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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“I want,” Bucky says, steadily, carefully.

Steve holds his breath. Bucky making any kind of request is still rare, half a year after their happy ending and Bucky’s recovery. He can see the effort that goes into this, for Bucky, and he doesn’t want to make any kind of noise or gesture that might scare him off. But Bucky continues, undaunted, and his bravery stirs Steve’s heart. After everything, he is still fighting to get his life back. It’s a courage like none Steve’s ever known.

“I want you to punish me,” he concludes. He’s been staring at the ground, but he wrenches his eyes up to meet Steve’s in a nearly violent motion, as if forcing himself to confront the judgment that will lie there.

There is none, or at least Steve hopes there isn’t. Inside him is a war of fears and terrors, but he tries to school his face to a mask of calm. It’s not his job to judge Bucky’s needs in recovery, just to meet as many of them as he can. Which probably doesn’t include this one, but he can listen, at least. “What do you mean, Buck?”

“I was yours. Before?” His voice carries a hint of questioning, like it always does when he’s talking about Brooklyn, about anything before the war. One of a thousand reasons why Steve would never—but it’s time to listen to Bucky now. He’ll get his chance to talk soon enough.

“We were together, yeah.”

“No,” Bucky says, a little stronger now. Steve doesn’t remember the last time he’s heard Bucky say no to him. “I was yours. Belonged to you. Not—an asset. A…” He trails off, unable to find the right word for what they were to each other. And Steve freezes.

He hasn’t been keeping this from Bucky, not really. One of his central rules has been to never, never lie, no matter how uncomfortable the truth makes him. Bucky deserves better than to be manipulated again, even by someone who thinks he’s acting in Bucky’s best interests. On the other hand, it also probably wasn't good for Bucky's incredibly fragile and new recovery to have Steve try to bring up the fact that he used to like it when Steve tied him up and called him names, that in fact they'd both wanted that, gotten off on it. He figured that, with everything Bucky has been through, the last thing he needs is confusion about Steve dong some of the same physical acts to him that his rapists had, or trying to explain how it could have meant something so utterly different. But it seems like Bucky already remembers, and has been struggling to make sense of it on his own, and he deserves Steve’s honesty. “It was a game, Buck,” he says, but that isn’t quite true, and he regrets it at once. “It was… it was fun. We did it because we liked it, you—“ Steve goes searching for words that aren’t asked for it because he doesn’t want Bucky associating that with memories of fear and violence and painful sex, even if it’s the truth.

“There weren’t words, but I was yours,” Bucky says, like an echo out of the past. It wasn’t so long ago, on Steve’s personal timeline, that Bucky was whispering that to them across the inches that separated them in their Brooklyn bed. I dunno how else to say it, Stevie, but I’m yours.

“Yes,” Steve says, simply, fighting back the stupid, possessive urge to insist that Bucky is still his, only his, no matter what that might mean now.

“I was yours when they took me. Aren’t you mad?”

It’s so simple. There’s something childlike in Bucky’s voice, the simplicity of the words he uses to describe his own torture, his own rape. Steve has to be so careful here. “Never at you.”

“You should be,” Bucky says. “I didn’t stop them.”

They’ve had this conversation before. “Buck, nothing you ever say will convince me it was your fault what they did to you. And even if you wanted it, even if it had been consensual, you didn’t remember who I was. You had no obligation to—“

Bucky actually interrupts him, and Steve would be jumping for joy at the progress he’s making with self-advocacy were it not for what he’s advocating for. “I should have. It should have been the most important thing. I’m not explaining it right, my brain is still all… confused. But I want this. Please, Stevie.”

For the first time since Bucky’s return, Steve says, “No.”

Steve has to be so careful here. I love this! Bucky is so brave to ask. Can't wait to see where it goes!

“Yes,” Steve says, simply, fighting back the stupid, possessive urge to insist that Bucky is still his, only his, no matter what that might mean now.

This is beautiful, AA!

Ooh yes yes yes, beautiful!

a/n: this is going to be a 5+1 format, as in "five times steve declined to punish bucky (and one time he did)", because i love negotiation more than is good for me. thank you for all the feedback, do let me know if there's anything you particularly want from future installments!

Bucky brings it up again after another three months.

He’s been making steady progress. The doctors are amazed with how far he’s come in a relatively short amount of time. His brain is healing much faster than they expected. Outside of the strictly physical, he’s also doing better and better emotionally and mentally. He has fewer nightmares, and lately almost never one of the terrifying (for Steve, anyway) dissociative periods when he can’t remember where he is or what’s happening to him. He’s started joking again, and every so often sounds just like his old self—not, as Steve often reminds him, that he’s under any obligation to go back to his old self at all. Whenever Steve says this, Bucky will roll his eyes and remind Steve that he wants to, wants his life back, which makes Steve feel better, although he can never entirely erase the fear that he’s coercing Bucky into doing things that he doesn’t really want to do.

Which is why, under no circumstances, will he be punishing Bucky for having been raped, Jesus Christ, he can’t believe he has somehow found himself living in a world in which that’s a sentence he has to even think. But it is, and it’s for Bucky, he reminds himself, whenever he starts to feel too sorry for himself. It’s for Bucky. There’s no higher purpose in Steve’s life. So he’ll just have to swallow his own discomfort and get through this conversation.

Bucky’s hot new coping mechanism is extreme frankness, which in theory Steve approves of. In practice…

Well, it’s not like Bucky needs his approval. Which is a good thing. Because he can’t possibly give it, not to this.

“I want us to be together again,” Bucky declares. “Like we used to be.”

Steve’s heart is leaping in his chest long before he’s able to be sensible or ask questions or anything, because Bucky wants to be with him. How could anything else matter?

Except that, of course, there will always be something that matters more, the one thing that matters most.

Bucky.

“What do you mean?”

“I want to be yours. And before you start, Steve, I don’t mean like the way the asset belonged to Hydra. I mean, like, the way Bucky Barnes used to belong to that little punk Steve Rogers way back in Brooklyn. You understand?”

“I understand.”

“You want that too, yeah?” Bucky asks, and there’s something in the casualness of his voice that Steve knows is anything but casual. He’s not sure—and how could he be? Steve isn’t either, when it comes down to it. It’s been so long for both of them. How could either of them be sure again, that things will ever go back to normal? They still trust each other, of course, but they don’t know each other with the same silent confidence that they used to.

“Of course I do, Bucky,” he says, straight away, no hesitation, no worrying. Bucky shouldn’t have to wonder.

“I want it to all go back to normal. Just like how it was before. Do you think that could ever happen?”

“Maybe?” Steve says, because honesty, honesty, even when it’s hard. That’s what he owes Bucky, and that’s what he’ll give Bucky. “But if it can’t, I do think it can go back to being really good. Maybe even better.”

“You want to give it a try?”

“If you do.”

Bucky nods, once, and then sets his jaw. “Right. We can do that. Share a frank down at Coney Island, walk the pier tryin’ not to let anyone catch us holding hands, make love all night. All the stuff we used to do. Only, you gotta do one thing for me first.”

“I’d do anything for you.”

“You gotta do what I asked, Stevie. You gotta punish me.” Bucky’s accent is coming out strong now, but he’s not dancing away from Steve’s eyes. He seems, if anything, more solidly himself than usual.

Steve draws a breath, which is apparently Buckys’ cue to attack.

“I know you’ve done it before. I remember. You caught me flirting with Joe Donaghue down at the docks, and you told me to follow you home and I did, ‘cause I couldn’t say no to you, and you made me bend over the bed and took off your belt and gave me a proper licking and with every stroke I had to tell you I was sorry for being such a stupid slut and promise I’d never forget again that I was yours.”

Bucky says all of this in a faraway, dreamlike voice, but it doesn’t stop Steve’s traitorous cock from getting hard in his pants, of course.

“It’d have to be more than your belt now, of course. I did a lot worse than make eyes at Joe this time. But I’d take it for you, Stevie, and then I’d be all yours again. However you want me.”

Steve looks at Bucky’s wide, pleading eyes, and does the thing he promised he’d never do to Bucky.

He runs.

Oh, he makes an excuse before he stumbles out of the room, but it’s definitely fleeing, and they both know it. Alone in his room, the door closed and, foolishly, locked (as though Bucky couldn’t break it down if he wanted to), Steve stares down at his erection, willing it to disappear.

He can never do this. More than that, he can’t want it.

But Bucky asked…

For something Steve shouldn’t give him. That’s the end of that.

Love this installment so far! Steve’s awkward boner and Bucky’s determination to get punished are perfect.

For something Steve shouldn’t give him. That’s the end of that.

Sure Steve, sure. Tell that to your shameboner.

...although he can never entirely erase the fear that he’s coercing Bucky into doing things that he doesn’t really want to do.

This entire fill has been some of my favorite, delicious trash jam. Steve afraid and ashamed of what he wants from Bucky. Bucky being reasonably okay and knowing exactly what he wants from Steve. Both of them trying to rebuild the intense bond they used to share.

They still trust each other, of course, but they don’t know each other with the same silent confidence that they used to.

I'm loving everything about this so far, AA!

Bucky stops asking, after that, and moves on to a different plan. Steve wishes he loved someone a little less stubbornly determined, because the whole thing has grown a bit exhausting.

Because now, Bucky isn’t asking. He’s attempting to seduce Steve.

Steve is pretty easily seduceable, especially when it comes to Bucky Barnes. Bucky only has to lean on him while they’re watching TV, or casually sling an arm around his waist while they’re walking, or smirk at him in that bright, knowing way he always used to, or card his fingers through his now-long hair, or… basically do anything, come to think of it. Yeah, Steve is basically putty in the hands of Bucky, and Bucky knows it.

And then he’ll smile at Steve, or lean in closer, or wink, and he’ll whisper in Steve’s ear, blowing warm, wet breath across the sensitive shell of Steve’s ear, “You want me, right?”

“Yes,” Steve will answer, too far gone to demur even if he would want to lie, because he wants Bucky like a fire wants to burn, and there’s no point in trying to hide it.

Bucky will pull away, smile at him again, no, smirk, and then he’ll say, “Well, you know what you have to do.”

Obviously, Steve isn’t going to let his desire for sex get in the way of doing the right thing for Bucky. He has to admit, though, that it’s getting harder and harder to remember why this is the right thing, with Bucky continuing to insist that he wants Steve to punish him, with the pleasant memories of past games so fresh, and, okay, with all of the blood rushing distinctly south of his brain on a regular basis.

He wishes he had someone to talk to about all of this, but he doesn’t think he can bring himself to do so. They’d always kept it a secret—even with their other queer friends, back in Brooklyn, guys who could understand what Steve and Bucky were to each other, they didn’t tell anyone about the games they’d play in the bedroom, or the way in which they sometimes felt like more than just games. Steve was always a little ashamed of how much he liked it, and Bucky didn’t want other guys thinking he was easy just because he was easy for Steve.

The future has changed in a lot of ways, and people talk about all kinds of things that used to be pretty private, but Steve’s still pretty sure he shouldn’t go around telling everyone, or anyone, that Bucky used to get on his knees for Steve and call him ‘sir’ in bed and liked to get tied up. That’s no one’s business but his and Bucky’s. Unfortunately, not being able to talk about that means not being able to explain his dilemma.

Then again, maybe it doesn’t change things that much, because that has nothing to do with this, right? Bucky’s asking Steve to hurt him because of some twisted sense of guilt that HYDRA forced into him, because of the brainwashing and the trauma and everything else.

He barely formulates that thought before he can basically hear Bucky’s response in his head, clear as if he were speaking. ‘What, now I don’t get to know my own mind because of what they done to me? You know that ain’t fair.’ And he’d be right, too.

It isn’t the shameless flirting changing Steve’s mind, not really, but he has to admit it doesn’t help that Bucky is bending over right now to retrieve something he’d accidentally-on-purpose dropped, which of course brings his ass right into Steve’s line of sight.

Steve is getting a headache. Damn serum was supposed to prevent that, but it wasn’t counting on the exhausting and infinite charms of Bucky Barnes, Steve supposes.

(OP) AHH I am so very excited this is getting a fill, especially one that's so lovely so far!!!!! I love Bucky's steadfast determination and Steve's awkward boners. I also really love all the negotiation and the anticipation that grows w it!!

Love it! Bucky seducing Steve to punish him is my new kink.

Eventually, Steve figures out the solution to his need to talk. It’s pretty obvious, actually, and he’s a little embarrassed it took him this long to come ‘round to it.

He should talk to Bucky. Right.

He was probably subconsciously avoiding doing that because it makes him pretty uncomfortable, which he is at least able to recognize as a fucking stupid reason to not do what is clearly the right thing and will probably make both him and Bucky feel better about this whole uncomfortable situation.

Therapy has taught him a lot about the best ways to have difficult conversations, so he makes sure to raise it at a time when both he and Bucky are relaxed, at home where they both feel safe, and physically facing each other but not too close so Bucky doesn’t feel ganged up on or pressured.

“So Buck. I was wondering if we could talk for a second.”

“Sure thing.” Bucky puts down his pulp novel and looks at Steve. “What’s up?”

“Uh, I’ve been thinking. About the thing you’ve mentioned a couple of times. You know.”

“You punishing me?” Bucky says, and right away his energy seems to shift. It’s like he’s becoming calmer, more grounded, more focused. His eyes are on Steve, and he’s in the moment, not at all distracted or thinking about the past or anything else that still happens with some frequency.

“Yeah.”

“What about it?”

“Well, um, I’m not saying I’m gonna, or that I think I can, or anything like that. But I figured I ought to at least talk about it with you. Find out why it’s so important to you. I owe you that much.”

“Finally, you idiot,” Bucky says, which makes Steve feel at least a little hopeful that this isn’t all some kind of horrible trauma reaction that proves Bucky is regressing and needs to be protected from a dangerous urge to harm himself. He’s pretty sure Bucky didn’t go around calling his Hydra handlers idiots.

“Sorry?”

“I’ve been waiting for this for ages. Yes, what do you want to know?”

“I want to know why, Buck. Why is this so important to you? I mean, not to bring up painful memories, but you aren’t exactly big on asking for stuff…”

“Nah, it’s a fair question. Um, give me a second, this is pretty tricky to explain.” But Bucky’s voice is steady, and he’s meeting Steve’s eyes. “A bunch of the memories from the stuff that happened to me really mess me up, but most of them I know I need to find ways to deal with. The fact that I tortured people, killed people… that’s gonna stay with me forever, and I know that. I’m okay with that. I’ll deal with the guilt and I’ll do what I can to make it right. But the other stuff is, um, a different story.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, too afraid his words will come out wrong. It’s pretty rare and special that Bucky is talking about his past at all. He knows that if he pushes too much or too hard, he’ll lose this chance altogether, and he doesn’t want that. Luckily, Bucky doesn’t seem to need any prodding.

“I know I shouldn’t feel bad about any of that. It’s not like I asked HYDRA to spend seventy years shoving their dicks in me every way they could figure out how to, you know? Actually, I would really have rather they didn’t. Like, intellectually, I get that it’s not my fault. But I can’t stop feeling it.”

That makes some sense to Steve. He’s read up a lot about trauma and PTSD and sexual assault, and everything Bucky is saying lines up with what he’s learned.

“And the guilt gets worse every time I get close to you, Stevie. It’s like there’s this voice in my head that’ll start screaming that I’m dirty, that I don’t deserve to be with you or talk to you or, especially, touch you. And I’ve tried all kinds of things that might make it better, I’ve tried and tried, but nothing helps. And then I think about how rotten I felt after I messed around with Joe Donaghue, and how much better I felt after you licked me, and I figured, maybe it’d work again. Because I know it wouldn’t really make up for it, but I also know I don’t really have anything to apologize for, and I thought, maybe I just need that kind of… release. And I need it to come from you.”

“Oh,” Steve says, because this is all starting to make a kind of sense to him. It’s starting to be the kind of thing that feels like he could do it and live with himself afterwards.

“Also, uh, I think you’re pretty damn hot when you’re all self-righteous and angry, and I gotta tell you, I like the idea of that all getting directed right at my ass.”

“Huh,” Steve repeats. Because that, well, that he can do. He’s not sure about all the complicated emotions here, but if it’s a sex thing, that makes it a little easier.

“So?” Bucky asks, sitting on the edge of his seat a little. “You gonna do it?”

“We gotta talk about this some more, Buck. What you want me to do, exactly. Where the limits are. What will help you.”

“But—“

“Yeah,” Steve says, smiling at the delight that passes over Bucky’s face. “I’m in.”

Well done, Steve XD
Looking forward to seeing them play it out!

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Dumpster #5: We didn't start the trashfire

fill: the claim (1/6)

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the claim (3/8)

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the claim (4/8)

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