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

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

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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.

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I want to die

I want to die and I can't harm the Asset willingly

I want to die

I deserve to die

Steve- I died in that pit
- I died a little more every time my hands moved under their orders-

Steve, I died but my body kept moving and all I feel is grief

Steve all I feel is horror and shame and fear and terror and

What if they come back?

What if they own me again?

What if I don't hide long enough?

I can't forget- But God, I want to.

I want your God, any god, anyone, to take this all out of me- I don't care how.

Break me-

as long as nothing else can use me

I don't care the cost

Steve I don't care what it takes

I can't

Can't ever kneel again.

I can't do- feel- be-

Steve I can't.

I wish I done died in th alley behind tha club
when I was first hookin'

when I first cut off pieces of me

I didn't have enough pieces of me left by the time they had me

Uncle Sam took em

I traded em off

I buried them a corpse at a time

a friend at a time

a spray of blood and missing smile at a time

A blast of blue a whistle of fire an explosion and the feel of dirt and blood and teeth raining on my helmet-

Steve- when I was marched into Azzano- when I was first taken prisoner

all I wanted was to go home

Steve I don't have a home

I can't

Steve- I love you

I have always loved you

But I hate you

I hate that I followed you

I hate what I became before they ever gave me an order

I hate that I can look back an alla the
I gave in I gave in I chose to give up
it'sallmyfault

I can't live cause all of me died a dozen years before I ever was in Kraut hands

Just too damn dumb to fall till they hung me up and pulled the wounds open

Steve- I dreamed of the chair, of the lightning-
and I longed for it

I don't want to be
~~alone alive here~~ anything anymore.

Tony leaned back, rubbing his hands over his jaw and working on breathing. Everything felt heavy. "Fuck, James, you are one sad, fucked up kid and none of this was- you never stood a chance. But emotions don't follow logic's rules. Fuck." Tony scrubbed at his face, rubbing his eyes and his nose, breathing as he flipped through more pages of slam poetry, sparse and flowing repetitions on the theme.

A man who had seen too many horrors trying to grapple with guilt and pain and suffering that could all be taken away with a few Russian words. Where every day was survival not because he chose it, but because he had no choice but stop hiding and be taken to be used again, or keep going. Zemo blew that out of the water.

Tony's skin tingled, he breathed some more- focusing on how the hair moved into his lungs, swirling and back out. Grounding to keep breathing. He lost track of time, flipping the notebook closed as a choice. There wasn't a single page that didn't have writing. And there were quite literally a dozen notebooks. This was James heart and mind and soul laid bare, Tony didn't need to take that from him.

Tony held the notebook, cheap and flimsy. Tearing and crinkling where it had been gripped too hard. Some pages wrinkled from water, others partially crumpled. Ragged. Stained and yet cared for. The wire had been bent. Crushed a few times, but carefully fixed, bent back into shape.

For as awful as the words were inside the spiral bound notebook, the spike gave Tony hope. A man who can show that much care to something like this, inanimate and ultimately disposable, might be able to find another way. Find a way to cut the wire.

"Boss, CANDIELAND is ready, a BARF unit with it programmed is ready in the lab. NiteNiteCap is estimated at another 12 hours." Tony listened to Friday, holding the notebook as delicately as any unstable material in the lab, while he stood to bring it over to the backpack and it's brothers.

Tony's voice was a hair thick as he asked "So, flight time from here to Wakanda, and time there when we would arrive, departure now?" "If you take the Quinjet, your time of arrival would be 9am local time in Wakanda." Tony nodded and slid the notebook into the bag, zipping it up. "Well, get clearances and all that jazz. Cap will just have to put on his big boy pants without assistance." Tony picked the bag up and carried it going down to the lab to inspect the headset assembly, before packing it in it's own case, and setting the case and the backpack into one of the special padded retrieval cases he had designed for carrying samples or artifacts when flying as Iron Man.

Tony was probably doing a million things wrong, but He had nearly enough on Thunderpants to get him ousted, and the changes to the accords were well in motion. This- takes priority.

Tony flew, and on the plane, he rested. He even slept, and if he woke up with a start, crying, no one was there to see. No one was there. And Tony was going to make sure James- didn't have to do that. Wake up haunted. Alone, for all that people are crowded around him.

He didn't read the other note-books, but he can bet James feels the same way, the same way Tony did, does, always will. At least Tony can do this. Offer this. Then he will go finish cleaning up house and preparing the world for the real war he knows is coming. And James- can rest. One way or another. On his own agency. With his own hand on the wheel.

OP: It really says something about how overwhelming all of the chapters are that the easiest journal entry to read is the one that's basically Bucky saying that he wants to die over and over again. :'(

About the Bucky being programmed not to injure himself- I have this hc that HYDRA wanted their Asset to function something like the I, Robot robots but with the three laws in a different order: 1. Complete its objectives, 2. never harm its handler and protect them at all costs (unless that conflicts with 1.), and never harm itself (unless that conflicts with 1. or 2.). Just my random take on that which this fill happens to fit with.

I've always put Bucky's not having killed himself pre-CW mostly down to inner strength and also down to Steve's existence being tangible proof that he did have a life before and therefore might have one again, but oh, the idea that Bucky simply was not able to end his own life but wanted to ... mmm that's top-shelf angst that hits me so hard every time I see it in fic.

"Steve- I love you/I have always loved you/But I hate you/I hate that I followed you"--Argh, this just breaks my Stucky heart in the best way.

Holy shit, just one more chapter!

YAY! I am glad- in a way, I tried to hint, through Tony's observations, that Bucky is saying he wants to die, more because he is overwhelmed with grief and all the trauma he has experienced and can't see another path.

BARF is a phaser from Star Trek- it can stun him. It can do field operations. It can double as a welder... it can fix his brain so all the words have no effect- and he has autonomy. It can remove the memories whole hog. It can remove the PTSD flashbacks. It can remove Bucky and everything that came after, can remove Steve and give him a fantastic life, with all of the skills and none of the trauma- where he lived with his sisters and fell from the train a hero and trained with HYDRA but his clone went on missions and it was never once him on them.

Or it can kill him. Reduce him to a child and walk away. Flatline himself. Nuke his own brain.

And Tony is taking this to him, and will explain just how to work it. He will give it to him, and hope, that when given an option besides kill me with fire before they use me to set another fire...

Bucky will take it.

The world has Steve to fall on the wire. And to Tony it sounds like Bucky, deep inside, is done falling on wires. He is done being used.

He is saying Kill me- and that he wants to die, as a final fuck you. (From what Tony reads.... and yeah okay, the author so headcanons. But I also see Bucky hitting the nuke without pause or hesitation. And I also see Bucky saying fuckit and going back and living out that life of having a clone. And I also see him just- going back to being 13, before he ever made the choice to do whatever it took for Steve to see one more sunrise. Just- erase himself, and let kid him wake up in a world of wonder. )

Okay don't hold me to it- but I may do a coda to this- maybe. Like an Author's porn folder Id fic, because I am re-reading copperbadge and that asshole just makes me endlessly optimistic, so maybe- if it won't ruin the fun, I might do a piece with Bucky taking off the BARF and showing Tony a specific passage in one of the most recent notebooks, where Bucky had managed to find his own healing already.... Tony just gave him the tools to ensure his own safety, to undo the very worst of it...

Fuck I am halfway to writing this...
Damnit I don't have time to beta this shit... *headdesks endlessly*

That wouldn't ruin the fun at all! The ending for Bucky that always appealed to me most personally is something like what you describe, where he's able to find what he needs within himself and is the one doing most of the heavy lifting, but there's also outside help to mitigate the very worst (of course in my head that also means Steve always being there for him in some capacity because I am an inveterate sap who loves those two so much and can't see Bucky ever erasing their relationship no matter what that would mean for him ;P). But wherever you chose to go if you do add that coda is fine by me.

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

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