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.

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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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Things get hectic when Tony calls Wakanda for clearance. The entire affair gets more complicated, and worse, until he finally convinces the Furry-King to ask James Barnes if he wants another HYDRA free option besides over-riding the command preventing him from killing himself. Oh, and Tony has his backpack to give back. Tony isn't sure which bit of information has them agreeing, but he is given clearance.

Surprisingly, and there is a LOT of sarcasm there, Stevie's Bucky hadn't told them that part of the current standing orders in his head had been a huge part in keeping him alive no matter his own personal desires. Tony was shocked. Utterly shocked. Also utterly annoyed that Captain Murderously Perfect spent the last half hour of Tony's approach trying to bark questions.

For a brilliant tactician, the man was a moron when it came to dealing with the modern political climate, the social media game- and most especially, Tony. Not so perfect after all. Hollow victory as the man was currently brow beating him about invading "Bucky's" privacy.

Which was rich because they all knew if Tony handed Steve the bags that (the poor bastard called) "Bucky" would be dealing with a Steve that had read all the shit cover to cover.

So when Tony gets off the plane, it is with his suit all whisked away in the quinjet, the backpack on his chest and his arms through the straps, and the case for the BARF unit in both of his hands.

There is even more back and forth about being searched, and having the bag searched. And even more Mr. Asshole Perfect Teeth- which yes the fact dear old 'Bucky' was also annoyed at his perfect teeth made Tony a little more able to stare the man down without following the desire to lash out. Betrayal was the least of the problems Tony had with Mr. Exhibit A in Tony's own private Daddy Issues collection. The fact that Tony had thought they had overcome some of that shit, only to have it thrown in his face, was just- extra icing on the fuck you pile.

Tony was without caffeine so without the little things- this nightmareish blur of back and forth bullshit would likely end in fight. Well a physical fight.

Tony wished he had waited for the NiteNiteCap tranqs.

And then, there was James Barnes. Tony expected a residual flare of rage. Or an active one like Captain Jackass still pulled from him by breathing let alone opening his somehow traitorous and still sanctimonious pie hole.

Tony might maybe be doing less awesome on that not heading towards a fight thing than he wanted, but he might maybe be slightly manic right now. To be fair.

"So I respect the slam poet you are way too much to call you a shit name like Bucky unless you insist on the webcam name, in which case I will just go with nicknames based on it. Because I can't actually say Bucky without thinking of a pornstar or some kid with beaver teeth."

James Barnes looked startled, followed quickly by a bemused smile then an expressive shrug. "Call me anything but Asset, and we're fine."

"James it is!" Tony said easily, and Steven the wonder puppy looked startled and confused, and in the background Tony saw a Redhead. He would bet money on Hawkass being on a balcony somewhere. Tony took far too much glee in teaching them all to, as an old timer would put it, suck eggs. "James, I am a huge fan of your way with words. Don't worry, I got like six poems in and decided I'd wait for you to choose which ones to publish. I even have a goodie bag crown in this box that can remove HYDRA from your mind. A little, like just the words. A lot like most of the stuff that inspired you to write those early poems. The ability to just orbital bombard anything that touches HYDRA and anything that ever made you feel less in your memories and make it all a done by a clone or something, retain your training but none of the rest. Or you could Nuke it from orbit. Just remove everything after the Train, or after you got drafted, or anything you want, really. I also brought everything from your bag. I swapped it in Germany before they had more than a chance to peek. SO I think I'm your only fan. Think we can go sit down- somewhere comfy maybe?"

James blinked, eyes widening but after a bit, a tentative hopeful look coming to them, softening them and making him look painfully young.

Tony hated pushing 50 when a 28-30 year old made him feel this old. Steve started to say something, starting with "Bucky I don't-" and Tony just couldn't deal with Steven I-Know-Better Rogers fucking over James's head.

"Rogers, let the grown man make his own decisions for once in over 70 years, why don't you? Seriously. He didn't sign up for you to be his caretaker or his drill sergeant." Of course that didn't go over well, and Captain Ego began to inflate for a battle.

Watching Steve deflate like a balloon when James interjected "Steve, I want to hear this, and I don't want none of your tryin to sway me. We talked about this." was worth forgiving James. Okay no, it wasn't if he had done the things- but he hadn't, HYDRA had so it was just tasty to witness. Though Tony was extremely curious what the hell James had talked with Steve about that made Steve do that not quite blanch, not quite fluster.

"You have got to teach me that. Actually no- if I have to deal with Captain Sassypants before I finish undoing the damage he managed to cause with going so far off the rails on the Accords, it means something has gone direly wrong. And by then you come as a package set I think so you can just do that for us all. No stirring speeches for why oversight, especially that was already in the works to be amended and modified to protect our individual rights including to privacy, is so intolerable. Just you verbally jabbing him." Tony babbled, and James hooked his single flesh arm over his waist, a scowl on his brows.

"I appreciate frustration with Stevie bein' pig headed, but that is still my best friend." is said without overt anger, but a hint of steel there. It bodes well. Tony can't make the decision for Bucky. But he can hope.

The rest of the morning goes about like that, CANDIELAND programming and interface being discussed in depth with the aid of a girl that makes Tony feel like his father must have when Tony would do things he would swear were two technology leaps away.

Like he was standing in the past and watching the future unfold.

He could see why it frustrated Howard. For Tony, it just made him want to shower her with money and SI contracts and steal her away to his labs to have sweet sweet science with. It was a shame she was a princess and had a lab Tony would drool over if he had more time.

By shame, he means he wants to keep in contact with her and get her to publish some more papers. The world needs more minds like hers. Surprisingly, or not, James holds his own when it comes to looking over the formulas for some of the readouts and blueprints. It is incredible how his mind makes leaps in mathematics. The on the fly caclulations he does for his sniping are one thing- this is a thing of beauty to see. "Okay, so you have at least 4 things you can do besides fighting now- Slam Poetry, Modeling, Math pretty much anything, and full time ex-Avengers wrangler."

There is an odd look but more bemusement, which overall is better than stone faces or anger or upset or hurt. So Tony is counting it as a win. Is it a win? Whatever. Yay James bonding time. Now to get rid of his fretting Blonde Shadow.

Tony winds up being there besides Shuri as James puts on the unit. They won't know what he's going to do with his own mind until he pulls it off. All they can do, is be there if something goes wrong.

Tony doesn't let himself fully think about being there if James chooses the nuke all feature. It's a more peaceful way to die than a bullet, but Tony doesn't want to make weapons anymore. But if anyone deserves all the options... it's this man.

It powers up, and Tony hopes he is right.

He hopes James is more like him than Steve. If given an option to cut the wire, he cuts it, instead of laying across it. He hopes he is right, and Bucky isn't actually craving death- he's craving autonomy and freedom. In the end- that's all Tony can do now. Hope.

It never feels like enough.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Author is choosing to leave it at the BARF being used- but what Bucky uses it for is up to the reader.
HOWEVER I am also writing a follow up piece to be posted here and on AO3 for this, where Bucky takes off the BARF and shows Tony a more recent page in his notebooks where Bucky has already come to realize a lot of things, including that he doesn't want to die, and that while he did horrible things, dying won't fix any of them, the same as fighting won't. But living might be a way to honor those that died. And a really excellent way to spit in Pierce and Lukin and Zola's eyes.

OP: Yay! It's finished! (I'll keep my eyes open for the coda, but no pressure--this more than stands on its own).

Bucky being annoyed about Steve's perfect teeth amuses me way more than it should because Seb Stan has a distractingly white set of teeth as well so ... you have no room to talk, Bucky XD

"Like he was standing in the past and watching the future unfold." --Love this bit.

I like where you have Tony here--the earth-shattering revelations that he's had haven't humbled him, but they've given him the perspective needed to keep from lashing out again. A lesser writer would have given him a personality overhaul at this point, but this feels like an organic progression from where he's been in previous chapters and true to his canon personality (my read of it, anyway).

"'I appreciate frustration with Stevie bein' pig headed, but that is still my best friend.' is said without overt anger, but a hint of steel there."--Thanks for this concession to my sappy little heart :) I get that a lot people who are into Winteriron don't have the most positive view of Bucky and Steve's relationship or of Steve's character (and I respectfully disagree with their interpretation but that's a whole other discussion), so I hope you didn't feel pressured by my yammering to add something to this fill that you weren't keen on.

It's been a ride reading this chapter by chapter as it was written--and it's amazing that you were able to crank this out in just a few days (I'd have finished, like, three sentences by this point). Again, thank you so much for this (and for putting up with me) <3 <3 <3

Oooh <3 thanks=

As to the teeth- Steve had less jaw space preserum, he probably had some snaggle teeth. And Bucky was in love with every part of Steve, including his imperfections. The serum making him perfect health is something he can't be mad at. The SIZE of the man, and the PERFECT TEETH he can focus on instead. On missing the man that wasn't perfect, but was perfectly Steve- and thus comforting and treasured. That entry was using that shorthand in Bucky's head.

Wow- thanks- Doing this from Tony's perspective means, especially for Tony delving into emotions, a certain amount of mania and mental self defenses is going to be a result. Tony has humor as a deflection and self defense. He processes emotions differently, and for every step forward he tangos a dozen to the side and stumbles back to roughly center in spurts. He is at least owning the fact that Steve doing Steve's own thing is probably less an issue than Tony's projecting onto Steve Obie and all his Daddy issues and the whole never meet your heroes thing.

I really wanted to dive into him and have him tell his perspective- but by doing that, that means all his layers of distancing and the glimpses of him under that distancing. He's growing, evolving, he's just struggling with how he can integrate that growth.

Honestly I didn't change a single thing. I think Bucky IS frustrated with Steve very often. I think he loves him absolutely and completely. I also think that in this particular verse, while Bucky has recovered so much, and he uses BARF to undo a LOT of damage, Steve and Bucky are in different places. Have different needs now. Bucky needs to be needed, so I could see him with Steve but I think it wouldn't be super healthy, or he might maybe be with Tony- but again, not super healthy. I think Tony and Bucky *do* develop a friendship after this. I see them swapping favorite sci-fi and fantasy novel reqs.

I am so glad it's been a good ride! <3

NA: I just wanna say I really enjoyed this whole thing, watersports notwithstanding. It's uncommon to get to find Tony written so equitably in post-CW, pro-Bucky fic and I especially liked the fact that he didn't have a personality shift after changing his mind, as you mentioned...because changing your mind about something, even something major, doesn't have to mean changing who you are and how you operate.

I think you nailed his narcissism (I noticed everything he says gets written out as dialogue, while others' words are more often described instead), mania, mannerisms, and irreverent humor while keeping him reasonably sympathetic. That's a fine line to walk and I think you navigated it very well in this fic.

And Bucky...poor Bucky. What you have in his journals closely mirrors my own headcanons of their contents. Snippets of memory, both vague and precise. Images of people he killed. A whole lot of "I want to die," and a lot of Steve angst too.

Bravo! I'm looking forward to the epilogue!

Yeah- the watersports was a surprise to me too. The joys of typing into the reply box on a kinkmeme, the subconscious sprawls out like some sort of lesser demon across the page. I have no clue what will crawl out- only what I edit it into when I reread and tweak it.

TBH Tony voice is generally quick to flow out if hit and miss on execution. I take myself into the moment, crank narcissism to 11, slap on male socialization and every flavor of privilege over it before I go full mania with depreciating humor + ptsd sprinkles and record what I can of the results. Part of why I chose to write it from his POV was I thought I could do the material the best justice that way- just the entries didn't feel impactful enough without the ability to see it affecting someone- and it'd wreck Steve forever.

Bucky voice fluctuates, but generally I can capture it with enough build up. Punk skinny Steve I can, sometimes sidle up to sideways and clobber into submission. Everyone else? It's a mystery.

So, having you pick up on a lot of the little techniques and bits I used to try to capture the rolling storm that is Tony's brain, makes my day.

A lot of my time as a writer is spent going "everything except this line/mechanic here is trash" when I re-read my own works. So to have the mechanics I was most proud of, (Specifically here, word choices and interactions kept in focus vs what he zones out for) not only be noticed but have it verified that they work for others? Oh, yeah. I am still a little giddy over this fill and these comments.

Thank you so much, and I do hope you enjoy the slight edits to the fill as it goes up on AO3, probably when finals are done in 3 weeks. Sooner if I lose my damn mind. (Aka take on an editing project when I have 4 classes in the air)

First of all, I'm incredibly grateful to the prompter and the author, because reading Bucky's notebooks has been a fic dream of mine since CW came out. At that time, I prompted about it, but nobody ever picked it up, so I'm glad someone did now.

Second, you did an amazing job with it. It was painful to read, and it made me feel sick and cry at some points, which is exactly what I'd want of something like this. I love everything about Bucky's writings, and I also love your Tony. I think he is consistent and realistic with the character. One thing I particularly like is that he compares his own torture with Bucky's, this is one of my favorite tropes regarding those two. I also

Awesome job, and please post the link here if you put it on AO3 so I can save it! :D

OP: Thanks for the thanks ;) Good to know that I'm not the only one who's been unable to find fics that incorporate the actual content of Bucky's notebooks.

AA loves your comment and wishes so much to know what you also- I think the highlight and type demon visited you, and that makes me wish so much to know what else you were going to say.

As I struggle with characterization sometimes- and my writing self esteem in general, literally hearing what I did well makes me squirm and want to write more. Thank you.

It'll be posted to Trashytime over on AO3 <3 thank you so much. Comments like this revitalize me.

LOL, I don't even know? I think it's just the same I also as before... but while we're here I forgot to mention my love for Bucky referring to piss as water (and there's a weird sentence if I ever wrote one).

You have nothing to worry about, your writing is great!

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

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