hydratrashmeme | Dumpster #4: I Don't See How That's a Party

Okay, kids, you know the drill. Don't be a jerk except to fictional characters. Warn if you want, but read at your own risk, because

hydratrashmeme is about as far from a safe space as you can get. Garbage we like: noncon, whump, aftermath, violence, mind control, inappropriate uses of Bucky Barnes' metal arm, bad guys doing dirtybadwrong things to your faves. Garbage you should find a different trashcan for: a/b/o, D/s-verse, soulbonds, mundane AUs, OOC evil!good guys doing dirtybadwrong things to your faves, rotting leftovers dressed up as a romantic gourmet meal. Nothing wrong with 'em, but this isn't the crowd you should be pitching to if you're trying to sell Brock Rumlow as anything but a human dumpster fire.

Link your fills on the fill post, post unprompted fills as replies to a header comment so the wall o' text is collapsible, and let me know if you're interested in helping out with the Pinboard archive.

[Rules in full] [Round 1] [Round 2] [Round 3] [Fill post] [Chatter post] [hydratrashmeme Pinboard archive (maintained by

greenkirtle)] [Round 4 in flat view (comments in non-threaded chronological order, most recent last)]

All prompts or fills that contain Infinity War spoilers must go on the Infinity War spoiler post until May 26th. Spoilers in the main dumpsters will be deleted.

Round 4 is closed; comments and fills in existing threads are still welcome, but all new prompts go to Round 5.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

omg I absolutely *adore* your Pierce and Rumlow. Rumlow's "I ain't a rapist" and Pierce's whole spiel about instrument/object and primary/secondary functions... DELISH

(A!A) Delish sounds good. And yes, Rumlow and Pierce are really working to convince Steve they're the good guys. They might even have convinced themselves.

But they're also being careful with how they present the information to Steve because history tells them that he'll throw all other considerations out the window for Bucky. He'd better be ready to believe the asset isn't Bucky or things will go wrong for them right quick.

Even if Steve does believe the asset isn't the real Bucky, getting Steve to go along with trash happening to a person with Bucky's face is going to be a challenge, because Steve will still be having that visceral response of thinking what if this were really Bucky. What would he do if this were the real Bucky, and not a simulacrum? Plus his innate sense of rightness and wrongness would be telling him that what's happening is very, very wrong, even if Pierce and Rumlow claim it's the only way to keep the asset under control.

And surely over time he's going to start to notice that it's not just the face that's the same. The body is the same, too. How could they have been able to reproduce every scar, freckle, and mole perfectly? Then he'll start doubting himself. Is he misremembering? Is this fake Bucky taking over his memory of the real one?

And what happens when they expose the asset to Steve? Sure, his brain's been repeatedly fried for the last 70 or so years, but Steve is so deeply rooted in Bucky's history, in his muscle memory, as well as his historical memory. For the asset to remain useful, his muscle memory must remain intact, and memories of Steve are in there, alongside the knives and rifles and grenade launchers. And Bucky has muscle memory of using the shield. We know this from CA:TFA and CA:TWS, where Bucky used the shield on the train and later the Winter Soldier used the shield in the fight on the bridge and roadways. The two of them know how to fight together as a seamless unit.

If there's one thing Hydra's got in spades, it's hubris, and any time Steve and Bucky are together it's bad news for Hydra.

I'm really looking forwards to where this goes next.

Bwahahahahaha!

Have you been reading my mind, anon?

Steve was trying not to look in the showers, but you are absolutely right. What they're telling him isn't okay and doesn't justify the asset's treatment no matter who or what the asset is.

No, I haven't been reading your mind, but I have been reading your writing. :-)

I've also read a few other Steve-meets-the-Winter-Soldier fics with various setups where Steve doesn't initially know that the Winter Soldier really is Bucky, so I may be drawing from that background a bit.

I really like how you're setting this up, and how reasonable you make Hydra's ideology and methods seem from the POVs of the characters promoting them. We as outsiders know it's not right, but the justifications are so, so seductive. The narrative also has certain overtones of the Stanford Prison Experiment, with the power dynamics involved. This kind of story serves as a much needed cautionary tale for us out in the real world.

Yes, you caught me. I've been reading ethics of torture too. I can not believe how many books there are that discuss torture and do not contain more than three uses of "sex-" or "rape". At least one book returned no results for either. Crazy!

Dumpster #4: I Don't See How That's a Party

Re: Fill 5/?: old round 3 prompt - Steve is one of the Asset's handlers

Re: Fill 5/?: old round 3 prompt - Steve is one of the Asset's handlers

Re: Fill 5/?: old round 3 prompt - Steve is one of the Asset's handlers

Re: Fill 5/?: old round 3 prompt - Steve is one of the Asset's handlers

Re: Fill 5/?: old round 3 prompt - Steve is one of the Asset's handlers

Re: Fill 5/?: old round 3 prompt - Steve is one of the Asset's handlers