Behind Enemy Lines
Fandom: Marvel
Pairing: Stucky
Rating: Mature
Tags: Angst, Injuries, Weapons, Blood, Sacrifice, Mind Control, Crying, Loss of Sleep, Not Eating, Fighting, Eventual Fluff
Word Count: Around 1000
Written For: @wintershieldbingo @whumpmasinjuly-archive
Squares/Prompts Filled: G5 - Sacrifice for WinterShield Bingo | Whumpmas In July Day 28 - Fill someone's whump prompt from Day 4.
Dividers By: @/saradika-graphics
A/N: I decided to fill the prompt that @lady-wallace created. It just screamed Stucky to me. Their prompt was: Self-sacrificing whumpee gives themselves up for their friend/team. Let's themselves be captured so the others can go free even though they know very well what awaits them at the hands of the whumper.
The Hydra base was a fortress. It was buried in the jagged peaks of the Alps, hidden beneath layers of cold concrete and colder secrets.
They had barely breached the lower levels when everything fell apart. They were never supposed to split up.
That was the rule.
Steve had clung to it like a lifeline because if he had Bucky beside him, he could survive anything. They could survive anything.
But this mission was different.
Hydra had been building something. Bigger than any of them expected. An underground city of soldiers and secrets. And somewhere in its core…a weapon, or information about one. One they couldn’t allow to remain in Hydra’s hands.
The team went in together.
The chaos started instantly.
Natasha screamed over comms, “EMP blast! Tony’s down!”
Bruce was in the middle of trying to stabilize the walls with raw strength while the ceiling crumbled.
Steve and Bucky were shoulder to shoulder in the center corridor, barely keeping the enemy at bay. Blood stained Bucky’s lips, but he was still fighting. Still with him.
Until the walls began to groan.
Until the blast door to the intel room began to fall.
Until Steve realized, if they didn’t leave now, they’d be buried alive.
“We have to go!” Steve barked.
But Bucky was still fighting. “We can’t! Nat’s not clear yet-”
Then came the alert. A flood of Hydra soldiers pushing in from the south wing. They’d be surrounded.
“Steve!” Tony’s voice cut through, desperate. “We’ve got a window...now or never!”
Steve grabbed Bucky’s wrist. “We run. Together.”
And then...he felt it.
That slight shift in Bucky’s grip. The kind that said goodbye.
“I’ll hold them off,” Bucky said.
“No. NO!”
But Bucky had already pulled free. Already turned.
He shoved Steve toward the others with such force it knocked him off his feet. “Go, Stevie. Don’t make this harder.”
“BUCKY!”
“Don’t you dare come back for me.”
Steve tried to chase him, scrambled to his feet, but Bruce caught him. Wrapped massive arms around him, held him still while Steve thrashed like a rabid animal.
“Let me go! He’s going to give himself up! HE’S GOING TO LET THEM TAKE HIM!”
“Steve...he’s trying to save us.”
Steve screamed. A guttural, broken noise that didn’t sound human.
And as Bucky disappeared into the shadows, Steve saw the glint of silver, his arm, just before the wall behind him exploded and cut them off.
The ride back to the compound was silent.
Steve sat in the back of the Quinjet, staring at nothing. Natasha sat across from him, her side stitched and her face pale, eyes fixed on the floor.
Tony looked back at Steve but didn’t say anything.
No one could.
Steve hadn’t spoken a single word since Bucky was taken.
He wouldn’t let anyone clean his wounds. Wouldn’t let Bruce check him. Wouldn’t answer when anyone tried to talk.
The second they landed, he vanished into their shared quarters. The bed still smelled like Bucky. His jacket was still hanging over the back of the chair.
Steve didn’t sleep. Didn’t eat.
He searched.
Every day. Every night.
A corkboard filled with red string and Hydra information. Dozens of pictures. Dossiers. Footage. He watched one grainy surveillance video over and over again. Bucky, being dragged down a hallway, limp but alive.
Tony begged him to stop.
Natasha left protein bars outside his door.
Bruce ran interference with Fury.
Steve didn’t care.
All he could hear was Bucky’s voice: “Don’t you dare come back for me.”
But he would.
He had to.
Steve found the hidden Hydra compound by accident, or maybe by divine intervention. He didn’t care which.
Romania. A mountainside bunker, long abandoned to any official records. But it was still running. Lights on. Heat signatures. And one of them was Bucky’s. Heartbeat, respiration...him.
Steve went in alone.
Like a man possessed.
He crashed through the front gate with his shield and a scream. Knocked down every guard in his path, tore apart automated defense systems with his bare hands.
Down the corridor. Through the steel doors.
And then there he was.
The Winter Soldier.
Cold metal gleamed under the flickering fluorescent lights.
His hair was trimmed. His uniform was Hydra colors. His face…dead. No spark. No warmth. Just ice.
“Soldat. Engage.” The voice over the loudspeaker.
“Target: Steve Rogers.”
Steve barely had time to brace before Bucky was on him.
The fight was brutal.
Steve didn’t hit to kill. He took every punch, every slam, every ruthless attack because this wasn’t just an enemy.
This was Bucky.
His Bucky.
“Come on!” Steve yelled as Bucky pinned him to the wall. “You know me!”
Bucky’s face didn’t flicker.
“Your nickname for me is punk! You used to patch me up after fights I couldn’t win! You kissed me under the fireworks at Coney Island...you loved me!”
Bucky struck him again. Hard. Blood poured from Steve’s mouth. He crumpled to the ground.
And still, he looked up. “I’m not leaving you, Buck. I’m never leaving you again.”
He reached into his pocket, slowly, and pulled out a dog tag.
Bucky’s old tag. Bent. Scratched. Worn with love.
He held it out, hand shaking. “This was yours. I kept it. I wore it every day you were gone. Because I needed to believe you’d find your way back.”
Bucky’s hand trembled. A flicker. A glitch in the programming.
Steve forced himself to his feet. Eyes burning. “You remember me. I know you do.”
“No,” Bucky growled.
But it wasn’t certain. It was breaking.
Steve took another step. “Then kill me.”
Bucky froze.
“If you’re gone...if you’re truly gone, then end it. Because I can’t live in a world without you.”
His lip quivered. Tears welled in Bucky’s eyes before he knew what they were. A choked sob escaped his throat.
He dropped the knife. It clattered to the floor.
Steve caught him as he collapsed.
And Bucky sobbed into his chest like a man waking from a nightmare he couldn’t remember.
The days that followed were hell.
Bucky flinched at touch. He didn’t talk. He barely ate. But Steve stayed.
He curled around Bucky on the compound couch at night, whispering stories, reminders. He kissed his hair. He let Bucky scream when the memories overwhelmed him.
“I let them take me,” Bucky whispered once, voice raw. “I chose it. They used me again.”
“No,” Steve said, cradling his face. “You saved us.”
“But they got to me anyway.”
“And I got you back.”
Six months later, Bucky sat on the rooftop, sun setting behind him. Steve walked up quietly, arms folded.
Bucky turned his head. “You still love me?”
Steve smiled, but there were tears in his eyes. “Always. Even when you didn’t know who I was.”
He held out a small box.
Inside was a simple silver ring.
Bucky stared at it for a long moment before slipping it onto his finger.
“I don’t deserve this,” he said quietly.
Steve stepped forward, took his face in his hands. “You deserve everything. And I’m going to spend the rest of our lives proving that to you.”
