Dumpster #5: We didn't start the trashfire

[trashmod]

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.

[Rules in full] [Round 1] [Round 2] [Round 3] [Round 4] [Fill post] [Chatter post] [hydratrashmeme Pinboard archive] [Round 5 in flat view (comments in non-threaded chronological order, most recent last)]

Comments

Fill: The Quiet Game (7/?)

[devildears]

A week went by and Bucky still winced with every false step. The serum took its bloody time, the advanced healing setting in later than usual. It worried Bucky. He thought he should be fully recovered by now, up and ready to take his revenge for his own stuffering and more importantly, everything Hydra had put the children through but it wasn't that easy. It never was.

He still hated Ward and the others for what they had done, hated them with a burning passion that simple words couldn’t express but Steve was worse. Day by day the change became more obvious and therefore harder to ignore. The less Steve felt the need to take care of Bucky, the more he obsessed about finding his rapists. He was looking for clues from dusk till dawn until the light of the oil lamp burned out, researching likely Hydra strong holds outside the Wakandan border to sniff out Ward and his men. Like a blood hound with a scent. 

Steve’s anger burned brightest in the night and Bucky didn’t know how to put out the flame. The usual tactic to calm down a super soldier with an itch to scratch, tried and tested, was sex. The problem was that Steve was too stubborn to take Bucky up on his offer every single time. He didn’t want to hurt him, told him he was still healing and traumatized goddamn it. It was a mess.

So instead of getting laid and actively doing something against the fact that Grant Ward was still the last person who had been inside of him, Bucky watched Steve stare at the table in their little hut for two nights in a row. He might have let some details slip in an ill-advised attempt to explain his own need to get back at Hydra after he’d sworn he’d never fight them again, focused only on moving on with his life and his recovery. A huge mistake as it turned out. Hydra was like a cancer - bound to get inside of you no matter how hard you cried. So when Steve stared and stared at the table, as if it was gonna disappear if he tried hard enough, he didn’t say anything about it (like ‘yes ladies and gentlemen, this is the exact piece of furniture they raped me on’). It hurt. 

On the third day, after a sleepless night, Steve picked up the axt and slaughtered the poor creaking thing in the middle of the living room, wood splinters flying everywhere. Bucky watched him do it without interfering, keeping a save distance. When it was over, Steve assembled the corpse with his bare hands, splinters digging deeply into the flesh of his palms and threw it into the fire. 

‘You’re only gonna hurt yourself,’ Bucky almost told him but thought better of it. Steve was entitled to a little part of his pain, too. 

---

Bucky missed his relatives. Steve wasn‘t sure wheather he realized it himself but when he first came back to Wakanda to find Bucky surrounded by a flock of over-excited children, running around and teaching them how to throw a ball, he immediately thought of Becca and what she would have to say to all of this.

When Steve came back from the ice he realized that the Barnes family had grown beyond his wildest imagination. Thanks to Bucky’s sister Rebecca who had raised 7 children in the course of her long and happy life in their absence, 5 of Bucky’s nieces and nephews had their own families now, a flock of screaming joy. There were children of all ages, some little babies still. 

Bucky loved babies and yet, he had never been to see them. “You wouldn’t understand,” he told Steve when he tried to get him to stop by - at least on Christmas eve. He pointed at himself, an unhappy, self-depricating smile. “I can’t bring this shitshow to their table.” 

No, instead of dealing with his problems like an adult and maybe some therapy, Bucky had decided to adopt and become some sort of legendary foster father figure called the ‘White Wolf’. He felt responsible for all the children here which he had no blood relation to whatsoever. It was easier somehow. That was why he’d stayed behind when Steve left to hunt down a bunch of mercenaries who sold Vibranium weapons to arms dealers and let the love of his life down. 

“You’re always asking me not to go,” Steve argued. “If I‘d come home sooner, if I’d just stayed here with you like you asked me to, maybe...”

“I’d love to turn this into another argument about your savior complex,” Bucky interjected, passing him by and letting their dirty plates fall into the sink with an alarming clank, “but there’s nothing you could have done, Steve. I did what I had to—”

“Actually,” Steve cut him off, expression stormy, “you didn't have to! You could have killed them all where they stood! You decided NOT TO. There's a difference.”

Bucky’s hand grabbed the sink like an anchor. He closed his eyes with a deep sigh and shook his head at Steve like he was the unreasonable one. “They had guns on us, Steve. I told you...”

“You decided that the children were worth more than yourself and you let them— You...”

“You're right,” Bucky announced calmly, as calm as he could manage under the circumstances, “I chose the children. I chose them over myself and I would do it again.”

Steve stood up abruptly and left. Otherwise he might have said some things he would later regret. 

---

Bucky sat outside under the old Marula tree, resting his back against it. His eyes were closed. A few beams of the hot Wakandan sun fell through the shelter of the foliage and danced on his face. A breeze played with his hair, cooling his overheated skin. 

18 hours had passed since their argument and Steve still hadn’t come back. 

“Bucky?” he heard little Arih call out softly. “Ingcuka?” 

Bucky breathed deeply and opened his eyes to greet her with a pained smile. She wouldn’t go away if he feigned sleep now. Not this one. Too smart for her own good.

“Hi there.”

Arih ran up to him, her small steps carrying her like the wind. She sat down beside him eagerly. Bucky tried to relax as her little shoulder pressed against his arm, skin to skin, concentrating on his core, his inner peace. He didn’t move away. 

“Mama sent me. She told me we should play again.”

Bucky paused. “Are you sure that’s what she said?”

“Yes I'm sure, silly.”

Silly... Ever since she had learned that word from Steve, overhearing his phone call with Sam and the other Avengers, she applied it to everything. Silly goat, silly tree, silly food, silly brothers, silly Bucky.

“You know it's ok if you don't want to see me anymore, right?” he asked her meekly, ignoring the protesting twinge of his heart that wasn't ready to hear the answer yet.

He took another deep breath and waited, watching her from the corner of his eye. Arih poked a basalt stone with that stick she always carried, rolling it around on the ground. Her young eyes stayed fixed on it as it was moved this and that way, mute and helpless against the force, brows drawn together in a frown.

“Why would I not want to see you anymore?”

Bucky felt himself tense and concentrated on breathing more regularly, in and out, monitoring the signs of her apparent discomfort closely. 

“Because of the game. I know you still remember that. These men... They were there because of me. They scared you.”

“Mama said it was wrong what they did.” She looked up, suddenly distressed. “Why did they do that? Why did they hurt you?”

“I don't know,” Bucky said, then he changed his mind and cleared his throat. She deserved to be treated like an adult after what she went through. “Sometimes... People are just cruel. They don't need a reason. They just like to— They hurt others because they want to. Because they can.”

“Did we make too much noise?” she asked with a guilty expression. “I’m sorry. We didn't mean to—”

Bucky’s heart broke for her. He swallowed hard to fight back the tears that would come too easy these days and embraced her with one arm, ignoring the spiteful voice in his head that told him he shouldn't touch her, that he didn’t deserve to be with the children anymore after what he’d done to them, drawing horror with his presence. 

“Oh no, sweetheart. It wasn’t your fault. You mustn’t think like that. They just... There’s nothing you could have done.”

“I'm still sorry,” she told him abashedly.

“I am, too. But you really don't have to feel guilty. You did great. I promise.”

Bucky let go of her. She didn’t say anything for a while, still frowning like she was waiting for some kind of epiphany. Then she poked him in the ribs with the stick. 

“Are you sure?” she asked, with a new-found sense of irony, parroting his earlier question back to him. 

Bucky nodded and tried to assure her with the approximation of an encouraging smile that hurt his cheeks. “I'm sure. You’re perfect.”

Arih stopped poking him and clapped her hands together. “Do you want to play Miss Mary Mack then?” she asked hopefully, changing the subject with bright sparkling eyes, the way only a child could.

Bucky raised his hand. The children knew that he didn't like to use a prosthetic unless he went on missions (which he never did as long as T’challa didn’t personally ask him to) so they had adapted the clapping method for him by using the palm and back of his hand as a substitute for left and right.

He smiled at her, honestly this time, and let it reach his eyes. “I'd love to.”

---

“I think I found something,” Steve whispered in the dark. 

Bucky didn’t startle, too familiar with the owner of the voice to register as a threat. He turned around to face Steve on the mat, a dull twinge in his abdomen as he put one thigh above the other. Probably a phantom pain.

“Ward?” he asked under his breath as if not to disturb the peace and quiet. The name tasted like poison on his tongue.

“I’m not sure but I think so.” 

Steve removed his shirt that smelled faintly of sweat, proof that he’d spent the better part of the day outside. He folded it neatly only to unfold it again and threw it vaguely in the direction of the laundry hamper. 

“Hm...” Bucky murmured, buying time. “Well... If it’s him, we can’t underestimate what he’s capable of. He’s ruthless, smart, strong, well-trained, a perfect shot. One of Hydra’s top 10...”

“I know that,” Steve said. “I worked with him once.”

Bucky sucked in a sharp breath. “Yeah, I figured.” 

“I— I wish—”

“Pierce once told me that S.H.I.E.L.D. gave him the highest marks for espionage since Natasha left the academy,” Bucky went on undeterred, unwilling to let Steve guilt-trip himself any further. “He’ll be expecting us, so we can’t come unprepared.” 

“I’m sorry I said those things,” Steve whispered, letting Bucky wait him out to sort through his feelings. “I shouldn’t have. It was aweful. Please forgive me? I didn’t mean any of that. I’m just so...”  

Bucky sighed. “I get it. You’re angry. I’m angry, too.”

“We’ll train,” Steve promised as he layed down on their makeshift bed besides Bucky and faced him, propped up on his elbow. “We’ll tackle every possible outcome and we’ll do it together. They won’t get away this time.” 

It was hard to make out his lover’s face in the dark but Bucky could hear the change in his voice regardless. Some kind of acceptance and the assurance of a workable plan. 

“Welcome back,” he said to Steve, heart full of gratitude and sadness. 

Steve leaned forward and gave him a chaste kiss on the forhead, pressing his lips against it. Bucky could feel a bunch of silent tears fall on his cheek. 

“You, too.”