hydratrashmeme | Dumpster #5: We didn't start the trashfire

Dumpster #5: We didn't start the trashfire

Welcome to the latest, greatest, scummiest iteration of

hydratrashmeme. Come on in and please check your sense of shame at the door.

Rules in brief: Don't be a jerk except to fictional characters. Warn if you want, but read at your own risk, because this is emphatically not a safe space. Link your fills on the fill post. Unprompted fills: make a prompt or a header comment and reply to it with the full text. Continuations of fills from earlier rounds: just make sure you link in both places.

What's on-topic: Filthy and perverted twists on all the quality whump served up by Cap: Winter Soldier. Noncon, aftermath, uncomfortably sexualized violence, mind control, inappropriate uses of Bucky Barnes' metal arm, bad guys doing dirtybadwrong things to your faves.
What's off-topic: a/b/o, D/s-verse, soulbonds, mundane AUs, shippy/romanticized noncon, MCU heroes repurposed into OOC or edgydark delivery vehicles for your fave's suffering. If you've got a prompt for one of those burning a hole in your brain, head on over to

mcu_trash.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Natasha didn't even have a chance to greet him before Steve said, "I need you to manufacture an Avengers call. Something involving an EMP. I need to talk to Stark."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "It would be simpler for me to pass a message, if that's all you need."

"No," Steve said firmly. "It has to be face-to-face. I owe him that."

The freshly invigorated paranoia dominating his brain since Pierce showed him Project Insight tried to tell him that if Fury was in on it, there was very little chance Natasha didn't know. The idea that anyone could approve of what those helicarriers were for, much less the people he'd been thinking of as the good guys, was eating at the little trust he had in SHIELD. He listened to it for now. If it was wrong, he could apologize after Project Insight was stopped. But if it was coming from SHIELD, how could he trust SHIELD to help him? Tony Stark was involved with SHIELD, but he wasn't part of it and just as clearly didn't want to be. He was also a genius and an engineer, as well as an Avenger. Steve needed his help.

But it would be dishonest to ask for it without telling him the truth.

It took almost two weeks for Steve to get the call and the timing was awful.

The asset had earned its reward and Steve nearly had it there, a hand loosely around its cock while he drove into it from behind. It was making little desperate sounds around Rumlow’s cock as it pushed its hips back to meet Steve’s thrusts.

“Uh, Cap?” Agent Goble called from the door.

“What?” Steve demanded, faltering in his rhythm as he twisted to look at her. “What couldn’t wait another couple minutes for us to be done here?”

“It’s an Avengers thing.”

“Damn it,” he muttered, frstrated and relieved, running his hands down Bucky’s sides as he pulled out. “Sorry, Soldier. Duty calls.”

Not a sound came from the Winter Soldier. It didn't even try to look at him.

He got up and did his best to ignore his uncomfortable erection. Steve was becoming an expert in ignoring discomfort.

"What do you know about the night your parents were killed?" Steve blurted, interrupting Tony Stark’s attempts to bring the Iron Man suit back online.

Startled, Tony stared at him for a moment before answering. "I knew they weren't going where they first told me. Mom's calendar said Bahamas, but Howard's said Pentagon. I know the investigators said he was drinking."

Steve hesitated. Would Tony really want to tear open the old wound? He hadn't missed the way Tony spoke of his parents.

No, it was selfishness under those thoughts. It was fear that Tony would refuse to help.

"What do you know," Tony demanded, voice gone hard. "Tell me."

He had to. Steve swallowed, took in a breath, and released it. "I think Howard suspected something was wrong in SHIELD. He learned something or made something, and he decided to take it to the military instead."

Tony covered his eyes with his hands and took a few controlled breaths. "Are you telling me… Rogers, are you telling me fucking SHIELD had them killed?”

“No," Steve said, trying helplessly to clarify. "I'm telling you HYDRA infiltrated and corrupted SHIELD and the Soviet branch killed them for it."

Tony mouthed HYDRA to himself and stared at Steve, who figured in for a penny, in for a pound and barreled on. "They used a brainwashed supersoldier to do it.”

After a moment of frozen horror, Tony said, "So help me, Rogers, if you tell me HYDRA found you first and you killed my parents, I–"

Steve's eyes widened. "No!" He exclaimed, raising his hands. "No! They didn't have me. They had. They had Bucky."

"Bucky," Tony repeated dumbly. "Bucky, as in Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes? Your best friend since childhood, only howling commando who died during the war? That Bucky?"

The explanation, minus the details of what Steve had been involved in over the past year, was terrible. He couldn’t read Tony’s reaction beyond the hard anger shuttering the man’s expression.

”So much for wanting my repulsor engine design to build a new helicarrier. I should have known better.”

"You're not surprised?" Steve questioned.

“No, I’m really not,” replied Stark, distracted by whatever he was doing with his helmet. “First rule in government spending: Why build one when you can have two at twice the price? Or three, in this case.”

Steve ignored the flicker of irritation at what he was sure was another reference he didn't have context for. He understood well enough.

”How do we disable them?”

"I need you to go to the Vault," Pierce told Steve when he answered his SHIELDRA-issued phone. "I'd go myself but the World Security Council requires my attention.”

The Vault meant the asset. Something the tech team and other agents present couldn't handle. He wondered where Rumlow was, but it ultimately didn't matter.

"I understand, sir. I'm on my way," Steve assured him. He grabbed the keys for his bike, threw the bag with his shield and other gear over his shoulder, and headed down the stairs.

"This is a delicate time, Captain Rogers," Pierce said. "We're putting a lot of faith in you. Solve the issue, get a mission report, and make sure it and you are prepared for tomorrow. Understood, Captain?"

"Yes, sir," said Steve. Don’t think about the launch. Just do your job. Don’t think about it.

"Good," said Pierce and ended the call without any mention of HYDRA. He must not have been alone.

All the way to the bank, the possibilities whirled through Steve's mind.

The first gates clanged open for him. A guard who hadn't seen him there before stared at him wide-eyed.

"What the hell is going on that someone thought the Secretary had to be disturbed," Steve demanded as one of the techs came toward him.

The man shifted nervously tugging at his collar. "He sent you, Captain Rogers?" He looked worried.

Steve wondered why, after all the times he'd assisted the tech team, his presence was suddenly a reason for concern. Had the asset, had Bucky, remembered something and acted out? Had the asset been injured or damaged in a way that meant it couldn't perform its part tomorrow? "Yes,” he snapped. “What’s going on?"

"The asset is erratic, unstable," the tech said hurriedly. "Unresponsive to commands, lashing out at the team during arm maintenance. We've had to send two people for medical attention."

"I thought the asset was with STRIKE today? Where's Commander Rumlow?"

“The hospital, Captain.”

”Was he injured?” Damn it, Steve was not concerned, he was simply too used to playing a good friend and teammate.

”Uh, not him, Captain.”

Well, that was helpful. Steve set his jaw against the urge to sigh.

Whatever was going on, the tech team deserved whatever was coming to them simply for having left the asset unrestrained in the chair. It sat there, bare chest heaving as it stared at something no one else could see. There was blood drying on the back of its right hand where it had pulled out its IV line.

Steve took a steadying breath and stalked up to stand in front of it. "Soldier. Mission report," he said and waited. The asset continued to stare at nothing. Steve took a step closer, understanding now why the tech team had been worried enough to contact Pierce. He was sure they’d wanted Captain America as uninvolved with the Insight Launch as they could manage. "Mission report. Now, asset." Still nothing.

Fuck. The longer this went on, the worse he’d be expected to hurt it.

Reluctantly, Steve flexed his fingers and then slapped the asset across the face. It rocked with the blow, turning its head and blinking as it came back from wherever its mind had been. "Mission report, Soldier," Steve prompted it again, more gently this time.

"The woman on the bridge. The redhead. Who was she?"

Natasha, Steve knew instantly. He could even answer this. "Natalia Romanova," he said. "She came out of the Black Widow program."

The asset frowned. "I knew her," it said. It looked to Steve for confirmation.

He nodded. "You've run missions both with her and opposing her. She defected."

Around them, he was aware of the techs' and guards' increasing uneasiness.

"She shot my goggles," it said, as if to itself. “She’s a threat.”

Steve sighed, hoping it looked like anything but relief. "We'll get you another pair, Soldier. You have spares, right?"

For the first time since he had entered, it focused on his face. "Yes, Captain," it said.

He could feel the anxiety level of the room drop.

"Tomorrow is going to be a big day for us," Steve said, more softly. "We both need to be ready to do our part." He hated himself so much for what he would have to do next but there wasn't any way around it. "Everything has to go right tomorrow. You can't malfunction like you did today." He cupped its cheek with one hand and pressed his thumb to its lips which parted automatically. It sucked on the tip of his thumb, eyes fixed on his. "You'll comply with the tech team, won't you, asset?"

It nodded slightly and Steve removed his hand. "Good. Everything will be just fine, you'll see," he went on, "I'm with you."

"To the end of the line," said the asset and Steve just froze while the world around him spun horrifyingly and then righted itself.

"Yeah, pal," he said and crouched to look more directly into Bucky's eyes. "To the end of the line. And if we make it there, if there's a world where we don't have to fight anymore," he promised, "you can come home with me and be Bucky to your heart's content. Do you want that, Soldier?"

Bucky nodded, equally solemn.

"Then trust me, and do as you're told," Steve said. Stalling for one more second, he kissed Bucky on the forehead.

Then he pushed him back into the maintenance chair.

The restraints closed automatically. Steve felt like his heart had to be beating loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear it. Bucky probably could. He didn't think he'd understand what it meant but that didn't matter. It couldn't matter. Not now.

"Wipe him," he ordered. The command came out with all the chill he held inside. He had to freeze his heart over or else start screaming. "The asset’s been out of cryo too long. No more mistakes." Bucky watched Steve with sad resignation but didn't struggle against the chair or try to refuse the bite guard.

This is the last time , he promised himself as he watched Bucky scream. I don't care what the consequences are. This is the last time.

When the screaming stopped, Steve ordered everyone else out of the room, bent close to the restrained Winter Soldier's ear and whispered to him, "Remember who you are, Sergeant James Buchanan Bucky Barnes."

The Winter Soldier looked up at him in pained confusion.

"Trust me, Bucky. I'm love you and I’m with you to the end of the line.”

”Your asset and your Bucky,” he said softly, wonderingly, like the words were part of a half-remembered dream. Frowning, he looked Steve up and down. “You are... You’re my...” Bucky closed his mouth and stared at Steve imploringly.

“I’m your Steve,” said Steve.

God, he hoped they were ready.

OMG, I felt cold and sick reading Steve stepping into Pierce's shoes completely here, taking his place in that scene. Gripping!

(A!A) This was one of the scenes I drafted early on, maybe even about this time last year. A big part of writing this fic has been figuring out how to get Steve to here from there without making him Evil!Steve. I’m happy it still has so much punch after all the preceding horror.

Loved this scene with Steve taking Pierce's role! I loved the Pierce-casually-slaps-the-asset-while-terrified-armed-security-guys-look-on scene in TWS because it cemented how much power Pierce had over it, and also what an arrogant, unlikable dick he was. That Steve has got himself deep enough into his roleplay to do the same thing with the same level of casualness is... well, I ought to say "chilling" or "horrible", but I'm going with "kinda delicious", because I'm trashy like that. :D And then you gave us Steve promising that Bucky can come home and stop fighting and caressing his submissive little face, and that was delicious too. Can't wait to see how the rest of this plays out!

(A!A) Thanks! Steve is absolutely putting on a show in this chapter, but it’s horribly apparent how familiar that show must be now.

I doubt Pierce considered the severity of the asset’s future punishment before he slapped it, though.

Steve was in the middle of changing into his public Captain America suit when a very unhappy Brock Rumlow stomped in.

There was an instant of mutual double take.

Rumlow's double take was presumably because Steve wasn't meant to be anywhere near the Vault the night of the launch. Steve's own double take was due to Rumlow's appearance.

"The hell happened to you?" he blurted.

"What does it fuckin’ look like, Rogers?" Rumlow snapped, gesturing at his scorched hair and reddened face. The STRIKE Commander was singed, dirty, and covered with abrasions head to toe. "Got too close to a missile strike, that's what. Evidence Response is still sifting through the debris for the targets, so it might not even’ve been a successful missile strike." Wincing, Rumlow pulled a few sheets off a roll of paper towels and dabbed ineffectively at his face. "Shit," he muttered, frowning at his reflection. “Can you believe there’s no fucking burn cream in this whole place? You'd think the damn techs would keep some around, working on that arm. You think they're messing with me? I think they're messing with me."

Steve commented, "Sounds like neither of our days are going to plan."

"Those carriers better go up," Rumlow growled. "I don't know what Romanoff think she's doing—she fucks this up for SHIELD, even Fury's not gonna be able to protect her. What are you even doing here, Steve? Shouldn't you be at the Pentagon about now?"

There was no need for Steve to know what he was talking about. It was probably a test, and Steve wasn’t biting.

Rolling his shoulders and settling the shield on his back, Steve explained. "The Secretary called me in because the asset was acting up." He met Rumlow's sharp glance. "It's handled. Wiped and sent off to receive further orders. Secretary Pierce said he'd brief it himself."

Rumlow simply sighed.

A van full of agents came to collect him after his meeting at the Pentagon. Most of these agents he'd seen around, but only a few were from his own STRIKE team, including Rumlow and Rollins. They had clearly received some actual medical attention in the last hour or so.

"Come on, don't be difficult, Steve." Rumlow rolled his eyes.

Steve didn't move. "And here I thought we had gotten to know each other, Brock. I'm just going home. All things considered, I think I need to call it an early night."

"All things considered, you know why the Secretary wants you tucked away safe."

"You think I'm going to lose any sleep over ISIL after what we've seen the last couple months?"

"Of course you will. You're Captain fuckin’ America."

If he hadn’t been in the red, white, and blue a stone’s throw from the media, Steve would have rolled his eyes at that point. He widened them instead. "Gee, Commander Rumlow, thanks for reminding me."

"Anytime, Captain Rogers. Now, you gonna help us follow our orders? We are on a schedule, here, you know.”

A few of the guys were sweating. One, a dark skinned man in a suit, was clutching the handle of a briefcase. Steve looked out over the crowd of journalists and hoped it wasn't obvious that he had recognized the disguised magnetic cuffs. Whatever else was going on, they were ready to take him down if they thought they had to. Steve could probably get away, but it was still too early for him to show his hand.

"Fine," he said and got in the van.

"Okay," Steve said evenly, trying not to be obvious sizing up the agents around him. "Someone want to tell me what this is actually about?" He turned his focus to Rumlow who glared back at him but also looked satisfyingly wary. "Rumlow?"

"Easy, Cap. We just got a couple questions for you." His grin did not reach his eyes.

"Questions?" Steve repeated. He hoped he sounded puzzled. He was about to have to tell an outright lie, and that was something he still wasn't very good at.

"Yeah," Rumlow said shortly. "The asset never showed up to get its orders. It just came out of the chair. It's acting on somebody's orders and you were the last handler it saw. Nothing personal, but what are we supposed to think?"

"The asset's missing?"

The grin dropped away as Rumlow glared. "Don't bother playing dumb, Cap.”

Not for the first time since he'd gotten into the van, Steve was conscious of and grateful for the reassuring weight of the shield on his back.

Steve raised his hands in a gesture that could have been placating, but his main purpose was to get his hands closer to the edge of his shield. "Hey, we're both supposed to be partially retired after tomorrow. Why would I do anything to jeopardize my chance to take it home with me? Anyway, I thought it had trackers? The asset definitely thinks it does."

Rumlow’s glare intensified. “It does. But there are always ways around that sort of thing.”

”And you think I’d know how?” Steve aimed for disbelieving but suspected it just came out nervous.

Grimly, Rumlow said, “I don’t know what to think, Ca—“ and suddenly there was movement on all sides as the agents converged.

His first move was to kick Rumlow back with a boot to his chest, elbow another agent in the gut, and free his shield to bat away the briefcase with the cuffs.

He could defend himself without the shield, but it was good to know he didn't have to this time. There was also something to be said for using it to knock down HYDRA. It felt appropriate.

“…from the nation’s capital. First was the surprise resignation of Captain Steven Grant Rogers from the United States Army, which had loaned Rogers, more widely recognized as Captain America, to a little-known organization called the Strategic Homeland...”

Steve woke to the nearly muted mutter of a television and the worrying discovery that the asset was no longer in bed with him.

Bucky. I can call him Bucky again.

Bucky must have turned on the news.

Thank God I don’t have to punish him for it.

They hadn’t had sex. Steve hadn’t raped him again. Bucky had clearly expected it, but he hadn’t objected to cuddling up and going to sleep instead.

Steve needed to do something about that. The unquestioning compliance. He would never touch Bucky sexually again, no matter what HYDRA had conditioned into both of them.

No matter how the asset begged. Because it would and Bucky deserved better from Steve.

Didn't mean Steve didn’t want him—all this time and he still couldn’t help the want—but he could control his actions and he was making that choice for them both. Someday, Bucky might recover enough to want a sexual relationship with someone, but it wouldn’t be with Steve. Not after what he’d done.

For a long selfish moment, Steve shut his prickling eyes and let his self hatred swallow him. Then, he rolled over and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He took his shield with him.

A mechanical whir led him out of the tent and over to the adjoining testing chamber, where Bucky had apparently taken Steve’s permission (order) to finish last night’s pizza in the morning and run with it. There were one and a half slices remaining, if he counted the one held in Bucky’s motionless right hand. There was wariness in the Winter Soldier’s eyes. Wariness and a hint of you-said-I-could defiance.

Smiling in helpless relief, Steve said, “Good morning, Bucky.” He took the last untouched slice and added the box to the stack of them next to the trash can. He leaned the shield against the other side.

The pizza was sausage and tomato. He'd ordered one of everything on the menu. It was cold now and didn’t taste like home or freedom, but it was tastier and healthier than the cheeseburgers Tony Stark had suggested.

Good thing Stark had set them up above his company’s DC office. The entire legal department here had worked through the night and ordered large quantities of food several times. It made the pizza delivery unremarkable. Having a stack of pizzas and a large box delivered to the testing chamber in his company office in DC wouldn't be strange for Tony Stark. He didn't work from DC often, but he had workshops everywhere he had a place to live. This one predated Iron Man. He'd occasionally used these chambers for demonstrations.

It made it easy to deliver a Faraday cage right to a place where another one had long-since been installed. Whatever trackers the two of them had, they wouldn’t be tracked here.

Steve hadn’t had to say more than go this address and sit in the box. Don’t get out until a handler comes for you.

The asset had obeyed.

”Any mention of HYDRA?” Steve asked, trying not to wolf down the pizza in case doing so gave Bucky the impression he’d done something wrong by eating the rest. He nodded at the television. It was muted completely now.

The asset—Bucky, damn it—shook his head, faintly puzzled by the question. “No, Steve.” He looked relieved when Steve said nothing else.

Frowning, Steve sat down at the table and watched the news coverage. There was some truly spectacular footage of Iron Man and the Hulk trashing a handful of quinjets and collapsing the road out to the Triskelion. Some sort of large disturbance of water in the Potomac had been reported, but between the darkness and the lack of warning, the media had only caught the Avengers’ exit.

The Insight bay doors must not have even fully opened before the helicarriers were disabled or destroyed.

Hope Romanoff's okay. The news will have to be enough.

From what he understood, it was amazing, and maybe typical of Tony Stark, from what he'd seen, that they could get television inside a Faraday cage. He really hoped Tony or one of the others arrived soon. They had a sort of campsite in the Faraday cage, but there weren't exactly any woods to go piss in. Also, Steve needed to know what had happened.

As if in answer to his thoughts, the door to the workshop unsealed.

The asset dropped its half-eaten pizza crust, snapping to attention. Steve jumped to his feet, adrenaline surging.

It wasn't Tony.

"Heya, Steve. Asset," said Rumlow. He grinned open-mouthed, bruised and bandaged, but with stun batons held ready. A full team of tac-geared agents waited behind him. "Did you save us any pizza?" The STRIKE Commander strolled in, only the way he held his weapons showing any amount of tension. The rest of the agents filed in after him and spread out around them, weapons ready.

"Sorry, I wasn't expecting you," Steve ground out. It didn't matter what had gone wrong. Maybe HYDRA was watching all of Tony's properties. Maybe this had been a lucky guess.

"Oh, I bet. Like I said, you're not used to the modern surveillance state."

The asset was looking between the handlers slowly, as if only now understanding what Steve had done. God, he hoped it didn't side with Rumlow.

"Maybe not," he said lowly, "but it seems like I make a decent covert operative."

Rumlow laughed at him. "Please, Rogers, you know you wouldn't have got anywhere on your own."

"Probably not," Steve admitted. He bared his teeth. "Thanks for that, Brock. I learned a lot from you."

The surrounding agents shifted in agitation.

"You're a lot like the asset, you realize that, Stevie?"

"Don't call me that," Steve said evenly. "That name's not for you."

Ignoring him, Rumlow continued, "Easily trained. Desperate for a scrap of affection or companionship. So willing to do whatever you're told is necessary. If we could have put you in the chair under Fury's nose, you would have been perfect. You still could be. Last chance. Come back in now and things will go a hell of a lot easier for you both."

"Is that why it's okay for you to lust after me, Brock?" Steve deflected. Don't think about it. You did what you had to. "Because I'm a supersoldier, I don't count as a man? I never did buy into the idea you just wanted to help me out."

Rumlow scoffed. "Well, I mean, who wouldn't want a shot at the pinnacle of human perfection? No, I mean this." With that, he lunged.

Steve caught the first baton on his arm, lightning lancing through him until he grabbed up his shield and knocked Rumlow away with enough force to send him through the tent to tumble over the far side of the bed. The rest of the agents went down just as easy.

No part of Bucky moved except for his eyes flicking between Steve and where Rumlow was picking himself up.

Not taking his focus from Steve, Rumlow waved a baton to indicate all the downed agents. "All that raw potential. You can't help being what you are. All we had to do was get you to comply, and maybe it took you a bit with all your fucking stubbornness, but you buckled every time with the right promises of pain and reward."

"I've always been willing to destroy myself to destroy HYDRA." They circled each other cautiously.

The grin on Rumlow's face widened. "Yeah, they did a great job on you. What d'you want to bet you give it up easier the next time we wake you?" The expression turned mocking. "Captain?"

Steve narrowed his eyes. It's not true. I'm not a Winter Soldier. I never was. "Gotta say," he said, trying to maneuver his opponent away from the door and waiting for a misstep, "Bucky was a hell of a lot more convincing. Was that your idea?"

With a nasty laugh, Rumlow responded, "I think the thought just came naturally. Why wouldn't it?"

"Because it's not true," Steve said flatly and tossed his shield at the HYDRA Commander.

Rumlow tried to deflect with his batons, but there was too much force behind the shield. He went down and stayed down.

Breathing a little more heavily than strictly necessary, Steve turned to the Winter Soldier. Calculating blue eyes stared back, then fell submissively. "Bucky?"

"Yes, Steve." Bucky's shoulders slumped slightly. "I'm yours. Ready to comply."

They were free, but Steve's revelation from the Retreat, that Bucky was the asset as much as the asset was Bucky, had never felt so heavy.

Wow. I was looking for another chapter, but I'm just going to quietly post a comment and prove the meme isn't dead. The current fills in progress are wonderful. Please don't stop now? I need to know what happens.

(A!A) Not stopping! :-D

“Steve?” Bucky asked tentatively.

“Yeah, Buck?” Steve looked up from securing the last unconscious HYDRA agent.

The asset Bucky! He’s Bucky! was chewing his lip, eyes darting. “What scenario is this? I… I don’t remember.”

Straightening slowly, Steve eyed him critically. He remembered the calculation he’d seen on Bucky’s face after Rumlow went down. Was the Winter Soldier playing along until he could get away and return to HYDRA? Was it just erratic and unstable because of too long out of cryo? He had seen, no he had had it, no, he’s Bucky, damn it, what is wrong with me wiped less than a day ago. Seeing Nat couldn’t have shaken him that much. Natasha had never even hinted that they had that level of connection.

Shit, he owed her so many apologies for not trusting her with Project Insight immediately. If he’d let her talk to Tony… No, he had done the right thing by telling Tony about his parents in person before asking for help.

The asset was still waiting for an answer. Bucky was still waiting for an answer.

“This isn’t a scenario, Bucky. This is real,” he said as gently but firmly as he could. “I promised you could come home with me and be Bucky as much as you want. You can be any Bucky you want, whatever version makes you happy will make me happy too. It’s okay if you don’t know who you want to be yet. We have time. Real time. I know you’ll figure it out.”

God, he hoped that wasn’t too much too soon.

Bucky just stared at him. “I understand. What scenario do I follow when others are present?”

So much for that. Either he’d taken it as an update to his standing orders for when he alone with Steve or his understanding of coming home with Steve didn’t include this stage of their escape.

Shit. He hadn’t wanted to give these orders. “You will follow my lead with new people. Be appropriate and consistent with people you already know. None of them will be handlers. Your discretion supersedes any direction they may give you regarding your identity. The Avengers, you’ve been briefed on the Avengers…”

A nod.

“The Avengers have the following information: You were born James Buchanan Barnes March 10th, 1917. We were best friends. Standard history up to the fall from the train. You survived the fall, but lost your memory and your left arm. The Russians found you, replaced your arm, and trained you to be the Winter Soldier. They had a relationship with HYDRA which resulted in your transfer to the US in the early 90s. I…” He swallowed hard before continuing. If Bucky challenged anything, it would be this part. “I infiltrated HYDRA after the Battle of New York, convinced you of your identity, and escaped with you during the chaos of the Insight Launch. You have been a prisoner of war for seven decades. You don’t want to fight anymore. You just want to go home and figure out what to do with your freedom.”

He had to endure Bucky’s burning stare for a few more minutes before the other supersoldier finally said, “Okay, Steve.”

“Good,” Steve said automatically and wanted to slap himself.

Maria Hill showed up with Tony Stark to take charge of the HYDRA goons, Rumlow included. He wasn’t dead, but, even if he woke up, he wouldn’t be conscious and mouthing off about HYDRA anytime soon. Steve had hit him harder than he had probably needed, but less than he had wanted to. Maybe he should have killed him, but…

He really needed to talk to Nat.

Tony packed them up in another box and had them flown to Stark Tower in New York.

“Why make things easier for them? JARVIS should have Cap and Bucky sightings in a dozen places across the planet by now.”

When the box was unloaded and had stopped moving, Steve pushed Bucky behind him and waited for the top to open, but it was only Stark. Still in the armor, but with his face plate retracted, Tony eyed them, face unreadable as he looked Bucky over. “You cool there, Terminator?”

Pale blue eyes met Steve’s. Steve nodded wary encouragement.

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” Bucky said quietly.

Steve wasn’t sure if he should jump for joy or wilt in disappointment.

He climbed out of the box instead. Trackers first. Once they were physically safe, he would worry more about where Bucky’s head was.

“Bucky. No. We’re not having sex.” Steve tried to sound calm and firm, but it was hard to do that when he’d just jumped out of bed like a scalded cat. “Put some clothes on. Boxers, at least.”

Bucky’s face crumpled. He slid off the other side of the bed. “I don’t understand. Please?”

“No. It’s not right. I never had the right. You’re… look, you’d do anything I told you to, right?”

The asset, his poor confused Bucky, nodded. “Yes, Steve.”

“And you know I love you? I don’t care if you’re Bucky or the Winter Soldier? I love whoever you are and whoever you want to be?”

“Yes, Steve.”

“And you want to please me?”

“Yes, Steve.”

Did he imagine the faint exasperation?

“We can’t have sex because you’re trying to please me. I won’t take advantage of you again. That’s wrong.”

Face scrunched, Bucky argued, “You promised I could be Bucky. You said I could decide who Bucky is. Why can’t I decide to be a Bucky who is yours?”

“Because…” Fuck. Steve was making a hash of this. Why had Natasha been the one who ended up in front of Congress? “You’re not ready to know if that’s what you really want or if that’s just what you were trained to do as the asset.”

“You said you love me as the Winter Soldier. Did you lie?”

“No!”

“Then I don’t understand. If I’m not for my primary function, I-”

“I’m afraid of hurting you again. I’m sorry things are this way, but if you want to sleep in the same bed with me, go put on a pair of boxers. I showed you where they are earlier.”

Not even trying to conceal his unhappiness, Bucky complied.

Steve lay awake for over an hour, afraid one of them would close the cold gap between their bodies the moment he lost his conscious control.

In the morning, he woke, hard against the curve of Bucky’s ass with an arm around his side. Wide awake with panic, he made himself breath evenly as he pulled away and fled to the relative safety of a cold shower in a locked bathroom.

Never again, he promised himself. They both slept better when they shared a bed, but Steve would stay on his side in a damn sleeping bag zipped up to the neck if meant Bucky was safe. Never again.

Poor Steve. Poor Bucky. Once he's deprogrammed I bet part of him is gonna be pissed off.

(A!A) Yeah. They have a lot to work out and once Bucky has more than a day or so of memory and things start to come back to him, he will have a lot of feelings about it.

ugh, I want to punch Steve -- he's forcing his will on Bucky by refusing to have sex. Consent is complicated, Steve, and it's not just about your feelings...

(A!A) On the other hand, Steve isn't comfortable having sex under the circumstances. Even if, and it would be awfully dubcon at best when it's not clear what Bucky actually thinks is going on (for all Steve knows, the asset might think they're preparing to go deep cover in the Avengers and HYDRA is letting it try out its Bucky performance with Steve's assistance), Bucky is genuinely enthusiastic about sex with him, inaction is maybe the best idea right now. Steve's consent is important too and it's been a while since he could base his sex life on his actual feelings.

(A!A) That said, Steve is terrible at listening, actual conversations, and things like compromise. He's making assumptions about what is best for Bucky and needs to learn to curb that behavior asap if he wants to stop acting like a handler.

The deprogrammer Natasha had sent to the Tower tapped his pen against a pad of paper. “Can you tell me in your own words why you made this appointment?”

Intensely uncomfortable, Steve said, “I didn’t. Natasha made it for me.”

“Hmm,” he said. When Steve didn’t say anything more, he asked, “So why am I here?”

Steve grit his teeth. “I thought she told you.“

“It’s important that you articulate it.”

Swallowing, Steve tried to put his thoughts in order. They kept being scattered by the wild anxiety of having Bucky out of sight. “I’ve been undercover with HYDRA for the last several months. I’ve been working to infiltrate them since shortly after the Chitauri invasion.”

”And? Why are we here today, Steve?”

“Can’t I just talk to Natasha about this stuff instead?” How could he ever tell this complete stranger what he’d done?

“I’m not here to judge you. This isn’t a debriefing. I’m here to help you.”

Yeah, right. Easy to say when he didn’t know what there was to judge Steve for.

This wasn't going to work out. He'd promised Natasha he would give it a try, but it was too much like talking to the doctor who came to the Retreat. Natasha must have known he wouldn't be comfortable with this. Maybe it was some kind of test?

The first week went from painful and awkward to hellish. Both supersoldiers were anxious and paranoid. Steve’s time as the asset’s handler gave him some experience with the traps in the Barnes protocols, but it was easy to spiral into panic over the uncertainty of Bucky’s beliefs.

The asset’s stable duration out of stasis isn’t ten days, Rumlow had said.

Steve had seen that for himself. At least he could avoid most of the violence he had accidentally triggered at the Retreat, but there was no avoiding the confusion, agitation, and mood swings. Bucky was on a hair trigger and definitely wasn’t hiding the sexual interest he was trying to present, but he wasn’t aggressive even when clingy. He offered himself. He didn’t try to initiate touch without permission. Steve hated that he couldn’t trust his own judgment as to what was conditioning and what was true.

And was before Natasha arrived from DC to remind him that truth was not all things to all people all the time. Followed by Barton who showed up later in the week to help himself to breakfast and deliver a horrifyingly insightful yet excruciatingly awkward speech about how long-term survival in the power of psychopaths meant subscribing to whatever reality those with the power were selling.

The main reason Steve didn’t tell him to stop talking was that Bucky had nearly beaten his face in again that morning and he didn’t want to aggravate anything. Well, that and his current desperation for a distraction.

Bucky wasn’t with him because Bucky was down in Bruce’s lab, sedated with one of the formulas Steve had stolen from HYDRA, while Bruce and Tony consulted an actual medical doctor about removing the few trackers Tony had been able to deactivate but not remove the night they had arrived.

He had half-expected to need to convince Bucky to let them sedate him, but Bucky had simply complied without argument, clinging to Steve's hand as he turned his head from the needle and closed his eyes. Bruce and Tony weren't the tech team, but Steve was sure the compliance had very little to do with having hurt Steve. Not long after that, Tony had told him to get out before his hand-wringing provoked a Code Green. Steve wasn’t much good at cooking anything that didn’t need boiling, but he could operate a toaster and scramble some eggs. He had started making food in supersoldier quantities to distract himself and ended up making breakfast for everyone after the assassins turned up.

"The Soldier was in for, what, all the way since '44, '45?"

"'52," contributed Natasha through a bite of toast. She was paging through a file in Russian that Steve hadn't been allowed to look at yet. "They really started working on him in '52. Cryo before then."

A year ago, Steve might have shuddered. Now, all he did was push his own plate away. "Buh ee dosn wi me," he protested.

"Promising sign," Natasha said, but she didn't sound happy about it. "But right now, that means no one is in full control of him and his sense of reality is breaking down."

Clint nodded.

"Expect things to get worse before they get better."

"Way worse," Clint confirmed.

Wonderful. Steve resisted the urge to put his head in his hands only because Bucky had fractured his cheekbone that morning.

"By the way," said Natasha, tapping the edge of the file against the table to straighten the papers before setting it down.

Steve made an affirmative grunt. Maybe she would tell him something he could really use to help Bucky, but he didn't really expect much.

"Have you eaten anything today?" She cast a concerned look at his untouched eggs.

He could feel his face twist, but he shook his head.

"Nothing?"

He shook his head again.

She sighed and tossed him a silver-packed block. "Remember what Bruce said?"

Steve sighed and opened the package. Three quarters every other day this week, half next week, and a quarter the week after, he remembered, making a face at the cloudy yellowish block. Apparently, all of the full-time food department had been HYDRA. Certain agents, Steve included, had been chemically manipulated as a matter of routine. The effect was that they grew antsier and antsier the longer they were away from work. It reinforced dependence and decreased the chance of forming stable relationships outside of the HYDRA coworkers. Of course, Steve's general level of anxiety had been high enough his pre-serum self would have dropped dead from stress a dozen times over. It was hard to tell how much effect the drugs had had on Steve, but Bucky needed to be weaned off them too, at much higher dosage, so they might as well both do it the easy way. Added to that, Bucky had been sharing his higher dosage drugs with Steve almost anytime they shared food on missions.

"That stuff is so weird," Clint said, watching Steve swallow chunks of drugged oily calorie bar. "It looks like something people put out for birds in the winter. Suet? Just without any seeds."

It would be better with seeds. "Don thin they designed for taste," Steve mumbled. It hurt to talk, but it hadn't been his jaw and it was probably only a hairline fracture by now.

"Oh, they probably did," Natasha corrected, "just not to be tasty."

Glancing at the clock on the microwave, Steve moved to get up.

"Stay in that chair, Steve. You have fifteen more minutes," Natasha said without looking. "You won't do anyone any favors showing up like that."

The drugs were already kicking in, fast like he remembered from the first time he'd had any on an empty stomach at the Lockbox. Without consciously deciding to obey, he dropped back into his chair and slumped back. There was an enormous bowl of scrambled eggs in front of him. As much as he wanted to get the taste out of his mouth, he didn't think he could stomach anything immediately after choking down the drugged rations.

"I just..." He stared at the ceiling and tried to speak without moving his face too much. "I wish he'd stop offering himself up. Sexually, I mean," he clarified with a wince that had nothing to do with his physical pain.

"Is it better or worse because you wish you could take him up on it?" Clint asked shrewdly.

"Way worse," Steve said, absolutely certain. Maybe I can fire the deprogrammer and just talk to Clint?

Neither supersoldier slept well or deeply, even though they slept better together. On the eleventh night since leaving HYDRA, Steve woke to Bucky gasping his name. His body was tense like he was struggling not to move and he was breathing heavily.

"Steve... Please... Don't... Steve. I. Steve..."

Steve sat up. There were limited phrases he could safely use to reassure him without being attacked. Not that he didn't deserve anything that happened as a result of waking Bucky from a nightmare about him.

"Bucky. Wake up. You're dreaming, Buck. Open your eyes. Bucky, c'mon, pal. Wake up."

“Steve,” Bucky gasped, lurching upright as he opened his eyes. His eyes landed on Steve's face and he collapsed toward him and... tried to kiss him?

Shit. Not that kind of nightmare. "Buck, no." Steve leaned away until he almost fell out of bed. "You were dreaming. We're not..."

Bucky curled back in on himself, eyes down but a scowl on his face. "We could be. Don't tell me we're not on my account, Steve. I don't remember much, but I know I'm yours. You say you're mine. Why isn't that enough? You fucked me before. Wasn't it good?"

"I... Give it time, Buck," Steve said weakly. "You never chose to be with me as anything but a friend. One of these days, you'll remember that. I won't take advantage of you like this."

"Just a kiss? Please?"

Steve hesitated. He hated saying no to Bucky and a kiss wasn't so bad, right?

No. He couldn't start down that path.

"Try to go back to sleep, Bucky," he said (ordered) and turned over on his side, facing away.

After a time, Bucky did.

****Sorry for the long wait! I went back and forth a lot on how I wanted to do this.*****

Steve shouldn't have been surprised by Bucky's capacity to argue now. He remembered what the asset was like with even a little freedom to speak up. Most of their arguments had been about Steve's unwillingness to have sex, so he shouldn't have been surprised by the topic either.

Historians thought Steve was the stubborn one. He was, but there was a reason he and Bucky had been such fast friends. Bucky had always given as good as he got and often better.

"I was no different from Rumlow, even if I tried not to hurt you physically. What we did to you was abuse," Steve insisted.

“It is different. You’re sorry.”

“Lots of abusers say they’re sorry. Doesn’t mean they won’t do it again.”

“You really think you could?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. I did it. I’m capable.”

Bucky started to scoff, but then the stubborn glint in his eyes was replaced by desperation. “But… it was different with you. You told me you wanted me. You told me you love me.”

“Bucky, I raped you.”

“So you lied? You never wanted me? I remember wanting you. Pleasing you is the best part of being your asset.”

The present tense made Steve wince. Bucky hadn't chosen a scenario in which he didn't think of himself as the asset.

“I've always wanted you. It felt good to be with you like that, but it was wrong of me. Doesn't give me any right to take advantage of you like I did. Bucky. I raped you. I abused you. I’m never touching you again.”

A huff of warm breath against his shoulder told Steve what Bucky thought of that claim. He shifted away from his bedmate.

“Steve," Bucky said, "Even if you did hurt me, it's not like either of us had a choice. I drugged you to get you through your initiation."

"I know," Steve told him. The asset had removed its mask to get a lungful of the purple gas too. What Bucky thought he wanted wasn't in question. He couldn't give informed consent. He remembered some missions with Steve and some things from their childhood, but he still saw the latter as proof that he and Steve had been created by the same program. As Clint and Natasha had warned him, Bucky clung to what he had been taught to believe and rationalized any proof to the contrary until it somehow supported HYDRA's lies.

"Supersoldiers who don't comply get sent back to Siberia."

Knowing why it was happening didn't make it any easier for Steve to hear.

"We're safe now. That's never going to happen to either of us," Steve said firmly. I'm not a Winter Soldier. Bucky's just generalizing because he is a Winter Soldier and that's how he understands the world.

The second time both Natasha and Clint sat with him for a meeting with the deprogrammer, Steve had voiced conviction that he ought to be on trial with the rest of the surviving STRIKE agents. He didn't deserve to be, well, whatever an Avenger was, because he wasn't a civilian and he wasn't military now. For a moment, he had sincerely believed that Natasha might be about to hit him. He would have taken that without protest, but the look on her face when he flinched was…

The deprogrammer simply made a note. When Steve's attention snapped to him, he'd only raised one hand and said to ignore him. Natasha and Clint were perfectly capable and he was only there for backup and because he was licensed to provide documentation that Steve was receiving treatment. He couldn't help an unwilling patient. He hadn't even given Steve a name, so Steve could rage against the process all he wanted without feeling bad about his behavior toward a person.

Good. Steve's thought was strangely vicious in its vehemence.

Natasha's mouth had twitched at the explanation. Steve was too sick and tired to think about the mindgames they were trying to use to engage him.

Later, Natasha cornered him in the elevator.

"Steve," she said, studying his face intently. "What was that?"

Steve could only shake his head.

"Did they…" Her expression was carefully neutral. "Did they do something to you that I don't know about?"

Something you didn't tell me about, Steve interpreted and his back went up whether he meant it to or not. "I reported everything relevant," he said. Bucky had been the one abused, by Steve as well as HYDRA, so Steve had no right to be reacting this way.

A terrible thought crossed his mind. What if Rumlow was right and supersoldiers did need order? He felt more lost now than he had with HYDRA. He had been anxious, sad, and angry, and the guilt and horror never faded, but he hadn't been afraid of other people like this until after their escape.

There had been some bad moments with HYDRA when Steve had honestly started to wonder about himself, but HYDRA had been full of lies. Steve knew that. Why couldn't he get it out of his head now?

Natasha was terrifying, but that wasn't because she'd been Steve's SHIELD handler. He'd been a good asset for them and done what he was supposed to. HYDRA was crippled because of what Steve had learned undercover and Natasha had never hurt him. Handler/asset relationships weren't supposed to be like what happened in the Winter Soldier Program, Steve knew that too. He had no reason to fear Natasha. The hell was wrong with him?

It was much much worse to be in Bucky's position. There was no question and no comparison. All the same, he wished he had someone he would trust without question.

Whatever was showing on his face, he could see Natasha's expression turning sympathetic.

"Steve," she began.

Steve interrupted, blurting, "Natasha, I'm really me, right? I mean, really me, not the way Bucky is Bucky."

She looked him over with what appeared to be real concern. "That's still bothering you?"

That hadn't been the response Steve was hoping for.

"Your floor, Agent Romanoff," Tony's AI announced and Steve abruptly froze. Forgetting about JARVIS and the knowledge that the tower was under constant surveillance did nothing to ease his paranoia. He and Bucky had almost never not been under surveillance and sooner or later that fact would come back to bite him. So far, no evidence of Steve's time with HYDRA had leaked to the public, but that was only a matter of time.

Steve deserved for the truth to come out.

Unfortunately, Steve wouldn’t be the only one affected if it did.

Natasha didn’t get out of the elevator.

“You’re you, Steve. I swear to you. Phil Coulson watched you be defrosted. You’re the same man we found in the ice.”

Letting out the shaky breath he'd been holding, Steve nodded and tried to make his shoulders relax. It didn't work very well. The muscles were so tight they hurt. “Thanks, Natasha.”

She drew him into a quick hug, but was out of the elevator and gone before Steve lost any more composure. He wished he felt comforted.

SHIELD hadn't found Steve, was the problem. The man in the ice who now identified himself as Steve Rogers could have been replaced long before SHIELD took custody of his frozen body. Besides, SHIELD was compromised by HYDRA at all levels.

Why am I even thinking about this again?

His throat felt thick. He swallowed.

It didn’t matter who he was. He’d been one of Bucky’s abusers. There could never be any excuse or absolution.

Bucky had his own appointments. Steve wasn't allowed to attend most of them in case he influenced Bucky. He didn't know what Bucky said or did in them either. Captain America couldn't take on any missions until Steve Rogers got his head on straight.

At this rate, I might as well retire for real.

Imagining that future was painful. He imagined living in the fancy prison of Avengers Tower, trying to share a bed with Bucky as platonically as possible, until the night Bucky finally understood Steve's betrayal and killed him.

That wasn't what Bucky deserved. Steve resigned himself to at least going through the motions.

"Please don't ask tonight," Steve mumbled, falling face-first into their bed with a heavy sigh. Silence answered him and he immediately felt bad for the order. He rolled over and rubbed hard at his face with both hands. "Shit, Buck. I'm sorry I'm such a mess. I'm not mad at you. Just... anything but sex."

More silence.

Concerned, Steve lowered his hands and looked for Bucky.

Bucky was standing next to the bed, studying the carpet.

"Bucky?"

"You used to enjoy cuddling with me."

The words were completely flat with no chance of being mistaken for a question.

God, cuddling sounded nice. He missed that. Cuddling wasn't like kissing. It didn't have to imply anything else was on the table. Steve didn't deserve the comfort of Bucky's body close to his, but Bucky did. They usually ended up in a more intimate position by morning anyway. The last thing Steve wanted to do was deprive Bucky of touch. The asset had always been starving for it. Was it weak of Steve to give in?

"I still like that," Steve said. " But only that, got it?" He waited for Bucky's nod of confirmation. "C'mere, Buck."

He was entirely too pliant in Steve's arms, but he seemed content enough.

Each time Steve bit back the urge to praise the asset, the scream built silently in his head until he realized he was crying.

"Stevie?" Bucky sat up and put his arms around Steve instead.

Steve cried harder, curling into Bucky's broad chest and hating himself for accepting the undeserved comfort. "I'm so sorry, Buck. I wish..." But wishing had never gotten anyone anywhere by itself. "I love you. I don't deserve you, but I love you. I'm so fucking sorry." A fresh wave of sobs shook him apart in Bucky's embrace. "I don't expect you to ever forgive me, but I'm so glad you're still here with me."

"Yeah, punk," Bucky mumbled against his hair, stroking his side, "'m sorry too."

When Steve woke up, Bucky wasn't in bed with him.

Bucky wasn’t in the bathroom. He wasn’t in the bedroom closet. He wasn’t outside the bedroom door. He wasn’t in the kitchen. He wasn’t in the untouched second bedroom. He wasn’t on the couch, in any of the closets, behind a curtain, or wedged into the pantry. He wasn’t in a corner of the ceiling. He wasn’t soundlessly following in Steve’s blind spot.

JARVIS didn’t respond when Steve asked for Bucky’s location.

Steve scrambled for the elevator, uncaring of the fact he was only wearing the boxers he’d slept in.

“Good morning, Captain Rogers,” said JARVIS.

“Where’s Bucky?” Steve demanded.

“Sergeant Barnes is asleep in your bedroom,” the AI told him.

Steve spun and almost dented the closing door in his haste to get out. Maybe he somehow hadn’t seen Bucky under the covers?

But, no. Bucky wasn’t in their suite.

He wasn’t in the building.

Working together, it took Tony and JARVIS less than a minute to determine how Bucky had fooled JARVIS.

Much less.

In the time it took Steve to throw on a shirt and pants, they had moved on to watching the footage of Bucky strolling out the side door from the ground floor coffee shop. It was a 24 shop, not meant to provide three AM public access to the tower’s lobby, but not designed to prevent traffic from the tower. There was only one employee in the coffee shop at that time. He turned away to operate the blender and Bucky walked right past him and out. The few customers were focused on their phones. Not one looked up to see the Winter Soldier’s exit.

At least Bucky was wearing clothes. He had a pair of black sweatpants and a black t-shirt with STARK INDUSTRIES written across the back in bright blue. Black or dark gray socks.

He wasn’t wearing shoes. His combat boots were in an evidence bag and Steve had let himself be convinced Bucky didn’t need shoes yet because they couldn’t leave the tower.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

Bucky had been in bed with him at least part of the night. He couldn’t have gone far.

No, Steve couldn’t lie to himself. The Winter Soldier was eminently capable of traversing huge distances without detection.

Bucky was gone.

“You lost the asset?” Rumlow laughed, breaking off into a wheezing cough as the movement jostled his injuries. “Really? What did you do? Try to make it be a person all the time? I thought you said you learned from me.”

Steve glowered. Seeing Rumlow had been a mistake. “All I want to learn from you is where he might go. The only reason you haven’t been interrogated yet is that I knocked you into next week. A little cooperation could go a long way at this stage.”

Determining who should have jurisdiction over the HYDRA agents was an ongoing effort. In the meantime, no one wanted to take responsibility for offering any deals, so Steve had been told to avoid making any promises.

The grin Rumlow was wearing had to be painful. “Oh, Stevie. You try so hard. It’s not your fault you’re not made for interrogation.”

Steve walked to the cell door and knocked to be let out.

“Let me guess, you did exactly what I said you’d do and tried to take it all back. Apologies and denial. When’d you last let it please you? You think it thinks you don’t want it?”

Shut up. He wouldn’t give Rumlow the satisfaction.

“How long until it goes looking for something familiar to give it order again, huh, Captain?” Rumlow taunted.

The door opened.

“Goodbye, Brock,” Steve said.

Bucky wouldn’t.

The asset would.

Don’t think about it.

“There’s no evidence he didn’t leave on his own,” Natasha told him.

Steve snarled wordlessly and stalked away. Why had Bucky left? What had Steve done? Or, what had Steve done to prompt this extreme response? Had Bucky been planning to escape from the start?

They’d had one more sighting - at the Smithsonian Captain America exhibit - and the Winter Soldier’s trail went cold. Natasha and Clint were certain the sighting had been planned but refused to speculate on what that meant.

The Avengers’ current mandate was to destroy HYDRA. A familiar weight of numbness, grief, guilt, and rage propelled Steve forward again. He didn’t have time to sit around talking about it. Captain America was needed to do what supersoldiers did best.

Destroy.

The Avengers eyed him with open worry. Steve knew he was acting reckless, irrational, and dangerous. He couldn’t care. Not when Bucky was out there without him in uncertain physical and mental condition.

A month into Steve’s blood vengeance, they were running out of active locations and Steve’s teammates unanimously agreed to make him take a night off. He was lying on a bed in a hotel in Naples, reading the updates Tony had promised while he tried to construct an argument that would let him continue their campaign against HYDRA, when the phone in his hand rang.

“Rog-”

He was cut off. JARVIS said, “Captain Rogers, I am forwarding a call from an unidentified source. The caller claims to be the Winter-”

“Bucky?” Steve sat up, blood racing.

“-Soldier. He insists he will hang up and not call back if you say more than ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Do you-”

“Yes, I accept his terms!”

There was a pause before the line began to crackle with noise. Steve pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth to keep himself from speaking. He wanted to call Bucky’s name, but he couldn’t fuck this up.

A sound that might have been a deep inhalation rose out of the background noise.

Then: “Steve?”

Bucky. It was Bucky.

“Yes,” Steve said at once. He waited, hardly daring to breathe.

From the other end, all he could hear was breathing. “Steve. Please?”

“Yes,” Steve said again, not even caring what Bucky wanted his yes for.

The call ended.

Always glad to see this updating, thank you!

(A!A) Thank YOU!

JARVIS reluctantly agreed not to volunteer information about the call. His teammates were shocked by his willingness to take a longer break. For a week, Steve waited in the hotel in Naples. He knew, logically, that staying put wouldn’t actually make it any easier for Bucky to contact him again, but he was loathe to leave the last place he had heard Bucky’s voice. He didn’t know what he had agreed to. In hindsight, he had done an extremely foolish thing. What if Bucky had walked through the door and expected sex? Steve couldn’t take the risk of refusing him anything. Days later, he hadn’t shown up anywhere. Maybe Bucky wanted him to wait where he was? He didn’t need Natasha to tell him how compromised he was. Now that he wasn’t with HYDRA, he felt more compromised than before.

He lay on his bed with his phone charging and stared at the screen. Steve’s phone rarely left his hand. Tony and Natasha teased him about finally acting like a millennial. Steve had said he would take one week total. If he didn’t hear anything more, he would have to start moving again.

The time on his phone ticked over. No Bucky.

“Dammit,” Steve muttered, set his phone on the nightstand, and covered his face with his hands. “Fuck!”

The phone rang.

Steve nearly broke it in his haste to answer. In case it was Bucky, he bit back his habitual greeting and said, “Yes?”

“Someone just torched an allegedly abandoned senior center in Arkansas,” said Natasha.

He took a deep breath and tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “HYDRA?”

“Yes. And-”

Steve’s phone began to flash. “Give me a moment, Natasha. I’m getting another call.” He switched. “Yes?”

“Captain Rogers,” JARVIS said, “You have a call waiting from Sergeant Barnes. He has conveyed the same conditions as last time. Shall I connect you?”

“Yes!” Steve said hastily.

White noise nearly drowned out Bucky’s hesitant voice. “Steve?”

“Yes,” Steve confirmed. Buck, was that you? Are you hurt? Did you set the fire? Talk to me, say anything, please. All he could do was say yes or no.

“Mission complete,” Bucky offered, almost making it a question.

Report? Fuck, I can’t say that. “Yes?” he tried.

It was enough. It had been Bucky in Arkansas. Steve listened to his concise report for a mission no handler had ordered. Report complete, Bucky asked, “Steve, does it please you? May I?”

May he what? “Yes?” Steve said cautiously.

Bucky exhaled raggedly. “Thank you.”

Steve sat on the hotel bed with his phone pressed to his ear and couldn’t say a word. All he could hear was Bucky’s increasingly labored breathing. Was he injured? It couldn’t have been long since his attack. The time difference between Arkansas and Italy was what, seven hours? He was fairly sure Arkansas was on Eastern Time the same as New York. The middle of the day for Steve was early morning for Bucky. Was it light out yet where Bucky was? Could he see daylight? Was this his first independent strike against HYDRA? Why had he decided to call? What did he need from Steve? How could Steve convince him to come back? What was wrong with his breathing?

Bucky gasped, breath hitching.

Wait, what?

A desperate whimper hit Steve’s ear. Bucky’s breathing was forceful and rapid

There was no way Bucky had called him for… But it made sense. This was what happened after successful missions. How Bucky was getting around the requirement of direct orders, Steve didn’t know, but it was clear he still needed Steve’s orders in some form.

“Steve, please?” Bucky begged. There was no other word for it. “Please?”

“Yes,” Steve said instantly, straining his ears.

There was nothing to hear. The call had ended.

Natasha’s voice startled him. “Steve?”

He shook himself a little. “Yeah, ah, sorry ‘bout that.” Face and neck hot, he coughed, awkward. “Forgot you were still on the line.”

“Uh huh,” she said. “What’s going on with you? Who were you talking to?”

“Bucky,” he confessed. Natasha raised an eyebrow, and Steve slumped in relief when she didn’t immediately demand details. “But he didn’t give me much chance to talk.”

“You were gone almost twenty minutes.”

Oh, God. “He, ah, had a mission report to deliver.” If it had been anyone but Natasha, he wouldn’t have continued. Since it was, it was much easier to tell her now and not worry about being interrogated ater. “And then I think he asked for permission to jerk off.”

“Which you gave,” she stated.

“Which I gave,” Steve confirmed, trying not to think about it.

There was a long pause.

“Interesting.” Natasha gave nothing away. “We’re regrouping at the Tower. Do you plan to join us?”

Steve hesitated. It made no difference where he was as long as he could connect. “He won’t have stuck around.”

“We’ll pick you up in half an hour. Debrief en route.”

Steve left out everything after Bucky’s mission report.

A pattern became established. Bucky would call. Steve would say yes. Within a few days, Bucky would hit a HYDRA-related target, be it a single operative or a whole installation. He would call and report to Steve, then ask permission for… something else.

Steve always said yes. He knew it was dangerous to essentially be giving the Winter Soldier carte blanche, but he was terrified of the potential consequences if he said anything else. Bucky had killed several high-level agents, even a few in protective custody. One of them hadn’t been linked to HYDRA directly until after his murder. Fury tried to give Steve hell for that, but Steve had quit, damn it. He didn’t trust Fury, who had never given him a clear answer regarding his knowledge about Insight. Fury and Pierce had been friends for a reason. Their methods were far too similar. He was going back to his previous plan to see every member of HYDRA dead or imprisoned. Protective custody anywhere but in a concrete cell was not acceptable.

By the end of Bucky’s fourth mission report, Steve was such an anxious mess, he actually agreed to talk with Natasha while the deprogrammer watched from another room. At first, he tried to leave out the sexual aspect, but Natasha was relentless. Steve broke like a rotten plank, splinters of dark filth and little things that slithered, writhed, oozed, and bit scattered all over.

“Don’t tell me it’s okay, Natasha!” he snarled, half-rising from his chair. “It’s not and I hate myself for wanting it to be!”

“Hey,” she said quietly, so quietly he had to stop raging to hear her. “Come here, Steve.”

Exhausted, he shuffled over to stand in front of her. She offered a hand, palm up, and he pulled her to her feet without looking at her. He couldn’t say anything and he refused to cry in front of the stranger.

“Shhh,” said Natasha and wrapped him in her arms. She was so strong. How was she so strong when Steve was all in pieces? “I’m not going to say that. I’m not going to say that. It’s a bad situation all around. I’m not going to say that.”

No fuckin’ shit. He made a sound that might generously have been identified as a huff of laughter, but honestly had more in common with a sob of gratitude.

“I hate feeling helpless,” Steve mumbled. “I hate being helpless.”

“Shhhhh,” said Natasha and held him tighter.

“I can’t leave him out in the cold,” Steve said. “I have to find him.

“At least this is a good indication he’s recovering memory,” Clint offered.

“There has to be some way of getting ahead of him.”

His teammates exchanged glances. Tony nodded reluctantly.

Steve tried not to grind his teeth.

“More data,” Tony told him. “The more data points we have, the easier it will be to make predictions.”

“How many more?”

Tony flipped a hand in his direction. “Maybe half a dozen? Winter Wanderer is all over the map. This would be a lot easier if you could ask some questions.”

“No.”

“Steve’s right,” Natasha backed him up. “Barnes has to set the terms of their relationship or we’ll lose him for good.”

Tony sighed. “Fine. Let’s just watch the body count rise.”

“If he keeps going like he has, that shouldn’t be more than a few weeks,” Clint pointed out.

Steve sagged a little and squeezed his eyes shut. “Okay.”

Bucky did not like being chased.

“Are you following me?” he demanded, fear and anger radiating through the phone line.

Steve swallowed. “Yes.”

Breaking from routine, Bucky hung up without another word.

Steve couldn’t stop. If Bucky was worried, that had to mean they were getting too close.

it's equally sad and adorable that Bucky is calling with these little self-designed missions that he thinks will please Steve, and then asking for permission to jerk off. It's like when the cat leaves you some chewed up bird and wants praise.

And I love how he could technically hang up but he keeps him on the line for it as well, like somewhere in there he still has his “embarrass Steve” instinct

Re: Fill 105/110: Undeniable Plausibility - On to the aftermath!

(Anonymous) - 2018-07-17 13:02 (UTC) - Expand

The immediate consequence of Steve's latest yes was that Bucky broke all his previous patterns and went to ground. He wasn't at the next predicted location before or after the Avengers and there weren't any new hits, of any kind, for almost three weeks.

Steve thought maybe this was it. Maybe he shouldn't have answered the question.

After the first week, with no call, no sightings, and no sign of activity, Steve's initial optimism dropped away with all the speed of the motorcycle going over a cliff. Steve had never done well when he couldn’t fight. Later, he would have to admit that, if he had been alone, he might well have let himself just waste away.

His sleeping habits had been shit since Bucky’s vanishing act, not that they’d been great before. He stopped interacting with the others outside of official avengers business. He had no appetite or motivation for actual meals. He consumed calories only because it was routine—and because JARVIS insisted on reminding him to do so. Not wanting to hear from anyone, unless it was Bucky, Steve tried to ask him to stop. The denial was firm. JARVIS would have to report if he was endangering himself.

After three straight days of not seeing anyone at all, Natasha let herself into his bedroom. Steve turned his head from where he was lying on his back on the floor next to the bed and saw she was carrying a dark purple canvas bag lined with silvery insulation material. It smelled like food. Meat and potatoes vegetables and butter. Fresh bread. Something sweet and dairy. Chocolate.

He wanted none of it and glared halfheartedly. It was hard to muster the emotional energy to really protest either the intrusion or the assumption.

Feeling half out of body, he observed her put the bag down next to him and reach out with both hands to grab him by the collar. With something like detached curiosity, he let her pull him upright and drag him sideways so he was propped in a sitting position against the side of the bed.

He blinked slowly. Her mouth was an unhappy line.

"I've been eating," Steve said dully.

Shaking her head, Natasha corrected him. "No, Steve. You've been maintaining your super soldier body."

He flinched at maintaining and knew she was right.

"You can do better than this, Steve.”

She reached into the bag and lifted out a takeout box which she set in his lap and a fork which she slapped directly into his hand. She told him to open the box.

He complied. Chicken. Green beans. Mashed potatoes. A roll with a little foil pat of butter. Nothing complicated or unfamiliar.

“Eat,” she said.

Steve stabbed a forkful of green beans and put them in his mouth. He chewed and swallowed mechanically. It was as tasteless as Rumlow’s pasta had been.

“You have to make an effort here, Steve.” Natasha balanced on her toes, back against the bedroom wall, elbows on her knees and chin in her hands.

He stared at her obliquely, hoping she would leave. He’d deserve it if she did.

“I missed my chance,” he rasped, finally putting words to a persistent dark thought. “I didn’t have to accept his terms. Tony was right. I could have asked questions.”

Natasha’s face softened incrementally, but she said nothing.

“He called the tower,” Steve said. “He told JARVIS his conditions so they were in place before we ever talked.” He knew that she knew what he was getting at. He couldn’t have been the only one thinking it, even if only Tony had said something. To give himself a little more time, he took a forkful of chicken and pretended it needed more chewing than it did. “I was one of his HYDRA handlers,” he stated bleakly. “I could have ignored everything he said and he still would have listened to me. He wouldn’t have had a choice.” He stared at the wall next to Natasha, unable to meet her eyes. “You shouldn’t have backed me up with Tony. He was right. I should have asked questions while I had the chance.”

Natasha lifted her head and regarded him with a carefully non-judgemental gaze. “You could have given him orders,” she said.

Steve nodded and looked away again. “Yeah.”

“And he could hate and fear you,” she added, tone unchanged, “as much as his other handlers.” She caught his eyes when they darted back to her face. “You’re not HYDRA, Steve. They didn’t make you one of them. A real HYDRA handler would have crossed that line. You still know where it is.”

Wordless, Steve shook his head. He wasn’t even sure what he was denying.

With a sigh, Natasha reachd into the bag and pulled out another box for herself.

They ate in silence. Steve picked at his food while Natasha ate hers at a more measured pace.

When she was finished, she watched him for a while, then said, “Are you done?”

He nodded.

She took his half-finished box of food, packed everything back into the canvas bag, and slung everything over her shoulder. For a long moment, she stood over him, looked down. “Steve,” she said.

He looked up and knew she could read his shame and exhaustion.

“You’re making breakfast for everyone tomorrow,” she said.

Maybe he would have resented the order, but all he could feel was relief that someone still believed he could accomplish even that much.

He nodded.

Natasha turned to go. She’d just closed the door when Steve abruptly found himself on his feet.

“Wait,” he said, opening the door to find her waiting with raised eyebrows. He froze, flushing with shame. “What makes you so sure? I crossed so many lines already.”

The corner of her mouth twitched up in what was less a smirk and more a grimace. “He talked to you, Steve,” she reminded him, but he didn’t understand.

“That doesn’t mean he trusts me or even should trust me,” he pointed out.

She frowned at him. “Yes,” she said. “It does.”

The Avengers were onto him. The more responsibilities to the team he had, the more he had to leave his room and interact with them. His sleep quality was so low he wasn’t sure why he even tried.

Clint told him flat-out that if anyone (read HYDRA) had ever developed a supersoldier anti-depressant, they would have made him take it, even if Natasha had to immobilize him with a Widow’s Bite first.

Steve didn’t care. If there was no light at the end of the tunnel (read Bucky), he didn’t care if this heavy numb misery crushed him to nothing. The world had managed without him for seventy years. He wasn’t essential. He wasn’t so arrogant as to think they really needed him, not like Bucky, and if he couldn’t help Bucky, what the hell was he good for except hurting people and inspiring others to do the same?

You can’t help being what you are, Rumlow had said. Steve didn’t know what he was, but he didn’t feel like much of a superhero.

He caught himself wondering if the maintenance chair really had been a sort of kindness and then stopped in the middle of drying a plate, put it down on the counter with shaking hands, and fled to initiate a meeting with the deprogrammer he had been avoiding for months.

If that wasn’t rock bottom, he didn’t know or want to know what was.

“You can help me fix my thinking,” he blurted, before a word could come out of the other man’s mouth.

The deprogrammer looked at him with interest. “Precisely,” he said slowly. “I can help you fix your thinking, but the hard work will be all yours. Do you understand my meaning, Steve Rogers?”

Steve nodded jerkily and collapsed into a chair across the room from the man.

“How do I start?”

Bucky called four days later. It felt like a reward from the universe, despite what Bucky had to say.

It wasn’t a mission report. Not really.

“I went to the Ranch,” the Winter Soldier said, without a trace of Brooklyn. “The computers were intact.”

That might be useful information. There hadn’t been a question, however, so Steve said nothing.

Natasha squeezed his hand. The new protocol for Bucky’s calls was that Steve not take them alone.

“There were records... “ Bucky trailed off raggedly and Steve was struck by sudden foreboding stronger than the accent creeping into Bucky’s voice. “Records of… Fuck, Steve. If you hadn’t told me, I wouldna believed it. I thought… But it’s true.”

Steve didn’t dare respond to that when he wasn’t sure what Bucky meant and--

“You’re not who I thought,” said Bucky. “Stop hunting me. You won’t like what happens if you try to bring me in again.”

No. He opened his mouth to say it, but Bucky beat him to the punch.

“I shoulda gone with Rumlow,” Bucky growled and hung up before Steve could even process a reaction.

At least they had two more location hits to go on now. The prospect of Bucky returning to HYDRA galvanized their efforts to find him first.

When Tony’s next prediction was a location in Arizona, not even out of the country, Steve convinced the team he was stable enough to go along. It wasn’t like they expected combat. They probably wouldn’t even find anything.

“Be careful, Steve,” Natasha reminded him, unnecessarily. “If he decides to take you out, he could do it with a bullet from a mile away and never give you a chance to change his mind.”

Steve set his jaw. “I’ll take that risk.”

“There’s nothing here either,” Steve reported. He looked down from the edge toward the winding Colorado river far below. All that red and gold and blue. How he wished Bucky, the Bucky he’d known or the version he’d thought he was starting to understand, was there to see it with him.

If he threw himself over the edge, would the fall kill him? No, he decided. He’d hit things on the way down, lose momentum. The fall from the train hadn’t killed Bucky. A tumble into the Grand Canyon wouldn’t kill Steve.

He took a step back and told himself he hadn’t seriously considered the possibility of stepping off the cliff. He almost believed it. He’d had a lot of practice believing his own lies now.

“Do you want me to circle around and pick you up?” was all Natasha asked.

“Nah,” Steve told her. “I’ll take the scenic route. Feel like I might even sketch a little. See you back at the hotel.”

“I’ll see you later, then. Keep your phone on, Steve.”

When it came, it wasn't just a bullet from a mile away. It was also a tranq from less than fifty yards. The bullet took him in the calf. The tranq hit him in the shoulder.

The sniper could have put them wherever he wanted. That suggested he wanted Steve alive. Steve put pressure on his leg wound but didn’t try to fight the effects of the tranquilizer. He passed out.

Steve woke up. The room was mostly dark and very cold. It smelled of old blood. He was hanging from a hook in the ceiling, restrained with a familiar set of mag cuffs. His leg, though it pulsed with hot agony, had been bandaged. His cowl, gloves, and boots were all missing.

Bucky stood in front of him, spinning a knife through the fingers of his right hand.

“Are you here to kill me?” Steve asked him.

Bucky smiled, eyes closed almost to slits. The expression contained zero humor. “Some of the others asked me that too, you know.” He opened his eyes and cocked his head, examining Steve critically. “I’m going to ask you what I asked them,” he said. His tone was conversational but his expression was tight and his eyes were dark and hard with rage and fear.

Steve nodded as best he could. He owed Bucky whatever answers he could give.

“Why should I kill you?” Bucky asked, which was the opposite of what Steve had expected.

Didn’t matter. He knew what he had to say. Steve licked his lips. He couldn't say he was sorry. He couldn’t explain. Not yet. Maybe not ever if his answer was enough to provoke Bucky to kill him now. “I raped you. I beat you. I stood by and let you be tortured. I put you in the chair they used to wipe your mind, even when you struggled. Even when you tried to resist. I ordered you wiped when you remembered Natasha before Insight launched. I watched you scream. I hurt you and I let you be hurt.” He had to try anyway. “And I am so fucking sorry. But I did.”

Bucky looked utterly lost, shocked. Why? Why did he look surprised? “You’re… you’re the first one,” he said, slowly, wonderingly, and so clearly hurting over it. “You’re the first one who said you were sorry. The first one who said it was… rape and torture. I knew you were different.”

“I… uh… what?” Steve had told him all this before. They’d argued about it. What had happened to make Bucky so surprised now?

“I’m sorry too,” Bucky said and Steve was confused until he added, “for the bullet. Just because supersoldiers heal fast doesn’t mean we don’t feel it. I know. I’m sorry. I had to know.”

“Know?”

“That I could hurt you, Captain.” The last word came out dark and twisted. A curse.

Steve took a deep breath. He deserved that, he did. Bucky could shoot him in the head. Could leave him here to freeze or starve or suffocate. Could call up what was left of HYDRA and turn him over. It would be less than Steve deserved for his betrayal.

“I understand,” he said heavily.

Bucky didn’t say anything for several minutes. Steve began to lose feeling in his fingers and toes. He said nothing.

“For the sake of the relationship I thought we once had,” Bucky pronounced, “I choose not to kill you.”

Steve opened his mouth to say… Thank you? I understand? I’m sorry?

Bucky glared. Steve snapped his mouth shut.

“Don’t look for me anymore. I remember more every day. If I see you again, I might feel differently.”

Steve nodded weakly. “I’m so sorry, Bucky. Whatever you need to--”

Bucky was staring at him with wide eyes. “Bucky?” he repeated.

Steve stared back, not understanding.

“But…” his voice was suddenly small, uncertain, afraid, barely even accusing. “You said I’m not Bucky.”

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Fill 101/110: Undeniable Plausibility - On to the aftermath!

Re: Fill 101/110: Undeniable Plausibility - On to the aftermath!

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