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workingdownthewordmine · 6 days

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Love Thy Neighbour - Chapter 4 Silence is Safety

Hive has a nightmare and someone comes to call on Bucky.

Read this chapter on AO3 here.

Chapter 3

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Nonbinary OC, Steve Rogers Rating: T CW: Starvation, food and water deprivation as torture, captivity, threat to an animal, animal in pain, sick animal, animal death, attempted self-injury, nightmares, fear of being touched, bruises, hearing voices, voice of an abuser, implication of sexual assault Prompts filled: Seasonal Delights Types of Love: Skin care @seasonaldelightsbingo Fandom Free Bingo Frosty Edition: Nightmares, Dimpled Smile @fandom-free-bingo Fandom Free Bingo Wild Edition: “I need to talk to you.” Febuwhump: Day 19: “Please don’t” @febuwhump LGBTQ+: Vulnerability @lgbtqbingo Whumpuary: Day 5: Can't move | "Stay. Please." | kidnapped, Day 15: "You're safe" | aftermath | touch starved @whumpuary Eclipsing: Starvation @eclipsingbingo

Dividers by @unfortunate-beetle-and-friends

“Long as you won’t get out and leave me alone, you might as well set down.” John Steinbeck

They’d never liked pigs.

“Kill it.”

They didn’t move. Their hands clenched until their bones creaked.

“You can use your bare hands if you must, but I think you can be more humane than that.”

“I can’t.”

“Then you’ll be in here a long time. Only one of you is coming out and I don’t think Lunchmeat is as concerned with the ethics as you are when she’s hungry.”

He patted them on the shoulder and shut the door behind him. They knew it was locked without looking. There was no handle on the inside anyway.

No sooner had he left them standing and looking down at the large black and grey pig hunting in the corners for something of interest – food or a way out – than they were somehow on the floor. Pain and nausea waged war in their chest. They didn’t know how long it had been. The only thing that moved or changed in here was their companion. She had started screaming for food. Hive had tried to calm her but no soothing sounds or gentle touches could make a dent in their shared gnawing hunger. Then she had stopped screaming.

She lay, letting out little grunts of complaint or pleading. Hive got it. Their mouth was dry as sand. Their joints were seizing up. But Hive was probably the only one with a cramping bladder. Their cellmate’s concerns didn’t include the constant observers behind the glass and her toileting arrangements were responsible for the acrid choking atmosphere. She no longer bothered to stand, or maybe she couldn’t. Hive doubted they could stand now.

How long could a pig go without water? Without sleep? Food? How long had they been here? Hive felt the calculations spool through their mind like an itch in a long severed limb; their conclusions were too distant and Hive’s thinking too sluggish to follow them. They felt them run out. One by one, each of them was succumbing, going quiet. Lunc- their cellmate was breathing more rapidly, each rise of her ribs shallower than the last. Soon Hive would be all alone. But that wouldn’t last long. Three days – wasn’t that the longest anyone could go without water? They’d read that somewhere. Was it the same for pigs? They tugged their shirt up over their face and shuffled closer, joints screaming. They rested a hand on the pig’s head. One red eye rolled at them. The puddle around their rear end was dark with blood now. An itch of thought in the back of their mind said that meant her kidneys were shutting down. She shivered with every breath.

This was their fault… Days of pain and suffering because they wouldn’t do as they were told. Because they couldn’t…

Pigs ate flesh if given the chance – everyone knew that, even if they hadn’t been taunted with the fact just recently – so they would probably drink blood if there was no alternative, wouldn’t they? Hive was pretty sure humans would, if it was that or death, and humans were a picky species. And blood was mostly water, right? Sure. Most things were, when you came down to it. Hive held their wrist to the pig’s snout and… tried. Nothing happened. No spurt, no pool of bright, life-sustaining red. They turned their arm over and found only a sticky smear.

Then the door was slamming back and Hive was dragged up by the elbow. The room whirled around them. They stumbled and their bare foot came down on hot bristled skin, unresponsive, choked with fever. They didn’t hear the shot over the howling brightness and pain. Gore splattered up their leg.

“Damn. Hope everyone’s hungry. Ham sandwiches for lunch. Get them out of here.”

Hive was shoved into another set of hands and that shook them, wrenched at them…

It was instinctive for Bucky to sleep facing the end of the hall where Hive slept – after all, they were still very much a stranger, even if he found he needed to remind himself of that once or twice. They had been kind. He recalled the brief respite while they gently sponged his brow. The memory helped cool his prickling skin. But it would cede inevitably to the feeling of the vulnerable throat in his grip. A cold chuckle would curl in the back of his mind like a tensing snake and he would spend minute after minute straining his ears to make sure Hive was still breathing soundly. The easy, regular sound of their snoring, shorn of any awkwardness or self-consciousness, brought him something akin to peace. The sound soothed him back to sleep more than once, their trusting slumber lulling him back to his own rest. Until deep in the night.

Eventually he woke to the sound he had feared. In the deep gloom, Hive’s shape was trembling and he heard them struggle for breath. A sob broke through their gasps and he was out of his sleeping bag and crouched beside them.

“Hive? You okay?”

He brushed their shoulder and they curled up more tightly, crushing their lungs and constraining their breathing even further. Amidst their thin, halting gulps, a few words escaped. “Won’t... no... please... no...”

He was reluctant to touch while they were unconscious but he could not leave them suffocating and trapped in whatever was going on in their head. “Kid, ya gotta wake up,” he pleaded, putting his other hand on the knee clenched to their chest and attempting to uncurl them. He’d barely moved them more than an inch or so when their head snapped back, rebounding off the wall. They let out a small scream and jerked away from him and cringed into the corner. He yanked his hands away as though Hive’s body had suddenly become electrified.

“Sorry,” he muttered, jerking back with empty palms on display. The streetlights reflected off their wide open eyes but he wasn’t sure they were seeing him at all. “I - I’m not going to hurt you. And I’m - we’re the only ones here. You’re safe.”

Their brow knitted. The concept seemed to confuse them.

He shifted back a little further, sitting on his heels and lowering his hands slowly. He nodded. “Safe, okay? No one’s going to hurt you here, yeah?” The rapid, painful breathing was easing. Their muscles were relaxing. He took a gamble. “They’re not gonna find you. I’m not gonna let them.” He inched his right hand out and took theirs. They didn’t try to move away. Their fingers curled round his. He smiled, almost surprised to find his face remembered how. “There ya go.” He searched their face, wondering how to help. “Tell ya what – I'm gonna light a candle, yeah? Get us some light to see by?” He started to rise but their small hand tightened on his. “No? You don’t want a light?” He looked down and tried to decipher their expression. He could read the pleading clearly enough but not what they - “You... don’t want me to go?” They nodded, tugging on his hand again. He hesitated, the echoes of the voice – the one that taunted him with the danger they were putting themself in – resurging.

“Stay. Please.” They’d been louder while he was throttling them. If his eyes had been any less sharp, he couldn’t possibly have read the silent words on their lips. For a second, he tensed, worried their silence meant they’d detected someone else nearby, but the only sounds came from his breathing and Hive’s.

“I’ll stay.” He sank down on the floor and rubbed the back of their hand with his thumb. “It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.” He stayed and didn’t move except to stroke their hand while they looked owlishly around them, recalling where they were, until he realised they were shivering. “Hey, you’re getting chilly. Let me go get your sleeping bag, yeah?” They frowned and shook their head, holding his hand tighter still. “Come on. You’re cold.” He wondered if he could snag it with a foot. Probably not. “Alright.” He hooked Hive's arm round his neck and dislodged their hand from his, wincing internally as he effortlessly unfastened their grip, then scooped his arms underneath them and lifted, the blanket still tucked around them. Apart from a squeak of surprise, they made no outward objection. They linked their hands in a loop round his neck and Bucky was sure they even relaxed a little as he carried them the short distance back to where he'd been sleeping. He shifted the hand from under their back and let them support some of their own weight while he spread out the sleeping bags. "Here." Their bag was warmer and softer than his so he set them down on top of it, leaning over them a little as he unwound their arms.

Less than six hours to get them in your bed... I suppose that practically counts as self-control for you. If you don’t count pinning them to the floor.

Bucky froze, the voice still crawling in his ears. "You'll be warmer here." He pushed their hands away from him and tossed his own sleeping bag on top of the blanket before retreating. "I'm... gonna do a check of the building. Just make sure everything's secure. Sleep." He couldn’t looked at the wide, lost eyes following him as he stood up and backed towards the door. He was almost in arm’s reach of the door, the voice crowing triumphantly in his ear.

Finally, a good decision, at least if you’re determined they should survive the night no more damaged than they already are. But I imagine fear rendering them silent would spoil the fun for you a bit. You always preferred it when they screamed, didn’t you? When they fought, and forced you to overpower them. Where’s the fun if they’re already broken? Seems someone beat you to this one.

He pulled up short, remembering pleading eyes, a grasping hand… Terror had looked at him out of hundreds of swollen eyes. So many lips twisted into prayers for safety, for mercy he hadn’t had to offer them. But… “Stay”… Had he ever been begged for that? He thought maybe Stevie, but, no. Steve had always been the bravest of them, even when the weakest bully in the world could have picked him up and wrung him out with one hand. Bucky had stayed with him plenty of times but Steve had never asked, let alone begged.

He couldn’t hear Hive breathing.

He spun around and saw that they had coiled up tight again, head ducked down and shoulders trembling slightly as they fought to keep quiet and still. He remembered. Remembered curling up and battling the burning need for oxygen. Hoping with every strangled fibre that searching eyes would pass right over him. Trying to wish himself out of existence. Fearing the touch of a considering gaze like a blade.

He was beside them again with no memory of moving, gathering them, covers and all, into his arms. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll stay. I promise. I’m not going anywhere.”

He felt them burrow against his chest, fingers snaking out of the blankets to seize a fold of his shirt. He looked down at them, charmed, in spite of his own hammering heart and aching muscles. He was fighting a one-sided battle against himself, against impulses he’d tried to starve, against the voice and its taunts. He wasn’t a slave. Wasn’t their asset. Hive wasn’t an enemy or a target or a quarry. He wasn’t going to hurt them no matter what came out of the shadows in his head.

In the quiet, he became aware of the pain he’d been just managing to sleep through before Hive’s nightmare. Even after decades, his flesh and skeleton still fought the intruding architecture more doggedly than he’d ever fought the other things his masters had implanted. He tried to focus on the warm ball of person snuggled against his chest but shuddered when pain flared along the war-torn border between his living shoulder and his left arm. He shifted in the futile search for an angle that would settle the compound joint. Useless as ever. Hive’s hand released his shirt and he wondered if they were falling asleep. They weren’t. He flinched when they reached up to touch his shoulder. The word “stop” faltered in his mouth as their small fingers felt their way round the meeting of hot and cold, so lightly he could hardly feel them. A protest was cut off as he realised the fire was cooling a little. They moved by feel, massaging around his shoulder and down his side where the rebuilding had continued out of sight. How did they even- He couldn’t remember another time anything short of a handful of opiates had made any difference.

“Thank you,” he muttered. The hand returned, winding back into his shirt, and the bundle nodded. “Still can’t speak?” A little shake. “Okay, kid. That’s okay.”

He hadn’t meant to sleep. He’d promised no one would hurt them and he’d slacked on the job by dozing off at his post. But when Hive began to snore in his arms there was something too soothing about the soft bundle against his chest for him to resist. Between one breath and the next, he was out.

Apparently at least one of them woke enough to change their positions during the last few hours of darkness. He was no longer sitting up in the morning when light spilt down the hallway through the kitchen window. He lay on his own sleeping bag, Hive’s beside him along with the blanket. The dent where they had slept, where his arm now rested, was still faintly warm. The angle wasn’t a comfortable one. A sharp twinge ran through the seam at his shoulder, probably the same sensation as had woken him.

Awareness was returning more slowly than usual and for a second his heart raced – only heavy sedation or the energy drain of recovery from serious injury usually made him so sluggish. The returning world gradually brought with it the fierce prickling down his right arm. Following the itching he pulled up his t-shirt and found the same rash spread over a strip of his stomach. Must’ve pulled up while he was climbing, or falling more likely. He winced at the recollection. Useless. Embarrassing. Shameful excuse for an a-

“We should give the red patches another clean. And I’ve got some ointment that might calm down the reaction a bit.”

Bucky dropped his shirt back into place, surprised at how seamlessly he’d accepted Hive’s presence as a known variable rather than a cause for alarm. They sat in the kitchen by his camping stove. As he watched they took the pan off the flame and added water to his mug. The scent of coffee filtered into the room. Their ‘care package’ was beside them. How heavily had he slept?

“Guess you needed the sleep.”

His eyes narrowed. Did mind-reading go hand in hand with that whole bleeding thing they’d mentioned?

“Not a mind-reader. Just observant.” They shrugged. “Selectively observant anyway. Oh, cool, this can be like one of those Sherlock Holmes scenes where he explains all his reasoning and everyone’s amazed and also baffled at how simple it was. Look amazed, okay? Firstly-”

The rapid stream of words caught him by surprise as it had the night before but this time the effect was innocent and rather lovely instead of sinister. He’d never known anyone’s brain move at such wildly different speeds.

“- and I figured you don’t generally get enough sleep ‘cause you’re kinda jumpy. Plus I’ve seen you going round the building at midnight a few times. Sleeping doesn’t seem too high in your priorities.” The shrugged again, their eyes sliding away from his as he’d already noticed they did when they became aware of their high-speed chatter. He’d missed the start of their explanation but-

“I’m not ‘jumpy’.”

Hive tipped their head on one side. “You… kind of are, though. Not in like a nervous way. Kind of like me except I totally am nervous, come to think of it. Just… like something you don’t want to see might be behind you any time. It’s not paranoia when they really are out to get you.”

Bucky stared. Then he laughed. It was an unexpected sound, warm in the cool morning sunlight, just a bit rusty with lack of use. A good sound. Free. And Hive laughed with him, their awkwardness dissolving. Their face creased up when they laughed, little crinkles at the corners of their eyes remembering other laughs, and they had a funny way of half-covering their mouth – whether to stifle the sound or hide a defect, he wasn’t sure. A genuine, carrying sound. It lasted a few seconds before they tried to contain it and the sound broke down into little snorts and irrepressible sniggers. His own laughter had subsided already, distracted by his observations. Their cheeks dimpled when they laughed.

“So, skin? Uh… coffee. Coffee was what I meant to offer you. Skin afterwards. Your skin. I mean, I can give you the ointment for your skin, which is irritated. Coffee. Here. Coffee.” They carried his mug over and handed it to him, eyeing the floorboards with reproach, presumably for failing to open up and swallow them upon desperate, silent request. He huffed in amusement and took the cup.

“Black, no sugar…” he noted after a sip.

“That’s right, isn’t it?” They shrugged. “Had a hunch. Aided by the total lack of milk and sugar around here.”

“Hell of a deduction,” he agreed sardonically.

A sweet, earthy aroma wafted from Hive’s mug. “Tea,” they answered his questioning look. “Star anise and cinnamon. I don’t get a lot of chance to splash cash around. I’m selective about my luxuries, okay?”

“Didn’t say a thing.”

They continued to drink in silence until he began scratching at his arm again, the rounded tips of his metal fingers singularly unsatisfying for the purpose however hard he chafed the darkening skin.

“Oi, stop it!” Hive’s mug went down with a clunk and they plunged back into the box, scrabbling in the contents like a small burrowing creature. He saw the design on their mug for the first time: a dark green dragon… thing with, emblazoned underneath, the words “I’m a little monster”. Another smile. It was ludicrous and childish and somehow perfect for them. He had just time to snap out of his contemplation and catch the tube thrown at his chest and prevent it landing in his coffee. “Use it. Don’t scratch. You’ll probably, fuck, I don’t know, push the fibres further in or something. Oh!” A packet, too large luckily to desecrate his coffee, bounced off his stomach and into his lap. “Wet wipes. Clean the skin first.”

“Yes, Sir.” He gave them a little salute, tube still in hand, and a heavy eye-roll, incredibly amused to realise they were blushing.

“I – look –”

He smirked to himself as he drained his coffee and set the mug aside. He started wiping his skin. When it came to the cream, he found a problem. Smoothing the stuff over his arm was apparently another thing that had been foolishly overlooked in the design of his metal fingers. He pushed it about in vain for a bit, swearing under his breath as the cream piled up between the metal plates. He heard Hive moving but didn’t think about it until they sat down cross legged in front of him.

“I swear, if you ask me if I need a hand…” he warned.

They snorted hard. “I kinda wish that had been what I was going to say. That would have been amazing. Actually I was just going to ask if I could help.” They held out their hands. “Can I?”

He glared for a moment then dropped the tube into their palm and held out his arm. Hive inspected it for a moment, turning his hand with theirs, examining the inflamed skin. Their brows knitted.

“Something wrong?”

They shook their head slowly.

“Disconcerting. What’s with the frown?”

“Just thinking. Wondering I could… well, if there was anything more helpful I could do about any fibres left in there.” They winced and shook their head as though to clear it. “I don’t think there is. I’m sure they’ll work their way out on their own in a day or so.”

He thought about the odd little tangent while they squeezed more cream onto their fingertips and started to massage it into his skin. What else were they thinking of doing? Going in with microscopic tweezers? His mind was too busy to contain a soft groan as Hive’s fingers worked into muscles that had gone God knows how long without fully relaxing. He flexed his hand, testing the unfamiliar comfort, and saw them flash an impish little grin. To his relief, they didn’t comment, just applied themself to their work in silence, making their way along his arm. He rolled his shoulder without thinking about it and narrowed his eyes minutely at the stiffness bound up on the left that he could do nothing about.

“How much does it hurt?” They hadn’t looked up.

“Huh?”

“Your shoulder. It’s bad, right?”

Bucky stared down at them. “Just stiff.” An unconvincing nod. “Aches sometimes, I guess. You lose the ability to speak much?” He regretted the deliberate subject shift when they froze for a moment. Their eyes had been turned to his right arm in any case but now he felt them studiously avoiding his face.

“Don’t know. Not usually anyone there for me to not talk to.” Their posture had become rigid. Bucky chewed the inside of his lip and watched them. He should probably talk about something else, but…

“Hope I didn’t scare ya last night. When I woke you up, I mean.” They jerked their head, an uncomfortable negative.

“No. You were fine. Thanks. For waking me up.”

He nodded. Wanted to say something about recognising a bad dream when he saw it. Wanted to ask what nightmare he’d pulled them out of. He opened his mouth still with no clear idea of what was going to come out but they beat him to it.

“Your eyes aren’t as red this morning. How do they feel?”

“Better, thanks. Sting a bit.”

“Rinse them out again later, okay? Not sure how much damage the fibres can do but eyes probably aren’t the place to fuck around with them.” Their hands reached one of their own bandages. “Gonna take this off if it’s okay with you? Don’t suppose you still need it.” They struggled with the knot until Bucky reached up and broke the fabric with his fingers. Hive arched an eyebrow. “Probably a good thing I wasn’t going to ask for that back, huh?” They examined his arm with careful attention, pulling it more towards the light, Bucky letting them move it as they wished. “Completely healed. Jesus. Looks a week old already.” Their fingertips traced over the pinkish line where the skin had torn.

As their head bent over his arm, Bucky realised what he was seeing – the bruise peeking from beneath their hair at their temple. His gaze travelled, lungs freezing, guts knotting as he glimpsed the other bruises ringing their throat.

“Fuck, are you okay?” He reached out to turn their chin then checked with a lurch, realising what he was doing. “Sorry, fuck, sorry. I just wanted to – I’m sorry. What can I -” His hand hovered in the space between them, dull sunlight gleaming off the Vibranium. He wanted to look at their face but couldn’t seem to look away from the bruises nestling in the shadows of their hoodie.

Who do you think you’re fooling, boy? Think your heart’s racing because you regret those marks? Look at your hand right now. I know what those marks really do to you. This trusting little stray may not realise you’re getting hard just looking at them, all marked up, by you, but I do.

No, no, that’s not – I just wanted…

I know exactly what you –

“Hey!” His hand was no longer hanging in the air because Hive’s fingers were wrapped around his, squeezing them. “You disappeared on me for a second there. I was trying to say it’s fine. I’m fine. You were really fucking strung out yesterday and I turned up in your place unannounced when you were already injured. Who the fuck wouldn’t have freaked out in your position? Honestly, I’m glad I didn’t do a hell of a lot worse to you when I woke up last night.”

“When I woke you up…”

“Yeah. Which, like I said, I’m grateful for. So you think maybe we call it even from here?” They didn’t release his hand until he nodded. “Cool. Good.” They smiled. “I’m about finished on your arm.” They recapped the tube and grabbed the clean discarded bandage to wipe first their own hands then his where their grip had left smudges. They glanced down at his t-shirt. “You can do the rest with your right hand?”

He nodded and took the cream back. “What is this stuff anyw-”

The clank on the fire escape made them both snap around to the window. Bucky snatched his pistol and rose silently, shifting out of sight and stepping closer. Hive had pushed themself back towards the door and he watched their eyes dart to the hall cupboard. Without thinking, he nodded to it and grimaced at the noise of their scramble out of sight and their scraping ascent through the wall. He trained his attention back onto the sound outside, keeping his distance from the wired sash, no intention of being taken out by his own booby trap. Until the climber paused just below the window and he heard their breathing. Then he shoved the gun in the back of his jeans and lunged for the window to unhook the wire before a hand nudged the window open and a blond head ducked inside.

“Hey Buck, you expecting a siege?”

“Fuck, Steve, you nearly got a grenade in the face. What are you doing here?”

He stood back and let the guy climb the rest of the way inside, reflecting that it had been a much better fit before the serum took over where puberty had given up and little Stevie shot up a couple of feet.

“Well, y’know, I did try to call first. You never heard of charging your phone? Come on, man, even I got the hang of that one.” While Bucky winced with guilt at the thought of his abandoned phone lying around here somewhere, Steve looked around, brushing off his jacket sleeves. “Place looks a little different than it used to, huh?”

Acutely aware of the extra sleeping bag and Hive’s mug sitting painfully on display, Buck stepped in front of him. “Yeah, it does… Why’re you here, Steve?”

The brusque question dampened Steve’s demeanour a little. He straightened up another inch and just a bit more Captain America showed through the casual friendliness. “I need to talk to you. Got a minute?”

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workingdownthewordmine · 16 days

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Love Thy Neighbour - Chapter 3 Unbidden Guest

Bucky's uninvited housemate makes themself known.

Read this chapter on AO3 here.

Chapter 2 | Chapter 4

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Nonbinary OC, Steve Rogers Rating: T CW: Violence, choking, threatening with a gun, bleeding, hearing voices, hearing the voice of an abuser, references to murder, torture, suicide, violence, sexual assault Prompts filled: Fandom Free Bingo Frosty Edition: Stay a while @fandom-free-bingo Fluffbruary: Day 26: Care package, Day 28: Shelter @fluffbruary Winter Wonderland: Covering the other with a blanket @seasonaldelightsbingo Any Fandom Angst: Held at gunpoint @anyfandomangstbingo LGBTQ+: Non-binary!Character @lgbtqbingo

Dividers by @unfortunate-beetle-and-friends

“Don’t ask the name of anyone that asks you for shelter.” Victor Hugo

It had been some time since Bucky had wished so fiercely that he could just stop waking up, stop coming back to a reality that became more of a nightmare each time. Before he opened his eyes he pleaded with the darkness to tighten again, to choke him back out of the world. A little longer, even if it couldn’t be forever, even if it could only be moments more before he had to open his eyes to-

A wet cloth on his skin, stroked down his cheek. For a handful of heartbeats, misery gave way to something almost like contentment. Complacency. Deadly. The horror burst through and propelled him into a rush of movement. He couldn’t go back. They wouldn’t take him back.

The body crouched over him was only a dark blur, hurled across the room and into a wall. It crumpled and he was upon it. His charge was clumsy but he didn’t need precision. His hand was around a throat. He’d need hardly a flick of a Vibranium wrist to snap their neck. The figure was smaller than him, pinned in his shadow, starting to tremble with the need for air. He had secured their arms beneath his knees without thinking about it, his shin across their legs to prevent them from kicking him. He was doing better. All that was left was the kill… It would be instant, almost entirely painless. He would not fail this time.

He froze. They weren’t struggling. They weren’t fighting him at all. There had been no raised alarm. No other movement in the room except the two of them. Bucky struggled to focus through blinding panic and burning eyes. He loosened his grip just enough to allow them a breath, and pushed the muzzle of his pistol beneath their chin. “Why shouldn’t I kill you right now?”

They looked up at him without terror, as though the ease with which he could end their life concerned them little. “Look at your hand.” Reluctantly, he allowed his eyes to flicker downwards – perhaps because the words had been more of a plea than a demand or a threat, or perhaps because defying the voice telling him to do what he was made for and kill was taking too much of his concentration. Even in the gloom, he could see the wet shine, and the scent of blood rose thickly from it. He’d felt no pain at all. “There’s no wound. It’ll stop in a few seconds. I – I could have put the bleed in your neck, or your brain. I didn’t. Please. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to hurt you.” He stiffened. Their eyes widened and they spoke more quickly. “If I’d meant you any harm, I could have done something about it either of the times I’ve found you unconscious today. Right? I have no reason to hurt y-“ His hand pressed down again, choking off their words.

“Reckon I can squeeze a trigger faster than you can do your little magic trick.”

“Maybe.” They could do little more than shape the words but just enough of a hiss escaped for him to follow. “Don’t want to bet my life on it. Seen-” They shuddered, desperately sucking in a scrap of air. “Seen how fast you are.”

He growled and shook them by the throat. They pinched their eyes shut as if they expected death to follow. If they’d also started his brain bleeding, he couldn’t tell. “You’ve been spying on me. Sneaking round in my building. Now you’re fucking with me in my apartment. Why?” He shook them again. Their skull thudded heavily on the floor, long black hair escaping their ponytail. “Why? Tell me why I shouldn’t fucking kill you? You don’t want to hurt me? Then what do you want?”

They tried to reply but could only gurgle. He eased off their throat. “Help. Need help.” His hand lifted a little more, answering a deeper impulse than thought. With an effort, he overpowered the voice in his mind long enough to listen. Their eyes searched his as though watching the struggle. His hand tensed on their neck.

“Talk. Fast.”

They swallowed. He felt the fragile movement through his palm. “Shelter. Please. I don’t want to kill you. And,” Their dark eyes tracked his face again. “I may not be an expert on trained assassins but I don’t think you want to kill me either.” Had he imagined the emphasis? Had it been unintentional? Their voice was trembling. Short on breath, laden with pain. He couldn’t be sure.

“Someone wants you dead though. And personally, right? In more than the ‘all mutants are dangerous monsters’ way.”

“A lot of people. That’s why I need somewhere safe. I thought – I mean, you seemed like someone who’d be sympathetic.”

His lip pulled back in a snarl. “Because I’m a dangerous monster too?”

They didn’t flinch as they met his eyes. “Pretty much. You know what it’s like. Not to want to be someone else’s weapon. To not trust the good guys much more than the bad guys. Right?”

The adrenaline was wearing off. His head was starting to swim again. He should finish them fast, then he could sleep. Alone and safe. “So which do you think you are? A good guy or a bad guy?”

“Just a guy. I’m not much of a team player.” He felt a tremor as though they had tried to laugh. They swallowed again. He knew his face hadn’t given anything away, so they must have realised for themselves that apparent amusement was doing them no favours. “Look, there’s no one outside this room who has my back, or who I report to, or – I hope – who has any idea where I am. I just need somewhere to stay, where I can keep my head down.”

It was a terrible decision, really, not to kill them. He would be safer with them gone. He’d have his solitude back. This was his home. Perhaps he could have handled sharing it with Steve if he’d wanted to leave the compound, but not any random stranger who fancied moving in – especially not here, in his apartment.

“What were you doing in here?” The pistol pressed harder under their chin, forcing their head back a little more.

“I was worried about you. I heard you screaming earlier, and I found you in the basement all bashed up. I wanted to bring you back up here but I could only manage one flight of stairs. Vibranium’s heavy, I guess. Didn’t really know how I’d get you past the traps either – I unfastened some of trip wires but it seemed pretty obvious there’d be more inside. Didn't fancy killing either of us. I came to check on you later and you weren’t where I’d left you – figured you’d got back up here by yourself. I was going to just leave you to it but when I passed by the door there were weird noises. I knocked. You didn’t answer and the noises got weirder so I looked for another way in that you hadn’t rigged to blow up or eviscerate visitors.” Their eyes flicked towards the open closet, the one he’d been trying to block back up. “You were passed out again. You were breathing like shit and your skin and eyes were all red. I was worried.”

They tried to shrug. Their own breathing wasn’t so hot either. He eased off their throat just a little more. Their words had brought his discomfort into much clearer focus. Now he couldn’t help but notice how his breath was whistling and every inch of exposed flesh felt like it had been splashed with acid.

“You got down to the basement through there, right?” Another glance at the closet. “Not surprised you feel like shit. Insulation’s made of fibreglass. Not stuff you want to handle, much less breathe.” They frowned up at him. He could almost have believed they actually were as concerned for his welfare as for the ease with which he could end their life right now. Probably an ability to make someone bleed into their own brain with a thought was quite a confidence boost. If they could really do any such thing. What evidence did he have? His hand? Could have cut it on something and just not noticed. A quick enough thinker could take advantage of that, sure. After being thrown half way across the room and slammed into the floor. With a gun pressed to their head. Probably. And he had to concede that anyone who could do shit like that would definitely be a sought-after commodity for the worst people. Someone like that was definitely not the kind of unknown factor he wanted hanging around, right?

When was the last time anyone had sought him out to ask for help?

“Sit up. Slowly.” He released them and shifted away, gun still readied.

They waited until he’d made some space between them before awkwardly levering themselves upright and raising both hands level with their shoulders in surrender. “I, uh, I’m not armed. I mean, not in any way you can confiscate without decapitating me, which I’d really rather you didn’t. But I guess, if searching me makes you feel any better about letting me stick around, you can…”

Bucky looked them over. The baggy hoodie, the same that had been used for a pillow earlier, and cargoes could have hidden any number of weapons, but they’d made a decent point – if they’d been planning to kill him it was a risk and a waste of time waiting until now. He shook his head. “Just don’t make me regret my trusting and forgiving nature.” They offered a casual salute and even a small grin. “What time is it?”

A shrug. “Don’t know, but probably after ten. Here. Drink. Pretty sure your throat’s still full of glass fibres.” They reached into a cardboard box beside them surrounded by a few scraps of rope and tossed a bottle over to him, then rolled their eyes dramatically when he didn’t reach for it. “Not that convinced I’m not trying to kill you, then? Here.” They grabbed another bottle, cracked the top, and took a long swig. He watched their throat working and found himself recalling that movement under his hand. They recapped the bottle and offered it to him. “Monkey see, monkey do.”

The smirk was infuriating but he found his lip curling in return as he took the bottle. “Don’t push it.” He drank, and kept drinking. The cool water was unbelievably soothing to his sore throat. He drained the bottle and grabbed the first one, downing half of it before freezing with it still at his lips.

“Relax, okay?” His eyes darted to their face, startled to find a sympathetic frown. “I promise, it’s as wholesome as water stolen from struggling communities by billionaires can be.” His narrowed eyes received a shrug. “What? Wouldn’t be fair to lie to you.” He grunted and finished the bottle.

“You’re really weird, you know that?”

“Mutants tend to be.”

Bucky sat and watched, rolling the empty bottle between his palms, while his… intruder? Visitor? Neighbour? Pulled over the box and rummaged inside it, ignoring or not seeing the way he tensed.

“What’s that?”

“Huh?” They glanced up, blinking. Was it possible that they’d actually forgotten he was there in the last twenty seconds? It sure seemed like it. He nodded at the box. “Oh, just kind of a care package I put together. Meant to leave it outside your door but then you sounded like you were dying so I figured a get well card and a blanket might not do the trick. ‘S not much. Food, meds such as I could find, blanket – but you’ve got that already. Getting it down that climb with my face covered to keep the fibres out was hard enough without packing it any heavier, but there’s some more stuff over in the other apartment.”

He looked over at where he’d been lying, and stared in surprise. They were still in his hallway where he had passed out. He remembered dimly the pounding at the door, amplified by fear and disorientation, which must have been their knocking. His sleeping bag hadn’t been here then. Nor had his pillow or the unfamiliar sleeping bag stacked underneath his own. And there was the blanket, lying where he must have thrown it off when he woke up… and attacked them, he reminded himself with an internal wince.

“You did all that?”

“Yeah. Would have put you in your bedroom, but ran into that whole ‘Vibranium is heavy’ issue again so I made you a bed out here instead. Won’t be offended if you want to move back. You can borrow my sleeping bag. Oh, and I redid the bandage on your arm but the bleeding had stopped already, even where you scratched it up. You knocked a few chunks out of yourself. I cleaned the wounds and tied them up. Some of them looked like they could use stitches but I’m thinking you don’t really bother with those and I don’t know how to do them. I could probably figure it out with a video tutorial though if, y’know, you want me to try.” They kept talking as they looked through the box, peering at things as though it had been so long since they’d seen them that they were almost unrecognisable. It was a curious sight. “Wasn’t sure if you’d be able to cook in here so most of this is about as edible cold…” They were chattering away as if he hadn’t been holding a gun to their head a minute earlier. The effect was almost soothing. Where was that accent from? Not pure American as far as he could tell. Maybe British with some American or Canadian layered on top? There was something else too – something that spoke to his memories of warmth and spiced air. He was only half taking in the words and it was his turn to realise late that he’d been spoken to.

“Uh… huh?”

They grinned. “Sandwiches. Just cheese. Nothing fancy. I don’t do cooking. Probably a good idea to eat something. Might cushion the little spiky glass bits.” They shrugged. “My mother always freaked out about me going anywhere near our fibreglass insulation. I always figured she was overreacting but you look like shit so maybe not.”

“You go all out with the compliments, don’t you?” He bit into a cheese sandwich. They were right – it was nothing fancy, but it was food and it started to help with his painful, feverish exhaustion at once.

“Pretty much,” they admitted with a shrug.

Bucky was about to reply when a fresh storm of coughs overtook him, filling the air with crumbs. They leant back out of the way, lowering their own sandwich, apparently no longer so keen on it.

“That’ll probably happen for a while. You got a pretty good lungful, I guess.”

“’M not supposed to get sick,” he growled.

“You’re not technically-”

“Or injured.”

“Unless whatever they did to you gave you lungs that can dissolve glass, I doubt being a super soldier’s gonna help much with this. Might even be worse. If you can’t get sick, I’m thinking it’s because your body attacks anything that invades it particularly quickly and effectively, so it’s probably throwing a fit about a billion little fibres getting where they shouldn’t and I’m probably not really helping, am I?”

“Your bedside manner really sucks,” he grumbled. The complaint was half-hearted, though. Something had happened to their expression while they were spinning their theory. The gentle coffee-dark eyes had sharpened. The detached enthusiasm had become… uncomfortable. He’d seen too many expressions like that before, usually smiling above him while he was strapped to a table, full of glee over their latest pages of results. His fist curled and he touched his pistol. The movement attracted no attention at all. They’d found a scrap of ancient wallpaper –but still not ancient enough for him to remember it – and started picking at it as though its presence offended them, nails digging fretfully under its edges.

“Planning on building a nest with that?”

They froze and looked vacant for a second. He got the impression they were replaying the last few seconds to work out what he was talking about. In spite of the way his previous observation had jacked up his heart rate, it was a challenge to be afraid of someone who seemed to have so much difficulty just keeping track of existence from one minute to the next. And they’d brought him food and a blanket, he reminded himself. His lips softened into a small smile.

“Uh, sorry, hope that wasn’t sentimental.” They licked a fingertip and attempted to damp the paper back down. “There was a texture.” The explanation ended there.

“A… texture?”

Their eyebrows rose as though his puzzlement was incomprehensible. “Things that should be smooth shouldn’t have textures.” They said it the way someone else might say “tumours”. They gave a little shrug and didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s harder to ignore – tolerate – them when I’m nervous. Really weird, like you said.” He thought he saw a tiny wince. “Sorry, I’ll go back to the other apartment. You should be resting, not suffering through a lecture on the ways my brain is wrong.”

They started to dust themself off and get up. This time the wince was unmistakable. They tried to disguise the awkward movement with a stretch but his eyes tracked the tenderness in their shoulder with ease. He recalled the sound of them colliding with the wall when he’d thrown them off and his stomach churned with a momentary surge of guilt.

“There are painkillers in the box. Oh, and antihistamine cream. If your skin’s too uncomfortable to sleep, it might… And try to rinse your skin again in the morning. Just keep washing the fibres off. Not sure what to do for the lungs but hopefully that’ll be better tomorrow too. If you need anything, I’ll be across the hall.” They offered an awkward smile and took a step towards the door.

“Wait.” He was surprised to hear the word come from his mouth. “Not sure I want you getting up to fuck knows what out of sight over there.” His grin turned out as awkward as their exit. “You can stay. Here.” He cut off their attempted protest. “I’d like you to stay. Y’know, tonight, at least.”

He started to set his gun down, then went to the window to scan the street. The streetlights were on now. The only passers-by seemed natural and uninterested enough. “Just how sure are you that no one’s going to come looking for you here?” He put his back to the window and tried to resist the urge to look again.

“Well, I guess I can’t be a hundred percent certain but I think if they had any idea where I am they’d have come for me before now.” They curled tighter into the corner and Bucky almost laughed when he saw them shoot the window a glance almost identical to his own.

In the moment of strange kinship, he was moved to voice something he’d been wondering about. “You know who I am. You didn’t just stumble onto a guy with a potential safe house.”

They paused, and shrugged. “Well, no, I was looking for you. Got pretty lucky finding you though. Not a lot of guys with metal arms around but there are a lot of people in this city. Then I found you and had to watch for a while to make sure my instincts were right about you. That you’d understand why I needed somewhere to go. That makes me sound like a total stalker… It’s not a weird creepy obsession or anything. I just… heard about you, y’know, and-”

“So you know who I am, the things I’ve done, and you still decided to throw yourself on my mercy?”

He’d expected them to fidget uncomfortably, maybe refuse to meet his eyes. In fact, their gaze locked onto his like a magnet.

“Someone who looked a lot like you did those things. Not you.”

He stiffened. “It was me. A… part of me.” He’d never admitted that, even to Stevie. Why was he doing it now? He wished he could bite the words back, but they seemed unfazed by his confession or his regret.

“Was that part of you given a choice?”

The words stuck on his tongue, tangled in themselves. “We… I could have died myself. Rather than hurt anyone else. Most people would say I should have done.”

Their snort chilled him and he narrowed his eyes. They were just as unmoved by the increased hostility. “Most people don’t choose to die. Not when they’re actually confronted with the choice. So “most people” can take a running jump with their opinions about what any of you should have done. They don’t know what they’re fucking talking about.” He spotted that their hand was knotted into their hoodie so tight that their knuckles showed up pale in the dim light. “And for my part, I doubt it was even an option. Unless you can honestly tell me Hydra didn’t make really damn sure they fucked up your head before they gave you the kind of freedom it takes to kill yourself.”

Bucky could only stare as the words went through him like a laser, leaving a searing path behind them. Something was ready to take advantage of the quiet. It crawled into the ringing silence in his head.

You’d just love to believe that, wouldn’t you, little boy? “Boohoo, poor me. The mean nasty men hurt my feelings and that’s why I tortured and raped and murdered all those people.” It’s a fairy tale, little boy. A pretty lie to manipulate you into letting them stay. We chose you for a reason, asset. We saw the monster in you and leashed it. We didn’t make the monster.

“James?” The name came as such a surprise that it momentarily shocked him out of the guilty hell he’d been descending into. “James… you okay?”

“Don’t.” He gradually got his words back under control and the hysterical note out of his voice. “I – don’t. Don’t call me that.” He forced something like a smile. “I only get ‘James’ when I’m in trouble. I guess you can call me Bucky.”

They nodded, their own smile much more genuine than he had managed. “Bucky, then.” He was fascinated by their ability to look at him so calmly, with no detectable fear or contempt, yet he found himself still wanting to escape their gaze. He felt too seen by those eyes. Like they understood even more than they’d described with such stark and cutting accuracy. He backed up and turned away from them, crouching to straighten his bedding.

“Guess we do have some stuff in common, after all… You know, don’t you?”

“I don’t. Not what they did to you. But I know something about the lengths people like that will go to, to design the sort of operatives they need. And after they put in all that time and effort, they don’t get careless enough to let valuable assets kill themselves.”

The word caused bile to rise in his throat and he whipped around. Could they know? Could they hear? But they’d turned back to their corner, rearranging their blanket and trying to make themself comfortable.

“You can take your sleeping bag back. I’ll be fine with my own.” They waved him off.

“Hang onto it tonight. It’ll help with my guilt. It’s my fault you got all paranoid and trap-happy.” He watched them lean their head on the wall.

He wanted to tell them to at least take the pillow or something, but he had a premonition of how much good that would do. He stood, thinking, for a moment. Then he scooped up the blanket and threw it over them. He crouched to tuck it in, meeting their look of protest with immovable steadiness. And somehow he found himself looking into soft brown eyes a little too long.

“Night,” he muttered, retreating.

No, the voice growled as he contemplated the stacked sleeping bags. Soft. Weak. He glanced back into the corner. Their eyes were closed but they had no talent for faking the rhythmic breath of true sleep. He toed off his boots and climbed into his bag. It was difficult to see them through the shadows but he heard their breathing resume a more natural tempo. When had he last shared his sleeping space voluntarily? He was tempted to think it had been more than eighty years ago, before he’d shipped out. Back when he’d imagined he’d have some control over the course of his life.

And what would you have made of your life on your own? Another groupie for the star-spangled government lapdog? I made you so much more. And this is how you show your gratitude.

The yawning darkness at Bucky’s back reached out for him. Its fingers caressed his spine. He felt himself shaking, his throat closing…

“Hey, Bucky?” The invisible fingers retracted a little way into the dark.

“What?”

“Thanks. For letting me stay.”

How sweet that your new little friend thinks they’re any safer in a room with you than literally anywhere else. Even after your opening pleasantries featured you practically crushing their throat. You must have seen the bruises. I can hear them struggling to breathe from here.

“Y’welcome.” It wasn’t much but for just a moment it interrupted the voice; he searched for more words, desperate to keep it at bay, and to stop himself straining at the quiet to measure their breathing. His eyes locked onto the vague shape on the other side of the hall. “I never asked your name.”

A moment’s thoughtful quiet then a shuffling of blanket. He caught a glint of streetlight reflected in their eyes as they turned their face towards him. “Hive. Call me Hive.”

Note: Our Hive has nothing to do with the Hive who appears in Agents of SHIELD, just a coincidence that they ended up with the same name.

Thanks for reading! Every like and reblog is appreciated and treasured. Feed my need for external validation!

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workingdownthewordmine · 1 month

Text

Love Thy Neighbour - Chapter 2 Shadows in the House

Bucky is haunted by an unwanted presence all too close to home.

Read this chapter on AO3 here.

Chapter 1 | Chapter3

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes Rating: T CW: Threat, injury, paranoia, hearing voices, flashbacks, choking Prompts filled: Fandom Free Bingo (Frosty Edition) card 1: Helping the injured @fandom-free-bingo Febuwhump 2024: Day 18 - Too weak to move @febuwhump Multifandom-Flash (Round 2): Through the eyes of madness @multifandom-flash Multifandom-Flash (Discrimination): Dehumanizing insult Whumpuary 2024: Day 2 - "Get away from me"/collapse/choking @whumpuary

Dividers by @unfortunate-beetle-and-friends

“Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?”

Plato

The temporary soothing effect of the whimsical gift and its accompanying note wore off as soon as night fell. There was work to do before he could turn in. He travelled every floor, setting his alarms, dragging armfuls of lumber with him to plug up as many points of entry as he could. If someone was going to get in here, he wanted to know exactly what route they’d have to take. No one was going to sneaking up on him down some eccentric crawlspace left behind by decades of half-funded renovations. Every pinch he squirmed through seemed to reveal another crack in the building’s shell until he was choking on dust and the ache in his shoulder and side was making his entire torso throb. How could a building so full of holes still be standing? Even when his lumber supply dried up and he was forced to return to the apartment, he couldn’t stop circling from one window to the next, scanning the streets outside. What had been caution wound about him tighter and tighter until he moved through his home like a deadly sharp coiled spring, poised to taste blood. Eventually he did force himself to lie down, but it didn’t do him much good. The spring would not unwind.

Bucky slept about as well as he predicted – a little worse than an insomniac who’d been trying to treat their chicken pox with cocaine. He lay with his back pressed to the wall, trying to shield himself against the phantom fingers waiting to close around his throat.

The voice that crept from his lips was barely a breath in the dark. “I won’t go back.” He dipped his chin in the tiniest nod. “I won’t go back. I won’t go back.”

He shunned his sleeping bag. He needed to sleep lightly, not lulled by softness. He felt every splinter in the floorboards. Every change of light through the window above him or soft creak from the aging building had his hand tightening on his sidearm, jerking his shoulder until each movement meant a wince and an effort to stay silent. Even without his almost hourly patrols of the building, gun in hand, the night was more exhausting than the day.

Daylight came as a relief, for as much as fifteen minutes. He lit the stove and poured hot water onto half a cup of coffee granules. Nothing less had a hope of making it through to his central nervous system before his body neutralised it. By the same token, he downed a handful of pills with the first scalding swallow. In defiance of Hollywood’s beliefs, pain wouldn’t sharpen his reflexes, just hinder his control. And he needed to be in control of himself. The painkillers hadn’t even kicked in before his short-lived respite was over.

It was no more than a car backfiring. He was certain of that. He was no raw recruit filling his shorts with shit at the snap of a twig. So, why was it a full ten minutes before he could thaw from his crouch at the window and stop examining every inch of Legion Street through his scope? Why was every nerve ending already blazing when the alarm sang out overhead?

Fuck. Fuck. He’d fucked up. All the traps he had laid, all the potential openings he’d boarded up… useless. Someone was up there right over his goddamn head. Useless. Fucking useless. He strapped a knife to his thigh opposite his gun, hesitated, and added another to his shin. The he removed the board from the wall cavity in the hall closet as quietly as possible.

He’d walked into this situation and no one was going to save him if he didn’t get his shit together and do it himself.

Even if they could, why would they bother? They’d probably be relieved to have the embarrassing fuck-up taken care of…

The reptilian voice crawled through the back of his mind as he eased through the gap and into the dark, dusty recess. They wouldn’t come, not even if he called, not when he’d pushed them all away.

He pulled himself around a beam, metal fingers biting deep into the wood, struggling to breathe in the suffocating gloom. And he couldn’t call. Because his phone was back in his apartment, now fifteen feet below him. Because he knew, didn’t he? He knew and had always known that the best, kindest – hell, the only- thing he could do for anyone he cared about was to stay away from them. Stay entirely out of contact.

Higher. No beams here. Back and feet braced against either wall. Level with the third floor ceiling with the alarm still wailing above him. Idiot. The noise would tell whoever was up there that they’d been detected. There went any element of surprise and any chance he’d had of tracking their movement until he had eyes on them or that fucking noise stopped. Fucking stupid of him. The shrieking alarm reverberated around his skull. The only thing worse than a monster was an incompetent monster. He moved slower. He pushed through prickling sheets of insulation. The air in his chest burned and his head spun. The shrieking alarm mingled with the mocking sneer inside his head. What good was this half-assed fucking around inside a fucking wall? Without his leash, he was no better than a stray dog loose in the traffic, waiting for a speeding car to end his miserable existence.

Head already spinning, he didn’t realise he was falling until he smashed through a beam and twisted, raking down the rough wall, the light from his own apartment flashing past him and receding, disappearing into the darkness along with everything else. Ice cold air tearing past him. Agony searing through his arm, rock and snow racing up to meet him… Worthless piece of shit…

He woke and fought not to scream. The debris around him gouged his flailing body as he wrenched free. He rolled, dropped again, then he was kneeling, shaking, on the mouldy piss-stinking basement floor. He groped at the cracked edges of tile around him, grasping in desperation. Cold, dark, pain… he could feel the restraints around his limbs dragging him down. The scream ripped free. He kicked furiously, scrabbling for purchase in the dirt, throwing himself towards the doorway and the dim light filtering down the stairwell. His shoulder slammed into the doorframe. He felt the wall tremble as though the whole building was ready to fall.

Do it… bury me down here. In the pit. Where I belong.

Merciful darkness swallowed him.

They took a little longer to reach the basement. They followed the sounds. His fall. His scream. The ringing impact of Vibranium on concrete. Then they hesitated at the head of the last flight of stairs. If he was still conscious, what sort of condition would he be in? To them it seemed most likely they’d find him catatonic or maybe crazed with distress, like a wounded, cornered animal… They’d heard those sounds before. No one who made sounds like that was going to be in a state to roll out a welcome mat. Softly, they descended.

He woke in a rush of panic, his eyes and lungs burning, unable to recognise his surroundings. There were straps on his arms. His legs. His chest. No. No. No! He forced himself upright, wrenching his left arm across to tear at the fabric binding his right, heedless of the pain in his shoulder. Fresh blood welled under his digging fingertips. He had already shredded the fabric before he realised it wasn’t secured to anything. There was still an intact sea knot amongst the pieces he had stripped away. The cloth was tacky with blood. Not restraints – bandages. Someone had bandaged him while he was unconscious. He heard his own harsh breath filling the room, bruising the silence, as he scanned frantically.

Newspapered walls. Light blotted out by heavy boards across the windows. The floor stained and pitted but fairly clear of garbage… because he had shovelled it all out into the alley during his first week here. He remembered deciding he’d get his own place fixed up first but that he wouldn’t leave all that gross shit and trash to stink everything up and rot the wood even further. It had taken him a day or two to haul everything out. Him. He was in one of the downstairs apartments. Alive. Unrestrained. No more harmed than he’d been after…

The fall. That fucking voice. He whipped around, ignoring the flares of pain all over him, expecting to find a familiar silhouette looming over him. Expecting rusted metal to choke him at any moment. But he was alone. The only presence he could detect was his own. Still, he didn’t trust it yet. He hadn’t forgotten the story Steve had related – waking up in a room Fury’s people had designed. Who was to say the same wasn’t happening to Bucky right now? Maybe they’d decided they weren’t comfortable with having him on the loose after all. Maybe Hydra had copied the trick. He wouldn’t put it past them. But why now, when they’d never troubled themselves to make him feel at home before?

It was only as he got stiffly to his feet that he noticed he had not been lying on bare floor as he’d assumed. Where his head had rested there was a bundle of cloth. He pulled it towards him and it unrolled into a stained black hoodie, heavy with the mingled smells of blood and sweat. And someone had rolled it up into a pillow for him. He dropped it beside his feet and paused to examine his bandages more closely. They didn’t look like they’d been very neat even before his violent clawing but those that had survived his panic were still fairly secure, tied off like the one he’d destroyed, not pinned or taped. The worst of his wounds – a deep gash in his right thigh – had an extra strip of fabric tied over the top of the crepe bandages. Improvised bandages had changed somewhat since France; the addition wasn’t scavenged linen. He plucked at the thin stretchy cotton and recognised part of an old t-shirt. He grunted with amusement, in spite of the weird situation, when his probing fingers found a green paw mark printed on the black fabric. That, more than anything else, struck him as an unlikely ploy for any of his enemies. He thought of the plant in its bright pot and the friendly note that had accompanied it.

He tested his arm and legs. Bruised, bleeding in a few places, but nothing broken. His bones didn’t break readily. He took a deep breath and doubled over choking. His throat was raw. His cheeks grew hot at the memory of his terrified screaming. It was probably too much to hope that no one had heard.

What an embarrassment you are. So much training wasted…

He had to get out of here.

The stairs were a difficult climb. His lungs were full of fire. The absence of the tripwires on his floor registered mostly in relief that he wouldn’t have to negotiate them with watering eyes and stumbling feet. He stepped carefully round the stakes he had embedded beneath false patches of linoleum in his entryway, holding the wall for balance. He squinted painfully out of the window, trying to gauge how long he had been incapacitated. Looked like afternoon. Hours, then. Guilt and shame twisted in his gut.

He stared through streaming eyes between the doorways of the hall closet and his bedroom. He wasn’t exactly going to be safe with that big fucking hole into the wall sitting there open and visible, but how safe was he anyway? He’d completely failed to make this place any kind of fortress. The alarm was no longer screaming. Had the battery died? Had someone turned it off? He swayed as he turned his gaze to his sleeping bag. God, he needed rest. How long had it been since he had screamed so much that it hurt to breathe? He ran his hands over his torso, searching, but the pain wasn’t right for broken ribs and he found no evidence of them. Gravity pulled at him. He leaned on the door jamb, willing the smooth surface to cool his prickling forehead. Was it possible to come down with the flu in the space of a couple of hours? Could he even still catch the flu? That was enough thought to set his head spinning. His fingertips splintered the doorframe as he rocked on his feet. Down. Lie down. Important. The sleeping bag seized his gaze again.

You’ve been sleeping all day. Why should a performance like today’s earn a nap?

The last word was spat in his face, with all the disdain the childish concept deserved.

What do you think you deserve for humiliating yourself? A pat on the head and a cookie?

“I’ll do better…” he found himself muttering. He scrubbed his hand across his red eyes and drew in a sharp breath at the fresh wave of pain left in its wake. Mastering himself, he crossed back to the closet and hauled up the board that covered the hole. He set it in place and cast about for the tools to fix it there. So dark in this shadowy recess, out of sight of the apartment’s few windows. He blinked, trying to clear the terrible gritty feeling from his eyes. The closet seemed darker each time it came back into view. The darkness flickered like the static on a television set. The unsteady floor rattled as he crashed down on his knees then pitched forwards onto his face.

Consciousness returned with punishing weight, yet left him in the dark. The force that had woken him pressed him down against the bare wood. He jerked under another blow, the impact echoing around his skull. Stop. Please. I’ll do better… Please. Another thud. Pleading never helped… Another wince. A voice. He flinched, expecting more pain. But the voice was outside of his head. No… No! He fumbled blindly for his pistol. Both arms were too heavy to move.

To think I called something like you an asset…

He gulped, throat closed, no sound beyond a gurgle. Had he- was his jaw broken again? Thud… Thud, thud. The blows sporadic and somehow distant. He couldn’t pull himself from the past, his weakened body seeming to occupy both at once. He groped for the gun again. Couldn’t grip. Slipping. There was a soft scrabbling at the front door. The knob rattled. He made one more grasp for his weapon, then the darkness of memory closed over his face.

#written by Bug #actual writing #fanfiction #fandom: Marvel #Bucky Barnes #Rating: T #fandomfreebingo #multifandomflash #round 2 #discrimination #whumpuary2024 #whumpuaryno2 #choking #febuwhump #febuwhumpday18

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workingdownthewordmine · 2 months

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Love Thy Neighbour - Chapter 1 Behind Closed Doors

Set adrift by his own choosing, Bucky goes home to the abandoned apartment he grew up in, but perhaps it isn't as abandoned as he first thought.

Read it on AO3 here.

Chapter 2

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes Rating: T CW: blood, threat Prompts filled: Fandom-Free Bingo Frosty Edition (card 1): Cuddling to stay warm @fandom-free-bingo Fandom-Free Bingo Flight Edition: Anonymous gifts Fluffbruary: Day 2 - Scent, Day 16 - Neighbour @fluffbruary Seasonal Delights Language of Flowers: Calla lily @seasonaldelightsbingo Multifandom-Flash Round 1: A scar to remember @multifandom-flash

Dividers by @cafekitsune

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.”

G.K. Chesterton

Bucky came and went via the fire escape that he’d carefully mangled on his second night back there, a relic of his childhood now inaccessible to anyone who couldn’t bend cast iron or jump 6ft straight up. Didn’t account for at least half of the people he actually knew, sure, including the guy he’d most often climbed it with, but seemed effective so far at keeping out random squatters. Not real charitable, he guessed, locking down an entire apartment building to himself somewhere so many people lacked even a roof to call shelter but he never signed up for them to be his problem. And he liked not being disturbed. Other things he liked included not thinking too hard about some of the stranger aspects of the building he was once again calling home. In spite of the housing shortage, he guessed it might not be so weird that no one had gotten round to tearing the place down in all these years, and to judge by the disintegrating newspapers he’d found tacked up as draft excluders the building hadn’t been inhabited since the 80s. But why was the gas still connected? No electricity, far as he could tell without knocking more holes in the walls than he thought the place could take without crumbling, but the water was still running.

Those mysteries had come clearer after he found the first camera. It had been pretty well camouflaged by a dense cobweb that looked dyed black by half a century of city smog – fuck knew how the asshole had managed that. He’d never have spotted it if he hadn’t caught the whine of tiny servos or something when he passed it. He’d panicked, smashed the thing, torn around the building searching for more. As he bore down on the third, it spoke to him. “Hey Terminator, point’s taken. Quit breaking my stuff. Drop the others in the mailbox and I’ll have them picked up.” He had dropped them in the mailbox. But he’d taken a certain joy in crushing them as small as he could before he did so. Oops. Sorry, Stark. It made him itchy for a while to think of Stark having anything to do with his habitation – hadn’t he turned down a space at the compound because he wanted out of barracks controlled by someone else? But, fuck it, if the nerd had nothing better to do with his billions than pay Bucky’s bills he might as well let him. And now he was back, he didn’t fancy leaving.

This last week his resolve was being tested. It had started with the smell. He knew the odours of sweat and blood well enough, and he knew that neither had been coming from the back apartment when he left for work. He’d been back there, of course, on his initial homecoming perimeter check and again on his hunt for Stark’s bugs. The place had been as deserted as the rest of the building, inhabited by nothing more sinister than rats, roaches, and a few pigeons. He needed to check again. He also needed to stop and fucking think. He was half way over the sill before he remembered it had taken an hour’s scrubbing for him to get more than a bit of half-assed light through his own apartment’s grimy windows. From the outside? No chance. It would have to be the hallway.

With the generator humming and the wireless playing (somehow even now he struggled to think of it as the digital gadget it was), giving all the impression that he was still in his own apartment, he edged out into the hall. He winced at the minute change in the air pressure when he opened the door. But the only people likely to drop-by unannounced who would notice something like that would either have taken more care with their smell or would have said hi. Unless it was deliberate bait. Ten feet to the next door. A longer step over the cracked floorboard that had groaned ominously the first time he’d crossed it.

The smell of the intruder grew stronger as he approached the door. The ancient lock hadn’t given him much difficulty when he took his original look around but the door was heavy and he shifted it with care. He wished he’d thought to oil the hinges, or pulled the door right off them. Aging lino crackled silently beneath his feet. His own heartbeat filled his ears and gradually he remembered how to breathe and move, even blink, in time with it, aligning the sounds he made so anything that fell outside the rhythm would instantly draw his attention. He remained alone with the soundtrack of his own body.

He knew he was just short of silent as he passed from room to room, every sense trained for the least disturbance... so when the affronted pigeon erupted from behind the bathroom door raising a fetid cloud of feathers and dust, it took him effort not to swallow his own tongue. He tried to inhale as little as possible of the heavily pigeon-laced air while he let his heartrate settle and watched the bird panic at the narrow window until it finally burst out into the gathering evening gloom. The bird’s distress must have been audible to anyone else in the otherwise silent apartment but nothing and no-one stirred. He lowered his guard a degree as he made his way around the few other rooms. His search was thorough, every cupboard opened, the sparse remains of furniture eased away from the walls. No one.

The thought that it might have been his imagination haunted him from hall to kitchen. He shook the hair from his eyes and touched a cold wrist to his forehead, trying to remember exactly. The smell lingering in the hall. He was sure. Wasn’t he? He shivered. But the air in here felt disturbed, didn’t it? By more than a pigeon and his own cat-like steps? There was a taint on the air – garbage? He crossed, moving more quickly now, to the window that overlooked the alley and its tideless sea of detritus. The smell hit him harder as he stepped into the cold air that hung in front of the window. The glass was uncracked and no draft would be creeping around that deeply dirt-caked frame. He tested the sash. Grime and old paint wouldn’t resist him but it might hold out longer than the decrepit frame. A little more pressure. He hissed between his teeth when the window rose, barely sticking or rattling in its grooves.

He was crouched below the sill before conscious thought could catch up.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck. Dumbass.

How long had he been stood in full view of any of half a dozen rooftops and twice as many windows? Long enough for a whole squad of snipers to take their shots. Again he let his pulse regulate and raised his head a fraction. No one had shot. And as thorough a survey as he could make of the surrounding area, stopping to scrutinise every spot he would have selected for his own firing position, showed him nothing suspicious – not a movement or a shadow out of place. Nothing, in fact, to cause him concern. Until he drew his gaze back into the room, and down over the smear of blood on the peeling paper below the windowsill. He sank down. A knee had brushed the wall as the other leg lifted to the sill. And, yes, now he could see the pattern of new chips in the old paint where a foot had braced. He returned to the blood. A fair stain. The size of his palm. A significant wound, but not enough to keep the victim from climbing or to force them to staunch the blood with a hand. He gave the window another look as he closed it. No trace of a bloody fingerprint.

Bucky returned to his own apartment troubled. He could nail up the windows as he’d done downstairs. He had enough supplies for that, sure. From his seat where Winnie Barnes’ spotless kitchen table had once stood, he glanced at the stack of salvaged wood in his mom’s bedroom. She’d be spinning in her grave if he didn’t get it cleared out of there soon. And with a bit more work he could probably make the windows virtually unreachable by climbing too.

He picked up the M38 that stood on its stock beside him and began checking it over again. The thing was... He found himself picturing the boarded up back apartment – dark and silent rooms in which his neighbours had once laughed and rowed and rushed to get out the door for work. The thing was... that, if he forced whoever had gone to the trouble to climb into the second floor of his building to move off permanently, they were unlikely to lose interest. He would either have to hunt them down – so much for the quiet life – or he would be waiting for a bullet through the head or worse until they made themselves known one way or another. That didn’t exactly sound like a peaceful retirement either, did it? And the thing was... he’d felt his heart beating back there.

Whatever he did about apartment 4, he wasn’t as safe in here as he’d let himself believe for a while. That needed fixing tonight.

This was his last stop, rucksack already bulging. He heaped the coils of fishing line and bungee cords on the clerk’s desk. The guy’s eyebrows rose when Bucky dropped a couple of handfuls of personal attack alarms on top of the pile. “Stocking fillers. For my self-defence class,” he offered. His cheeks heated a little when the man glanced at the glossy and explicit calendar behind his shoulder which read “February” without offering the least apology for the embarrassment caused. Bucky followed its example and stared blankly, defying contradiction.

Supplies secured, he disregarded his fire escape and entered by his bedroom window, hauling his way up by the well-concealed handholds he’d made on his way out, scooping out lines of mortar with Vibranium fingertips. He paused on the windowsill to delicately pluck the rudimentary tripwire free and by-pass the edged weaponry that would otherwise have made a spirited attempt to ruin his good looks. He’d considered using a few grenades, but decided it wouldn’t be worth the clean-up. He had enough structural damage to repair around the building as it was. He did a quick round of the other possible entrances, but all were untouched, their makeshift defences untriggered. Finally, he wormed his way up inside the crumbling wall cavity to retrieve one or two personal items he hadn’t been able to leave on display to any sightseer or would-be hit squad but could also not carry freely around Brooklyn, his rifle chief amongst them. He’d read a couple of Stark’s James Bond novels when he’d been insufferably bored in the Tower. Why did that guy’s weapons all fit up a sleeve or his ass or something? When his requisitions came through the British civil service? Stark, SHIELD, and Hydra should all be fucking embarrassed to be lagging so far behind.

With the limited supplies he’d had on hand, protecting his personal domain had taken precedence. Once he’d made a more professional job of his fortifications, he loaded up some materials and headed back into the corridor. And stopped.

Something was on the floor outside of number four. Something whose colour and life stood out in the dingy shadows. He went closer and looked down at the leafy plant in its bright striped pot, its three white trumpet-like flowers gazing right back at him. Surely, only a lunatic or a child could like a combination of sunflower yellow, electric blue, and that alarmingly neon pink? A folded paper dropped as he picked up the plant. The handwriting inside was almost as childish as the colour scheme, printed in biro comfortably rounded and neat – something about it made Bucky momentarily picture the writer’s tongue poking out between their teeth as they worked.

“Hey neighbour, sorry if I bothered you this afternoon.

Got you a housewarming present as an apology. Hope you like it!”

It was unsigned, though they’d made no apparent attempt to disguise their handwriting. He glared at the door. It hung slightly askew, and would do – of course – until he was done with the repairs to his own place and made a start on the rest of the apartments. Well, if he was honest with himself, he’d have to get started on his own apartment first of all. Nothing stirred beyond the door. He tucked the note back into the pot and went thoughtfully back up the corridor. He found the plant a spot by a window and stood staring at it for a full minute, waiting for an explosion or maybe some kind of toxic spore cloud – though maybe the latter was kind of cartoonish even for his usual enemies. The plant did nothing sinister. Its dark glossy leaves shone slightly in the light of the sunset.

Bucky took his M38 up to the roof with him that evening and stayed low for a few minutes, circling in a crouch and checking out his surroundings, but in the end the distant roar of the city lulled him just as it always had. On his third circuit, he touched his fingertips to the chimney stack where he and Steve had scraped their initials, taking turns with Bucky’s new penknife. Smog and pigeons had done their best to obliterate the deep, angular “JBB” and the lighter, neater “SGR”, but Bucky had done his best to restore them the first time he’d come back up here. They’d huddled together against the stack for warmth, watching the stars and hoping Stevie’s dad wouldn’t turn up to drag him home this time, Bucky’s arm usually wrapped round his best friend’s skinny shoulders to stop him shivering.

He’d dismantled the lower part of the fire escape after his search for the intruder but when it came time to remove their old route to temporary freedom... no, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Fuck it, anyway – anyone determined enough to get onto his roof, with no way to cover the first twenty feet, wouldn’t be put off by a little thing like a missing fire escape. So, he wondered as he settled down with his back to the long-cold chimney and let his gaze wander out over the Hudson, who would got to so much trouble to infiltrate his safe house, just to leave a smear of blood and a goddamn house plant? “Neighbour”? If they were a local, why had he never had any inkling of someone interested in the place? He’d been vigilant enough. Passers-by mostly treated the condemned and wire-fenced pile as though it wasn’t even there. Like it was as invisible to them as it was irrelevant. Just a relic. Hah. A ghost story.

A last glimpse of the sunset flashed off his fingers. He rolled his shoulders and hissed between his teeth. It was bad tonight, but he would have to do without the pills. If there was still someone prowling around he wouldn’t risk being caught sleeping too deeply. He eased his left shoulder; knotted scar tissue stretched like exposed sinew, raw as a live wire. No, he wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. No fear on that score. He tapped his knuckles against the wall and knocked free a triangle of cement. He bounced it on his palm. He and Steve had thrown so many of these it was a wonder there was any building left. Steve’s had almost always fallen short of any mark he chose, of course, though Buck had sworn blind he’d seen them hit more than once when his buddy’s spirits needed a lift. Hundreds had dropped into the alley below, sometimes raising angry shouts that sent them laughing into cover before anyone could spot their faces silhouetted overhead. The fragment exploded into dust against a raised air vent three buildings over and Bucky grinned to himself as he swung over the edge of the roof and returned home.

For @heretherebewolves, my inspiration.

#written by Bug #actual writing #fanfiction #fandom: marvel #Bucky Barnes #Rating: T #fandomfreebingo #seasonaldelightsbingo #languageofflowersbingo #fluffbruary #multifandomflash #round 1 #day 2 Engagement/Scent/Jam #day 16 Neighbour/Desire/Horse

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