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: The True Repairman Will Repair Man (13a/?)

[(Anonymous)]

At breakfast, Bucky puts his head down on the table. One moment, he’s stuffing a blueberry Eggo in his mouth, syrup smeared across his chin. The next, his head slumps onto the wood with a thud, and he stretches his arms out in front of him. Syrup transfers from his chin to the checkered tablecloth, and Steve winces, knowing Bucky will be mad at himself about it later.

Then it occurs to him that something might be wrong. Bucky looks all hollowed out. No bones, no muscles, no jokes.

So he jokes, “You should chew and swallow before taking a nap.”

Bucky grunts and raises his head a couple inches in the air. He glares. Blurry through the Eggo, he says, “Naps are a scam. You wake up still dead inside.”

“I can’t argue with that.” Steve shuts his eyes tight to take a long sip of juice. Country music drifts in from the living room radio. Bucky listens to a lot of country music these days, and a lot of it is angry.

“What’s up, Buck?”

“I don’t know, Doc. What’s up with you?”

“Oh. Well. You know how it is. Enjoying some Cheerios. Supporting the weight of my own head instead of going to sleep at the table. Not much.”

Bucky makes a show of chewing and swallowing now, treating Steve to the sight of his jaw snapping open and shut, full of mashed-up food. He washes it all down with scalding coffee that makes his nose scrunch.

“I’m not asleep. I’m concerned.”

“Tell me.”

“Concerned about you.”

Steve pushes his Cheerios away. “So tell me. I can take it.”

Bucky grabs the bowl and steals a metal handful of Cheerios. He inspects them as he asks, “Are you still afraid?” Nimbly, he places two Cheerios on his tongue.

“I’m Captain America. I’m not afraid of anything.”

“You’re thinking of Sam. Sam Wilson. And he’s afraid of crawling bugs and, huh, the Loch Ness Monster, he said. Are you still afraid? And don’t fucking try to get out of it. I promise I know about getting out of things.”

“Yes, Bucky. I’m afraid. I’m afraid when you say that sex is supposed to involve looking like a ghost of yourself. That doesn’t fill me with confidence.”

“About me not leaving you if I need.” He stuffs the rest of the handful in his mouth; it’s not enough to make his cheeks bulge, but he bulges them anyway. For comic effect? He looks sweet that way.

“Yeah, well, I guess.” It doesn’t fit. Not quite right. But Steve hasn’t put a lot of thought into being afraid of anything else. It’s the same thing he’s always been afraid of in different ways. Trapping Bucky.

But when he thought Bucky wouldn’t dare leave him because he was small and sick and would maybe die alone, well. As much as people talked about him like he was still-twitching roadkill, he was actually plenty resilient and fine alone. But if he would die left to his own devices, that wasn’t something he could control at all. There’s so much more that he can control these days.

Not that being powerless has ever made him feel any less guilty. He tears a piece off of Bucky’s waffle and puts it on his own tongue. His fingers are covered in syrup now too.

Bucky looks at him for a long time. His chin is lifted as if in challenge, but his eyes are soft. Without looking anywhere else, he reaches up and pushes a bobby pin more securely into the mass of curls on his head. Then he puckers his mouth tight before smoothing it into a smile and asking, “Am I your whole life?”

“Excuse me?”

“Okay, so maybe that’s what you’re afraid of. And that’s your problem to fix, not mine.”

This would be easier if he looked smug. But he looks so tired. He looks like he means all of it and wishes he didn’t.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You afraid of me not leaving you, or of you not leaving me, huh, Steve?”

“Why the fuck would I need to leave you? I wouldn’t do that.”

“And why the hell would I need to leave you! Fuck. You think I have to have a contingency plan, but nothing could ever hurt you. So you let me be your whole life. Because how the hell could that go wrong?” He pokes at the tablecloth. “And does syrup stain?”

“I think things can hurt me.” He makes himself smile. “I could get stained by syrup.”

“Not funny.” He pokes the syrup again, then rubs his thumb and forefinger together, growling at the sensation. “I’ll wash it anyway.”

“It’s a little funny.”

Bucky flings a Cheerio at his forehead. It stings, and Steve rubs the spot it hit, frowning. He pulls the bowl back and hunkers down, holding it close to his chest. He wants to say something else funny, but he can’t. Bucky’s afraid, and that’s what he’s been trying to avoid.

He says, “Buck, please,” which is completely useless.

Bucky, always a more useful person, says, “Sorry, but please, sweetheart. Please just try to—Make a friend. Make more art. Talk to the people on the internet who like the fucking goat minerals.” He pauses and pokes his tongue into his cheek, looking like he wants to make a joke about goat-fucking but knows it isn’t appropriate.

Knock-knock. Who’s there? Baa, baa. Baa, baa who? Baa, baa, fuck-goat, give my dick a pull. Yes, sir, yes sir—

Slowly, like a mollusk, he slips his tongue down back where it belongs, flicking it out of his mouth for a second. “Hell, go play Ultimate Frisbee.” He breaks out into the most real smile Steve’s seen on him in ages, squinty and irrepressible. Then it’s gone. “I don’t understand what you do all day. And that’s terrifying.”

“Excuse me, I work. I have a job. And I eat. And I do draw things. Sometimes I go for walks. I go see Sam.” He imagines himself listing things forever, trying to make himself sound more and more legitimate. I inhale oxygen. I go to sleep most nights. I wear shoes.

Bucky stretches his mouth out to one side and squints. “You draw? You doodle, yeah. But you don’t get invested in any shit.”

“I’m invested in—” He stops, because it’s obvious how that sentence ends.

“Me. Yeah. No shit. I love you, and no shit.”

“I could paint a trash can.”

“You said they’re all painted.”

“So I’ll paint over one. Who’s gonna stop me?” No one would stop Steve Rogers, but possibly someone will stop Stewart Roberts. That’s okay. Getting fined for defacing public property would count as doing something with his life.

“I won’t. I don’t want to stop you. You want me to.”

“I want you to?”

“Yeah, you want me to, and I don’t want to. I want you to do things you’ll love. I love you.” For no clear reason, he picks up the waffle remaining on his plate and wipes it on his face, leaving a huge patch of syrup. He says, “Fuck.”

“I love you.” Steve wants to lick the syrup off Bucky’s face. Bucky probably wants him to lick the syrup off his face.

He doesn’t lick any syrup off of anything. Not even the tablecloth. Not even his own fingers (Bucky tries to do it for him, but Steve tenses up and kisses him stickily on the forehead and goes to wash his hands).



Is it crazy to lie awake until the middle of the night, then get up, gather some art supplies, and sneak out of the house? Yes. Is he crazy? Probably. His head always hurts with the weight and density of everything stuffed in there and buzzing around. Maybe Natasha’s right, and he should lie down on a couch and let himself get hypnotized. He can talk about sex, and terror, and his head, and how he has no life.

There’s a moment, as Steve’s exchanging his pajama bottoms for sweatpants with deep pockets, when Bucky seems to wake. He snuffles like a toddler getting a cold and rolls onto his side, and slits open his eyes. He says, “What’s it?”

And Steve jumps a couple inches off the ground and pulls the sweatpants all the way up. He whispers, “Hey, it’s okay,” and wipes his palms on his thighs only to learn that they aren’t sweating. “We’re okay. I’ll be back.”

“We’re okay?” Bucky frowns. His eyes are closing again. “It’s all good.” And he face-plants, stretching his arms in front of him in a sleep-heavy impression of Superman.

“Buck?”

“Shhh. Sleepin’.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He waits until the bedroom door clicks shut behind him to add, “Sleep tight,” like a prayer.

As he’s in his office, transferring unopened paints and brushes to a canvas shopping tote, he contemplates going out the window instead of the front door. Solely to complete the ridiculous sensation of being a teenager sneaking out to meet his bad influence boyfriend. It’s something he never got to do, Bucky being the one with the bad influence boyfriend, and the one whose parents were always home at night.

But he’s only a certain amount stupid, and using a window as a point of egress is horrible for security. Bucky, if he found out, would pale and start hiding knives up his sleeves again for reasons having nothing to do with sex. So he steps out the front door, beneath a full moon bundled in clouds.

It never gets less disconcerting, the surplus of greenery in this town. Hedges delineate their property from the sidewalk, and the whole way up the street, he’s accompanied by overhanging trees. Rich shadows, the sounds of bugs, one hand death-gripping the handle of the tote over his shoulder, the other rubbing at his beard. Scratching, until he notices what he’s doing and makes himself stop.

He’s sneaking out to set his good influence boyfriend’s mind at ease. Bucky will call if he wakes up again and finds Steve gone. Maybe. Maybe he’ll just panic. Something rustles next to Steve and he puts his shoulders back, almost gets his fists up, but realizes in a second that it must be an animal of some kind. Only an animal. He stops to text Bucky, stepped out for fresh air, and hopes the sound on his phone is turned off.

The street lamp overhanging the trash can has a burned-out bulb. But between the moonlight’s effort and his night vision, it’s no problem at all.

The past few days, it’s been gnawing at him, the idea of painting over another artist’s work. And for selfish reasons, too. But not really selfish—after all, he hates how exposed he feels standing here. He’s doing it for Bucky, regardless of how crazy that might be.

And it isn’t a masterpiece, exactly, that he’s about to deface. Only swathes of green and purple, and some punctuation smiley faces here and there. He’s seen cans around town with intricate murals of landscapes and giraffes.

Should the difference matter? He thinks of Rothko, then snorts and says, too loud in the night, “Jesus. Way to minimize a genius, you enormous fuck-up.”

And he crouches down, and gets his materials out, and swallows his guilt, and starts working.



Later in the morning, Bucky rolls over and checks his phone. “‘Stepped out for fresh air,’” he reads aloud. “Oh yeah? Must be in two places at once then, ‘cause I see you in my bed, buddy.”

“My bed.” Steve’s feeling dried-out and flattened. Like he just got back inside, though he knows it must have been hours of fitful sleep. He attempts to bury himself beneath his pillow.

“Oh, really? Arm wrestle for it.”

“No, I’ll pass. Take the bed. Take the kingdom.”

Bucky snuggles up to his side, jabbing his face into Steve’s shoulder and sighing and overlapping their legs. He says, “You doing okay?”

“Of course.”

“Steppin’ out for fresh air help?”

“Well, of course. It does wonders for my asthma.”



At first, he stands blocking the front door, arms straight out to his sides like he’s being made to hold up two stacks of Bibles. The doorknob prods at his ass and the wood is hard behind his head.

Bucky swaggers toward him. He’s smiling with one eye half-lidded. A pin-prick sensation marches its way up Steve’s neck, and he stops leering in an affectionate kind of way and drops his arms and steps smoothly to the side.

The door’s unguarded; they can both leave whenever they want.

But Bucky catches him around the waist, right arm pressing into what little soft flesh he has left and dragging him closer, so that their bodies are perpendicular, and bits of each of them knock up into the door. He puts his face against Steve’s neck. He says, “A tenth of a penny for your thoughts?”

“Not even a ha’penny?”

“Bargain with me, sure. You’ll get a piece of pocket lint for your thoughts and that’s the end of that story.”

“You drive a hard bargain there.”

“I drive a hard a lot of stuff.” His teeth graze Steve’s throat. He pokes at Steve’s clavicle with his tongue. Little, quick gestures, and Steve can’t help but put his arms around him and squeeze. He lowers the right, but leaves the left, sliding up and down Bucky’s ribs.

“Sure,” he says. “Uh, Hey. I want to tell you what route to take to class.”

Bucky licks at his clavicle more obnoxiously, and Steve smushes the heel of his hand into his face, though not hard enough to budge him. “Is this a sex thing?”

“Why would it be a sex thing?”

“I don’t know. I think it would make a good sex thing. Why else do you wanna do it?”

“Because I’m a control freak with zero sex appeal. Come on. Humor me a little.”

Bucky lets him go. He leans back against the door now, lounges there, an arm curving across the top of his head, the veins at his wrist green and pronounced. He says, “I’m always humoring you, honey. I’m a humorous man.”

“Knock-knock,” Steve says in a high voice. “Who’s there? Oh, it’s me! Captain America!”

Bucky bursts out laughing. “See? It’s a great joke.”

Steve kicks at his shin. “I want to tell you where to walk, and I want you to walk there. And I want you to send me a picture.”

“Of me walking?”

“No. You’ll know what. But I do want you in the picture too. If you want.”

“Nothing about this has zero sex appeal.”

“I don’t get you.” He puts his fingertips to Bucky’s jaw, to the dense curl of his beard. Watches as his eyelids flutter and his lips jerk apart.

“Of course you do. You get me. I get you. You get pocket lint. I get your thoughts.” He laughs. “Tell me, okay? But don’t make me late, I swear to god.”

Ten minutes after they kiss goodbye, Bucky texts him, what the fuck is this. Then, ???

Steve resumes the push-ups he’s been doing on the living room floor, working through the warmth gushing through his chest. Then he pauses, wishing he was out of breath. Can I help you?

He’s expecting a selfie, with the kind of careful angling that Bucky’s perfected. What he gets appears to have been taken by a stranger, a landscape shot with all of Bucky’s goofy, half-smiling face and his pressed-and-ironed body crouching, right hand making a V sign by his head. And beside him: the trash can, featuring a painting of two air conditioners getting united in holy matrimony. Both wearing the upper halves of tuxedos, a suggestion of stained glass in the background, and hovering between them, two golden rings.

It’s not his best work. It is more than a doodle.

Bucky texts him, What’s wrong with you? I love you. I do.

Steve texts back, I stepped out for some fresh air.

A printed version of the photo ends up on the refrigerator, held by a magnet from the farmers’ market.