Chapter Text
Diamond rope, silver chain
Pretty noose is pretty pain
And I don’t like what you got me hanging from
And I don’t like what you got me hanging from…
— “Pretty Noose,” Soundgarden
--
Sometimes I feel so worthless
Sometimes I feel discarded
I wish that I was good enough
Then I’d know that I am not alone
— “In the Shadow of the Valley of Death,” Marilyn Manson
-- -- --
By the time he’d returned to the tower, Bucky had worked himself back up into kind of an anxious mess. He sat for a moment in the garage shaking his legs, staring at his hands clenched around the steering wheel — specially designed to withstand the pressure of the metal hand.
He had no idea what the fuck he was doing. Not even four hours ago he’d been in the safehouse with Rumlow, and he’d been warm, and comfortable, and happy, and Rumlow had offered something good which Bucky had just thrown away —
— not, he supposed, as though he should be surprised, considering how utterly incapable he was of taking proper care of himself, making rational, decent decisions —
— and now he was here, crawling back into the arms of the black oppressive thing that had been suffocating him again and again for five years. Even though it had been his decision — no, because it had been his decision. His, and not Rumlow’s. He sat there feeling betrayed, and then of course furious at himself for feeling betrayed by his Commander. Rumlow hadn’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t his fault Bucky was inadequate, incompetent, incapable —
His phone buzzed. He glanced down at it, sure it would be Steve, wondering where he was, why he hadn’t come up yet — but it was an unknown number. Bucky’s heart lurched in his chest even before he read the text:
Don’t delete my number again.
He felt all the air rush out of his lungs at once. He couldn’t bite back a smile as he finally unsnapped his seatbelt, opened the driver’s side door, and retrieved his things — toothbrush, Rumlow’s sweatshirt — before locking the car and starting for the elevator which would take him up to his and Steve’s floor. He pushed the button; then, as he stood waiting, he unlocked his phone and wrote back:
Yes, sir.
--
He put the toothbrush in his bathroom and the sweatshirt in its drawer. He thought about taking a shower, but he didn’t really want to keep Steve waiting — make things worse than they already were — so he just changed into a different t-shirt and sweats, tied his hair back, and headed at last into the kitchen. Steve was heating up a family-sized Stouffer’s in the microwave. He glanced up when Bucky knocked on the doorframe.
“Hey, Buck.” His eyes dropped down Bucky’s body. “You look good.”
Bucky snorted, walking over to the fridge. Steve had taken a couple pizza boxes upstairs from the night previous and Bucky swiped one. Pepperoni, onions, and green bell peppers. Without the sick nausea from two nights ago it actually smelled fucking incredible, so Bucky popped two slices into the other microwave and waited, bouncing on his heels, for them to heat up. He could feel Steve’s eyes on him; after a moment Steve said,
“You’re, uh — you seem like you’re feeling a lot better from, from before.”
“Sure,” Bucky said to the microwave. “Getting out cleared my head.”
He knew Steve had winced without having to look. “Buck — ”
“Aw, Stevie, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I just — ”
“Pal, I know you’re sorry,” Bucky said, watching the pizza as it rotated slowly on the glass dish. “I ain’t mad at you. It’s just — fresh air. You remember how it felt when you were getting over being sick and you got to go outside for the first time in a while.”
“Yes — ”
“So that’s it. That’s all it is.” The microwave beeped and Bucky opened it — carefully, with his flesh hand — and reached in to take the plate. Because the metal hand didn’t have great temperature sensors he was able to touch pretty much any hot thing in the kitchen. Although there was a limit even for him — Rollins had found it once, when he’d forced the asset to stick his whole arm into an oven as punishment, or maybe only because he was drunk and felt like doing it. The metal arm hadn’t been damaged, but after Rollins was done getting it as hot as he wanted, he told the asset to press his hands together. The factual understanding of the pain this would cause was secondary to his desire and need to obey. Still, the closer his flesh hand got to the overheated metal the more his physiological responses tried to take over, keeping his skin from being injured, until at last in exasperation Rollins grabbed his flesh wrist and shoved it forward.
The resultant burns took a few days to heal. That was the only part of it that really annoyed Pierce, because with his flesh hand decommissioned he wasn’t as effective during rec time. But Bucky also remembered the way Rumlow had looked when he’d gone to his room — they were in a safehouse — after Rollins let him go. He remembered Rumlow standing in the entranceway to the medical tent, glaring at the doctor who was patching up the burns. He remembered hearing Rumlow yelling at Rollins for a while through the thin walls of the safehouse later that night.
Now as he set the plate down on the counter and lifted the slice to his mouth, Steve said,
“All right,” and he said, “Well, if it’s okay for me to say, I’m glad you’re back.”
Bucky smiled at him. The trick to being around Steve, he was discovering, was to just keep going on automatic, to never let himself think. Like runners making a long jump who avoided thinking too hard about the task for fear they might falter and hurt themselves. He had no idea what exactly he was doing. When he’d told Steve he wanted to make it up to him, he thought there really could only be one thing that could mean, and he was sure Steve knew it too, but he wasn’t sure how he was going to get from here to there. But the trick was to just not think about it. The trick was to run until he’d burnt himself out, until he’d exhausted both himself and Steve. When Steve was worn out and placated, he wouldn’t pay as much attention, and Bucky could fall back under the radar.
It was a tight balance, precarious; like the puzzle game with wooden blocks Tony and Bruce had tried teaching him some years ago. But it was also Bucky’s only option right now. He couldn’t go back to the Commander yet; it was too soon. But if he waited, and if he kept Steve happy, pretty soon this whole last week would be a receding memory, like a boat viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. The whole week would be over, and things would go back to normal, and Steve would quit caring as much what Bucky did, because he’d think he owned him. Everything would be a lot easier once Steve went back to thinking Bucky belonged only to him.
He stood in the kitchen with Steve until the microwave dinner was done cooking. Then they walked to the table and sat across from each other. After what felt like a very short amount of time they ran out of things to say to each other; Bucky suggested they could go watch a movie or something, but Steve pointed out that the television was in the other room and he didn’t want to bring the whole massive tray of food in there and sit on the floor with it. Bucky said okay, pulled a glob of cheese off the end of his second slice, and began the process of slowly sucking it off his metal fingers. When he glanced across the table he saw Steve staring at him. Good.
“Bucky,” Steve said, when Bucky had finished licking most of the grease shine off his hand.
“Yeah,” Bucky said.
Steve took a breath. He put his fork down. “Um,” he said. “So, I don’t really know — I’m just gonna ask this, okay? What — uh. Earlier. What did you mean exactly when you said you wanted to make it up to me?”
Bucky tore the entire end off the pizza and began to eat it. It was easier, sometimes, when he was nervous, to eat in smaller bites — also he was still partially full from the McDonald’s. “What do you think I meant?” he asked after a moment.
“Don’t do that, Buck,” Steve said. He was still staring at Bucky’s hands as they worked over the pizza, and Bucky thought he meant quit being weird with the food. But then Steve said, “Look, I’m tired, okay? And I’ve already spent the whole day worrying about you — ”
“I told you I’m sorry, I got busy — ”
“I know.” Steve tried to smile, but it must have felt as stiff as it looked, because he let it fall just a second later. “I know, Bucky. But just. If you could quit playing games.”
He looked surprised pretty much immediately after he said it, like he hadn’t meant for it to come out. Bucky couldn’t quite tell if what he himself was feeling was surprise, but he put the slice down on the plate. He didn’t realize until after the fact that he’d folded his hands in his lap as politely as he could. Pierce never wanted him to hold his hands up in a gesture of surrender when he was cornered, or any other time, really. He liked Bucky with his hands clasped either in front of him or behind his back, one hand loosely circling the other wrist, or the fingers tangled gently together, easy to break the grip. Bucky of course had never been in a position to ask why Pierce preferred him to submit this way, but he caught himself doing it reflexively sometimes when he heard raised voices and he was doing it now. Steve couldn’t see it but even if Steve did see it of course he wouldn’t know what it meant.
“I’m not playing games,” he said.
Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. Bucky remembered the same gesture on a much smaller man, Steve’s thin fingers squeezing down against where his skin was indented and permanently reddish from where his reading glasses sat. (Technically he was supposed to wear them all the time, but he wouldn’t do it, and his vision was… well, decent enough he could get by, at least with Bucky’s surreptitious help. In the twenty-first century Bucky had gotten a little bit hysterical when he realized that Steve wouldn’t have passed a modern driving test at all.)
“No,” Steve said. “I don’t — I shouldn’t have said it like that. I don’t think you’re doing it consciously. But Buck, I. You know I’ve known you a really long time.”
Bucky had to push down a burst of laughter at that. He concentrated very hard on his folded hands in his lap, the pretty pattern the silver made against his skin. When they’d constructed the arm they’d made sure all his joints matched right. He guessed that had been considerate of them — they could have given him a gun for an arm, or something else that got sheathed and shut down when not in use.
He remembered one time Sitwell had commented how it would be fun if he did have a gun where his metal arm was, or maybe the metal arm and then a gun on his right side, and how Rollins had burst out laughing and asked what Sitwell planned to do when it was rec time and there was just this fucking gun on the asset instead of a hand. Hauer had suggested maybe Sitwell secretly wanted a gun up his ass and Sitwell had gotten panicky and backtracked, which made Christiansen point out that all his protesting just confirmed the answer. You did say it would be fun, Jas, he’d said. You didn’t say what exactly you meant.
The asset had just sat back quietly like always, mind on the mission, going over the parameters, mentally reviewing their weapons arsenal — it was supposed to be a simple extraction, no casualties, but it was always better to have something in case one of the enemy needed to be disabled. Of course on a technical level he understood that it was much more efficient for him to have two arms for gripping things, operating vehicles, having the stronger hand for when his flesh arm was injured. But no one wanted his input, and it would not have occurred to him to offer it unless specifically asked —
— and here now, sitting at the table in the tower, it hit Bucky hard, how much he missed it that way. Not having to make an effort to talk. Not having to really listen or absorb anything outside of tactical plans. It struck him all over again just how stupid he’d been to turn the Commander’s offer down earlier. He’d all but told Bucky to stay with him, and Bucky had said no, because —
— because why, exactly? The only answer he could think of was because he was such a fucking idiot, and could never, would never be able to be trusted with making his own decisions. If he’d just listened, if he’d just stayed with Rumlow, it would be like that again, like it had been in that van, that van and the thousands of others, all the missions he’d ever gone on with Hydra, and then the missions he went on now, just him and Rumlow. And he’d be safer now than he’d been with Hydra, and he’d be happier — not that he’d registered any type of emotion back then, of course, but he knew he’d be happier, better taken care of, better handled —
He remembered how at the safehouse he’d realized as he was telling Rumlow ‘no’ that he was a bad asset because he couldn’t be truthful with his primary handler —
— if Rumlow was his primary, which he might not be, because if he was Bucky would’ve stayed, he would’ve left Steve long ago, unless this too was another symptom of how incompetent Bucky was at basic existence —
— but anyway he remembered realizing he was a bad asset then, and now sitting here with Steve he was still a bad asset, perhaps even more so because with Steve he wasn’t supposed to be an asset at all. He was supposed to just be Bucky Barnes, the one that Steve had grown up with, not the malfunctioning subpar version he was stuck with now, and somehow five years had gone by since he’d left Hydra and he still had never been able to live up to Steve’s standards, to shake the ugly sickbadwrong need in him for a life he should have loathed, a life he should have been thrilled to get away from, instead of sitting here shaking with his hands in his lap because Steve didn’t think of him as an asset, as a weapon, and Bucky should have been grateful for that. Instead all he could think was how Steve was wrong; how he hadn’t ever really known him, not like he thought he did, and that was Bucky’s fault, Bucky was bad, bad asset, bad liar, and so bad at all of it that Steve was — was —
“ — hiding something from me,” Steve was saying through the shards scraping up Bucky’s skull. “I mean, I just, like I said I don’t think you’re doing it deliberately, I, I just wish I knew what it was you’re not telling me, Buck — ”
Bucky pushed his plate further from himself. The nausea had come back. “I’m, I’ve told you everything, Steve — ”
Bad asset bad stupid bad bad bad. He was holding his hands clasped like Pierce had trained him to be good to avoid punishment but it wasn’t working anymore because he was so bad. He was lying to Steve and he was doing it deliberately, and he’d hidden everything about Rumlow deliberately, for five years he’d hidden this whole separate life from Steve, and lied about it, and if he was still good he wouldn’t have done it, because he’d never lied to Pierce. The thought wouldn’t have crossed his mind and if it had it would’ve been such an awful aberration it might have made him sick. Now as a fake human he was not only a liar but he was pretty fucking good at it, he’d even lied to Rumlow, he couldn’t, he —
“No, you haven’t, Bucky,” Steve said, pushing his food away too. “Look, I’ve been patient with you, haven’t I? I’ve never pushed you for anything. Everything we do is entirely on your terms. But I can’t keep helping you if you’re gonna keep hiding things — ”
“I just told you I’m not — ”
“ — so I want the truth, Buck. I’m not gonna be mad at you. Whatever it is. I just want to know where you were — ”
“I told you — ”
“For fuck’s sake, Bucky, I know there wasn’t a mission.” Now Steve was actually yelling. He’d hit the table with his fist; the wood cracked under his hand. He didn’t exactly look like he regretted it so much as he looked like he was holding himself back from doing more, and a chill shot up Bucky’s spine. Steve was half-standing; maybe Bucky should stand too? Except no, that was bad, and he’d already been bad enough. When handlers got angry enough to perform physical violence it was best to remain as small and unobtrusive as possible. Especially when it was the asset’s fault that the handler was angry. And even under better circumstances Bucky shouldn’t stand if Steve hadn’t told him; Bucky couldn’t put himself on the same level as a handler, that would be —
“ — two fucking seconds of research and I knew you were lying,” Steve was saying. His voice was shaking a little bit.
“I thought you weren’t gonna be mad,” Bucky mumbled to his hands. Across the table he heard Steve take in a steadying breath. Then he said,
“I’m not. I’m not, I’m just exasperated. I just wish you respected me enough to tell me what’s going on.”
Bucky wondered if he was going to cry. Sometimes handlers punished him for it and sometimes they didn’t. With most of them it seemed to depend largely on whether or not they were enjoying use of the asset’s secondary function. They liked it better if the asset cried during sex — though normally only when it was specified.
Obviously Bucky and Steve weren’t having sex right now. Rumlow hadn’t punished him for crying no matter when it happened, but Rumlow and Steve were different handlers. Bucky kind of doubted Steve would punish him for it, but considering Steve was angry at him he might think it was manipulative. Pierce had always called the asset’s crying manipulative, especially when he was crying because Pierce was hurting him for his mistakes. The circumstances weren’t exactly the same, but they were similar. Therefore Bucky tried very hard to force back the raw stinging feeling in his nose and throat. He swallowed it down and said,
“I do respect you, Steve — ”
“Then tell me where you’ve been.”
Bucky bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. He looked towards the short hallway which led to the elevator. After a few seconds Steve sighed. He stood up all the way. He looked at Bucky and like being shot Bucky knew what he was going to say in the seconds before he said it:
“I can’t — I’m not gonna let you leave again.”
Something loud and unsteady smashed down a flight of stairs in Bucky’s head.
“I’m sorry, Buck, it’s just. If you’re gonna keep lying to me. To all of us, really. You know? How do I know you’re not putting the tower in danger — ”
“What the fuck would I do that for?”
(bad misbehaving never ever raise your voice or talk back)
“I don’t know, Bucky, you tell me.” Steve pinched the bridge of his nose again. Bucky had to grip the sides of his chair to reassure himself he was still sitting in it, that he hadn’t folded himself onto the floor at Steve’s feet. “I’ve noticed you do this sometimes, actually, you just — wander off, I don’t know where you go. You did it after the Hydra base — ”
“Just wanted to clear my head,” Bucky mumbled, trying to be good, not look at Steve, not raise his voice, not make sudden movements to scare him so he’d get put in the chair —
“And that’s not the only time you’ve done it, either, now that I’m — ”
“I can go places alone if I want to — ”
“Not if I don’t trust you,” Steve snapped, and Bucky was pretty sure he was still upright in the chair but also he was on the floor of his room, on the kitchen floor at Steve’s feet, anesthesia in his nose from the air vents, Jarvis calmly telling him he was going to be subdued, Steve’s cock down his throat, blowjobs make everyone happier, more complacent, maybe if he’d just let Steve fuck him before now none of this would be happening —
— his phone, the Commander had told him not to fuck up again and he’d already fucked up, he was disobeying everyone it was too much he couldn’t breathe he —
— he had to get away and he was standing up for real, white noise screaming in his ears metal in his throat blinding flashes in his eyes. He was moving towards the elevators and he could hear Steve talking behind him, he remembered the containment cage that was supposed to come up if this happened again, the gas, his bedroom floor, his phone out of his control his whole life spinning away that thing in his mind shattering again and again and —
Someone grabbed his arm and he went completely still. His muscles relaxed into the grip because handlers liked it best when he was compliant. Even when they were at their angriest things still went better for him if he was compliant. It took a while for him to register that someone was still speaking over his shoulder, and that the someone was Steve. It was Steve and they were both standing in his and Steve’s apartment in the tower. The containment cage hadn’t come down but Bucky hadn’t gotten as close to the elevators as he’d thought, either. He must have automatically slowed his gait when he started remembering the protocols. The protocols for when he was being a bad asset —
— no, not an asset; he wasn’t an asset, he was a Bucky, and he was a bad Bucky, and Steve was gripping him so hard he could feel bruises forming below his skin. He was a bad limp bruised Bucky and after several seconds the buzzing in his ears went down enough he could understand what Steve was saying, which was just his name. His name over and over, and “ — are you okay? can you hear me? what’s going on?”
Bucky wanted to respond but he could barely hear his voice in his own head. His chest hurt. He turned, though he made sure to do it gently so that Steve wouldn’t think Bucky wanted him to let go. Steve was looking at him in that familiar wounded way he had, all worried and scared and delicate like he thought Bucky would fall apart just from being looked at — which, hell, not entirely an unfounded assumption. Steve was looking at Bucky’s face and kind of at his mouth and Bucky felt a little lurch behind his heart.
“Bucky?” Steve said. He’d relaxed his grip a little; slid his hand down Bucky’s arm, so that it was resting just above the crook of his elbow. “Are you — here, let’s go sit down.” He led Bucky — good dog — over to the couch. They sat together and Bucky focused on breathing. Steve was still holding his arm loosely but Bucky was able to put his hands back in his lap, fold them the way Pierce had liked. He stared at his mismatched fingers and waited. After a moment Steve said,
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that.” Slowly, he stroked his thumb over Bucky’s skin; Bucky’s heart jumped under his touch, but Steve didn’t comment on it. Instead: “And it’s not… it isn’t what you think. It’s not that I don’t trust you. Not like… it’s just hard, Bucky. It’s hard on all of us, and especially for me because you — ” He gestured with his free hand, letting out a tiny sort of helpless laugh — “like I said, I know you. And I c- I can’t, um, I — if I can’t read you. You, of all people. Then what — what else am I supposed to do? If we’re not even in the same corner anymore. How else am I supposed to react?”
Bucky was staring at Steve’s hand on his arm. His own hands folded neatly in his lap. He should have just gone straight in for it when they were in the kitchen. Sometimes it was permissible for the asset to take initiative during recreation —
— not the asset —
“I just really, really want to make sure that everything’s all right,” Steve said. “That’s all.” He was still stroking his thumb up and down Bucky’s arm. Up and down, up and down. He didn’t seem conscious of doing it.
Bucky stared at his hand, the broad shape of it. He remembered the first time he’d patched up a much thinner, smaller version of those same hands after a fight. Always cleaning Steve’s messes, never fast enough to prevent them, never good enough —
— Steve’s big hand stroking his arm, Steve’s voice in his ear: “Bucky… will you look at me, Buck? Please?” and of course Bucky looked, because how could he not. He was a bad not-asset and a bad Bucky, and he’d been a bad Bucky his whole life, and now he was paying the price for it, trapped here for the second time in as many weeks because he couldn’t do anything right, he couldn’t be good enough for Steve, he couldn’t be good enough for the Commander —
He looked at Steve, but he couldn’t hold his gaze for long. (Assets weren’t supposed to look their handlers directly in the eyes, anyway. Pierce had never allowed it except when he had his dick down the asset’s throat.) He watched Steve’s hand slide down his arm to his own hands where they were still tangled up together. Steve put his hand over Bucky’s. He shifted in closer; Bucky smelled his special aftershave, felt their arms press together. For a few seconds neither of them moved or spoke; then Steve said, almost whispering in the close space between them,
“I don’t know what you’re doing when you go out. I don’t know where you go or why you’re gone as long as you are — ” Bucky tried not to wince a little; he’d thought he was being good about not staying at Rumlow’s too long, or rather he hadn’t been thinking at all, but he’d assumed Steve didn’t notice, because Steve never said anything — “but it’s — if it’s something I’ve done. If I’ve pushed you away somehow… I didn’t mean to.”
His arm was a warm solid line against Bucky’s. His hand was on Bucky’s flesh hand, rubbing the knuckles. “I was trying to give you space after you came back,” he said. “But I guess I gave you the wrong impression, like I didn’t want you around, and that’s not — that isn’t what I meant. Now I’m scared I’ve pushed you away too far — ” another nervous little laugh. “I never intended to do that. But you have to know — ” he put his fingers on Bucky’s jaw to turn his head, and Bucky went completely still — “you have to know I want you here. Not just… keeping the protocol. Not just because I’m scared. I want to see you. I want to spend time with you.”
His hand was a burning contact point on Bucky’s face. Distantly through water Bucky could hear the rush of his heart. He was looking at Steve because it was obviously what Steve wanted from him. He couldn’t believe he’d never noticed before that Steve’s eyes were the same color as Pierce’s. The same slate gray shade, the air after a summer rainstorm, only this was Steve, so they were softer, and more pleading —
“ — feel like we hardly see each other, and I think it’s been going on for months and I just, I haven’t noticed, somehow. But I’m gonna make it right.” He swept his thumb over Bucky’s jaw. “You don’t have to keep going out. I promise I want you here.”
— the same eye color, the same mouth, the same basic shape of his nose. Bucky had kissed Steve on the cheek, on his lips, a hundred times since they’d reunited, but he hadn’t ever seen the similarities like this. Perhaps whoever hired Pierce had had a dark sense of humor; picked him out while looking at pictures of Steve in some history book. Bucky could sort of remember the first time he’d met Pierce, how there had been — not quite familiarity, but this urge to fall to his knees, a sharp tug behind his heart —
His hands were folded politely in his lap and he’d been a bad Bucky but he could be good now. Pierce had always liked it when the asset tried making amends via sexual favors, and Steve was leaning in a little, his eyes on Bucky’s mouth, his hand still on his face, and when he leaned in further Bucky did not move, he did not wince, he did not stiffen did not flinch did not react. Steve pressed their lips together and his mouth was Steve’s, not Pierce’s; it looked like Pierce’s mouth but it didn’t feel the same, and Bucky let his own mouth fall open against the soft familiar line of Steve’s. Steve gasped like Bucky had shocked him with electricity; his hand flexed on Bucky’s face, and Bucky stayed still, because that’s what good assets did, and so it followed that good Buckys must act a similar way —
Steve pulled away a little bit. “Buck,” he said, much more hoarse than he had been not two minutes ago. “Bucky, I — we don’t have to — ”
Bucky detangled his own hands, reaching out to put the metal one on Steve’s thigh. “It’s okay, Stevie,” he said. His voice was coming from the same underwater place as his heart. “It’s okay, I — I’m glad you want me here,” and Steve let out a tiny sound; he said,
“I’m so sorry I ever made you think otherwise, Buck,”
and lifted his other hand to wrap around the back of Bucky’s head.
--
They were lying together in Steve’s bed; Steve had pulled his shorts back on, but Bucky was naked, he was scared to move. He felt as though if he so much as shifted on the mattress he’d fall apart. He lay in the circle of Steve’s arms staring at his discarded pants on the floor. The shape of his phone in his back pocket. He didn’t know if Steve had reinstated the full protocol or not but the idea of getting the phone, in Steve’s room no less, was terrifying.
Steve had been very gentle through the whole thing. Bucky kind of wondered if perhaps Steve had read a manual on healthy BDSM practices, perhaps thinking about how Bucky had once told him he wanted to be controlled, because Steve kept stopping intermittently to ask Bucky if he was okay. If he really wanted it. If whatever Steve was doing at that moment — kissing Bucky’s neck, taking himself out of his shorts, grinding against Bucky’s hip, tugging one of Bucky’s legs up to wrap around his waist — was okay, that he wasn’t going too far. Of course Bucky had said yes to all of it, because how could he not? What other option did he have?
When they were both naked Steve started to roll Bucky onto his stomach, then stopped. Bucky felt his hand on the scar; felt him wince. He closed his eyes where his face was halfway mashed into the pillow. After six long seconds Steve tugged on Bucky’s flesh shoulder to get him on his back again. He was looking down at Bucky very tenderly, passing his thumb over his mouth. I promise, he said. I won’t ever let something like that happen again. You’re safe now.
Eventually of course Steve had gotten inside Bucky and it didn’t hurt like Bucky remembered from the war, because he was so used to being fucked now, he was just a toy, a broken discarded weapon to be used and thrown out. He was a well-trained slut and he could take cock like a pro and Pierce had said it, Pierce had said he was built for it, Zola had said he’d manufactured Bucky for it, that Bucky was a natural —
— starved for it, Rollins had always said, and he must have been right, because Steve fucking him felt okay. It didn’t hurt; it didn’t feel like anything. Their hips slapped together in the otherwise stillness of the room and Steve was holding Bucky’s cock in one hand, and his face in the other. I’m gonna take care of you, Buck, I promise, he was saying, and Bucky pressed into his touch because he saw how it made Steve’s face relax. Steve wasn’t even the biggest Bucky had taken anymore and Bucky couldn’t believe he’d been such a fucking pussy in 1943.
Bucky came after Steve did — it was polite to wait for the handler or otherwise higher ranking individual to finish first. Steve pulled out. He flopped to the side but pretty much immediately curled around Bucky, covering him, borderline smothering —
— you want him all over you like it was with Pierce? —
He’d brushed Bucky’s hair away and kissed his cheek. He’d asked if Bucky had liked it and Bucky had formed a smile with his lips and said what do you think, Stevie? ‘course I liked it, and stared at the opposite wall, listening to Steve’s breathing as it gradually slowed, feeling it even out against his spine.
Steve’s arm was heavy against his ribs and their legs were tangled up. Bucky’s ass was a little sore, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. He must have enjoyed it; he was trained to, and anyway assets didn’t feel, they didn’t want anything. Pierce had always praised him when he lay there and took it, even when it hurt, and this hadn’t hurt, this thing with Steve. It hadn’t been uncomfortable (maybe Bucky had remembered their post-Azzano reunion wrong?) and it hadn’t scared him, and now Steve was asleep and Bucky had been right, Steve was placated. Bucky had allowed him to fuck him and now Steve was satisfied and happy. It was the same as in Hydra when Pierce or any of the agents got angry, and the asset fell to his knees or lay on his back. It was the easiest thing in the world. It was easy and there was no point in trying to disrupt it or make things more difficult by attempting to get up, to look at his phone. He was safe on the bed, in Steve’s arms, anchored down, in his place. He’d been bad for a long, long time and now he was good, and if getting up to check his phone scared him, he wasn’t going to do it. If moving at all scared him he wouldn’t do it. Steve was holding onto him; Steve wanted to keep him here. Steve had said as much when he’d told Bucky he couldn’t leave the tower, and that was all right.
He understood now how wrong he’d been to even question the dynamic between himself, Steve, and Rumlow. He’d been reluctant to make the decision to stay with Rumlow because it would’ve been his decision, and he’d known that was wrong down into his bones. But Steve knew what Bucky needed, where Bucky needed to be. Steve had taken away Bucky’s choices; therefore Steve was his primary handler. Bucky had surrendered to him — as was proper — and there was no going back.
The last thing shattered inside him and broke on the floor.
He lay staring at his phone until the colors in the room began to shift and he realized it was morning. Vaguely it occurred to him he hadn’t slept but that was all right, probably; he couldn’t really sleep when he was in the same room as someone else, and anyway he’d been trained to do this, too, going days without sleep. Falling into a resting state like the screen saver of a computer. It was not dissimilar to how he’d felt when lying outside Rumlow’s door at the apartment —
— when he’d been bad and disobedient and still wanted things, tricked himself into thinking it was all right to want —
He must have shifted, or made a noise, because Steve stirred against him. Bucky felt Steve breathe out against the back of his neck. He felt him sit up.
“Buck…” Steve’s voice was rough with sleep, and threaded with something bordering on anxiety. Bucky felt his hand momentarily on his flesh shoulder; then he jerked it away. He shifted again, and Bucky rolled onto his back.
Steve was sitting there, knees jackknifed to his chest, head in his hands. His shoulders were hunched in and trembling a little and when Bucky reached up to touch he made a pained sound in his throat and hunched in even further.
“Stevie?”
Steve looked at him, barely, through a gap in his fingers. “I — Bucky, I’m sorry,” he said.
Slowly, Bucky pushed himself into a sitting position too. The sheets got kind of bunched up around his hips as he moved, and he saw Steve’s eyes fall to his dick, and then away like he’d been burned. He made another one of those sounds and dropped his head down on his knees.
“Stevie,” Bucky said again. The important thing — when a handler was upset, the most important thing was to stay calm. To sit there and be whatever the handler needed at the moment — a fucktoy, a punching bag, an ashtray, something to scream at. Not to presume the handler’s wishes or desires until the handler instigated — or didn’t instigate. He was pretty confident in assuming Steve wouldn’t want anything violent, because it was Steve. But still. The basic rules applied.
After a while — two minutes and seven seconds — Steve lifted his head and looked over his shoulder. His eyes were wet. “Bucky,” he said. “We can’t do that again.”
Something brief shocked in Bucky’s chest — the hum of an electric wire.
“I can’t — I mean, what if I’m taking advantage of you?”
“You aren’t,” Bucky said.
Steve’s eyes closed, briefly. “But what if — ”
“Steve,” Bucky said. “I want this.” It wasn’t a lie — he wanted Steve to be happy. Placated. Steve didn’t trust him because he’d been bad, but he was good now, and if he kept being good Steve would trust him again. Things would be so much easier once Steve trusted him again.
He reached up again to put his hand on Steve’s back, and this time Steve didn’t shrink away. Bucky spread his hand out, palm flat against Steve’s spine. “I did miss you,” he said quietly. “I think I just didn’t realize how much it was affecting me until last night.” He leaned in and kissed Steve’s arm. There was a small cluster of pale freckles there; Bucky remembered vague dizzying dreams he’d have about them as a teenager. How it was physically painful, sometimes, to sit in class and see Steve’s shoulder and know the freckles were there under the soft fabric of his dress shirts. Steve exhaled quietly, and Bucky said,
“I’m sorry too, Stevie,”
and he knew it was right, that he’d said and done the right thing, when at last Steve turned fully, took Bucky’s hand in his, and kissed his mouth.
--
They were picking their discarded clothes up from the floor to put in the laundry when Steve noticed the shape of Bucky’s cell in his jeans. He tugged it out — which was fine, because he owned Bucky, and so he owned all of Bucky’s things as well — and set it on his bedside table. They were both quiet for a moment, looking at it. Then Steve said,
“I know I upset you a lot last night, telling you I didn’t want you to leave. But I think — I mean. I don’t see any reason to reinstate the full lockdown.” He smiled at Bucky. “I’m not gonna have Jarvis shut your phone down, is what I’m saying,” he said. Then, looking up at the ceiling:
“Jarvis?”
“Yes, Captain Rogers.”
“You don’t need to shut Bucky’s phone off. I don’t think we need to do the full protocol this time.”
“Very good, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis said.
Steve redirected his smile at Bucky, who smiled back. (Sometimes handlers liked it when he parroted human expressions or actions. When Pierce was in a particularly good mood he used to say that it was nice to have the asset mirroring a real human. Zola had been so careful in making the asset appear like a person. There was no point in wasting all of his efforts.) Then Steve asked Bucky if he wanted pancakes, and Bucky said yes, and Steve walked out, carrying their loads of laundry in his arms.
Bucky watched him go. His eyes flicked momentarily down to the phone where it rested on the edge of the bedside table. The screen was dark. His hand hovered over it, then fell away. He needed a shower, he needed to look presentable. He could look at the phone later. Steve was testing him, his tentative renewal of trust in Bucky, by allowing him unrestricted phone access. He was testing him, and this time, Bucky wasn’t going to fail.