doctor Risman was not a captain. He didn't think she was military at all, though she was his CO in every way that mattered.

Once he was in the cage, the guards piled boxes into the rest of the truck to hide him, and he sat down to wait.

*

The trip in the truck was long, interrupted only by a muffled conversation that he decided was a border crossing. Some hours later the truck stopped and was unloaded. Nomad's cage was transferred from the truck to the hold of a cargo airplane.

The flight was even longer. By the end of it he was painfully hungry.

*

The new facility looked a lot like the old one, down to being built to the same plan. Nomad thought that was pleasing efficiency, though of course there were different details, the result of people customizing in use.

Once he was settled in his quarters (the word "cell" drifted through his mind and he ignored it) he had to wait. (This life, you're either bored out of your skull or scared out of your mind. It ain't like in the pictures.) It was tempting to pace but he'd learned not to waste energy, especially when he was hungry. It had been hours more by the time he heard the tap of Doctor Risman's heels.

She stopped on the other side of the bars, flanked by guards. One of them held a tray; Nomad only realized his attention was fixed on it when Doctor Risman said, "Look at me."

"Sorry, ma'am," he said, annoyed with himself. His physical needs were less important than careful attention to his CO.

"That's all right," she said. "I understand, but I need you to focus first." She held a folder out to him through the bars. Nomad accepted it and flipped it open to reveal a black-and-white picture of a man. "Describe him."

"Caucasian male, mid-twenties, dark hair, eyes probably blue," Nomad said. "I can't tell you how tall he is without scale but proportion suggests above-average height. He's military, a specialist. Sniper. He's--"

Doctor Risman made a click of her tongue and he looked up. His heart sank at her disappointed expression. "Put that down," she told the guard with the tray, and the man did. "I don't know how long I'll be busy." She turned and walked off down the hall, her guards trailing her.

Nomad lasted almost an hour before he tried to reach the tray. It was three inches beyond his fingertips.

*

He was alone in a room with a man who was handcuffed to a bolt in the floor. Nomad couldn't tell for sure but he suspected the man was gagged under the bag that covered his head; he had said nothing coherent.

He loaded the pistol with the one round he'd been provided, and waited. Hunger clawed at him; he couldn't completely stop his hands from shaking.

"This man is a murderer," Doctor Risman's voice said. The hooded man's head shook. "Kill him. Then you can return to your quarters."

Nomad swallowed and forced himself to focus. "Ma'am, this seems very irregular."

"Sometimes unconventional methods are necessary," she replied. Her tone softened. "There will be a meal waiting for you in your quarters. Better to get this over with."

Nomad thumbed back the hammer. The prisoner made a strangled sound of fear. "Who did he kill?" Nomad asked.

"His second-in-command found out he was selling weapons," Doctor Risman said. "He killed her to keep her quiet."

Nomad said, "You have thirty seconds to make your peace with God." He counted them off silently. At thirty, he pulled the trigger.

Steeeeeeb, you're breakin my heart.

Author, you continue to surprise and delight with the frequency and quality of these updates.

i completely echo this sentiment.

a!a, you are ruthless in the best of ways.

The voices you've given all these characters are AMAZING. Each one is so true to who they are. The plot is heartbreaking, interaction is wonderful - this is just top-notch.

Dumpster #3: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

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