Chapters: 16/25 Fandom: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes & Howling Commandos Members, James "Bucky" Barnes & Peggy Carter, James "Bucky" Barnes & Howard Stark Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan, Gabe Jones, Jacques Dernier, Jim Morita, James Montgomery Falsworth, Arnim Zola, Original Characters, Howling Commandos Members (Marvel), Peggy Carter, Howard Stark, Chester Phillips Additional Tags: Movie: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), World War II, Prisoner of War, Illnesses, Human Experimentation, Hydra (Marvel), Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Consensual Touching, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Bucky Barnes Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period Typical Attitudes, BAMF Steve Rogers, BAMF Bucky Barnes, let's be real they're all badass, Slow Burn, Fluff and Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Protective Howling Commandos (Marvel), Medical Torture, Sensory Deprivation, Post-Battle of Azzano (Captain America: The First Avenger), Kreischberg Austria, Concentration Camps, Minor Character Death, Nazi Germany, Français | French, Canon-Typical Violence, Blood and Gore, Dissociation, Sniper Bucky Barnes, Fluff and Humor, Eventual Smut, Bucky Barnes Has Nightmares, Protective Steve Rogers, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, BAMF Peggy Carter, Peggy Carter & Howard Stark Friendship, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Artist Steve Rogers, Touch-Starved Bucky Barnes, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Espionage, Metz France, Historical References, Brothels, Seduction
Summary:
Death is not the worst thing that can happen to a man.
To break him, you must first shatter his body—again and again and again. Then, you take his mind, his will, his name. You strip him down to something unrecognisable, reshape him into something he was never meant to be. Survival is its own kind of cruelty, and some wounds don’t heal. Some don’t even scar.
Because war doesn’t just take—it remakes. It chews men up and spits them out as something else: hollowed out, stitched haphazardly, and left to stumble forward. No side is ever truly victorious, not when the battlefield becomes a graveyard, and the survivors are left carrying its ghosts. No matter who wins, the cost is always the same: death. the weight of what can never be undone.
All wars end the same.
- This is the story of Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, and the Howling Commandos. The war they fought. The men they lost. The scars they carried. The love that blossoms, even in the darkest of places, far behind enemy lines.
Before the ice. Before the Winter Soldier.
Before it all got worse .
Chapter 16: Built, Not Born
Snippet:
Léonie swears, sharp and urgent. “We need to go!”
But Bucky doesn’t move.
Because he doesn’t take chances. Doesn’t let monsters breathe.
So he aims for the head.
Volkov dodges, but his movements are unnaturally stiff this time, hard and brittle.
Bucky moves out of the way, Peggy's voice filtering through his mind—
Where’s your center of gravity? What’s in your peripherals?
He drops low. Sweeps his legs out beneath him.
Volkov stumbles, slamming into the velvet couch now soaked in Kessler’s blood.
Gotcha.
Volkov catches himself on his knee, but Bucky’s already swinging with his right hand.
Because he has two of those fuckers.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
♥♥♥