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

[trashmod]

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.

Comments

FILL: Daybreak part 5/? Re: Identity Porn in captivity

[(Anonymous)]

A/N: Yeah, so ... the bullet-point outline alone is 3500 words of pain. There's a planned, partially outlined sequel (with bonus Very Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms because recovery stories are my thing). It's kind of out of control. It's going to get uglier.
Anyway, here's the next chapter of Terrible Things Happen to Steve "It's Not as Bad as it Looks" Rogers and the Winter Soldier Doesn't Realize That Terrible Things are Also Happening to Him.
*
The Soldier slept fitfully. Typically, sleep was a binary state for him: he was either conscious or unconscious, and his cognizance of either was moot. Dreams had occurred in the past, but not frequently and not vividly. Not with clarity. Not enough to interfere with his task: to recharge to a satisfactory degree for further use. The cocktail of drugs that the lab technicians pumped into him every night ensured that.

The details began to bleed away from him almost as soon as he woke, an exothermic reaction to the familiar stimuli of the lab that left him cold with the blankness of his mind. The last detail he held onto, clinging as though he could dig his nails into his brain and hook it in place, was a fuzzy face, framed by scraps of torn metal and disappearing almost as quickly as it had appeared.

He waited for someone to notice that he was awake before he sat up, taking stock of his body in a way that normally either didn’t occur to him or he was deliberately careful to avoid. He observed enough to report damage to his handlers, then he shut it out again.

His penis was chafed. It was barely a blip on his radar, all things considered, an easily ignored discomfort, but the awareness of it slithered through him, greasy and heavy. His nightly rounds caused this sometimes, but not so acutely, and he knew why.

If this was what he’d done to himself, what state was Rogers in?

It didn’t matter. Not really. He’d never considered that side of the equation before, or it had been a while if he ever had. Of course, he’d never sat with his victims before, never learned their names and absorbed the sound of their voices with pleasure.

Never had a victim like Rogers.

He’d seen him three times now. Would they send him back in again? As the lamb or as the wolf?

It had been different last night, not just because he was ruining him again so soon after the first time, but the simple continuity. This was a recurring mission; he would visit him, dismantle him, as many times as it took, with whatever method he was told to employ. Starting his work with that knowledge hanging over him had agitated him, left him uncertain, and he’d taken that out on Rogers in exactly the way he’d been ordered: a perfect target, a vessel for his fulminant confusion. He couldn’t look at the man by the time he’d left. But it would be different. He would be in control again, and the more he learned, the less unsure he would be.

He was careful in his obedience, quick to respond and execute all commands he was given. He needed to be allowed to eat before he was brought to Rogers. If he appeared hungry, Rogers might want to feed him again, and being so close to the man was a distraction that he would perform better without.

He hid the relief that filled him when he was presented with a tray and told that he had five minutes.

Something in him had woken, something complex and unwieldy. The smells of the lab were sharper, the buzzing of the lights more prominent, the bland, nutrient-dense mass of food slightly less tasteless than usual. His skin prickled.

He used his five minutes of meal time and the ten of lab maintenance that followed to slip back under the surface, into the ebbing dark water, to be carried back out with the tide. By the time he was prepared and being shoved back into the room, his mind was as barren as a Siberian winter. He went totally limp as he hit the floor, going down hard and waiting for the door to close before he rolled to the side and maneuvered himself against the wall.

He didn’t look at Rogers right away, instead closing his eyes and breathing carefully into the silence between them. When he finally did, Rogers was staring at him with patient, naked interest. He was sitting up, but being careful to lean his weight onto his hip as much as he could, one leg bent behind him for support, trying to hide it to mixed results. It was hard to say whether the Soldier noticed because it was obvious or because he was looking for it, searching for evidence of what he’d done -- proof of the charade of Rogers’ wholeness and the Soldier’s innocence -- but if the only noticeable effect was that he had trouble sitting for a few days, he’d gotten off better than the Soldier might have feared.

Not feared. No. He wasn’t worried about Rogers. He just didn’t want to accidentally kill the man. Killing him wasn’t the mission. Killing him at this interval might mean consequences for the Soldier.

The smells had gotten stronger. In a few days, they’d be overwhelming. Would he be expected to comment, if he hadn’t been the one to put them there? Would it be strange not to notice? Is that what someone else in this position would do? Probably not. Was it unsympathetic to not ask? He thought about the times his arm had been damaged, the vulnerability and pain, and that raw feeling that filled his chest when the technicians addressed it, handled it. Acknowledging those places was like flayed skin exposed to air, drying and burning, a comparison he was certainly qualified to make.

He didn’t comment.

“Sorry I haven’t tidied up,” Rogers finally said. “Wasn’t expecting company.”

He narrowed his eyes. He’d heard dark humor among the agents and scientists, heard it enough to recognize when it was intended to provoke laughter, sometimes even to provoke laughter from him when agents grew disturbed by his stillness, but it had always struck a sour note that made his fingers itch to practice with his knife. He’d thought humor was outside his parameters, something he’d shed in his evolution process if he’d ever had it to begin with. Humor had no place in the Winter Soldier’s arsenal.

But Rogers smiled, lips quirked to one side just like the awkward cant of his hips, joking about his own degradation while he was still crooked from it; and there wasn’t anything funnier about that than the jokes he hadn’t laughed at before, but in this hopeless, powerless situation, it startled a quick, rusty laugh out of him.

It was the power, he realized dimly. The agents were powerful, mocking the weak, always. Rogers had no power, the butt of his own joke. The Soldier was somewhere in between, a gray place he occupied alone where he was simultaneously a force of nature capable of striking them down at any moment and a lackey unable to act under his own power. Sometimes they looked at him like a caged, fanged animal, some even like he was nitroglycerin, a thing to be handled with wariness and avoided whenever possible. But that wasn’t apt. He was a gun with no bullets until someone filled him up with potential and aimed him, a powerful tool in their armory capable of one thing only.

And Rogers was making jokes.

“Did you sleep?” It was a stupid question, a stupid thing to want to know, but an irrational part of him that he fiercely guarded was stuck on his broken dreams, how he could trace them back to his meeting with Rogers. It couldn’t be possible that he’d been affected more by their encounters than Rogers had. That made no sense. He’d been unharmed.

Rogers’ eyebrows twitched. “Dunno. Maybe.” He shifted, crossing his arms over his chest and pressing his shoulders harder into the wall. “I’ve slept worse places, though.”

That surprised the Soldier. His existence was far from enviable, but he was aware, at least, that it was far from typical. He was a unique beast, in unique circumstances. He knew that his perspective had skewed his bar for suffering very high, but it wasn’t lost on him that for most people, this would be beyond their worst nightmare. He was built for this. But there was a brightness in Rogers that fascinated the Soldier, an untouchable quality that seemed incongruous with all the ways he had certainly been touched so far. It was a far cry from the darkness that enveloped the Soldier.

What could Rogers have known that was worse than this?

He didn’t really want to know.

“Good,” he said.

The lights blinked out again.

Rogers sighed. “They’ve been doing that a while. Must be fans of the classics.”

The Soldier kept the smile from his mouth even though Rogers couldn’t see him. It wasn’t surprising that the purpose of the irregular lights hadn’t been lost on him. It was fairly standard.

“What do you suppose they want with you?” he ventured. It seemed reasonable enough. More reasonable than What will they do with you once they get what they want?

“No idea,” Rogers answered, a smooth lie. “But I know it’s no coincidence they’ve got us tossed in here together. They’re expecting something out of it.”

It seemed unwise to follow up on that observation. Instead, he asked, “Where are you from, then?”

The chains rattled. “Brooklyn. Ever been there?”

“Don’t think so,” he said, slow and uncertain. “That’s in New York?”

“Yeah. Just that you sound a little like a New Yorker.”

Shit. He must have been copying Rogers’ speech patterns. When he replayed their conversations, he realized that Rogers did have an accent discernible beyond “American”.

“Watched a lot of movies,” he covered.

“Yeah? Me, too. Trying to catch up. You could say I’ve been busy.”

Listening to him talk about time was a strange sensation; the Soldier felt ancient, and Rogers looked so achingly young.

The chains rattled again, and the Soldier thought Rogers might have given into temptation and lay down.

“City’s changed. Brighter. Louder. Coffee everywhere. Course, there’s always been lots of of people, so that’s not new.”

The Soldier leaned into his shoulder to rub away an itch from his nose, wishing his hands were free. “Not a people person?”

Rogers made a considering sound, a low note of thought. “I like people fine. Some more than others. Never been a social butterfly, though."

“You seem pretty friendly.”

“Thanks for noticing.” His voice hardened, a sardonic note lacing through it. “Hard to stand on formality in circumstances like this.”