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 14a/15 Re: Identity Porn in captivity

[(Anonymous)]

A/N: So because this story has grown and changed and unfolded differently at certain points since I started it, this part has been through several incarnations. What I had initially written no longer worked after some key developments. I've gone back and forth a lot, as a result. It's been very tricky. You ever just reach that point where you can't stare at it anymore so you decide to let it go? So here we are, the penultimate section.
--

I can give you information, Buck.

Steve’s voice bounced around his skull from the moment he woke in the lab. Once again, the Soldier had all the power, and Steve still seemed to get the upper hand. The Soldier wondered how long Steve had been sitting on that one. On the one hand, he’d clearly been wise to their plan from the beginning, which at least explained why they’d gotten exactly nowhere with it. But they had to have anticipated that that’s how he would react to it, that he wouldn’t really reveal anything useful, so why even bother with that tactic? They’d said themselves that they knew he was smart and difficult to deceive.

On the other hand, how long had he been convinced of his absurd connection to the Soldier? If he was so smart, why was he falling for that one? This organization’s reach went very deep. If there was information to use against someone, they’d find it. They’d know about this … Sergeant Barnes and his connection to Captain Rogers -- Captain America, Rumlow had called him that once, that seemed important -- and could easily turn that to their advantage. For all the Soldier knew, they’d changed his appearance to look like this man somewhere along the way. Maybe this wasn’t even his face. Steve had to have considered that.

A bizarre, errant thought crossed his mind as he backtracked and tried to decide when this experiment had gone off the rails. When Rogers had helped him piss, he’d looked -- not stared, not really, but he’d definitely been filing something away. Steve hadn’t really answered his question about whether or not he and this Barnes guy had fucked, but if the certainty with which he’d blown him had been any indication … maybe he thought he’d recognized him. That was ridiculous, of course. Who’d recognize their old friend’s penis in a situation like that? The man had had other pressing concerns on his mind.

But if he was already looking out for similarities -- and based on some of the more leading questions Steve had asked that hadn’t meant much at the time, he’d probably been searching for them all along -- then it was just one more, wasn’t it? And if they’d been lovers, then it wasn’t so outlandish a way to recognize someone, was it? But not the kind of thing that would be faked like a face could be. Steve would have thought of that. He was certain of it.

But a dick was a dick, really. They weren’t that special. It was a pretty shaky thing to base a theory on, at any rate, no matter how well you thought you knew someone.

And the rest … This had happened before, when he’d been out of cryo for long enough. It didn’t mean that Rogers’ words had affected him. It just meant that he was getting antsy. Rogers was wrong. It was tragic, really. A tragic misunderstanding, a befitting end for a tragic situation.

The knowing looks followed him back to the lab, through his exam, training, all the way to his rounds. He was so desperate to find the line where they would be satisfied, and it seemed they kept moving it. Snippets of conversation filtered through the building. He gathered that something big was going to happen soon. Someone named Fury seemed to be causing a lot of headaches for them and would need to be eliminated, and they were frustrated that the Soldier wasn’t available to deal with him, frustrated that something seemed to be taking too long.

Compromised. They’d called him compromised. He could it admit it. He was compromised. But why hadn’t they wiped him yet, then? He had no way of remembering their protocols where he was concerned, but he was certain he’d been wiped regularly before they’d begun using him as their prisoner-wrangler. He knew the cons: that it was lengthy and time-consuming, involved a large number of specialized personnel, and rendered him completely useless for some time to recover before he could do what they needed. Useless for certain missions, period, with no capacity for subtlety and limited thought. When they’d started sending him out at night to deal with their prisoners, he’d already been kept busy enough gearing up for whatever their grand plan was that they hadn’t wanted to use that time for maintenance procedures. Maybe it was sloppy and ill-advised, but it had worked well enough until they’d sicced him on Captain Steve Rogers.

That look reappeared outside the round room, the look and an ugly smirk. The Soldier didn’t give it much thought. He was used to sneering, contemptuous faces, reminders of the lowly status he occupied for people too confident in his submissiveness to be terrified of what he could do to them.

His eyes slipped closed as he crossed the threshold, remembering Steve’s back against his, what it meant. That full body contact, firm and warm and freely given.

Freely given to Bucky Barnes, a man who wasn’t there. Never to the Soldier. Rogers was delusional.

The expanse of his back was fully defenseless as usual when the Soldier’s eyes opened, frozen in place by the door while he considered how he would need to do this and convinced his feet to move. Miles of naked skin dirty as ever, shoulders awkwardly forced back and up, filthy hair falling across his vulnerable neck --

His hair. The Soldier could see his hair. There was no hood.

Steve was shifting restlessly, trying to turn around now that the door had opened, but with his arms up like that, he couldn’t see behind him.

“’Bout time,” Steve was saying. It was bitten off and tense, but it wasn’t frightened.

Hearing his voice like this was so jarringly out of place that it took him a second to react. He ran over and slapped his hand over Steve’s mouth anyway, wrapped his other arm around his neck and squeezed, pressed his forehead into the back of Steve’s head to keep him still. Steve struggled, weak but energized with opportunity and purpose. He tried to turn around, to throw his body weight forward and drag the Soldier with him, to twist any way he could, but eventually he went slack. It was difficult to fake true unconsciousness, though, and the Soldier hung on until he could tell that it was genuine.

His heart hammered in his ears as he checked that Steve was still breathing, relief flooding through him as light breaths ghosted over the back of his hand.

It was possible that someone had screwed up, that they hadn’t meant to expose him. But he remembered the look the guard had given him, and he didn’t think so. This was intentional. They wanted this finished. This was the beginning of the end. They wanted Steve to know the truth, and there could only be one reason for that. Either they were throwing subtlety out the window or they were done with Steve entirely.

And if Steve knew … If Steve knew …

He didn’t want Steve to know. Steve was horribly mistaken, made him uncomfortable and put him on edge sometimes with his mere presence, like the pins and needles of a waking limb, but there was something about him that the Soldier drank in like water. He wasn’t worthy of Steve’s trust, but being on the receiving end of it was heady and intoxicating. He wanted to keep it.

He wanted to earn it, have it for real, just for him, but that wasn’t possible. He knew that.

And if Steve knew, then the next step was … whatever else they had planned for him. They were removing the Soldier from the equation.

Call Me Jimmy’s days were numbered.

What that meant for the Soldier, he wasn’t quite sure yet.

-

“Had a visit from Rumlow,” Steve said coolly. It was almost casual. “He seemed irritated about something.”

He’d watched for some change in Steve, anything to indicate that he’d almost glimpsed the Winter Soldier, maybe more questions, but there was nothing. Steve had compartmentalized it away like everything else.

“Never really talked to him,” he replied. It was true. Rumlow did all the talking during their rare encounters. “Wouldn’t know the difference.”

His eyes narrowed, voice bone dry as he continued. “He seems to think that the Winter Soldier has a crush on me. I think he’s almost jealous.”

The Soldier froze. “What’d you tell him?”

“I told him he was welcome to pass him a love note and get pounded.”

That startled a laugh out of him. “Jesus, Steve. Going a little off-book there.”

Of course, if Rumlow was jealous of anything, it was of what the Winter Soldier did to Steve. The animal thirst with which he lusted after Steve was obvious. He didn’t even really try to hide it. Steve had to know that.

Steve shrugged. “I threw politeness out the window after he tried to kill me. Just seemed silly.”

The Soldier studied Steve, the relative ease of his shoulders and the loose posture. He was absolutely certain that he was trapped in a room with Bucky Barnes, that that made him safe, and now that he’d admitted it, he was trying his best to convince him. Story after story, trivial detail after trivial detail, Steve gave life to the memory of his friend and overwhelmed him with it like a tidal wave, trying desperately to spark something in the dark cave of the Soldier’s mind.

They’d been disappointed after his last visit. They hadn’t expected him to immediately choke Rogers unconscious to avoid being identified, and with a hand on his throat, they let him know this. It was instinct, he told them, simple reflex. But he knew what they wanted now.

Steve was wrong to sit so openly for him, so near and trusting. He was wrong in every way. But this trust, this uncomplicated loyalty, had tantalized him from the start, been exactly what he feared and wanted most, and now that he had it, he wanted to enjoy it. Wanted to hold it in his toxic hands and breathe it in. This would be the last time. He was certain of it. He’d screwed up for the last time, and now he might never see Steve again. In fact, he knew he wouldn’t. At least not like this. They’d called his bluff. He couldn’t fathom why they’d sent him back in, but he couldn’t waste it wondering what would happen next.

This was what it felt like to have Steve Rogers’ love, and the warmth of it seared the shame from him as he basked in its light. This didn’t belong to him. He wasn’t worthy, wasn’t deserving. But he hoped that Bucky Barnes, wherever he was, if he was even alive, had appreciated it when it had been focused on him. This stolen affection was his for the taking, and he wanted it, and with the end near, he let himself have it. Let himself drink in the rich sound of Steve’s voice and the power of his undivided attention like he’d waited a lifetime for it.

“I’m not your friend,” he said with no heat, just for his conscience.

“Bucky had a scar on the inside of his left thigh,” Steve said without missing a beat. He coughed. “You got one of those?”

He had so many of those. What would a single one prove on the terrain map of the Soldier’s aching body?

“I’d say he was almost disappointed,” he continued seamlessly. “Seems like something’s coming down the pike. Any ideas?”

The Soldier was out of ideas. He was out of time.

-