Two parts instead of one today, because DW thought the comment was too long and I had to split it.
**
He knows the route to Rumlow’s house well, even though it’s dark and he can’t remember when he has traveled here in a car before. The soldier could get to the house on his own, if he needed to. It wouldn’t be hard to steal a vehicle.
The larger man, Rumlow’s friend—he remembers his name, vaguely, but it’s after the mission so it’s not important—rides in the back seat with the soldier while Rumlow is driving. The soldier knows Rumlow often likes having this man around, although he can’t remember why. They had not interacted much on this mission, and the soldier can’t remember the man being particularly nice to him, or particularly cruel. For most of the ride he expects that the man will say something to him, and that maybe it will trigger a more definite negative or positive feeling, but instead the man spends the entire drive playing a game on his phone.
The soldier watches him for a while, frowning, then looks back out the window. The car has stopped on one of the dark streets, waiting for a light to change color up ahead. His head hurts. Something has been building up slowly, like a weight in his stomach, since the two of them took him out of the building through the largely unused exit people always use when the soldier is with them. It’s not—it’s not anger, not now. But it’s something, something that makes his whole body feel tense, like he is still in the cold room with the technicians instead of sitting on a soft leather seat inside a car. A very long time ago, back when the scientists had all spoken Russian, they had sometimes tested substances on small animals before they tried them out on the soldier. They wanted to see if the soldier would survive, and he always did. The animals had been closed off behind glass so that the gases and liquids they used on them would not hurt the scientists. The animals had died, and some of them had scratched at the glass first. Now he is with his friend and he should feel safe, but the soldier keeps remembering the animals. It’s like there is an animal like that inside his head, scratching at something in there, painful.
It doesn’t make sense. There is no immanent danger. He is not badly injured. He is not around the others anymore. He should feel safe. So why does his head keep getting worse?
Across from him, the larger man’s phone game dings loudly, and he makes a satisfied snorting noise. The phone's screen is glowing bright in the dark interior of the car, lighting up the man’s face from underneath. The soldier looks away from that, back out the window, and soon the light changes color and the car speeds up again. The something-like-scratching in the soldier’s head doesn’t go away.
Rumlow waits until the automatic garage door has closed itself behind them before he turns off the engine, and then he looks up at the soldier in the rearview mirror and smiles before opening his door. The soldier doesn’t move: he knows, somehow, that right now he is expected to wait here instead of getting out of the vehicle by himself. Sure enough, Rumlow opens the soldier’s door and grabs him by the human arm, his hand clutching him just above the elbow. Rumlow says something across the soldier to his friend, who holds up a finger to indicate that he’s still busy with something on his phone. Rumlow shrugs, and pulls on the soldier’s arm. The soldier stands, Rumlow's hand gripping tight through his clothing as if the soldier is so hurt that he can’t walk, even though he isn’t.
The door out of the garage leads, oddly, into something like a small laundry room, with tiles on the floor, and a bright overhead light that Rumlow turns on—he remembers this room, but he still can’t help but be surprised: why do people have houses now that lead into laundry rooms? He doesn’t ask, of course, just waits silently near the small set of shelves next to the washing machine as Rumlow puts down his keys, as he undoes his boots and kicks them off. Then Rumlow is in front of him again, tilting the soldier’s head down slightly to get a better look under the light.
“Christ,” he says, and he whistles softly. “They really did a number on you.”
The soldier doesn’t react. His injuries do not seem worse than usual. There’s a tight soreness over his right cheekbone that feels like a still-healing cut, and his throat still hurts when he swallows, and he aches down his left leg from an awkward fall during the mission, but mostly he is already repaired. The only thing that's bothering him is the odd pain in his head, which seems to have already gotten worse since they entered the house.
Something about it must show on his face, as well, because now Rumlow frowns at him. He leans a little closer, like he is about to say something, but then there’s the sound of someone loudly clearing his throat from the doorway.
Rumlow’s friend must have finished with whatever he’d been doing with his phone. He steps into the small room and shoves the door closed behind him with a loud thud, like he’s deliberately trying to make a lot of noise. “Hi,” he says. “So sorry I interrupted.”
“You’re free to leave,” Rumlow says to him over the soldier’s shoulder, but his voice is light. “I’ll call you a ride, even.”
“You know I can’t,” the man says. The room is narrow and he is big, but still, when he hits Rumlow’s shoulder with his own on his way past them, it seems deliberate. “Pierce says you’re not allowed to keep him overnight without supervision anymore,” he goes on. “He’s worried about you getting carried away again.”
Rumlow has to turn away from the soldier to look at him now, and the soldier can’t see his expression. “Whatever,” he says. “But watch your boots. You tracked blood all over the carpet last time you were here.”
“It’s dried already,” the man says and shrugs, and Rumlow turns back to the soldier. He is smiling.
The soldier’s head is really hurting. The tone of the conversation had been wrong—it was as if everything they said was part of some joke between them, but if Pierce had really told the man that, why were they both treating it like it wasn’t serious? People were supposed to do what Pierce said. If the man had been joking, why is he really sticking around? And—
Rumlow’s hand is on his human arm again, tight. “Come on,” he’s saying to him, and the soldier follows him out of the strange entranceway with the laundry machines, out through a living room and down a hallway. Rumlow doesn’t seem worried about him tracking blood, even though there is quite a large amount on him from the mission. They go into a bedroom, and the soldier’s head feels even worse, but they don’t stay: Rumlow pushes open another door and pulls him by his arm into a bathroom, flicking on the lights on the way.
The soldier looks around. The room is bright white and small: a sink and toilet along one wall, and beyond that a shower with a glass door. The soldier had been at another house recently where the bathroom had been much bigger, although he doesn’t remember whose house it was.
Standing behind him slightly in the doorway, Rumlow reaches over and flicks another switch by the door: the lights had already been on, but now the room gets even brighter. The soldier allows his eyes to dart upwards to look at the four glowing glass circles set in the white ceiling, arranged between the normal lights.
Rumlow smiles when the soldier looks back at him. “It’s a heater, see? Makes it nice and warm in here.”
The soldier nods, the movement stiff. His whole body aches and feels light, like whatever has been going wrong in his head is spreading out all the way through him. Rumlow leads him forward two steps so the soldier is in front of the sink, and lets go of his arm, moves away to turn on the shower. Then he is back in front of him, close enough for the soldier to smell cigarettes on his clothing, and the smoke and blood and sweat from the mission.
“Let’s get this gear off,” he says over the new noise of the water hitting the tiles.
The soldier lets him, standing with the edge of the sink at his back. Rumlow begins with his boots, kneeling down on the clean tiled floor and helping the soldier step out of them, then stands up to start on his vest. The soldier isn’t injured, and he could do all of this himself, but—many people take his clothes off and put them on. It is okay. The air is cold on his skin where the clothing has been removed. Rumlow is very near, and the sink is close up against his back. Rumlow reaches for the fastenings on his pants and he—
“Hey,” Rumlow snaps and the soldier flinches. “Hold still. It’s me.”
The soldier had shrunk back, just a little, without meaning to, and he can’t miss the flicker of raw annoyance on the other man’s face.
I’m sorry, he wants to say, but it won’t come out. He takes in a breath, and moves his hands to grip down on the lip of the sink behind him: this way he can brace himself against shifting backward. The surface is smooth and cool under the fingertips of his right hand; his left hand can feel the hardness if not the temperature. It is okay.
He is being childish. He has been acting stupidly since they came here, since he got in Rumlow's car. He knows where he is, he remembers this place, he is safe; he is being stupid. It is okay. Everything is okay.
The soldier breathes in again, steady now, and he doesn’t move at all when Rumlow starts again on his pants.
“There you go,” Rumlow says, pushing the fabric down over the soldier’s thighs. The air is still not quite warm enough even with those heaters on, even with the steam from the shower slowly filling the room. “Lucky I make the others keep your gear on,” he says, and he is pulling down his underwear as well, sliding it down over his hips. “Above the neck only with everyone else, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, sir.” He is trying to steady his breath, which for some reason has escaped him again.
Rumlow leads him to step out of the last of his clothing, straightens himself up in front of the soldier's naked body. “Not like it used to be, huh?” he says.
The soldier doesn’t answer. With his own boots off now, the difference in height between them has decreased, and Rumlow’s smile is very close. Steam is everywhere now, lit up in the glare from the lights overhead, but there’s not enough steam in the room to make it this hard to breathe. He doesn’t know why he can’t breathe.
“Better this way than before, yeah?” Rumlow prompts. This time the soldier makes himself nod. The noise from the shower is very loud. It is so bright in here. Everything is—his head—
“Now hold still,” Rumlow says, loud, and he is still looking at the soldier but the soldier sees that now he has his hands on his own belt, undoing the buckle, and he—the soldier has to hold still. He must not seem like a threat. The person who used to be in charge of the soldier had explained this to him. The soldier is frightening, he had said. He had explained everything very carefully. The soldier’s arm is frightening. The soldier is always too angry. The soldier looks like a monster.
He closes his eyes. It is dark. He is not here. The person who used to be in charge of the soldier is here. He is saying it now. They’re not scared of you after they see you cry, the man in charge says, and it is okay. It was harder back then before the rule about his neck, but it was good that the soldier’s team was not scared of him unnecessarily. It was part of the soldier’s work with HYDRA. The soldier had cried a lot when they were all in that house together, and it had been difficult, having them do that to him on that mission after they had all been working together for so long. But the man in charge had been right, and the others weren’t scared after that. They had made him walk the next day when he couldn’t walk. The soldier was angry, but they were not scared. It was good. It was—
“Hey. HEY.”
The loud voice makes him snap back: it is bright everywhere—his eyes are open, the sink is behind him, and something has snapped off in his hand.
He looks down, dumbly, at the metal palm of his left hand, at the chunk of white ceramic that used to be part of Rumlow's sink. He blinks.
Blank with terror, he looks up again at Rumlow’s face. The nauseating fear rising in his throat recedes a little when he realizes that the man doesn’t look angry at all.
Rumlow says: “Fuck, that’s never happened before,” and he sounds almost impressed, and then he laughs.
The soldier stares at him. He isn’t angry?
“Oh, baby,” he says, and his tone is concerned now, as if he’s comforting a small child, although he is still smiling. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” His hand is at the side of the soldier’s head, firm, cupping his skull. “It’s okay. You're okay,” His breath on the soldier’s cheek, his jaw. “You’re here with me now, yeah? I got you. Everything's fine.”
Rumlow isn’t angry. The soldier is okay. He is here, and he is safe. The knowledge is so overwhelming that it almost drowns out the shame he feels at acting so horrifically. He had started thinking about other things, about people that weren’t his friends—the fact that he had done such a thing inside Rumlow’s house is already unforgivable, and then he had lost focus and damaged his property—
—but somehow he has forgiven him, and it’s like everything inside the soldier is lighting up again and glowing.
FILL: "not that bad" gaslighting (3/?)
**
He knows the route to Rumlow’s house well, even though it’s dark and he can’t remember when he has traveled here in a car before. The soldier could get to the house on his own, if he needed to. It wouldn’t be hard to steal a vehicle.
The larger man, Rumlow’s friend—he remembers his name, vaguely, but it’s after the mission so it’s not important—rides in the back seat with the soldier while Rumlow is driving. The soldier knows Rumlow often likes having this man around, although he can’t remember why. They had not interacted much on this mission, and the soldier can’t remember the man being particularly nice to him, or particularly cruel. For most of the ride he expects that the man will say something to him, and that maybe it will trigger a more definite negative or positive feeling, but instead the man spends the entire drive playing a game on his phone.
The soldier watches him for a while, frowning, then looks back out the window. The car has stopped on one of the dark streets, waiting for a light to change color up ahead. His head hurts. Something has been building up slowly, like a weight in his stomach, since the two of them took him out of the building through the largely unused exit people always use when the soldier is with them. It’s not—it’s not anger, not now. But it’s something, something that makes his whole body feel tense, like he is still in the cold room with the technicians instead of sitting on a soft leather seat inside a car. A very long time ago, back when the scientists had all spoken Russian, they had sometimes tested substances on small animals before they tried them out on the soldier. They wanted to see if the soldier would survive, and he always did. The animals had been closed off behind glass so that the gases and liquids they used on them would not hurt the scientists. The animals had died, and some of them had scratched at the glass first. Now he is with his friend and he should feel safe, but the soldier keeps remembering the animals. It’s like there is an animal like that inside his head, scratching at something in there, painful.
It doesn’t make sense. There is no immanent danger. He is not badly injured. He is not around the others anymore. He should feel safe. So why does his head keep getting worse?
Across from him, the larger man’s phone game dings loudly, and he makes a satisfied snorting noise. The phone's screen is glowing bright in the dark interior of the car, lighting up the man’s face from underneath. The soldier looks away from that, back out the window, and soon the light changes color and the car speeds up again. The something-like-scratching in the soldier’s head doesn’t go away.
Rumlow waits until the automatic garage door has closed itself behind them before he turns off the engine, and then he looks up at the soldier in the rearview mirror and smiles before opening his door. The soldier doesn’t move: he knows, somehow, that right now he is expected to wait here instead of getting out of the vehicle by himself. Sure enough, Rumlow opens the soldier’s door and grabs him by the human arm, his hand clutching him just above the elbow. Rumlow says something across the soldier to his friend, who holds up a finger to indicate that he’s still busy with something on his phone. Rumlow shrugs, and pulls on the soldier’s arm. The soldier stands, Rumlow's hand gripping tight through his clothing as if the soldier is so hurt that he can’t walk, even though he isn’t.
The door out of the garage leads, oddly, into something like a small laundry room, with tiles on the floor, and a bright overhead light that Rumlow turns on—he remembers this room, but he still can’t help but be surprised: why do people have houses now that lead into laundry rooms? He doesn’t ask, of course, just waits silently near the small set of shelves next to the washing machine as Rumlow puts down his keys, as he undoes his boots and kicks them off. Then Rumlow is in front of him again, tilting the soldier’s head down slightly to get a better look under the light.
“Christ,” he says, and he whistles softly. “They really did a number on you.”
The soldier doesn’t react. His injuries do not seem worse than usual. There’s a tight soreness over his right cheekbone that feels like a still-healing cut, and his throat still hurts when he swallows, and he aches down his left leg from an awkward fall during the mission, but mostly he is already repaired. The only thing that's bothering him is the odd pain in his head, which seems to have already gotten worse since they entered the house.
Something about it must show on his face, as well, because now Rumlow frowns at him. He leans a little closer, like he is about to say something, but then there’s the sound of someone loudly clearing his throat from the doorway.
Rumlow’s friend must have finished with whatever he’d been doing with his phone. He steps into the small room and shoves the door closed behind him with a loud thud, like he’s deliberately trying to make a lot of noise. “Hi,” he says. “So sorry I interrupted.”
“You’re free to leave,” Rumlow says to him over the soldier’s shoulder, but his voice is light. “I’ll call you a ride, even.”
“You know I can’t,” the man says. The room is narrow and he is big, but still, when he hits Rumlow’s shoulder with his own on his way past them, it seems deliberate. “Pierce says you’re not allowed to keep him overnight without supervision anymore,” he goes on. “He’s worried about you getting carried away again.”
Rumlow has to turn away from the soldier to look at him now, and the soldier can’t see his expression. “Whatever,” he says. “But watch your boots. You tracked blood all over the carpet last time you were here.”
“It’s dried already,” the man says and shrugs, and Rumlow turns back to the soldier. He is smiling.
The soldier’s head is really hurting. The tone of the conversation had been wrong—it was as if everything they said was part of some joke between them, but if Pierce had really told the man that, why were they both treating it like it wasn’t serious? People were supposed to do what Pierce said. If the man had been joking, why is he really sticking around? And—
Rumlow’s hand is on his human arm again, tight. “Come on,” he’s saying to him, and the soldier follows him out of the strange entranceway with the laundry machines, out through a living room and down a hallway. Rumlow doesn’t seem worried about him tracking blood, even though there is quite a large amount on him from the mission. They go into a bedroom, and the soldier’s head feels even worse, but they don’t stay: Rumlow pushes open another door and pulls him by his arm into a bathroom, flicking on the lights on the way.
The soldier looks around. The room is bright white and small: a sink and toilet along one wall, and beyond that a shower with a glass door. The soldier had been at another house recently where the bathroom had been much bigger, although he doesn’t remember whose house it was.
Standing behind him slightly in the doorway, Rumlow reaches over and flicks another switch by the door: the lights had already been on, but now the room gets even brighter. The soldier allows his eyes to dart upwards to look at the four glowing glass circles set in the white ceiling, arranged between the normal lights.
Rumlow smiles when the soldier looks back at him. “It’s a heater, see? Makes it nice and warm in here.”
The soldier nods, the movement stiff. His whole body aches and feels light, like whatever has been going wrong in his head is spreading out all the way through him. Rumlow leads him forward two steps so the soldier is in front of the sink, and lets go of his arm, moves away to turn on the shower. Then he is back in front of him, close enough for the soldier to smell cigarettes on his clothing, and the smoke and blood and sweat from the mission.
“Let’s get this gear off,” he says over the new noise of the water hitting the tiles.
The soldier lets him, standing with the edge of the sink at his back. Rumlow begins with his boots, kneeling down on the clean tiled floor and helping the soldier step out of them, then stands up to start on his vest. The soldier isn’t injured, and he could do all of this himself, but—many people take his clothes off and put them on. It is okay. The air is cold on his skin where the clothing has been removed. Rumlow is very near, and the sink is close up against his back. Rumlow reaches for the fastenings on his pants and he—
“Hey,” Rumlow snaps and the soldier flinches. “Hold still. It’s me.”
The soldier had shrunk back, just a little, without meaning to, and he can’t miss the flicker of raw annoyance on the other man’s face.
I’m sorry, he wants to say, but it won’t come out. He takes in a breath, and moves his hands to grip down on the lip of the sink behind him: this way he can brace himself against shifting backward. The surface is smooth and cool under the fingertips of his right hand; his left hand can feel the hardness if not the temperature. It is okay.
He is being childish. He has been acting stupidly since they came here, since he got in Rumlow's car. He knows where he is, he remembers this place, he is safe; he is being stupid. It is okay. Everything is okay.
The soldier breathes in again, steady now, and he doesn’t move at all when Rumlow starts again on his pants.
“There you go,” Rumlow says, pushing the fabric down over the soldier’s thighs. The air is still not quite warm enough even with those heaters on, even with the steam from the shower slowly filling the room. “Lucky I make the others keep your gear on,” he says, and he is pulling down his underwear as well, sliding it down over his hips. “Above the neck only with everyone else, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, sir.” He is trying to steady his breath, which for some reason has escaped him again.
Rumlow leads him to step out of the last of his clothing, straightens himself up in front of the soldier's naked body. “Not like it used to be, huh?” he says.
The soldier doesn’t answer. With his own boots off now, the difference in height between them has decreased, and Rumlow’s smile is very close. Steam is everywhere now, lit up in the glare from the lights overhead, but there’s not enough steam in the room to make it this hard to breathe. He doesn’t know why he can’t breathe.
“Better this way than before, yeah?” Rumlow prompts. This time the soldier makes himself nod. The noise from the shower is very loud. It is so bright in here. Everything is—his head—
“Now hold still,” Rumlow says, loud, and he is still looking at the soldier but the soldier sees that now he has his hands on his own belt, undoing the buckle, and he—the soldier has to hold still. He must not seem like a threat. The person who used to be in charge of the soldier had explained this to him. The soldier is frightening, he had said. He had explained everything very carefully. The soldier’s arm is frightening. The soldier is always too angry. The soldier looks like a monster.
He closes his eyes. It is dark. He is not here. The person who used to be in charge of the soldier is here. He is saying it now. They’re not scared of you after they see you cry, the man in charge says, and it is okay. It was harder back then before the rule about his neck, but it was good that the soldier’s team was not scared of him unnecessarily. It was part of the soldier’s work with HYDRA. The soldier had cried a lot when they were all in that house together, and it had been difficult, having them do that to him on that mission after they had all been working together for so long. But the man in charge had been right, and the others weren’t scared after that. They had made him walk the next day when he couldn’t walk. The soldier was angry, but they were not scared. It was good. It was—
“Hey. HEY.”
The loud voice makes him snap back: it is bright everywhere—his eyes are open, the sink is behind him, and something has snapped off in his hand.
He looks down, dumbly, at the metal palm of his left hand, at the chunk of white ceramic that used to be part of Rumlow's sink. He blinks.
Blank with terror, he looks up again at Rumlow’s face. The nauseating fear rising in his throat recedes a little when he realizes that the man doesn’t look angry at all.
Rumlow says: “Fuck, that’s never happened before,” and he sounds almost impressed, and then he laughs.
The soldier stares at him. He isn’t angry?
“Oh, baby,” he says, and his tone is concerned now, as if he’s comforting a small child, although he is still smiling. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” His hand is at the side of the soldier’s head, firm, cupping his skull. “It’s okay. You're okay,” His breath on the soldier’s cheek, his jaw. “You’re here with me now, yeah? I got you. Everything's fine.”
Rumlow isn’t angry. The soldier is okay. He is here, and he is safe. The knowledge is so overwhelming that it almost drowns out the shame he feels at acting so horrifically. He had started thinking about other things, about people that weren’t his friends—the fact that he had done such a thing inside Rumlow’s house is already unforgivable, and then he had lost focus and damaged his property—
—but somehow he has forgiven him, and it’s like everything inside the soldier is lighting up again and glowing.