For worldwar

[disassembling]

Who: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers
When: Ant-Man Teaser Ending (1.5 years post TWS?)
What: Steve and Sam find the Winter Soldier practising bondage poorly. No, I mean... the Winter Soldier lets himself be found.
Warnings: Emotional Train-wreck


Tick-tock. Four-hundred and ninety-two days post assignment desertion. It was approximately oh-ten-hundred, though after being stuck as he was for the last four days, it was difficult to tell the time of day as anything passed when it was light and when it was dark. He had purposefully not brought any supplies with him save a bit of water but even then, he had nursed it only enough to not cause damage to himself internally.

His metal fingers flexed, the servos sliding perfectly despite being trapped as they were, protected by the metal plates that were not so easily damaged by old machinery. He shifted his weight on his feet, unable to sit down, unwilling to stand up, which left him in a permanent crouch to sitting quietly on a metal box that had no doubt at one time housed tools. Now it allowed him momentary rest, but the discomfort of his position made it difficult to actually sleep longer than a few minutes.

That was the way he had planned the entire mission. After four-hundred and ninety-two days, he only had a plea for help available. The pressure was too much, building more and more in his head, crowding out the need to survive with the need to take orders, to return to what he knew, to let the programming slowly click into place. He was tired of fighting it; there was less fight in him now, more readiness to just sag in the restraint and let his body fade down to something reasonable, manageable, less a threat. He intended it this way, starving, dehydrated, a lack of sleep, his confused assortment of emotions brimming near the surface.

They had come just as intended. He shifted, peering through his bangs at the pair who he knew had been haunting after him for the entire time he had been avoiding it. He hadn't been ready. Now he was perhaps more ready but still very much a danger to them both, something that he now could consciously avoid by restraining himself. He had purposefully damaged the machine after all, forced its weight on his arm with no easy hand-holds to remove it. He was stuck so there was no going back.

His lips parted, breathing in air that way and then he settled as still as his cramped body would allow him. They would get help, he knew. It was that or remove the arm. He doubted the latter option was one that either of them intended to use. He waited, watching silently, drinking in the sight of them both but particularly Steve. The man looked shut down, like the weight of the world had finally bent those shoulders.

Finally. They were both ready. Both contained and shut down for their own protection. It was time.

Comments

[disassembling]

He nodded his head to acknowledge that they might be going back to DC, the place where he had broken free of HYDRA and slipped away for so long. It wasn't the idea of a safehouse that alarmed him either, but the idea that someone other than Steve was going to put them up in one. He didn't trust easily, and the only reason he was in Steve's arms was because it felt so right and it was safe in his mind, like all the jumbled pieces were, for once, aligning and falling into place. As long as Steve trusted where they were staying, he supposed that it would be acceptable for him to do the same.

"Is there... anywhere in the countryside?" He tipped his head a little with the brush of knuckles and sighed when their lips met. He sighed softly in response to it, his eyes half closing. "That's why I couldn't kill you on the helicarrier. The bond was already forming, and even though I was fighting it because it was malfunction, it still swayed some of my decisions." Suddenly pieces he had never been able to figure out fell into place. The confusion of that time gave way to a new insight and clarity. It felt... like a weight was lifting off of him.

[worldwar]

He tried to be conscious of how these decisions would weigh for Bucky, what he would need to feel safe. He had been so long without agency, without the right to choose, every decision concerning him made by someone else without thought to his desires or needs or well-being. It was horrifying to try to imagine what that must have been like, and the idea of being another sort of keeper to Bucky was viscerally sickening.

But at the same time Steve was aware that their bond gave him a right and responsibility to look after his friend. No one other than Bucky himself could know better than Steve what his needs were, when he was exhausted or in pain, when he felt afraid. There had to be trust, he thought, stroking Bucky's cheek, drawn to the sweetness of his mouth and his soft sigh, the open, generous way he responded to their intimacy. Bucky was trusting him, just as he trusted Bucky while he was in the reach of that metal arm and all the damage he knew the Winter Soldier could do. Steve wanted desperately to prove himself worthy of it. "I can get in touch with Natasha, see what she can find," he said quietly. "Unless you know a place for us, Buck. I'll go with you."

He'd hid himself for two years, after all. Wherever he'd been, whatever kinds of conditions he'd lived in, it had to have met his needs for solitude and safety.

Steve didn't like thinking about the helicarrier, but he followed Bucky's train of thought back to it, the moment that desperation and horror had given way to clarity: he was ready to die because there was no living in a world where Bucky was his enemy. "I knew it too. That was why I--I stopped fighting." How could you fight the one you were bonded to? It was like rending your own soul into pieces.

[disassembling]

Despite all that he had strove to overcome and accept about himself, it felt easy to slip slightly and have an actual conversation about mutual decisions. He hadn't had one of those in a very, very long time, probably long before he had any kind of memory. It seemed fitting that such a conversation would occur with Steve before it happened with anyone else, not that he gave HYDRA any chance for any mutual decision outside of dying and anyone else he generally avoided too much in long-winded associations. Steve was someone that he could engage and know that the decisions made were done so in such a way that he could reject them and his bond would take no particular offense to it. He trusted Steve, and Steve trusted him, which felt like a rare thing these days.

"I know of a few places, but I don't generally stay in the same place twice. That kind of association can bring about unwanted attention," he replied slowly, but there had been some very secure places out of any big cities. In fact, they had required either walking or a vehicle to reach any kind of real humanity, and they had been some of his safest places given he could hear anyone sneaking up for miles and had set up traps which might still exist. "There are a few places, but they would require you to disappear with me. That would concern those you associate with."

The helicarrier was a strange time of dislike and thankfulness. He had broken free, but he had realized some of the extent of his suffering too. It had been a painful awakening. "I couldn't, not until you fell. I had to save you."

[worldwar]

It was true what Bucky said--Steve couldn't just disappear entirely, he couldn't do that to the people who cared about him. He would have to at least be able to alert Natasha and Sam, give them some clue to his and Bucky's whereabouts if they needed to find him again. And they would have to, he thought, with the crisis that was growing around them, threatening hundreds of people who could be said to possess some kind of "power", Bucky most of all. But then, Steve could think of no better time to go into hiding. He had Bucky again; he would protect him at any cost, and had no doubt that Bucky would do the same for him. It wasn't just that his friend had been lost and in pain for so long. They were bonded, it was their responsibility to protect one another.

"If you'll trust my judgement on who to alert, I'll go anywhere with you," Steve assured him. "You can hide us better than I can." He chose his words deliberately--deferring to Bucky's choices, putting his trust in his hands. Steve was sure of him, always had been and always would be. He hadn't been a ghost for the past seventy years for nothing. The Winter Soldier's rare skills were probably just what they needed right now.

He looked at Bucky, shifting a little to lean back against the wall and center the man more in his lap, so that he could straddle Steve if they wanted to, so that they could be eye to eye, on equal ground. "You saving me was the only thing that made it possible to go on," he said quietly. "Knowing that you wanted me alive. That was enough."

[disassembling]

Unlike him who was not supposed to exist in the first place, Steve was a well-known household name and that meant that people recognized his friend far more than he would have liked. He accepted it, but he also understood the risk that it presented and the hardship of not being able to disappear completely. Someone was always on the look out for what Steve was doing with or without the Avengers. It also made his friend relatively easy to track, which was against everything that he stood for regardless of how he had given himself up. Getting lost and hiding was what he did and he was very good at it even before he had been on his own for two years.

Slowly, he nodded because Steve was going to have to tell someone. He noticed the deferral as well, watching Steve closely to make certain that doing so didn't run against what his friend wanted to do. Steve wasn't like that at all. "As long as it isn't more than three people, I can keep us under the radar for awhile," he said softly. He knew places, had built places to slip into and out of. "You don't have to tell me who you are informing either; I respect your privacy."

He curled up a bit more when Steve's shifting, somehow compressing himself down smaller by ducking his chest and tucking his legs tight against Steve's hips as he straddled the larger man's lap. "What happens now?" He didn't know how bonds of this nature worked after all outside of it kept them wanting to be close to each other.

[worldwar]

The way Bucky curled into him, making himself small and unthreatening in Steve's lap, was a little aching tug at his chest like someone pulling at a string tied around his heart. He didn't want his friend to do that--to put his head lower than Steve's, like he was one of the handlers who had probably insisted on the Winter Soldier's submission--but Steve wrapped him up unquestioningly in his arms regardless, kissing his hair and holding him close against him. What Bucky needed mattered more than what Steve felt; they had time to figure this out, time to come to being at ease with one another, to understand how to make their bond work. In this they were both completely out to sea, Steve thought ruefully, regretting that he didn't have the answers his friend sought.

"We'll work it out as we go," Steve said quietly, his voice a low rumble in the chest Bucky was curled against. He nosed at his friend's hair, rubbed his cheek at the top of his head like a cat seeking affection. "Let's start by looking after each other. Okay, Buck? If you're hungry or you're cold or you're scared--if there's something you need--tell me, please, so I can help. And I'll do the same." It was a bit of a struggle to promise that, Steve had always been so reluctant to rely on someone else, even his best friend--to lean his weight on another's shoulders. But it wasn't his pride that mattered anymore. He knew this much about bonds: Bucky couldn't be well unless Steve was, too. It was for both their sakes that he would have to ask for help when he needed it.

[disassembling]

There was something so entirely safe with Steve that he could settle in, bow his head and seem to disappear in the blond's broader shoulders and muscled arms curled around him. Always he had been on guard, but it slowly dropped with the kiss to his hair and the way that Steve accepted and drew him in so that, while not entirely comfortable, he was safe and unguarded for the first time since he could remember. Like those first few minutes out of the chair where he was soft and compliant, able to be lead like a lamb to whatever room or station was necessary. It took no more than ten minutes for the cold and deadliness to return, his guard to slip back into place. Here and now, with his bond, he was safe and unguarded though not particularly over compliant.

He nodded his head at the agreeable stipulation, and he tried to think when he had looked after anyone other than himself. It felt right that he concern himself with Steve's well-being, and the fairness was something he so rarely was engaged in. Life wasn't fair after all. His mismatched fingers slipped under Steve's grey t-shirt and settled at the small of his bond's back, holding and comforting. "You don't... like to be helped," he muttered softly, a little confused over the thought. "You like to stand on your own two feet and take hand-outs from nobody."

[worldwar]

He felt Bucky's nod where his head was tucked against his chest, felt his hands slipping under the hem of his shirt and caressing at the small of his back. Steve knew he smelled like sweat and machine oil, about the same as Bucky right now; he knew that his clothes looked worn out and so did he, because he and Sam had spent days searching for Bucky after receiving his subtle messages, but he was taking strength from their nearness now, just as Bucky seemed to be. He felt more relaxed in Steve's arms, lying gentled against him as though this was exactly where he sought to be. The touch of his hands against Steve's bare skin felt comforting, felt right.

"You're right," he admitted with a little smile Bucky couldn't see. "I guess that's always been hard for me. I didn't want to be a...a burden on you, or anyone." Back when he was smaller, Steve means, when he didn't have the strength and abilities he does now, the capability to help others, no matter how much he wanted to. "But this is different, right? You and me, we're--we're alive for each other." Those words rumble soft from his chest, deep and true. He nuzzles at Bucky's hair. "We should get out of here. I want you somewhere I can look after you."

[disassembling]

Steve smelled and felt like a dream, distant in its abstract familiarity and smelling like he should know where it had all come from. He knew that he hadn't made it easy for the Falcon and Steve to track him down even after giving himself up, but here and now, he suspected that he was pleased that he had. His fingers passed slow and steady over Steve's skin, acquainting himself with how warm and smooth his bond was, and he needed to get to known those contours again, memorize them and find himself surprised and pleased with each one that he came across.

"You don't seem like the type of person who is a burden even when you think you are," he pointed out softly. However, he had read enough in the various libraries over the years to understand that the time in which they had grown up had been a difficult one and there were expectations of how a man was to live and interact. "Alive for each other," he murmured just to taste the words before he turned his head to examine the abandoned factory. "Yes alright. It would be best if we go into hiding and reassess what we need. I know of a place."

[worldwar]

He appreciated Bucky saying that, even if he didn't quite believe it. Steve could take care of himself now, but it had been different when he was a little guy, sick with every season, barely able to pull his own weight enough to help pay the rent. Still, back then Bucky had never implied that he was a burden, never even seemed to think it, which just went to show that Steve judged himself far more harshly than Bucky ever would.

Maybe, then, their bond had something to teach him about accepting limitations, about trusting the man he loved to help him with the things he couldn't do by himself. He felt nothing but acceptance and welcome from Bucky, the warm sense that he belonged. Steve stirred as Bucky looked around, brushing a kiss to his hair before turning to business. "You lead the way, then." He was willing to go anywhere Bucky took him, deep into hiding if that was what he thought was best.

[disassembling]

It was more difficult than it should have been to even consider getting up in moving, but the kiss to his hair, brief and fleeting though it was, made getting up a hard endeavor. He looked at Steve and managed it after he planted a kiss on his bond's forehead, and then he was up and out of Steve's lap before he could reconsider the action at all. So he was on his feet and flexing his hands.

Then he turned back and offered his flesh one to Steve in order to help his bond up and stand with him. "Contact your Falcon on the way, since he's gone to find assistance we probably won't be needing." He turned and began to pick his way out of the factory, pausing only to listen for signs that they weren't alone with each other any more.

[worldwar]

It would be so easy to stay here, Steve thought when Bucky lifted his head to look at him, in the shadows and the gloom, to keep away from all the world, needing only each other. He swallowed when Bucky moved, kissed his forehead and got up out of his lap, aching to have him back but glad that he had done what was necessary. They couldn't linger in one place, no matter how tempting; they'd never be safe if they didn't keep moving, run as far away together as they could. He was ready to follow Bucky anywhere.

He took Bucky's hand and let his friend and bond pull him up to his feet. "I'll let him know we're safe. He'll understand." Steve said it partly out of guilt; Sam would be disappointed in him for disappearing, for not waiting and letting his friends help like they wanted to. But he would understand. Steve followed after Bucky, alert to their surroundings the same way but completely trusting, believing that wherever his bond led them it was right.

[disassembling]

If their fingers lingered clenched together a moment longer than necessary and if his hand gave an involuntary stroke as it withdrew, it was no one's business but their own. "He'll have no choice but to understand," he replied as he took them down the stairs and out through a tunnel that probably had been used to sneak people in and out of the place a long time ago.

From there, he took them down the steep cliffs into a valley where a small village lay huddled at the bottom of the mountain. It had been bigger some time ago when the factory had been operating, but it was back to basics for the most part with free trade and farming the most lucrative business option. It was easy to pick out strangers to the place, but he took Steve through the shadows of the trees until they were able to slip into a small top level apartment which he knew was long ago abandoned. It was clean though, furnished enough to be comfortable but dusty and well used. "We can stay the night here and then move on. We'll have to go on foot to the next town and then burrow a vehicle."

[worldwar]

Whatever place Bucky led them to would do; Steve knew that he trusted him unconditionally. It wasn't a matter of demonstrations of loyalty between them. It was something that went as deep as his soul, now that he knew what the emptiness and the aching in him had meant all of the years. It almost surprised him, though, when Bucky showed him to a disused but functional apartment, clean and furnished, late afternoon light filtering softly through the dusty windows. He had expected something smaller and darker like a cell, and it gladdened him to think of Bucky sleeping in a place with light and warmth instead of a place that was all cold and shadows.

He nodded agreeably; if they only had the one night here, well, it wasn't as though being on the run was something Captain America wasn't used to. He stepped in close to Bucky, lifting a hand to curve around the nape of his neck, to hold him gentle and steady. Steve leaned in until their foreheads touched. "In that factory..." He hesitated, then forged ahead. "You had to trap yourself to let me find you. Were you scared of me?"

[disassembling]

He moved around the apartment quietly, searching for signs that it had been used since he had, but all the little booby traps remained in place. He removed them so that it would be easy to slip away with Steve the following day. The bed was probably going to be a tight squeeze for two men of their size, but he was willing to do so in order to be with Steve.

He stilled at Steve's touch, trusting and comfortable with it as he had never particularly been with anyone else. He leaned into it subtly and then completely when their foreheads come to rest together, a sigh leaving him. "No, not of you," he murmured softly, his eyes flicking to meet those bright blue ones so close. "I was afraid if I didn't trap myself that I would run when you arrived. I couldn't allow that this time."

[worldwar]

He shuddered thinking of Bucky waiting for days with his arm trapped in that vice, having to endure it to keep from running away. It was a comfort that he didn't seem inclined to run anymore. That he was leaning into Steve, trusting and fearless, his closeness easing some yearning ache in Steve that he had tried not to let himself feel for years. "I'm glad you didn't run," he said, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of Bucky's mouth. "But I wish you hadn't had to hurt yourself to stay."

He knew it would get better now, though. They'd take care of each other the way bonded were meant to. He'd been missing that all of his life, the feeling of being bonded to someone he loved, without knowing what he was missing. Steve held onto Bucky possessively, sliding his other hand into his hair as he kissed his mouth, urging him to tilt his head a little for him. It was different from kissing him in the factory, when it had been a gesture more of comfort and safety than of intent. What he wanted now was to put his arms around Bucky, lift him and carry him to the nearest piece of furniture where he could press him back and shelter him with his whole body. "You don't want to run now, do you?" he murmured against his mouth, knowing the answer but needing to hear it from Bucky nonetheless.

[disassembling]

He leaned into the kiss, finding the same kind of comfort in it here as he did back at the factory on the hill. It settled the urges to stalk around the small place and listen for all the sounds of an old place settling. Instead, he was watching Steve, aware that the both of them together would be able to detect any danger and certainly not find themselves snuck up on easily. "It was uncomfortable, but I wouldn't call myself pained. It was stiff from being in the same position..."

And that new kiss was entirely different from the others. For some reason, it was easy to sink into it, to reply in kind with rusty skills and slipping his mismatched hands up the length of Steve's chest until he was grabbing fistfuls of shirt. When was the last time he had felt loved and adored? He couldn't remember. "No, the urge to flee is gone with you. It's... safe. You're safe and I know between the two of us that few things stand a chance to bring us harm."

[worldwar]

His hands went down the length of Bucky's body and curved at his waist, tugging him closer in a way that felt both familiar and frightening, exhilarating. His friend grabbed at his shirt as though to hold him near and he made some low wordless sound, wanting to reassure him that he wasn't going anywhere and wanting never to be let go. "Good. I...you're safe with me." He said it low and earnestly, wanting so bad for Bucky to believe him. He deserved to be safe. Steve would give anything in the world to protect him: his life, his soul, anything.

He kissed him again with an undeniable urgency, raw and passionate, wanting, wanting Bucky's hands on him and this feeling of giving into him. Giving into something with a greater force than either of them possessed alone--it was gravitational, this pull, and wouldn't be refused. Steve lifted him up, heaved him into his arms almost effortlessly and carried him blindly until he could pin him back against the nearest surface, which was the couch in the living room, go down over him and shelter him like he wanted as they kissed. Bucky was his. Nothing would take him from Steve ever again; nothing would break them apart, unless it broke them both.

[disassembling]

"And you're safe with me," he replied because that too was true in his mind. Steve would not suffer injury from enemies that found them here, regardless of how unlikely it was. He would see to it that the blond was safe and that there would be time for escape if things went south, even if he knew that Steve could and would never leave him behind.

And yet, the kiss was contagious in its urgency and how raw it was. He tasted it on the blond's lips and responded in kind, his own version with a hint of desperation and loneliness as he mouthed on Steve's lips. He clutched tighter at the blond's shirt, pulling and tugging at it so that the bottom was gradually drawn up his bond's body were he could drop his flesh hand to smooth his palm and fingers along the warm smooth expanse of back. It became even more urgent as he was carried, drawing Steve's shirt up to bunch beneath his blond's arms as he curled his thickly muscled legs around Steve's. He was breathless so quickly, squirming and rolling under the grip and weight on him. "Please let me feel you..."

[worldwar]

"Yeah," the word came panted, breathless and a little desperately as their mouths found each other again, "yeah, please, Buck." Steve wasn't sure what he was agreeing to, to being safe with Bucky, to being touched by him, letting him feel and take everything and know himself safe in his friend's arms, all of it. He couldn't stop this now, could never stop: he wanted to feel Bucky's hands smoothing over his back, taking him in, taking his fill of him. He moved with Bucky, settling into the motions of his body so that they were rocking against one another, hips sliding together, one of his legs sliding between Bucky's knees. Kissing him blindly, kissing him breathless, and the desperation and loneliness he felt from his friend made Steve want to wrap him up and never let him go. He cradled the nape of his neck in one hand, and the other slid up under Bucky's shirt as though to mirror the way his friend touched him, exploring the contours of his abdomen, pushing his shirt up until his fingers slid over the curves of his pecs.

He made some low sound, a soft groan of wanting and surrender, brushing gently over one of Bucky's nipples; then he broke away from his mouth and dragged at his shirt until he could pull it up over Bucky's head. He quickly got rid of his own, too, settling back down against him with just bare skin and their jeans between them, touching him with reverent hands as they kissed again. "Bucky..."

[disassembling]

This sort of connection was a bit overwhelming now that they were touching and grappling each other, the kind of situation where he felt the need to immerse himself completely or risk losing the opportunity. How many of those had he missed out on because of his time under HYDRA's control? Now with his hands on Steve and the bond clawing ever deeper with their time and opportunity to explore and let loose, it seemed to overtake any other priority so easily.

He was hard in his fatigues without even realizing how desperate he was until that moment, but his hands were still clutching and pulling until he jerked Steve's shirt off, only to have his own follow suit before he was hungrily at the blond's mouth again. He made soft huffing noises at the hands on him, pressing into them and grinding harder into Steve's hips as the friction was both a blessing and torture to his nerve endings. "This is normal... yes? We can do this and we won't be assaulted?"

[worldwar]

There was so much of Bucky to touch and want, almost more than Steve could take; he hardly knew how to handle this intimacy without losing himself. There was a part of him that felt a need to always be alert to his surroundings, to be aware that their time here was limited before they would have to leave in search of better shelter, but Steve felt as though he could lose hours with Bucky now, just touching and exploring and taking in one another, and not care. "We're safe," he murmured, even though he didn't know that as fact; it was just something he felt bone-deep, that he'd never been safer in his life than he was now with Bucky, his bonded. "We're safe with each other."

He kissed him, so soft and deep it made him ache all over, and pushed his erection against Bucky's hip, fingers sliding up over his ribs and curving over his pec, stroking it, while the other hand cupped the side of his face and cradled him in the kiss as it deepened and lingered. The way Steve touched him bordered on reverence. He moved over him until he could reach between them and get at the front of Bucky's fatigues, unbutton them and unzip the fly and tug the waistband down, impatient, greedy, wanting.

[disassembling]

He drew confidence from Steve's assurances that there was safety where they were but more importantly that no one would attack them if caught. They were free to be as they were, and his hands smoothed up Steve's broad back, tracing muscles and warm skin with the tips and grinding more insistently as his ardour rose so quickly. This had to be the best malfunction that he had ever had in his life. He specifically pressed the flare of his hip into Steve's groin, feeling the stiff member pressing back.

Somehow their kiss had some level of civilness, slower but just as heated at the rest of them. When Steve's hands when for his fatigues, it was an invitation for him to reply in kind, though he had to work at not just tearing them. He did get them open and shoved them down off of Steve's hips and wriggled to get out of his own trousers as his hands slipped around to grab Steve's asscheeks and press their groins together desperately.