hydratrashmeme | The Big Bad Civil War Spoiler Thread a.k.a. The Extra Spoiled Trash

this is short and mostly focused on the aftermath; but i love this prompt and couldn't leave it alone! it deserves longer, trashier fills, too, though! we all deserve more memoir mocking and re-traumatizing violence, honestly.

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Steve finds him, after.

His right arm is still cuffed to the radiator pipes, bruises fading around the wrist; his metal arm rendered heavy and useless by one of their devices, hanging limply at his side. He’s kneeling in a pile of torn papers and smashed belongings - the sparse contents of his backpack and the backpack itself ripped to shreds. His notebooks are in tatters. They’ve ripped the sheets off his bed. Torn holes in the mattress.

How long he’s been kneeling like this, he can’t say - time has slowed to a strange trickle, every sight and sound and sensation reduced to static. An effect of the drugs, he thought at first. But no. Now the drugs are wearing off - strength returning to his muscles - and the world around him is still a slow, blurry mess.

It had been the water. They had poisoned his fucking water.

Months and months Bucky had spent afraid of this very scenario: afraid of tap water, unpackaged food, meals prepared by another person. Anything he couldn’t thoroughly inspect first, make one hundred percent sure was safe, secure, not a trap, not a trick. He had only recently gotten the courage to drink the apartment water on a regular basis. Because - for fuck’s sake, there was being careful and then there was being paranoid. He had thought, get it together, Barnes, come on - but he thought wrong.

He’d gone for a run the previous evening. Came back, made a thorough scan of the apartment, of his safeguards and locks. Had an innocent glass of water.

Within minutes his muscles felt like liquid. He had tried to make himself vomit, expel the drugs by any means necessary, but they were too fast-acting; by the time he realized what was happening, he could barely stand, and they were already on the scene, a dozen of them, swarming, everywhere.

Now, several hours later, their effects fading, he feels stupid. He weakly rattles the cuffs against the pipes. Pathetic, not even military grade. He could break through them in half a second, under any other circumstances. It’s laughable, he realizes, how little force it took to subdue him. (And laugh they had.)

How fucking foolish he had been, he realizes. To think he could have this life, for himself, by himself - and what kind of life has this been, anyway? Scribbling in notebooks and sleeping on the floor? Who was he kidding? Stupid, to think he could be a self at all, and not a thing, an object, a hole, a weapon, an arm, a myth. To let himself believe, even for a short while, that he was anything better than the filth they shaped him into - he should have known better than to get his hopes up, known better than to think the word hope at all. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He can tell there are sounds outside of him - frantic and low - Steve is saying something from where he stands frozen in the doorway. How long exactly has Steve been standing in the doorway? Bucky thinks he might hear his own name in there, somewhere, beyond the ringing in his ears, but he isn’t sure; he isn’t sure of anything.

He can’t reply anyway: his mouth is still stuffed with the torn pages of his notebooks, soaked with saliva and spilling out from his lips. He's drooling like a dumb animal. He could spit, he knows; just like the cuffs, he theoretically could could be free of them, very easily, any moment now. But he doesn’t. He’s too afraid of the noises he might make without a gag to hold them back.

Steve won’t shut up. He can’t tell what Steve’s saying, but he sure as hell won’t shut up, and it’s making Bucky nervous. He could spit out the papers and say stop, please, enough - but he’s done enough begging tonight. Bucky can’t even bring himself to look in Steve’s direction - his face is too humiliatingly slick with snot and come.

Tears too, probably, Bucky realizes with a fierce twist in his stomach. Crying is a stupid reflex he finds he can’t quite control these days - not unlike yelling, punching, jumping at the smallest of noises. Everything he’s read on the subject - about his outbursts, his flashbacks, his rages - has assured him that this is a normal traumatic response, amygdala going into overdrive. All to be expected. Still, it’s shameful when the littlest of inconveniences set him off: a wrong turn, misplaced keys, spilled milk. A cock down his throat.

Movement registers in his periphery and his heart jolts; the movement - Steve - gradually looms closer. Bucky feels small in Steve’s shadow and instinctively hunches in on himself. His legs shift ever so slightly in an attempt to cover up the damage, the drying blood and come all over his thighs. He’s not naked, not completely. His boxers are tangled somewhere between knees and ankles; his shirt - his favorite of the two he has - was shredded and torn to make way for abusing the skin underneath. Cloth still hangs in scraps around his body.

He’s cold, he realizes dimly. Or at least - he’s shivering all over. They could have at least turned on the fucking heater before leaving him chained to it.

Steve crouches before him, at what would be eye level if Bucky wasn’t fixated on a nick in the floorboards, several feet to his left. He can’t look Steve in the eye. The ringing in his ears becomes a roaring as Steve crowds in on him, too close, too close - he remembers their breath, their bodies, their odors, their cocks - one hand is lying gingerly on Bucky’s knee and - oh god it’s happening again please no please don’t please not now not here not here not here -

The hand is gripping his knee tighter now, and Bucky hears the syllables of his name, loud and frightening. No more, Bucky thinks. No more, you said it would be over, you said if I just came it would all -

A muffled whine escapes him, and a few scraps of paper flutter from his mouth to the floor. A few more stick in his throat. The hand leaves his leg in a flash and Bucky feels his thigh twitch shamefully at the loss of contact. Slut. Whore. Already ready to go again - and again - and -

The hand is reaching for his face now - no, two hands - maybe more - who knows how many, hands dragging him in his stupor across the cold floor, hands touching every ugly part of him, hands clutching and crumpling all his dirty secrets -

- And the hands are in his mouth, suddenly. He can’t quell the wave of terror and helplessness that washes over him at the violation. The fingers are gentle and slow, pulling the pieces of paper out one by one, but they’re going too deep, probing too close to his throat, and Bucky struggles against them, shaking his head - no no no I’ll be good I’ll be quiet I -

“ - don’t - “ he spits, choking and gagging. The remainder of the pages are on the floor before him, wet and scattered. His mouth still tastes like ink and blood and salt. His voice is raspy and hitched. “I - I can - I can - “

There are more soft noises in the vicinity - Steve is making soft noises, sounds that Bucky knows should be, could be soothing, but their proximity - Steve’s proximity, the proximity of hands and fists and strength please no - only makes his fear mount higher.

Steve’s hands are snapping the chain of the cuffs now, easily, and shame burns in Bucky’s gut. The hands remove the immobility device from his arm, too, and Bucky uses his newfound freedom to wrap both arms tight around his stomach. He wants to curl up on himself and lie down, wants to sleep and sleep and sleep and -

“Hey.” The soft noises - Steve’s words - are close enough now to permeate the static. Steve is very, very near to him, breath ghosting over Bucky’s cheek. Bucky closes his eyes, waits for the grip on his jaw, the cock across his cheek, the pressure on his windpipe. Not now not here no no no

Somewhere inside of him he knows this is Steve - this is Steve, for fuck’s sake - but the sweat and adrenaline in the air make his heart hammer faster and faster. This is Steve, here to help. This is Steve, who undid the cuffs and removed the obstruction from his mouth. This is Steve, whose body he knows, knows so well, knows isn’t like the others.

And yet -

“Buck, it’s - it’s over.” Steve’s voice is tight. “Hey. It’s all over now.”

Bucky still can’t bring himself to look up, but he can tell Steve genuinely believes what he’s saying - that’s it’s over. That it’s done.

“They're gone. Let’s - let's get you cleaned up, okay?”

You don’t get it, Bucky wants to say. They're never gone. It’ll never be over for me.

But he doesn’t say it; he doesn’t trust his voice and doesn’t trust Steve to understand. Instead, he nods shakily. He lets gravity take control of his used-up, tired body, lets gravity guide his fall against Steve’s chest, where he can go silent and limp once more.

Oh wow this is the saddest bucky headspace. <33333

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A+ job

Nnnnghhhh this gave me ALL THE FEELS. Poor Bucky bear :((((((

(Also, I think you did an amazing job of navigating the line in Bucky's head btwn triggerry mess and intact personality - that's soooo hard to do effectively.)

Thanks so much for writing this!!

(OP) Holy shit, this is perfect. You broke my heart a hundred different times. You depict Bucky as this compelling, brave survivor, who's taken the insane risk of just hoping he can have a life for himself, and then trying to build it -- his notebooks, his trauma research, his attempts to heal, his little apartment -- and it is so, so cruelly painful to watch what he's built get torn down. Like the bitter irony inherent in his courageously forcing himself to get over his paranoia so he can drink tap water like a real person, when that's the very fear that came true. God. And the way they destroyed his apartment and made him a gag from his shredded notebooks! fuck!!

The little details you drop about the rape itself are possibly more heartbreaking than any vivid rape scene. He's done enough begging for tonight -- and laugh they had -- you said it would be over if I just came -- wow. Also I absolutely love your portrayal of Bucky's traumatized, dissociated mindset. His self-hatred and the muted sounds and his uncontrollable fear reactions toward Steve all weave together into a powerfully evocative and real-seeming image of someone who's just been destroyed by a horrible attack. I could quote every line of Bucky's flashback-ridden terror and Steve tries to put him together, because every syllable was candy, but let's not make this comment a novel. Plus the image of him covered in tears, blood, and come, with the last shreds of clothing still on his body, chained to the radiator, flinching back from Steve's hands will be immortalized in my memory forever.

You don’t get it, Bucky wants to say. They're never gone. It’ll never be over for me.

An absolutely tragic ending, and here in the trash meme, 100% true.

Steve doesn't know what he expected.

Well, that's not entirely true. The building isn't ritzy, the neighborhood isn't great; Steve knows this kind of place because he spent the first 25 years of his life living in one. He expected small rooms, dodgy heating, dirty paint and faded floorboards, and he got that. What he didn't expect...

What he didn't expect was to be able to smell blood and sweat and come from the hallway. What he didn't expect was for the door to be unlocked. What he didn't expect was a room ripped to shreds, mattress stuffing and tatters of paper and fabric littering the floor like confetti in the streets on New Year's Day. What he didn't expect was Bucky, handcuffed to the radiator, his left arm hanging dead at his side, naked except for the remnants of a blue shirt and a pair of boxer shorts shoved down below his knees, kneeling in a huddle that he barely looks up from when Steve freezes in the doorway.

"Buck, what..." Steve starts, but his voice breaks and he has to clear his throat. "Bucky. Buck, do you remember me?"

Which is possibly the stupidest thing he could be asking right now, but he needs to know--not that it matters, because Bucky doesn't answer. He doesn't even turn to look in Steve's direction. Steve shakes himself and recovers enough to step inside and close the door behind him. In his ear, Sam says, "What's up, Cap?"

"I'm gonna stop transmitting," Steve says quietly. "Tell me if there's any movement."

"What?"

"Just give me a minute, Sam," Steve says, and clicks the switch that turns off voice-activation on the comms.

"Steve?" says Sam, and then, "I hope you know what you're doing."

Meanwhile Steve's looking around. The place is literally two rooms, and the bathroom's small enough to count only by courtesy of having a wall between it and the rest of the apartment. He'd be able to hear it if anyone were in there. Steve takes a breath. "Bucky, I need you to tell me if you're OK. If you know me. Bucky, can you hear me?"

Nothing. Steve sees the glint of Bucky's eyes, but he doesn't so much as blink out of rhythm. He's shivering, a fine, subtle tremor. Maybe he's drugged? But what could work on them? "OK, Buck, I'm gonna come over there, OK? It's just me. It's Steve. I'm just gonna come over and help." He takes a step in Bucky's direction and Bucky flinches.

Bucky flinches. The last time Steve saw him he was beating him to death, and now he's scared, and Steve's heart contracts in his chest in a way he hasn't felt since 1943. But he keeps moving, because Bucky needs help. The air smells like sex and blood and Steve doubts it's helping his reaction at all, but there's nothing for it.

It doesn't take many steps to cross the room, and Steve crouches, trying to look Bucky in the eye, but Bucky's staring at the floor and won't look up. And now that Steve can get a better view, Bucky's mouth is full of...paper? Scraps of paper, most of it written on. Steve sees one word, in Bucky's perfect Palmer script; it says rusted. His hand tightens, and only then does Steve become aware that it's lying on Bucky's knee. "Bucky," he says, louder than he should, and Bucky sways like he wants to move away and is afraid to. A whine, quickly cut off, forces its way around the paper. Steve snatches his hand back, but the paper at least is a problem he can fix.

Gently he braces Bucky's head with one hand, and with the other starts scooping the spit-wet shreds from Bucky's mouth, murmuring words he hopes are reassuring. Bucky still isn't reacting and Steve's terrified of what that might mean, but he doesn't get any more bad sounds so he persists until an overenthusiastic finger gets too close to the back of Bucky's mouth and he gags. "Don't," he says, his voice as thready as his pulse, rough and hitching. "I, I can--I can--" He pauses, spits another shred. Steve decides that that'll do; if Bucky's mouth is clear enough to talk, Steve isn't going to...

Steve isn't going to put anything else into Bucky's mouth, is what he settles on, because that way he can keep his voice and hands gentle and not go looking for anyone to kill. "OK, Buck, let me get this, huh?" Steve says. The handcuffs aren't especially sturdy; as far as he can tell they're standard law-enforcement types, and he can snap the chain with one hand. Bucky could have too, even with his metal arm out of commission, Steve is pretty sure, and the thought just rachets his anxiety up another notch. He pries the little blinking device away from Bucky's metal biceps and smashes it neatly under the edge of the shield.

And Bucky curls up, wrapping both his arms across his stomach. Steve leans into him helplessly, trying to offer support, but Bucky's still holding himself up. "Hey," Steve says quietly. "Buck, it's...it's over. Hey. It's all over now." Bucky still doesn't look up. Steve sets his hands carefully on Bucky's upper arms. Through his gloves they don't feel very different. "They're gone. Let's--let's get you cleaned up, OK?" he says helplessly.

Finally, finally, Bucky reacts, nodding. He slumps, letting Steve take his weight, and for a second Steve just holds him. Then he shifts them onto one of the undamaged part of the mattress and casts around for something, anything to cover Bucky with.

There's the remains of a sleeping bag. It seems relatively clean. Steve picks up the largest piece and wraps it around Bucky's shoulders. "Hold on, Bucky, I'm gonna get you a clean cloth," Steve says. Bucky nods again, still staring at the floor, and Steve goes into the bathroom.

While he's waiting for the tapwater to warm up, Steve clicks his comms back on. "Sam, anything?" he asks.

"Not so far," Sam says promptly. "What the hell's going on in there?"

"Bucky," Steve says, and grinds to a halt. "He's here. And...well, the good news is that...he can't have been in Vienna any time in the last day, not in the shape he's in."

"Is he OK?" Sam asks, his voice full of surprised alarm. Steve's drawing a breath to answer when Sam's tone sharpens and he says, "Oh, shit. Cap, we've got incoming."

Steve straightens and turns away from the sink, still clutching the wet washrag. Bucky's looking up at him now, at last, but he won't meet Steve's eyes, and Steve takes the long stride necessary to get within arm's reach again. "Buck, do you remember me?" Steve asks.

"I read about you in the museum," Bucky mumbles. Steve wipes off his face, quickly, and offers him the rag, but Bucky doesn't try to take it.

"I know you know me," he says, as calmly as he can. "We need to get out of here, right now."

"I don't," Bucky says, and then visibly starts over. "I don't do that kind of thing anymore."

"Here," Steve says, pressing the rag into Bucky's hand, which closes on it in a reflexive way that makes Steve's heart hurt. "Clean up, get dressed, because the men who think you did are coming right now and they're not planning to take you alive."

Bucky's mouth draws into something that might someday be a smile, and he says, "I don't have to be clean to fight." He drops the rag onto the floor and gets to his feet. Steve has a perfect view of the backs of his thighs, streaked with diluted blood, as he opens the door to the tiny closet.

Inside, folded with painful neatness, is one pair of dark bluejeans, one black t-shirt, and one dark red henley. Bucky hikes up his shorts and slides into the jeans. Steve casts around for shoes and finds them in the form of heavy boots, tumbled in the corner under one of the scraps of the sleeping bag. He tosses them over as Bucky pulls the red shirt over his head.

"They're on the roof, I'm compromised," Sam says.

"We have to get moving," Steve says. "Bucky--"

"I'm not coming with you," Bucky says, stamping his bare foot into one boot.

"Buck, let me help," Steve says, aware that his voice is slipping into pleading.

"Five seconds," says Sam.

"I'm not going to kill anyone," Bucky says, like he's making a promise as he's putting on his other boot.

"Three seconds!"

Bucky ties his second boot in a hasty knot and straightens, just as the first blow hits the apartment door with a thud. Steve turns to it, raising his shield.

*

Later, staring through the plexiglass of the tiny mobile prison, all Steve can think is that Bucky never got a chance to wash.

Jesus fucking Christ. This is perfection in every possible way.

Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no

... headcanon accepted.

(ugliest prey authoranon) U ANGEL I LOVE THIS HOLY SHIT. i am honored that u wrote such a wonderful and hearbreaking remix and brought the premise to new trashy levels above and beyond!

I'd like to post to AO3; do you mind if I link back to yours here for context?

(ayrt) go ahead!

Hi this was so sad I drew a picture: https://65.media.tumblr.com/ad723be3d1d8e9bf7d0379fd11d31fec/tumblr_o6ztn7S8V51tlgnspo1_1280.jpg

(authoranon)

oh my gosh (♡_♡) this is so so gorgeous!!!

this was too SAD so i drew something for this fill: https://65.media.tumblr.com/54ff0bc910f7f5c2a958b6f2bb9f4686/tumblr_o76ny78r9l1v1g6uoo1_1280.png

DA

I love how many art responses this fill is triggering! :D

(anotheranon) I LOVE U THANK U FOR THIS :*

Holy fucking fuck...
This is so intense I just can't.
I mean it's so well written and you can really melt away in Bucky's thoughts and jfc
Thank you so much! You deserve heaven for this sin!

The Big Bad Civil War Spoiler Thread a.k.a. The Extra Spoiled Trash

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