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abbatoirablaze · 8 months

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Welcome To The Dollhouse, Exclusive

Word Count: 1.3k Warnings: discussion of cannibalism, surprise pregnancy, mentions of amputation/amputated limbs, blackmail, manipulation, coercion.

“Wh-what do you mean…exclusive?” she asked gingerly as she looked at Brendan, “I-I thought that we were…I-I mean, I know that I messed up with Seargent Barnes…and I didn’t mean to, Brendan, I swear-”

“It wasn’t your fault, goddess…”

“Brendan…I only want you…I-I just…he and Captain Rogers own the house…they take care of all of us girls…I don’t think that we can really say no to them…c-can we?”

“Well, let’s just say that Seargent Barnes and I had a little talk,” he smiled as he stroked her cheek softly, “he won’t be touching you anymore, my sweet little goddess. No one will touch you ever again. No one will but me, okay?”

“O-Okay…”

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to protect you. I shouldn’t have let you go…I should have been protecting your virtue, sweetheart!”

“Brendan…”

“You were so scared without me there,” he sighed, giving her a sad look as his hand continued to stroke along her cheek. His other hand reached forwards, and he pulled her onto his lap. A few tears lined her eyes as he stared at her. His heart broke as he thought about how it all went down, “he shouldn’t have taken advantage of you like that.”

“Wh-what’s going to happen, Brendan?” she whimpered, her eyes meeting his once more, “I-I mean…Sergeant Barnes…he-he couldn’t have just been okay with you cutting off his arm. He couldn’t have-“

“I have the super soldiers under control,” he admitted with a simple nod, “both of them. I can expose them and bring them down faster than anyone else on this planet…nothing bad is going to happen to either of us, goddess…so stop your worrying…you’ll be staying here. So that I know you’re safe…and they won’t do anything to me.”

“But Brendan-“

“No,” he said simply, shaking his head, “no worrying, sweetheart.”

“I-I’m more worried about you…”

“Don’t worry about me, goddess.”

“What about…your tastes?”

He frowned, a heavy sigh escaping his lips as he watched her. He bit back the nervousness that lined his throat as he thought about her potentially rejecting him because of his interesting choice in food, “What about them?”

“I-I don’t think I can do it,” she said with a shake of her head, “I-I don’t want to just cut of pieces of myself so-“

“Woah…woah…cutting off pieces of yourself?” he asked quickly stopping the thought before it even really took off, “What on earth? What gave you the impression that I wanted you to maim you perfect form, my love? I would never do that to you! I-I don’t want to eat you, goddess…”

“T-the other girls...they-“

“I don’t want to eat you,” he said firmly, repeating his previous statement. A blush rose to her cheeks, and he found himself blushing as he looked away from her, “I mean…I do want to eat you…but not in the sense that you are thinking of. I want to eat you out day and night and have that nectar on my lips every moment of the day…but I don’t-I couldn’t…I would never eat you, goddess.”

“Oh…”

Brendan frowned.

She almost seemed disappointed.

“D-did you want me to eat you?”

“No!” she said quickly. His brow quirked and she sighed, “I just-I thought that is like…I talked to some of the girls that have done that stuff and they said that when someone…like you…wants to be with someone in a certain manner it’s…erotic…if you…you know…”

“If I eat pieces of them?”

“Yeah…”

“I’ll admit, there is something…different…about eating someone that you have a connection with. It’s like, if you eat them, they’ll be there with you forever in a way. I mean, I know that logically they won’t be. I’d digest them just as any other food, but there’s something…there…” he said slowly, while his eyes found hers once more, “but it-it’s hard to explain. With you, I don’t even remotely have the urge to want to eat pieces of you. I want to be with you in almost every sense of the word…but not like that. I-you make me want something different…something that I never thought that I would want.”

“I-I do?”

“Do you know why I was so angry about Barnes even so much as touching you?” he asked gently, “why I hated the simple idea that he knew what you tasted like…”

“I…”

“I think that I finally know what love is,” he admitted shortly, “because as cliché as it sounds, I think I fell in love with you the moment I saw you. And the idea that any other man will get to be with you in the ways that I have…it creates this pit of anger inside of me…I love you, my sweet, perfect goddess. I love you in all the ways I never thought I’d feel for another person.”

“I-I don’t want to be with anyone else other than you…”

He smiled.

“But…I-I want you to have that relationship where you can have that level of intimacy with someone that you eat pieces of…i-if you want it?”

His brow rose, “what?”

“I was talking to one of the girls-“

“Baby…you don’t have to do this for me…I love you. I don’t have to be with another woman and eat them to find my happiness. I’m perfectly content with you. And with not eating you. I just-“

“I want you to try!” she said quickly, “He-her name is Ann…and she wants to get out of the dollhouse. She said that…she said that she’s into that type of thing, and has always wanted to find someone that will eventually eat her completely…”

“Y-you went out of your way…to find someone for me?” he asked curiously, “Tha-that wants me to…”

“Eat her…yes…” she nodded, “all you have to do is buy her out…and then…start a relationship with her…sh-she said that she’ll start giving you parts of herself once…once you both feel something…”

“Goddess…y-you’re asking me to-“

“I know,” she said quickly, cutting him off, “I know what I’m asking! Trust me when I say that this is something I never thought that I would be doing.”

“I just cut off Barnes’ arm because of you…because of the rage that it sent me into hearing that you were being touched by someone else…h-how are you okay with me having another relationship…with another woman…while I-“

“Because I’m pregnant…” she whispered, cutting him off. Brendan’s eyes widened and he looked at his little goddess, “I-I want to give you everything that you’ve ever wanted…and I-I know that I’ll never allow you to eat me…and you don’t want to…but I want you to be able to have that…because y-you’re giving me everything I ever wanted…the love of my life…and a baby…”

“Y-your pregnant?”

She nodded, a few tears slipping down her face. He rushed to wipe them away, but they kept coming, “Dr. Cho…she-she tested me just a few days ago…I-I thought that I was just getting sick like everyone else is in the house because of the changing seasons…but I-I’m seven weeks along…”

“Your first time…”

She nodded at his disbelief, “who would have thought, right? We forgot to use protection…but I guess that’s what happens…”

“I’m going to be a dad…”

She nodded once more, “Yeah…you’re going to be a dad…”

“And I made you a-“

She sniffled, nodding along with his train of thought. She pulled his hands off her waist, and put them over the nonexistent bump in her belly, “I-I want you to do this for us…okay?”

“Goddess…”

There was a gentle knock on the door, and his brow quirked yet again, “That’s probably her…”

“Her? Sh-she’s here?”

“You told me you were coming tonight,” she nodded gently, “and, well…I-I didn’t know if you’d be taking me because of all of the issues that happened…with the incident with Seargent Barnes…so I told her to come by after we had some time alone together…Steve and Bucky have been looking to get rid of her for a while…I-I told her that we would help her, Brendan…”

“Goddess...”

“For us,” she begged yet again, “I still belong only to you…but I want you to be able to have the other half of yourself too. I want you to be able to have it all, Brendan…and between Ann and myself…I think you can.”

#welcome to the dollhouse #brendan kemp #brendan steve kemp #steve kemp #fresh au #fresh the movie #fresh

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nightowlwriting · 2 years

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summary: everybody ready for justice

just another mile to go

but the strings will keen and the horns will cry

when it's just me against the sky

you wake up and you're somewhere different. people you know are there, but they're not, because that's not - they're not - they look different than you remember. are they the same people you remember? you find captain rogers and hand over the paperwork but the world is not how you left it. nothing is how you left it.

word count: 8.3k

reader specifics: no race/gender/sexuality/body type mentioned, no pronouns for reader used, enhanced!reader, traumatized!reader

warnings: mention of flashbacks, mention of ptsd, description of drowning, mention and allusions to torture, allusions to canon-typical violence and canon-typical discussion of ww2 and the after effects

note: this is the part one of an ongoing series, find the series masterlist here. also. yes. the reader is loosely based on atla. i started this during my rewatch. sue me.

title & summary credit: the mountain goats

mobile masterlist - request - support my work? - ao3

When you first come to consciousness your body temperature is skyrocketing. It’s disorienting, too, to wake up laying on a table when you’d definitely gone under the water before you lost consciousness. It takes a few minutes for your brain to get back to where you can have a coherent thought, but when you finally have one it sends your heart racing. You’d escaped - you’d actually gotten out and you’d taken the Program with you. If you get up and you find Captain Rogers you can save Sergeant Barnes.

Your entire body aches and there’s a coursing fire in your veins as everything that the Handlers did to you searches for synchrony. The shivers only last a few minutes before you’re back to almost functioning, still curled up on your side and clutching the documents that will save an innocent man from going through what you’ve gone through. You ache down to your bones but you have a mission; besides, you’ve been hurt worse and kept on pushing. This is nothing. It’s a walk in the park compared to the Mazes, or the Batons. Synchrony pains are nothing compared to what Sergeant Barnes will be going through soon - things you can stop if you get the fuck up.

The light hurts your eyes when you finally peel them open, sitting up and dropping gracelessly off of the metal table you’d been set out to thaw on. You’ve taken in the room in a second: silver, so much silver, and machines. Incredible technology, better than anything you’ve seen in your life, lines the walls and the floor and next to the table you’d been set on. There are only two places in the world that would have such foreign technology, and you pray that you’ve found yourself in the better of those places. Your hands tighten on the canvas bag in your hands - the one thing the Handlers had let you keep from your time borrowed and spent on the other side, in the war. The canvas bag keeps you grounded, rough against your fingertips, and you know that you’ll incinerate the files and letters before you allow the Handlers to get them back. You need to find Captain Rogers.

Metal thrums underneath your feet, through your thin shoes. It grounds you because metal is so strong, so stubborn. That’s what you need to do what you have to do. You can feel people behind the mirror, see yourself in it all wild eyes and pallor underneath your skin from however long you’d spent underneath the ice, preserving yourself. How many hours had it been? Days? Surely you still had time to find the Captain - he’d be the one that could help you get Seargent Barnes out before the Handlers broke him down and built him back up in the ways that haunt your nightmares.

The door opening sends you skittering back to a corner, breathing heavily in preparation for the Handler, tall and angry and imposing, but all you get is Howard Stark. The relief that floods your body makes your vision go hazy and you stumble forward toward him. You stumble on your knees as they collapse underneath you with the pure elation thrumming through you. “Howard,” You watch a strange look flick across his face, and he looks much older than you remember - the war must still be on and aging him, “You have to get in contact with Captain Rogers. I have information - I got out, I made it out. We have to go back, though, before they start the Program.” You’re five steps away when you see all of the wrong on Howard’s face. Sure, he looks like Howard but the way he stands and the way he’s looking at you… The metal in his chest. There’s metal in his chest and it’s filled with strange electricity - more powerful than anything you’ve ever felt. It’s on par with everything else that surrounds you in the room you’re in. Ice water washes down your back and draws your mind to a stop.

That man is not Howard Stark.

You take one hesitant step backward. The Handlers must have known where you were going and found one of their lackeys that looked like Howard to try and trick you into handing over the Program - the only copy of the plans. Your face falls, hollow, and then Not-Howard’s matches the emotion that rolls down your back and seizes your lungs. He calls out something in a heavy voice, lunging for you but you’re faster. You don’t even process what he’s said because you’re too focused on getting the hell out of there. The Handlers should know that someone who’s not enhanced, who doesn’t have a stun baton, can’t catch you because they made you to be uncatchable and untraceable. They made you to always be faster, stronger, better. Nobody who’s just a mere human will manage to hold you down - even if they somehow managed to catch you.

Not-Howard lunges straight for you and follows you left; you dip to the right and head toward the door that he’d entered through. It opens before you reach it by virtue of your abilities and you burst through it like a linebacker, the bag still clutched tightly to your chest. The people behind the mirror are startled in the glimpse of them you get and then they’re on your tail as you use your shoulder to muscle open the next door to make your escape into an open hallway. You’ve never been the most graceful on your feet despite the fact that you were made to be, so you stumble around a corner as you do your best to hook your canvas bag over your shoulder. You’ll be no good with your hands tied up in keeping that safe. Besides, it’s much easier to manipulate the world around you with your entire body at your disposal.

There’s no way for you to process the shouts behind you over the blood rushing through your ears. The hallway rushes past as you sprint, doors and paintings and more technology that doesn’t really make any sense all becoming nothing but a blur. You’re not sure how to get out of where you’re at - because you’re not sure where you’re at and you can feel the twisting metal hallways go off in all directions around you. That leaves you one option as you rapidly approach a large, wide window at the end of the hallway. Someone behind you is shouting something, but it’s lost in the wind as you push yourself past your limits. You leap into the air and curl in on your body just before you collide with the glass and then burst outward with an impressive rush of air.

Landing hurts, but not as much as it could have. As you fall toward the ground you throw your arms over your head and pull on the strings you feel all of the time, all over your body. The grass and earth below surge forward and meet you halfway through your descent, rocketing pain through your legs and spine. The move slows your fall until everything is back as it should be and you’re sprinting off into the woods on the other side of the field. You’re faster now, surrounded by the fresh air and wet earth and the humidity hanging after what seems like morning dew. Just before you break the treeline you hazard a glance behind you and feel the terror well in your stomach at the army of people following you out of the building. With one hand on your canvas bag, you take a deep breath and turn, leaving nothing but your shoes at the edge of the forest.

The first city you come upon reminds you of the company cities in America. You’d read about them, once, when a Handler’s Assistant had taken pity on you and told you about them. He’d come back the day after with a worn, fraying history book and you’d scarfed down the information about the outside world like it was your last meal. The city that rises in front of you reminds you of that.

It’s swirling with technology that’s foreign to you. The metal thrumming with electricity unfamiliar to your control, the rising buildings that disappeared into the clouds that make the day overcast, the cars stuck in backed-up traffic. It stops you for a second, so unfamiliar and foreign that it sends your mind spiraling, but you have bigger things to worry about. Like how none of the fashion is the same as it should be. It’s wartime, really, what is with the colors? And the frills? You can see children wearing clothes without tears, and shoes without holes. It’s overwhelming and confusing, even for how little time you’d spent in America during your time on loan to Howard Stark. Nobody is standing in ration lines… Is the war over? Had you been under the ice long enough for the war to be won?

Your mind comes up with a worse question after you realize that the war must be over. if it’s over… Who won?

You hesitate at the treeline, glad that the coveralls you wear give you the opportunity to blend in at least a little bit. Truly, they’re nothing but mechanics coveralls, but Howard Stark had given them to you before shipping you overseas to fight for America, and then your Handlers had framed them in your cell to remind you that the life you’d lived under that name was dead. You’d broken that frame and put them on before making your escape because, honestly, you were nothing more than the Serdtse to the Handlers - nothing more than the beginning of the end. Your name, the one that you’d chosen and wore under your clothes on the chains you’d smuggled from America, meant nothing to them. Sometimes they didn’t even grace you the respect of calling you Serdtse, sometimes they only called you A-24, the combination seared into your body with once-black, long-blue tattoo ink.

You run the fingers of your right hand over the blue ink, the faded tattoo of the name you were given when you were born - made? - mocking you. What world had you woken up in? What name are you to use? The letter and number that is indicative of the fact that you’re the first to survive the process of enhancing your body and mind but still the twenty-fourth try? The name that they gave you, Serdtse, to remind you that you’re the backbone of their sick and twisted experiments? The name you chose yourself, under Howard Stark’s care, to take with you to war? Which name, which person, are you supposed to be now that the war is over and you’re free?

The breath is stolen from your lungs at the thought that you’re not sure what to call yourself when you find Captain Rogers. Maybe he’ll already know and you won’t have to explain. Maybe in the time you’d been under the ice of your own making, he will have found his friend himself and saved the man from years of torture, abuse, and pain. You grit your teeth and steel yourself to disappear into the city and find out where the hell you are and where the hell you can find the man you’re looking for.

If the technology and the Not-Howard Stark are anything to go by, you might just be in a city built by and for the Handlers. Like the old coal miners in America, paid in scrip and forced to shop at the company businesses after long, hard days miles below the earth. You hope that’s not the case because anyone on the Handler’s side will take one look at you and realize who you are - what you mean to the company, and then you’ll be back under their thumb. At least you’ll be able to incinerate their plans, then. They’ll have to rebuild the Program from the ground up and it’ll buy you two or three years before the torture starts back again. You climb over a strange metal fence at the edge of the road and then dart across and onto the pavement on the other side. Nobody even glances your way. It’s like you’re invisible.

The concrete is hot on your bare feet but in a weird way… It feels good. It reminds you of your childhood - after weeks spent locked in that dark, wet basement you were allowed to go outside and it was a blisteringly hot summer's day. The sun was overbearing and painful, but so good. You’d ended up with a sunburn from being locked away in the dark for so long, but you’d carried that pain for days until your accelerated healing took it from you. The stinging in the soles of your feet reminds you that you’re alive and that you made it out of the ice - more importantly, out of the Handler’s hold.

Judging by the way that the cars on the street look, though, you’re not so sure about that last one. They’re nothing like the cars you’d seen during the war or the weeks before when you were preparing, but maybe that had been because of the war? Could things change so quickly after a wartime effort is halted? The Handlers didn’t like you seeing much of the outside - unless they were getting paid a handsome amount to ship across the world to fight on the opposite side of a world war. You cross the street with a gaggle of people in clothes so unfamiliar to you that it makes a headache start in the back of your skull. You swallow it down because being nervous does you no good.

On your way across, someone bumps their shoulder into yours. The first thing you notice about this man as you both stumble and face each other in the middle of the street is that he’s big: nearly six and a half feet tall and probably double your weight. You could probably fight him and win if you needed to. The second thing you notice is the denim shirt with the sleeves removed that he’s wearing. The third thing you notice, and probably the most important, is the red patch on the shirt. It sends every alarm bell in your head screaming and memories of your time under loan to Stark rushing forward to meet you.

The man follows your wide eyes to his patch and immediately sneers, taking several steps toward you so that he can tower over you. “Y’gotta problem with my patch, kid?” His voice is hard and brittle, likely from smoking more than the average joe.

Your jaw clenches as you process his words and without thinking you reach forward, clenching your fist in the material of his shirt just over the patch. It takes nothing more than a thought, a blink, an exhale but then the energy rushes from your lungs and down your arm and your palm ignites. All of your hatred funnels down your arm until the man screams, trying to wrench himself away from the fire you’re pushing toward him. You hold him there, burning until you know that you can’t see the patch through the scorch marks. He jerks away from you, unable to dodge the right hook you hit him with. The man crumbles and you turn, catching the shocked looks on everyone’s faces as you shoulder through the crowd that the man’s screams had drawn.

So much for laying low until you found Captain Rogers.

You’re found out in an alleyway a few miles away from that crosswalk. It had been pure instinct that drew you there - the promise of a corner to press your back into so that you can scan your surroundings and keep the documents safe. Maybe the reason you don't hear the approaching footsteps is your heartbeat thrumming in your ears, or the sound of rushing traffic, or the way the darkness at the edges of your vision pulses in time with your rapid breathing. Everything inside of you is focused on keeping your power under control, keeping your shaking body from collapsing, and keeping your mind from spiraling to a point of no return.

Looking back on it, maybe it's just that Captain Rogers makes almost no noise as he approaches. You don't notice him until his boots are past the black at the edge of your vision, and then you're unable to not see him. For a moment you tense and your body temperature rapidly rises, but then Captain Rogers holds both of his hands up and squats in front of you. "Hey," He smiles, "It's okay. Are you alright?"

Energy shoots through your body and you're gaping at him, fingers flexing on the bag. "I have information."

"I know," He reaches out toward you but you flinch back instinctually. "Whoa, I'm not goin' to hurt you." He backs off, even though you can see that he wants to pluck the bag from your arms. It makes your ears buzz and you clutch the bag tighter to your chest.

You swallow thickly and lick your lips. "I know. This - these are the only copies. I can't, I won't let them out of my sight." Captain Rogers smiles again, rocking back until he's crouched in front of you with his feet flat on the ground, elbows resting on his knees. As your mind kicks back into overdrive, finally having something to focus on, you realize why you have the information and why you're in the alleyway. You suck in a ragged breath and stutter your way through "It's information about Sergeant Barnes, we have to - I don't even know where to take it." The stress bleeds into your words, weighing down your voice and making it break.

"I thought you had said something about Buck," Captain Rogers looks thoughtful, but still like he's talking to a cornered animal. "He's back at home, I can take you to see him?" It feels like the breath is punched out of you when you hear that. Maybe he’d found his friend himself, maybe the man was safe, maybe they’d take you back to Howard Stark and he’d make good on his promise to protect you. Captain Rogers stands and holds his hand out to you and you take it. From everything you remember about the man, he exudes comfort and strength. If there’s anyone you might have trouble fighting, it’s Captain Rogers - but if there’s anyone you probably won’t have to fight, it’s Captain Rogers.

He pulls you to your feet easily and doesn’t make a move for the canvas bag. You’re thankful for that. Captain Rogers talks easily as he leads you back to the mouth of the alley and it helps ground you past all of the stimuli that come from this strange, new city. It’s like he knows that it’s overwhelming because nothing he’s saying is making sense. Most of it is garbled and goes right over your head, but still. It’s kind of him to try and take your anxiety down a few notches. It doesn’t really help when you see the sleek, black car waiting at the end of the alley because you can’t hear Captain Rogers when your heartbeat begins rushing in your ears.

“Hey, whoa, are you okay?”

The breath catches in your throat and you back away from him and the car. It doesn’t seem right that he’d be leading you back to the car that brought you from missions. Is it possible that he’d been taken when looking for Sergeant Barnes and run through the Program? Had they sent him because they knew you’d trust him instinctually and irrevocably? You take a deep breath and look toward Captain Rogers, but he just looks worried. His hands are up and he’s standing with bent knees, trying to make himself smaller and less threatening. You bare your teeth and press your back against the wall, body temperature spiking again. Your fingers heat dangerously, the smell of burning ozone beginning to emanate from you. “You’re not goin’ to get the documents.”

“I don’t want to take the documents, I just want to take you to a safer place to talk.” He seems honest but if there's one thing the Handlers are good at it's making liars. You're an incredible liar when you need to be and you're sure even before the Handlers got their claws into him that Captain Rogers was too.

"Bullshit," You snarl, ice creeping out from underneath your bare feet. It fractals out, searching searching searching. The heat you feel isn't fire - no, it's ice. Your fingers are rapidly cooling, moving from offensive to defensive, and they're freezing to the bag. It feels like you're made of stone as Captain Rogers glances down at the sidewalk in surprise, "You think I'm stupid? Think I won't recognize the car?"

He glances between you and the car over his shoulder. "The car?"

"What?" You don't even register what he's said, "You went back after Sergeant Barnes and they got you? Sent you to get Serdtse and the Program? I'll kill you before you get these plans." The ice spirals out more and more, until it begins creeping over the toe of Captain Rogers's boots. To his credit, he doesn't move but you watch him glance down and swallow thickly. Some vestigial instinct, low and base and from early man, makes you lick your lips and bare your teeth more, wider. There's a lot you could do to kill Captain Steve Rogers at this moment: light him on fire, stop his blood flow, sap the water from his body until he's nothing more than a crumbling husk, steal the air from his lungs and hold them closed. You wouldn't have to move an inch closer to him to do any of those. He’d be dead before he knew what was happening.

But you don't. There's still some part of you that sees the Captain Rogers you were searching for - tall and proud and wearing that stupid cowl on the propaganda posters Stark had in his drawers. Still, some part of you that wants help, wants absolution, wants to be rescued. If you kill him there's nobody else to help you - to help Sergeant Barnes. You can’t kill him, but he doesn’t have to know that. You’re a good liar. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” He finally speaks, “But please don’t run. I’m not goin’ to hurt you. That car is just something that Tony Stark sent to pick us up in.”

The information is like water off your back. You barely even process what he’s said, except the name Stark bounces around in your head like a ping pong ball. Tony Stark. Tony. Tony. Tony.

The name propels you back, sitting awkwardly next to Howard in a large, imposing room. If I have a son, he had said to you several years ago, I think I’d want to name him Anthony after my father. That way I’ll know he’ll be a better man than me. You take a deep, measured breath. “You’re not with the Handlers?” Your voice is small, meeker than you’d care for but Captain Rogers hears it over the commotion and noise. The ice recedes from his boots but continues to crawl up your legs and arms, protecting you if it comes to blows. He shakes his head, a confused furrow on his brows. “How do I know? For sure?” It feels stupid to ask him that because if he’s with the Handlers he’ll know exactly how to answer to convince you to get in the car.

Captain Rogers gives you a spiritless smile and shrugs. “You can’t. You just have to trust me.” The answer punches you in the gut because the Handlers would never, never instruct someone to tell you that. That answer would be against everything that the Handlers would beat into someone coming to get you - it would get them punished severely when they ended up back Underground, too. The ice melts immediately, dripping from you and then evaporating as your body looks for synchronicity again. Captain Rogers lets his hands drop slowly, as if you’re still going to attack him.

“Trust?” You finally whisper, “Trust you?”

“I’ll take you to Buck,” Captain Rogers says, “That’s what I call him - Sergeant Barnes? I call him Buck.” He smiles and holds out a hand again, “If you don’t want to get into the car, we can take a cab. I won’t make you get into the car, okay?”

“Won’t make me?” The kindness is making your head swim. Nobody has ever been this kind to you in years. Captain Rogers shakes his head and you eye the car warily. “You won’t take me back to Underground?” He shakes his head again but the furrow comes back to set deep over his eyes. “I’ll get in the car with you.” The small smile appears dichotomous to the confusion on the rest of his face. “I keep the papers, though.”

“Of course,” Captain Rogers says, “They stay with you for now. I’ll have to look at them soon, though, okay?” Your hackles raise even as you take a hesitant step toward the car. “We’ll have to make copies, especially if you’re from where we think you’re from.”

“I’m from the Underground,” You mumble when he opens the back door for you. That’s another thing that the Handlers would never have let happen - you were always in the front seat. Easier to control, easier to shock. “I’m from the Underground and the Handlers.” Captain Rogers slips into the seat next to you and suddenly the cab of the car is claustrophobic. You’re taller and bigger than the average person just because of how you were made, but so is he. Between the both of you in the backseat of the small car it feels like you’re at the circus. His thighs press against yours and his arm settles until you’re touching from shoulder to feet. Captain Rogers grimaces when you shift the bag to your other side and out of his reach.

“I’m sorry about the squeeze,” He tries to shift away from you, but there’s nowhere to go, “It’s the only car Tony was willing to part with.”

“Tony Stark.” You say the name and look at Captain Rogers through your peripherals, never turning your head. “Who is that?” You watch the confusion come back, but he smooths it away quickly.

“Do you know who Iron Man is?” You shake your head and he sighs. “Is it okay if I wait to answer your questions until we’re back? I think it might be better that way."

"Trust," You repeat, "I have to trust you."

"You don't have to," He shrugs and his skin rubs against the sleeves of your coveralls. "I would like it if you trusted me, but I'm not going to force you." You have to look away from his earnest eyes. "It might be hard to understand, but we want you to tell us what you know. We want to help you."

"Forgive me if I'm slightly nervous." You say tersely. "Typically cars like these are reserved for when I have to kill someone." You feel Captain Rogers stiffen next to you and he sucks in a sharp breath.

"I'm sorry."

"How could you have known?" Captain Rogers sighs and shakes his head, shifting to lean more against the car door so that he can look at you.

"I could have inferred from your reaction to the car, so I'm sorry." He frowns and makes an aborted motion to reach out for you. You hide your flinch in a slow blink but you feel like Captain Rogers still picks up on it. “You’re not the only one that has problems with certain brands of cars. Problems with things that remind them of what they’ve done and where they’ve been. I should - we, the team - should have been more aware. Taken a cab or something that doesn’t look so official.” Captain Rogers tries to smile in the way that you tried to smile at your Handlers so they’d go easy on you. A little reserved, a little scared, a little haunted. You wonder, looking at him and not replying to what he’s said, if there’s more than normal shellshock from the war lingering in the smile. It seems too heavy for a man who’s just seen war, seems too heavy for a man who had the weight of the world removed from his shoulders just for another burden to be put onto them. He sighs when he realizes that you’re not going to reply. “We’re a team, y’know. Buck is on it, too. You don’t have to be afraid of us.”

The car turns into a long, shadowy driveway. You watch the trees pass for a few seconds before you turn back to the cab of the car. “Of course, I have to be afraid of you. I was made just to kill you, Captain Rogers. I can’t imagine you want me around all that much if Sergeant Barnes is truly safe.”

You’re very aware that Captain Rogers is sticking close to you after that. He hesitates on your backfoot as you’re led back through the facility you’d taken flight from. The floorplan starts to come together in your head - everything here is made of something you can feel, you can control. Maybe out of instinct, or habit, you begin to form another escape plan in case this goes south. You know they see you as a threat - you can hear the whirring of hidden cameras following your movements through the hallways as Captain Rogers leads you to a containment room. Like what you’d grown up in, woken up in, but different. It’s smaller, less sterile with more dark, neutral colors. It’s supposed to make you feel calm.

It doesn’t work.

Steve shuffles you into a chair that’s in front of a table - it’s like he wants you to set the documents out before him but you won’t. Can’t, really, because you’re still clutching the bag with cramping fingers. He settles across from you with a small but pleasant smile on his face. “We’re not goin’ to kill you. We just want to know about you. What were you doin’ in that ice?”

You grind your teeth and break eye contact, still feeling the ghost of the water curling up around your shoulders - still hearing the jet coming for you, toward you, to get you back. “I was on my way to find you.”

“Why?”

“You know why!” You snap, irritated, “Because I managed to not only escape the Underground with my life but with the Program!” You jostle the bag in your arms, “But it doesn’t matter, because you say that Sergeant Barnes is here and not there.” Captain Rogers doesn’t say anything, just looks at you. It’s not the way the Handlers look at you - nose turned up with heavy eyes and judgment. He’s looking at you like he wants to crack you open and solve your riddle. It makes you antsy, licking your lips and breaking eye contact again. “So you clearly got him back before you found me.”

Captain Rogers cocks his head. “How do you know who Bucky is?” He leans forward, clasping his hands together and resting his forearms on the table. It’s a little bit more imposing, a little more intimidating, but he has had ample opportunity to kill you. He’s had ample opportunity to make you disappear. Plus, he’d given you that answer that was so unlike anything the Handlers had ever said to you.

Trust. You have to trust him.

Another lick to your lips, a deep breath. “I was there when they brought him in. The Handlers aren’t even sure how he survived the fall, really, because they said that the serum hadn’t taken the first time they’d gotten their hands on him.”

Captain Rogers blinks. It’s slow and deliberate to hide his surprise. “You… Were there.”

“Not for long,” You shake your head and try to shake away the sight of Sergeant Barnes laying on the metal table, bloody and mangled and dying. The Handler pushing you forward, commanding you to keep him alive while they resect the mutilated bicep of his left arm. You’d held the blood away from the split veins and arteries, keeping him from bleeding out, and then you were whisked away to the whispers of how he would respond to the serum, the Program. The torture that they’d perfected on you. Bile rises in your throat because it was the first time you’d seen the face of someone that the Handlers were going to torture. They sent you out to kill, sure, but you never had to get very close. You never had to look at their faces, or hear their pained, whimpering breaths. “They don’t particularly like it when I get to see people from the outside. I’m sure they would have eventually paired us together, but for what they had planned it was better for them to put me back in my cell.”

Captain Rogers doesn’t say anything for a long time. “If that’s true, how did you know who I was? And Howard Stark?”

“Everyone wants money, Captain Rogers. Even the Handlers. Howard happens to have enough money to convince them to loan me to the other side of the war.” You glance away, focusing on an abstract painting on the wall to your left. “Not forever, of course. Just for a few months. A couple of ops.” You look back to Captain Rogers and you’re struck, again, by how different he looks. Sadder than before, more rugged. You’d worked with him on an op, briefly, but it had been eye-opening.

He had treated everyone with such respect - even you. You, bundled up in a uniform either too big or too small. You, always smudged in dirt or grease or sometimes blood from trying to keep the people around you alive. (Because they weren’t always men, not really. Nobody outside of the foxholes gave a shit about that, though. Especially not the Handlers.) He respected you even though you weren’t anything more than a footsoldier, a plant, a fail-safe for the op that Howard had used his money and power to get you on to protect the older soldiers. But now Captain Rogers looks years and years away from that man who’d led you. Older, wearier. Bone-deep exhaustion sitting on his shoulders and chest like a bad cold.

You’d been on that op with him only seven or eight months ago. How had so much changed in the time you’d been under the ice? How did he not recognize you? With your own version of the serum - arguably the one that his own serum had been based on - you know that his memory is sharp. You know that the synapses that process faces were chiseled into a fine point so that he would be lethal on missions, a weapon of tracking and finding. Maybe you look too different outside of the constraints of the war field, foxholes, and med-tents. Maybe it’s because you don’t have a gun in your hand and a buddy slung over your shoulder under the hail of gunfire. But he should know you.

The way that Captain Rogers is furrowing his brows again and tilting his head tells you that he thinks that, too. There’s something about you that’s familiar to him and Sergeant Barnes will probably have the same reaction. “I was on them with you,” Your confession breaks the silence and the furrow in his brow. “Howard let me choose a name to enlist under because the Handlers never gave me one. They gave me a number, an op name. Not a real, human name. So maybe that’s why you don’t remember me. Because I was still getting used to being seen as a person.”

Captain Rogers blinks slow again, and then narrows his eyes at you for a few seconds. “I don’t recognize you.”

“Lost some weight after the Handlers got me back,” You shrug, readjusting your grip on the canvas bag, “Not a lot, just enough to change my face.” The silence stretches on and on until you’re squirming uncomfortably. Silence from the Handlers is normal but it seems like Captain Rogers doesn’t do extended silences. He hasn’t let one span in the short time you’ve been in each other’s company and now it’s lingering around the two of you. “If I have to trust you… Shouldn’t you trust me? I could have died getting these papers out of there. Do you understand what I’ve done to save Sergeant Barnes? I can’t go back and I can’t go anywhere else. I don’t exist outside of the Underground, Captain Rogers. There’s nowhere for me after this.” You slam the bag on the table and hastily open it, spilling the plans and letters that you smuggled out on the pristine surface. “This is everything they’ve ever done to me. This is my childhood and my young adult life. This is every note they’ve ever taken on me - everything that they’ve done and whether or not it worked. Why the fuck would I bring this to you if you couldn’t trust me?”

You shove back from the table and Captain Rogers stands just as fast as you do. You’re not going to do anything but your chest is heaving and your hands are heating. You have to turn away from him after he turns his attention to the papers in front of him.

“This is years of research.” His voice is breathless, “Straight from the heart of Hydra. How’d you manage to get it out of there in one piece?”

“I’m years of research,” Your fists clench at your sides, “And what the hell is Hydra? I got it out because they made me powerful but didn’t think about making me easy to control. Why would they have to when they raised me, right?” When you turn back around he’s flipping through the papers, prying open sealed envelopes, and looking at dossiers on you through the years. His eyes are scanning over everything and you have no doubt that Captain Rogers is actually reading them. You can read fast, too. “The Handlers never thought that I would try to escape so they didn’t prepare for it. They were never ready for me, not really.”

He looks back up at you, breathless. “You did this to save Bucky?”

“I can’t let him go through what they did to me.” Captain Rogers looks awed when your voice comes out low and strong, “I thought about staying so I could stop it from the inside, but there’s no way I would have been able to do that. So I killed my guards, took the Program, and I ran.” The weight in your chest grows and your voice loses volume, “I heard the jet they sent after me and knew they’d shoot me down just to drag me back to the Underground and torture me some more. So instead I went underwater to protect myself and the Program. I knew I would eventually thaw myself out, and then I’d be able to find you so that you could help Sergeant Barnes.” You frown and shake out your arms, trying to dispel the energy building up in them. “But I guess you’ve already done that.”

“We’ll have to make copies of all of this. It makes so much sense.” Captain Rogers is back to looking through the information you’ve brought and it puts a rock in your stomach. Once they’ve made copies they’ll be done with you - they’ll probably put you in a cell for the rest of your life. Maybe they’ll just kill you. You’d told Captain Rogers that it’s hard to contain you, but what’s killing you if not containing you? It makes your jaw tick and you have to turn away again. He’s thumbing through the paperwork carefully like he’s looking for an answer to something. You assume he’s found it when he makes a noise of surprise and the rustling stops. “This is the chemical makeup of the serum.” When you look back, he’s holding it as if it’s made of gold.

“It’s the base they used to make yours.” You say, limply shrugging because there’s nothing else for you to fill the silence with. “I overheard how much money the US gave the Handlers for it when I survived the injection.” He doesn’t even process what you’ve said, instead taking three large steps toward the door. Panic wells in your chest but you fight it back down because you’re in a cell. A nicely decorated cell, sure, but you know when you’re not allowed to leave a place even when you’re not told. You make no move to follow Captain Rogers even when he whirls back around and gathers the rest of the papers in his arms. The door slams behind him and you can hear the soft clicking of three locks sliding into place. (Not that it would matter - they’re all metal and you can unlock them with a press of your mind and a flick of the wrist.) You settle on the couch that’s against the wall and try to get comfortable.

It’s almost too soft but eventually, your body relaxes into it, if only slightly. You can’t fall asleep though, because you’re waiting. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Captain Rogers to come back, for the Handlers to burst from the shadows of the room and finally, finally kill you like they’d always said they wanted to. Time passes slowly even as you let your other sense reach out and map the world around you. The plumbing, the metal in the walls, the air pressure and temperature, the small fires from machines running somewhere. It’s all comforting to be able to feel, but also it gives you a way out if you need it. It also lets you know that you’re still being watched - by at least three people on the other side of the mirror. They’re all pretty healthy, too. Good circulation, good lung capacity, well hydrated. It wouldn’t be hard to beat them in a fight, but there definitely would be more of a fight if you try to take off from this cell.

Captain Rogers approaches from one of the hallways and the only reason you know is that you’re already looking, feeling with your other senses. He has someone else with him who’s just as big and tall, probably just as strong. Maybe it’s the Tony Stark, Iron Man, he’d been talking about.

A frown briefly touches your face when you realize he hadn’t answered any of your questions but pushed you to the point until you played your entire hand. Damn, that sucks. Maybe this new person is coming to take care of you - and you’ll let them. If Sergeant Barnes is as safe as Captain Rogers says he is, what’s your mission? Just like you’d said, you have nothing. No real name, despite what the tags around your neck say. No place to go. Nobody to go to. How are you supposed to live away from the Handlers if you’re always looking over your shoulder and searching for a safe place to land? What sort of life will that be?

You stand when the door opens purely out of habit, clenching your jaw to keep the words down. The man behind Captain Rogers is familiar in the way that faces in your dreams are - smudged around the edges, rough and crass and a poor imitation of someone you think you know. You realize that while you recognize this person that you don't, not really. Not in any way that matters. Captain Rogers is looking between you like he expects something, so you reach back out.

The senses curl around this new man who's watching you with guarded, deep eyes. You feel the enhancements he's undergone - more musculature, a better cardiovascular system, larger lung capacity. Like you, like Captain Rogers. A soft gasp is the only indication that you've realized anything, but both men hear you. There's metal grafted on the new man's left shoulder, roots thick and deep so that his nerves connect to the mechanics of the arm. It's heavy on your mind as you spiral out, remembering the injury that Sergeant Barnes had sustained in the fall, how the Handlers had said they'd have to make him a prosthetic for him to be effective.

You feel like you can't breathe when the realization hits you, meeting his eyes once more. His entire face is solid in the same way that you can shut down - he knows that you know and he's pissed about it. When Sergeant Barnes speaks, his voice is low and even but the undercurrent of emotion hits you in your chest. "You know who I am."

"But how?" You croak, eyebrows pulling together as you take a step toward Captain Rogers. "You said he was safe."

The captain just shrugs. "He is safe here. I didn't lie."

"But you didn't tell the truth! He's enhanced." You argue, gripping the chair you'd once sat in so that your legs don't give way, "That's not safe," Your words are choked by the grief that's swelling quickly into anger, "That's the opposite of safe. Now the Handlers won't ever stop looking for him-" Sergeant Barnes cuts you off, a snarl breaking over his face and making him seem much larger and dangerous. On instinct, your teeth curl back in the same expression.

"They haven't stopped. What do you think you're playin' at, huh?" He shoves the table toward you but you're just as quick as he is and you backpedal out of the way. Captain Rogers looks like he's expected this but makes no move to stop his friend. The table is shoved to the side as Sergeant Barnes approaches, breathing heavily and clenching his fists at his side. You can hear the clicking and whirring of his left arm - without the serum it would be eerily silent around you. "Why'd you take the plans and run? Huh? Do you know what they did to me because of you?" He's roaring and Captain Rogers only steps in when you're shoved into the wall by your shoulders.

"Come on, Buck, calm down. You know that’s not-"

"Up yours, Rogers," He snarls without breaking eye contact with you. Something is wrong here and it's paralyzing you from the neck down, every breath a struggle. "You took everything from me. My life, my chance. Why? Because you ran? Because you thought you could play fucking hero?"

"Hey now!" Large hands curl around Sergeant Barnes and tug him backward, but he barely shifts.

"Do you know what I had to go through so they could rebuild that fucking program? Do you understand?"

"What are you talking about?" You finally whisper. You're half worried your voice will get lost over his harsh breathing, but you need to know he's not saying what you think he's saying. There's no way - it's not possible. "The Program takes years to run, even longer to perfect." You finally manage to choke, "There’s no way that they’ve run it on you.”

“There’s no way that they’ve run it on you,” Sergeant Barnes sneers to mock you, voice dripping with anger, “Do you know what year it is? Do you know how long you were under the ice? It’s been years.”

“No, it was only a few days at most!” You explode, air rushing through the room and forcing the men in front of you backward. It feels out of control just like you do, and it carries your voice to a shriek over the howling of the wind. “That’s not enough time! I got the papers here, I found Captain Rogers, I did my best!”

“Your best wasn’t enough!” Sergeant Barnes screams, neck straining to be heard over the wind. Captain Rogers is still holding him back, face creased with worry and the strain of keeping the two of you separated. The sergeant jabs a shaking finger in your direction. “You did this to me! You left and then they ruined me!” “No!” You shriek, voice raw and breaking under the weight of the paradigm shift. The wind halts without warning and you feel yourself collapsing, trying to breathe through a chest that won’t expand. “No.” Your knees give out and your nails leave trails of pain against your scalp as you curl around your body, trying to protect yourself while your worldview changes under the weight of the sergeant’s accusation. How long had you been under? How many years had passed before Captain Rogers found his friend? Whimpering, your hands move until you’re cradling your knees to your chest. Years, he’d said. It would explain why Captain Rogers looks so much older than you remember from just a few months ago, it would explain the city that you’d ended up in, it would explain everything. “Oh, God - oh, God.” They leave you there, gasping as you try to calm yourself down because while you don’t want to believe him you can see the anger there. The hurt there. The pure, raw emotion he’s holding on his shoulders means it has to be true.

You’d tried so hard. You’d done your best, stealing out even though they would have killed you had been caught. You’d let yourself fall under the water, frozen your body and mind in time, because you’d heard them coming after you - just to save him. Just to protect him from going through a fraction of what you’d experienced - and for what? To what end? For Sergeant Barnes to go everything you'd lived through and worse because you'd failed? You'd hunkered down in the ice for years and years and years while he suffered. While he was broken down and built back up in the Handler's image. Oh, God...

Oh, God...

i'm doing this for revenge

i'm doing this to try and stay true

i'm doing this for the ones they had to leave behind

i'm doing this for you

#steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers/reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes/reader #bucky barnes x reader #stucky/reader #stucky x reader #mcu imagine #marvel imagine #dark in here

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