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.

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[Fill] "Out Damned Spot" Post-Hydra Bucky acts like a prude [2/3]

[(Anonymous)]

Steve isn’t sure why he agreed to bring Bucky along for a visit to New York.

Maybe it’s because Tony’s been pleading for Steve to stop by for months now, ever since he started remodeling his tower to have suites for all the Avengers. Maybe it’s because Steve figures Bucky can only benefit from spending time in a building with an AI who can perfectly control what he’ll be able to see on television or tablets. Maybe he’s hoping that seeing Tony might spark memories of Howard, and the person Bucky was before he fell.

“Bucky’s having a hard time adjusting,” he’d warned Tony when he accepted the invitation. “It bothers him, how different things are now.”

“So he’s even more old timey than you?” Tony had asked. “Sounds like fun.”

“I’m serious, Tony. It really upsets him, how...open society is about everything.” That struck Steve as a better way of describing it than saying that Bucky was acting like somebody’s puritanical maiden aunt. “Just...watch what you say around him, would you? For me?”

“Don’t be myself,” Tony had said. “Aye-aye, Captain.”

Things go well for about the first minute of their visit. Tony doesn’t spout off any nicknames or smart remarks—though it looks like it pains him not to—and if Bucky recognizes the AC/DC logo on Tony’s T-shirt, he doesn’t say anything rude, despite having spent most of the ride to New York complaining that everything on the radio these days is vulgar and awful. The introductions to Tony and Pepper go off without a hitch. Bucky’s much shyer than he ever used to be, but he’s kind. He can hold a conversation.

At least, until Tony brings them into a sitting room where Natasha and Clint are having drinks, and Bucky’s face goes stony.

He’s glaring at Nat and Steve’s heart starts to pound. The sight of her must have triggered his Soldier conditioning. He’s remembering either the fight in DC or the mission outside Odessa, and either way, Steve braces himself for a fight, getting ready to dive on Bucky if he even shifts his weight wrong.

“And Bucky, this is Natasha,” Pepper’s saying.

Nat stands up. She’s smiling. Steve wonders if Bucky can see the subtle guarding in her stance. “Hi,” she says. “It’s nice to meet you without a gun.”

Bucky’s voice is like ice. “Aren’t you cold?”

Steve double takes. He’d expected Bucky to try and strangle her. To throw her through the coffee table or tear a painting from the wall to bludgeon her with. The last thing he’d anticipated was that Bucky would glare at her as if she were shit on his shoes because she’s wearing a tank top.

A tank top that doesn’t show a thing below the collarbones.

Nat’s smile doesn’t falter, but her voice is noticeably cooler as she replies, “I’m fine, thanks.”

“I—” Steve begins, stammering. He has no idea what to say, but he has to say something, has to apologize. “He didn’t mean—”

“I’m taking our bags to our room.” Face coloring, Bucky turns around. “The computer can tell me where it is.” Then he’s stalking off without another word.

“I’m sorry.” Steve can’t keep himself from rambling on. “Nat, we’re still working on how he talks to people—he—I’m sure he didn’t mean to—”

“You don’t have to apologize for him,” she says. “I’m a big girl, Steve, I can handle myself.”

But she stares at the elevator Bucky slipped into, and Steve can’t read the look on her face.

*

Steve manages to coax Bucky out of their suite and into a game of cards with the others.

Well, coax is one word for it. Guilt is probably more accurate, given how Steve had ended up snapping, “Yes, Bucky, ‘that woman’ is going to be there, and for someone who’s so keen to live like it’s still the thirties, you’ve sure forgotten how to treat a lady.”

Bucky had actually flinched at that, and there was a pang of remorse in Steve’s gut. But better he hear it now than end up seriously offending someone. Bucky can’t keep projecting his own hang-ups onto everybody else; if he doesn’t learn to get along, he’ll never get any better.

And anyway, it turned out for the best. Bucky might keep blushing and averting his eyes whenever he looks Nat’s way, but he’s not being outwardly rude to her now. And he’s actually interacting with people instead of stomping off to sulk on his own or rant at Steve about how gross the world is these days. It turns out that he’s forgotten how to play poker, so Steve scoots his chair closer to teach him, and the game continues without issue.

For a while, at least.

Bucky’s poker face is better than it ever was, any tension left from the initial introductions has ebbed away, and everyone’s fallen into an easy silence, content to let Tony ramble on about his recent experiences at some sort of engineering conference.

“—just walks up and slaps me across the face,” Tony’s saying. “And at this point I don’t know if I’d passed on funding her project at some point of if she’s a former fling that I’ve forgotten—”

Bucky shoves back with enough force to shift the table. He’s on his feet in a second, his cheeks almost glowing.

“What’s wrong?” Clint asks, bewildered.

“I’m leaving,” is all Bucky says. And granted, that’s better than a lecture about the immorality of casual sex or whatever Tony said to work him up, but that doesn’t make the incredulous stares that Tony and Clint are now directing at Steve any less uncomfortable.

“Damn,” Tony says. “And I thought you were a boy scout.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Steve says. He’s flushing as well now, excusing himself from the table.

Nat stops him before he can reach the elevator. “We need to talk.”

“I know. Believe me, I’ll talk to him. I thought he was doing better than this or I wouldn’t have agreed to come, Nat, I swear.”

“Steve.” She places a hand on his arm, looking concerned more than angry. “Has Bucky talked to you at all about his time with HYDRA?”

“HYDRA?” What’s HYDRA got to do with anything? Rumlow never met a dirty joke he wouldn’t repeat; it’s not as if they’d train their asset to lecture the teams for their filthy mouths. “I—bits and pieces, I didn’t want to pry into that before he was ready. Why?”

“I don’t know what he was like before,” Nat says. “But from the way you’ve talked about him, I’m guessing it wasn’t like this. And I could be wrong—I hope I am—but it’s possible that he’s acting this way because he was sexually abused.”

“What?” A choked laugh forces its way out of Steve’s throat, although there’s nothing funny about the suggestion. But...there’s just no way. It’s not possible. Bucky would have told him. And not even HYDRA would stoop so low, would they? “Nat, no. That didn’t happen. It couldn’t.”

“Things like that happened in the Red Room.” She knows just how to steel her face and voice so that Steve can’t tell if it’s an admission of personal trauma or a generality. “It’s one of the most effective ways to break someone’s spirit. Or for certain kinds of people to amuse themselves.”

“He’s not afraid of sex,” Steve protests. He can see how Nat would get that impression, having only seen Bucky storm off. But Steve’s heard him go on and on like a stereotypical old maid. “You haven’t seen as much of him as I have. I know how it looks, but it’s not a trauma thing. It just bothers him that society’s changed so much, that’s all.”

But Nat doesn’t look like he’s convinced her, and the explanation sounds rushed and weak to his own ears. “Trauma doesn’t always manifest the same way,” she says. “Like I said, I hope I’m wrong. But has he talked to anyone? He needs to, even if it’s nothing to do with that.”

“I know.” Steve presses the button for the elevator. “Believe me, I’m working on it.”

But now he can’t shake the nagging feeling that he’s been coming at this completely the wrong way.