Chapter 8 from Bound Within My Heart
Bucky recalls past non-con touch and a brutal mission gone bad. Bucky is obsessed with the number three, manifesting his anxiety. Steve was never sure and reluctant to ask “Why three?” But a dream and revelation answers.
Shadowed limbs billowed around his body, wisps of memories caressing his skin, a rippled tingling chasing itself under his flesh, electric arousal woven with fear. His breath caught sharp when half-formed hands tightened leather straps, binding his chest, hips jerked by ghosted fingers that threw the gun belt around his waist, the tongue and buckle hard pulled to settle into place. His body jolted by knives shoved firm into the sheaths tucked to the small of his back, calloused hands jerking his limbs, shaking long hair against his face.
The ritual dressing of the Soldier, a methodical task for unknown men demanding his submission, expecting his mind to allow their caress, his body to give to their touch. He stood compliant, allowing the tug and pull, hands that did their duty but slipped discreet fingers hot against his skin, dared to slide full-palmed across his buttocks. Unrecognizable cold stares taunted his eyes to meet theirs, drawing the unspoken line for him to cross and fight their touch as hands smoothed the fit and lay of his clothing, the sit of holsters to his hips, the straps tight around his thigh. Not so discreet fingers lingering between his legs, rough pressed palms cupping his balls, a thumb's hard stroke down his cock, the smirk visible to his eyes without a turn of his head.
Expectations of compliance, allow the exploration, the taking of his dignity. An early lesson in fighting the unwanted touch stripped naked and chained where every soldier could see him. The schooling repeated until he learned to hide the twitch to grab their wrist, to slice open a delicate pulse, his true-self crouching smaller in his mind, seeking invisible, scurried away to the compartment Hydra hadn’t reached, consoled in the arms of a nameless boy.
The Soldier’s flesh pressed confident to the trigger, weapon held ready, his steps in slow-motion an approach to a ramshackle house, his mission clear; no sounds as his hand ripped the door from its hinges. An empty-minded search, focused on an image of his targets, side-to-side eyes intent, head tilted to pull in a whimper or a frightened breath, the tick of thick sweat hitting the floor, the Soldier hunted his prey. Rooms came and went, filled with faces, blank and staring from his past, touched by his hand, but not this time, not the ones sought in this dream. Floating steps pulled him to a door, his foot connected, shattered wood flew inward tumbling up, lilting sounds of music as it disappeared above his head. Eyes flickered to question its splintering then back to faces that shimmied in the murkiness of nightmares, their features slipping in his mind’s eye, moving and dodging recognition.
Words rose up through the veil of his sleep, “You can’t have them.” A man, tall and thin, white hair and mustache, eyes telling of recognition, unmoving lips called him a name teasing the edges of the Soldier’s memory. The man’s demeanor familiar, an echo of times long past, the whispered thought that the man was out of place, not part of this story, it swirled past his vision and disappeared.
He focused on the barrel of a gun, flecks of dark powder clinging to black metal, death waiting inches from his forehead. The man faced him, feet firm, undaunted, blocking the Soldier’s path, features lacking in fear, he stood his ground.
Cold gray eyes shifted past the man’s shoulder to rest on his targets. A woman’s kind eyes turned hard, her vengeance called up the seizures, he wondered how she’d taken a wrong turn to find herself facing him, so far from her place in his history. His gaze dropped to a teenaged girl, gangling limbs, defiance etched in features older than her age, dark hair that morphed to red, a glimpse of someone he knew, then slipped away again.
Raised white-knuckled fists caught his attention, a skinny young man stepped defensive in front of the girl, furrowed brow, determined, an echo of a back alley fight. His mind’s eye shifted to the youngest, held in the arms of the woman, fingers dug into her coat, face wet with tears.
The dreamed images jumped and lurched, a child’s muffled crying, the gun pointed at his head, his weapon raised, two arms extended facing one another. The woman’s voice shouting Cyrillic curses, words new to his ears, uncertain of their meaning, the intent clear, the man and woman stood between him and his assigned task. The stated mission repeated by his handlers shouted and whispered in his ears, dragged before the architect of the plan; the Soldier dutiful, obedient, lessons learned in the bowels of his captivity, his unused voice repeated, “Bring three children back alive.”
The old man’s face loomed before him, intent, defiant, unafraid meeting the Soldier’s emptiness, stance firm but the hand holding the gun inches from his head shook as he pulled the trigger.
Bucky’s head jerked as the dreamscape bullet seared along his temple, fingers twitched a reflexive pull of a non-existent trigger. The white-haired man crumpled at his feet. Whimpering cries as blood ran from the corpse to snake around his ankles, red tentacles creeping upward, circling his thighs, laid across his groin, claiming his body, he choked to pull in air. His conscious mind screaming at him to wake before his hand wrapped around the woman’s throat, tightening until she fell away, the imprint of his fingers black on her skin.
Real-world sweat clinging stubborn to his cheek, a reminder of the young woman’s spit when he laid his hand on her body. His metal arm clenching emptiness to his chest, a remembrance of the toddler plucked from the woman’s arms. His dream-self turned to leave, two children in hand, he knew the boy would follow, fists pounding his back, a knife pulled from its sheath stabbed deep into his thigh. Grunted pain that rolled him in the bed, the Soldier kept walking towards the end of his first mission. A test of his obedience.
Panted breaths and held-close moans as Bucky fought to wake from what his mind knew was about to come. Feet kicking to free himself from covers, hands reaching to drag himself out of the darkened pool of his past, desperate to break free, the nightmare refused to be denied.
The first shot sent fire tearing through his shoulder, eyes pulled to the dying child gone limp in his arms, their blood mingling in strands of red, tricking through his fingers. His hand slowed by the unexpected, the reach for a gun too late to stop the next death. The boy’s body slammed into his thigh, fingers clinging to his belt, blood splattered down his leg, filling his boot. The third shot snapped the girl's head to bounce against his chest, fierce eyes lost their brightness, flecks of hair clung to leather straps, a swath of blood dragged down his body, her weight spread across his feet, dead eyes glassy staring up at him.
The Soldier’s head twitched. Resolve slipped to horror, he met the woman’s unapologetic stare.
Hissed words spoken close to his own lips, “They are better off dead than go with you.”
A loving caress of the dead child’s hair, she brought her hand to the Soldier’s cheek, blood scratched deep into his flesh, her accusing finger slow-motion drive to penetrate his forehead, his body unable to move, searing pain marking the deaths across his soul. “I won’t kill you, you don’t deserve that escape. Instead, I curse you. Live with the ghosts of your dead forever.” Russian words uttered with deliberation, meant to embed their power into his brain, cross the divide of languages, her hand gripped his long hair, jerked his head near to her's as she pressed the gun barrel to her temple and pulled the trigger.
Red washed through his vision, eyes burning, blood splattered hot across his skin. Burnt flesh, spent gunpowder filling his nostrils, the stench insinuating itself into his brain forever locked within his memory. Ears aching from the deafening reverberation of a shot fired close. Metallic taste on his tongue, warm liquid clinging to lips afraid to move, matter sitting lodged on skin, stuck in his hair, hot in his mouth. Her body toppled soundless to disappear into thin air.
Uninvited tears washed streaks of blood down his cheeks, a staggered step back, his feet tangled in the body of the man, he dropped the dead child and fell backward, landing hard, his head hitting the floor to shake bright white points of light through the curtain of red. Dark, gritty boots shuffled around him, his body jerked and rolled in on itself covering his belly as hard-toed kicks sent the sharp memory of pain meant to urge him to his feet.
“Get up you piece of shit. Look at you. Some Soldier you are, crying at the dead. Get on your feet before your handler gets here.”
Bucky sucked in air that pushed out an aching scream when the Voice’s command tore him from the nightmare. Hands flailing, feet kicking at dreamed red tentacles, his knees shot pain up his thighs when he crashed to the floor tangled in the bed sheets. Hot skin chilled by sweat, his palms leaving their faint print on the wall as he tried to steady his scramble to free himself. Anxiety tightened his chest with every panicked gasp for air, he crawled across the floor and staggered upright. Bare feet stumbled, he caught himself on the door frame, his mind struggling to separate real-time from his past, tremors stealing his equilibrium. Steve reaching to catch him. His choked response, “Don’t touch me” not the answer he wanted to give, but had to say.
Steve’s voice cut through the dream’s last hold, “I’m here, it’s not real, It’s over.” He moved with him, inches away, a hand extended, not touching, his words low and calm, “I’m right here, you’re safe. Let’s walk it off.” The warmth from his body brushed against Bucky’s bare skin, pulling him in, he leaned to close the gap, but his gut forced him to move, staggering down the hallway. Knees hit the floor again, a whining moan as he scrambled towards the toilet, hands braced on the coolness of the water tank, head held low over the bowl, retching until there was nothing left except the dryness. Bucky’s naked body convulsing in spasms as the vomiting subsided, tense muscles shaking, head pounding with the mixture of sickness, dreams and the taunting of the Voice.
“You’re pathetic. Retching and sobbing. Even those children didn’t cry. Toddlers don’t count. No puking before they died. Their legacy was hating you. Fond memories though, the soldiers laughing at you. You couldn't piss for a week after they were done leaving heel prints on your kidneys. You had to be rescued by the handler. That handsome man, you remember him. Gentle hands, blue eyes. The one you gutted when you finally had a moment of clarity. He looked a lot like your Captain.”
Bucky clung to the porcelain, a long low moan tore at his throat, fighting the Voice’s dredging up of the past, pushing the nightmare to the back of his consciousness. Head hanging low, sweat-soaked hair clinging to his cheeks, he searched for Steve’s words drowning in the loudness of the Voice.
“I’m right here. I got you.” Steve steadied his tone, tucked away the anger that twisted his gut with every tortured night that dragged Bucky from their bed. He dropped to rest his knees within a hair’s breadth of his calf, keeping his promise made with reluctance to give him space, follow close without interfering until Bucky could say his name.
“It’s me. Can you say my name?” Fingers clenching shut and open, his thoughts screaming for him to cover Bucky’s nakedness, his memory drifting back to the question and answer a few hours earlier. “Humiliation” echoing with new meaning as Bucky’s shaking sweat-soaked body knelt in front of him. Steve’s resentment rose against everyone who had ever laid a hand on him. Reaching to console him then pulling back, a hesitant urge to place his hands on his skin. He said again, “Say my name.”
Bucky’s body shook, he slumped back on his haunches, hands flat on the floor, trying to say Steve’s name, the word formed in his mind, his voice disconnected not allowing him to say it out loud. Frustration drove his hands into fists the tension sending rippled cramps down his back.
“Speaking of the Captain. Your First Avenger. He seems to be working out nicely as your new handler. Here to rescue you. Soft voice, wipe away the tears, brush off the blood. Push back your tormentors. Quite the hero. Clean you up, fuck you stupid, throw you right back into the fight. Just like the First Handler. Go ahead, say his name. I give you permission to remember him.”
Steve’s begging whisper, “Please say my name." He kept eyes intent on Bucky’s face, turned away and hidden by a curtain of hair wanting his words to pull him back from the nightmare. A tilted head gradual move, gray eyes wary and searching, the flash of recognition replaced by fear. Steve braced for his lashing out, a metal fist rose towards his face, he held back a reflexive move to block the fist, trusting Bucky. Metal fingers opened, spread wide a heartbeat before connecting with his cheek. The fingertip of metal stroking his beard, a tenuous caress of recognition, a mouthed word, expectant eyes connecting, waiting for the softness, hoping against the emptiness and fear.
A moment of doubt when Bucky’s eyes darted away, uncertainty showing, Steve’s thoughts flashed to a story Bucky had shared about the handler that looked like him. Hydra’s earliest tool to hold control, to fool him into compliance. Steve caught Bucky’s hand, a careful roll to expose his wrist, a slow, eyes-connected move to press lips gentle to the sensitive metal, certain he would feel it. Confident and intimate, Steve kissed the close-guarded place discovered during their nights together, learning Bucky’s body old and new, he pressed the metal palm to his cheek, watching his eyes for recognition.
Bucky’s gaze followed the soft brush of lips to metal, the drag of Steve’s tongue along the grooves, mouth pressing warmth to imprint on his palm, the lustful taking in of his fingers. Bucky fell in closer, head bending near to Steve’s, forehead to temple drawn in, aching for his mouth to press to his own, he hovered close enough to catch the scent of his skin, his nose tickled by the brush of his beard.
Steve’s near eyes-closed question,“What’s my name?”
Bucky rolled his head to rub cheek to cheek, palm slipping to the nape of Steve’s neck, fingers stroking his chest, he whispered, “Steve.”
A slow and calculating descent into the tub avoiding all contact with Bucky’s skin allowed Steve the shiver he needed when his toe first slipped into the frigid water. A body-still breath-holding pause with his hand on the wall, eyes scrunched shut until the shock of the cold dissipated. A deliberate, teeth-clenching lowering of his body to fit tight behind Bucky, his arms snaked around his waist a sharp tug pulled him to his chest, laying them back against the wall. “I don’t know how you do this, pal.” His gritted words spoken into Bucky’s hair, he rubbed his beard across his ear, a teasing nip of teeth to his earlobe, Bucky’s head lolled back on his shoulder, arms wrapped around Steve’s thighs.
A promise made and kept. The nightmare and its aftermath intense beyond anything in their months sharing a bed, Bucky shaken in ways Steve hadn’t seen since the beginning, without the medications, when the ghosts ruled his days and nights when he tried to kill himself. Tonight’s insistent demands for the cold comfort that was reminiscent of cryo hard to defuse, Bucky went from bathroom to bathroom with Steve in pursuit turning off the water, following him, begging him to come back to bed until the final compromise was reached. Steve offered to join him.
“Okay fifteen minutes, then we dry off.” Steve struggled to keep his teeth from chattering.
“No time limits. Special circumstances.” Bucky’s muttered response.
“Disagree.” He closed his knees to find a sliver of warmth in gripping Bucky closer, “My limit’s fifteen and if I’m out so are you.”
“Wimp. I’ll stay.” He maneuvered his feet to wrap around Steve’s, the tangle of skin connecting overpowering the cold.
Steve rolled his forehead against his shoulder, “No, together. We’re in this together. Fifteen, I’ll dry you off, how’s that?”
“Really?” The cherished sensation of Steve’s hands roaming over his limbs made better when it involved a towel, slow-pulled, giving attention to each and every inch, “Okay, maybe.” His thumbs followed the long sinew lines of thigh muscles, deep enough to twitch nerves, not enough to cause pain.
Steve’s fingers spread claiming on Bucky’s chest, a brush across each nipple, just shy of arousal, more than casual. His eyes-closed nuzzle of his face into his hair, making up for the frigid temperature of the cold water bath. The question came out without him thinking, “What was the dream about?”
Bucky’s fingers stopped moving, “You asked a question already.”
A quick defense, “It’s four in the morning, new day, new question.” Knees tightened to distract the return of tension. He waited for an answer.
“He'll think you’re an idiot if you tell him the truth. Mission failure. Lie to him. Tell him about the dogs, or that time you had to drink your own piss to survive. Hell tell him about the abuse, he might get off on that, then there’s the Fake Captain, or tell him about...”
Bucky’s answer stumbled out, “Stark.”
Steve shook his head, “I’m sorry. He’s not gonna hurt you, I won’t let him.”
“Not that one. Howard. He was there, so was...” Bucky’s words fell off, a pull of his shoulders put space between them. “They didn’t fit, you know how dreams are, people in the wrong place and time.”
“Better yet, a truth within a lie.”
“Where were they.” Steve wanted to know and didn’t.
Bucky’s hand slipped from Steve’s leg, “First mission. I think so. Yeah, first,” fingers immersed in the water. “Retrieve the package, they said. I said it back.”
“Enough, Soldat. These are memories best kept buried.”
Bucky’s eyes closed when Steve pulled hair from his face, the slow drag of fingernails along his scalp, a reassuring caress that pulled the words forward. “The man wanted them back. Bring them back he said. Alive.” Bucky’s voice slipped to distant, his body moved a fraction to bring more space between them, he whispered, “Mission failure.”
Steve felt the change, the near confession coming, he pulled to close the space, willing his strength into him, determined to keep the ghosts from stealing him away again. Hands spread wide, head buried next to his cheek straining to hear.
“Couldn’t pull the trigger. Couldn’t save them. Everybody dies. Except me. And Hydra.” Bucky’s gaze slipped off to the past, focused on things only he could see.
Steve pulled at his cheek, “No, don’t look at them, look at me. Only me, come on.” He tugged to turn his eyes to connect with his own, Bucky twisting in his arms to let their eyes meet, the distance in his gaze causing Steve to change his mind. “You don’t have to answer, remember. No games.” Steve’s thumb dragged along his jaw, fingers cupped behind his neck. “No more. I’m sorry.”
A slow nod to agree, a press of his cheek to rub harder into Steve’s palm, he whispered, “Three.”
Steve spoke his words with lips brushing the metal shoulder, “Right, three is your number. Only numbers divisible by three.”
Bucky nodded, he brought his forehead to lean against Steve’s temple, eyes bright, lost in the past, fingers tightening to press deep white marks in flesh, his voice shaking and secret, “Children. Bring them back alive. Died rather than come back with me. I couldn’t pull the trigger. What’s better? Die there, quick, bullet to the brain? Or die slow, used up, sold to the highest bidder?”
“No more, Buck. You don’t have to say anymore.” Steve’s hand ran across his cheek, trying to stop his words, he tugged his head to his shoulder, pulled his feet closer, wrapping him in his arms. “I’m sorry, no more questions.”
“There’s a price to pay for betrayal, Soldat. Order only comes through pain. You know this.”
Bucky let Steve’s arms pull him in, his head fell to nestle on his shoulder, breathing in his scent as his lips brushed light to the pulse at his throat. Arms entangled around one another, long-lost sleep begging to be revisited, his murmur caught faint by Steve’s ear, “Three. Alive. Children.”
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Steve spoke loud enough to be heard in the loft. “I’ll leave it right here.” Routine words forever changed, a pause before he continued, “Third step. Three blueberry bagels, not toasted, chive cream cheese already spread on them. Three napkins. Hot chocolate. No marshmallows. Good to go when you’re ready.” His glance towards the floorboards above his head didn’t reveal Bucky’s location, but the promise that he would be there when Steve got back had been firm, eye contact direct and solemn. He settled on a milk crate in the doorway to the old barn, his company invited to be closer, his decision to stay by the door as Bucky took the space and time that he needed to recover.
A smile hinted on Steve’s face when he replayed the answer to his question “Chive cream cheese on blueberry bagels, why?” Bucky’s profound and simple answer, “Because I can.”
The old rust-colored barn sat a few hundred feet from their house, peeling white painted doors slid open, Steve sat ankles crossed, legs too long for his make-shift seat, sketch pad propped in his lap, he opened to the next blank page. His gaze followed the red-orange glow of the sunrise that crept along the horizon, spilling its brightness onto the landscape, rippling up the yellow and white of their house. Wet grass, brown from winter’s onslaught, the snow retreated across the fields and left only spotted mounds of white more in the woods than close to the house.
His pencil moved with ease across the page, the house in the background, summer on his mind, he added the picnic bench, a grill, and Bucky, the familiar smile, a memory from the distant past, not given as freely now. Every roughed out scene had Bucky; curled on the chaise lounge, napping in the sun; straddling Steve’s bike in the driveway, his words echoing in his memory, “Let’s do it on the bike, Stevie.” A close to out-loud laugh. A star-filled night, Sam sprawled on the picnic table, Natasha’s tenuous climb towards Bucky on the roof outside his window. A story told with laughter when he could tell the tale without reservation.
No sounds or shadows told him of Bucky’s approach, no shift in scents or dusty residue falling on the pages, what he felt was his presence. The warm prescience that crept unannounced into his thoughts whenever Bucky came near him, growing stronger every minute of each day together, recreating their history and building on it, he knew without lifting an eye or a turn of his head that he was kneeling behind him before his forehead laid gently on his back.
“Better now?” Steve closed the sketch pad, his head turned enough to catch a glimpse of Bucky’s hair.
The slow nod spread warmth to his skin. Hands slipped around his waist, fingers interlocking at his belly, a smile when he saw his sweater’s too-long sleeves covering Bucky’s hands. No need to ask why he wore it, a given between them now, holding close the scent of one another on skin, and sheets and clothes. “Good. You need to eat more.”
Bucky’s weight spread wider across his back, shoulders matching, deep breaths moving his body rhythmic behind him, hips pressed close, the gentle rolling push against his ass not a tease or foreplay but a hint of what could be. Steve’s eyes shut, fingers dug in to tangle with Bucky’s, head falling back to brush against his mouth. The easy way they fell to positions, Steve engulfing Bucky, protecting him, taking him, a natural progression of who they were together. This felt different, powerful, enticing, a desire Steve wanted to explore, a request he resolved he would ask when the time felt right, for now, he reveled in the sensations. His lost-in-the-feeling cut short by Bucky’s quiet statement.
“I know where he is. I know how to find him.”
Steve asked, “Who? What are you talking about?”
Bucky never moved from his hold, hips continued to press their gentle reminder, but the words didn’t fit, “The man. The one who wanted the children back. I know where he is.”
“Buck that was how long ago?” Steve straightened his back enough to bring a small space between them, “You’re not even sure of the date, you said the first mission, so over fifty years ago. How can you know he's not dead?”
“My memories. They’re all right here.” He tapped a finger to his temple. “Remember Boston? I was right. I knew where Hydra was, even when they tried to hide it. I knew. I still know.” Bucky broke from his hold on Steve, he reached beside him and placed a worn cardboard shoebox on the sketch pad in Steve’s lap. His hand laid with care on the top. “It’s all right here. Written down from here.” A finger to his temple again then returned to tap on the box. “I’m not wrong. He's in there, I know it, I want to do now what I couldn't do then. Stop him.”
Steve stared at Bucky’s guarded possession now entrusted to his lap, the shoebox full of stickie notes, maps and scraps of paper with scrawled out names and dates, locations and bank accounts. The pieced-together jumbled trail of clues exorcised from his memory when he first came out of cryo. A manic-driven, hallucination fueled marathon of data hidden in the tactical room in the midst of Bucky’s break-down. His insistent, hard-to-deny conviction that he knew more about Hydra than Hydra knew about itself had proven to be true.
Steve turned to let their eyes meet. A hand to his face, fingers wrapped in the long hair, he tugged their foreheads together and said one word. “Yes.”
