So I decided to post the first part of this because I'm kind of a slow writer, and having it posted is going to motivate me to write faster.
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It's the flowers that give it away. Steve likes to keep flowers around their apartment, for painting and because his ma used to like them. Bucky likes to care for them. He's working his way up to a dog, now they don't have to worry about another mouth to feed, but doesn't trust himself enough to care for a living thing just yet.
The sunflowers on the center table are on the floor, the vase broken. Steve would never leave them there, and there is nothing that could have made them fall.
Not too long ago, his senses would have been immediately on edge as soon as he entered a room. But he's grown lazy, soft (careless). He's coming home from class, and it's a Thursday. The sun is shining and he has bought strawberries to welcome Steve home with a pie. It takes him 2.63 seconds to react.
It's enough time for them to disable his left arm. It's a new one, Stark technology, but still metal and wires, and still susceptible to electric currents in just the right place, just the right intensity. It hurts, the aftershocks running straight through him as the groceries fall to the floor, and he has to resort to the place inside his brain he thought he wouldn't need anymore to help him ignore the pain and fight. They know what they are doing, though, shoot him with something and he only has time to punch two of them away before he's swaying on his feet.
Bucky doesn't think a lot of time has passed when he wakes up, but he is face down on the couch, his wrists bound behind his back and his ankles shackled to a spreader bar. Oh. They're not here to kill him. Or at least not immediately. Still, he thinks, maybe this is just the way they devised to keep him immobilized. Maybe they don't really mean to...
He can hear them moving about the apartment. He tries to pull against the restraints, but it's good stuff, HYDRA, of course, and his limbs still feel sluggish, his brain fuzzy.
"Hey, boss, he's up", someone says. Bucky recognizes the voice, though he doesn't remember the man's name: an agent from the STRIKE team, one of Rumlow's. Bucky tries to turn his head in the direction the man spoke, because it can't be Rumlow, Rumlow is dead.
ANOTHER FILL: A house is not a home (1/?)
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It's the flowers that give it away. Steve likes to keep flowers around their apartment, for painting and because his ma used to like them. Bucky likes to care for them. He's working his way up to a dog, now they don't have to worry about another mouth to feed, but doesn't trust himself enough to care for a living thing just yet.
The sunflowers on the center table are on the floor, the vase broken. Steve would never leave them there, and there is nothing that could have made them fall.
Not too long ago, his senses would have been immediately on edge as soon as he entered a room. But he's grown lazy, soft (careless). He's coming home from class, and it's a Thursday. The sun is shining and he has bought strawberries to welcome Steve home with a pie. It takes him 2.63 seconds to react.
It's enough time for them to disable his left arm. It's a new one, Stark technology, but still metal and wires, and still susceptible to electric currents in just the right place, just the right intensity. It hurts, the aftershocks running straight through him as the groceries fall to the floor, and he has to resort to the place inside his brain he thought he wouldn't need anymore to help him ignore the pain and fight. They know what they are doing, though, shoot him with something and he only has time to punch two of them away before he's swaying on his feet.
Bucky doesn't think a lot of time has passed when he wakes up, but he is face down on the couch, his wrists bound behind his back and his ankles shackled to a spreader bar. Oh. They're not here to kill him. Or at least not immediately. Still, he thinks, maybe this is just the way they devised to keep him immobilized. Maybe they don't really mean to...
He can hear them moving about the apartment. He tries to pull against the restraints, but it's good stuff, HYDRA, of course, and his limbs still feel sluggish, his brain fuzzy.
"Hey, boss, he's up", someone says. Bucky recognizes the voice, though he doesn't remember the man's name: an agent from the STRIKE team, one of Rumlow's. Bucky tries to turn his head in the direction the man spoke, because it can't be Rumlow, Rumlow is dead.
It's not Rumlow.