Dumpster #3: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

[trashmod]

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 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.

Comments

FILL: Let the Water Hold Me Down 2/4

[(Anonymous)]

A week passed quietly. Jim got two full nights’ sleep and watched five of the six Star Wars movies. Then he tried an experiment, and went out running before bed at a flat sprint for as long as he could—which turned out to be much longer than he would have expected, but he was in good shape.

Tiring himself out worked, in that when he woke up from a bad dream at quarter to three (one of the horrible creeping ones in which nothing obviously bad happened but he knew he’d messed up and it was only a matter of time) Jim actually managed to fall asleep again. The problem was that he dropped into a nightmare and it was very bad. It was the worst. It was holding a woman down as she screamed and struggled, telling her it didn’t matter, no one was coming to save her, fucking her brutally as the hand of his prosthetic tightened gradually on her throat so that the last thing she felt before she passed out was his orgasm, and almost better than the physical pleasure was the knowledge that he’d carried out his orders correctly, that he wouldn’t be punished, and Jim barely made it to the bathroom before he vomited.

He leaned on the bathtub in the pre-dawn—Tally nosed him in the side making small worried noises and he lifted her into his lap—wondering if he should call off work. If he didn’t go to the store, he just knew Steph would try to do too much; she always did when he wasn’t there. The woman didn’t have the sense God gave a carrot, which he suspected was the product of growing up with a single father who had to work a lot to keep himself and his daughter fed and clothed. Steph was used to having to get by on her own, only more so since her dad had died her sophomore year of college, and didn’t seem to understand that she didn’t have to anymore.

Finally he sighed and got up to rinse his mouth out.

*

“For God’s sake, Jim, what crawled up your ass and died?” Steph demanded, her hands on her hips.

Jim let out a gusty sigh and leaned his forehead into the shelf. He could smell the books, the scent of old paper that made him think of hushed rooms and wooden cabinets with dozens of drawers. “I had a bad night last night,” he muttered, ashamed. Bad night or not he shouldn’t be taking it out on her. “I have...bad dreams sometimes, and then I don’t sleep right.”

He heard her take a few steps toward him and her tone was much softer when she said, “You didn’t have to come in. I’d understand.”

He braced his hands on the next shelf down and turned enough to see her with one eye. “Who’s gonna keep you out of trouble if I’m not here, Grant?”

She rolled her eyes but a reluctant smile twitched at her lips. “Like you could stop me, Buchanan.”

“Y’know, before I met you I didn’t have to check every damn alley I passed to make sure you weren’t gettin’ beat up in it,” Jim said lightly, though for some reason that didn’t seem quite right.

“My hero,” Steph said in the same tone. “Just for that, I’m buying lunch.” The smile died and she went on seriously, “Is it...do you think you’re remembering something?”

Jim laughed, though he had a feeling it would have sounded more sincere if he’d just said ha ha and been done with it. “Pardon my French, but I really fucking hope not.”

*

After lunch Jim went to sit behind the counter while Steph ran the books in the office. (Steph cursed a lot when she was doing accounts; Jim tried not to find it cute.) He felt strange, a little disconnected, and it was hard to concentrate; he was flipping through a collection of old comic books he’d found in their latest shipment, and though he wondered if the comics writers had honestly thought the Army would let a sixteen-year-old hang around in an active goddamn war zone he wasn’t really following the story. Some nurse had gotten kidnapped, and that was about all he had.

He was reading the same page for the fourth time, trying to tease meaning out of it, when he caught movement in the corner of his eye. Distant alarm ran through him like a current—no one should be able to get that close to him without being noticed. He dropped out of the chair and swept the metal arm into his attacker’s shins; she went down with a startled squeak and he lunged, grabbed her before she could hit the floor, and wrenched her arm up behind her back so she was pinned to his chest. She was slippery, but strength to strength she couldn’t match him—

The top of her head was blond, and he frowned; he’d expected red, though he didn’t know why. Then she looked up, her blue eyes wide and terrified, and Jim let go of Steph like she was white-hot and stumbled back until he hit the counter. He yanked his hands up between them like he could fend her off, or protect her. "Oh God," he choked, feeling his gorge rise. Steph took a step towards him and he flinched. She froze.

"OK," Steph said slowly. "What the hell just happened?"

"I'm sorry," he said desperately. "I'm so sorry, I didn't—are you all right? Steve, tell me I didn't hurt you—"

"I'm fine!" she exclaimed. "Jim, I'm OK, look." She held her hands out. Her wrists looked delicate, fragile. "See? Not even a bruise."

His legs wouldn't hold him and he sat down hard. "Just...just give me a minute and I'll get out," he said. He couldn't look up. "I'll, you can just, I won't come back, I promise."

Steph knelt in front of him and he tried to curl away, to not touch her. She ducked her head to meet his eyes. "James Buchanan, that is the stupidest thing I ever heard," she said seriously.

"Don't be—I could have killed you!"

"Well, next time I'll know not to sneak up on the combat vet when he's distracted, won't I?"

Jim blinked. Steph shrugged and said, "It makes sense. You have a prosthetic arm and some really good reflexes there, and if you had some head trauma..."

He swallowed. "That's all the more reason for me to stay away. What if I lose it again?" He took a deep breath. "I'm not safe, Steph."

She drew a breath and let it out sharply. "OK. How about you go home, and we'll talk about it tomorrow. You'll feel better once you've had some sleep."

He let her chivvy him up, let her extract a promise that he would come back in the morning; he didn't have to stay. He walked home instead of risking the confines of the bus, where someone else might touch him when he wasn't expecting it.

Tally was delighted to see him earlier than usual and twined around his ankles until he gave up and scooped her into his arms so he wouldn't trip over her, and he fed her and ate and watched a movie, though afterwards he couldn't have named it at gunpoint, much less described the plot.

When it got late enough he went to bed, but he didn't dare sleep.

*

"What it boils down to is, now I know I have to be a little more careful, and so do you," Steph said. They were in the office, which meant Jim was much closer to her than he felt comfortable with. The Sorry, we stepped out sign was on the front door.

"You don't understand," Jim said. "I didn't even know who you were for a second there."

"Yes, and you still didn't hurt me," she said, implacable. Jim thought despairingly that he should have known better than to let her talk to him again; she had no sense of self-preservation and she could talk him into anything.

"But I could have," he said, and even he could hear it was weak.

"But you didn't," Steph said. "That is the only thing that matters, Jim. You didn't hurt me, and you won't."

"There's no way for you to know that."

"Sure there is. It's you." She grinned at him, wide and reckless, and Jim couldn't decide if he wanted to throw his hands in the air or kiss her.

"Stephie," he groaned.

"No point in arguing, Buchanan, it's settled. Now as I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted: do you think we need a part-timer around here?"

Jim sat back and put his hands over his face. "I'd feel better if you had someone with you in the evenings," he said in defeat.

Re: FILL: Let the Water Hold Me Down 2/4

[(Anonymous)]

Bless your beautiful trashy heart. This is lovely, and I adored the comic book Bucky references.

Re: FILL: Let the Water Hold Me Down 2/4

[(Anonymous)]

Steve, tell me I didn't hurt you—

This is so good I can't even handle it.