
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/6981142.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Marvel_Cinematic_Universe
  Relationship:
      James_"Bucky"_Barnes/Brock_Rumlow, James_"Bucky"_Barnes/Alexander_Pierce,
      James_"Bucky"_Barnes/Steve_Rogers, James_"Bucky"_Barnes/Helmut_Zemo,
      James_"Bucky"_Barnes/Armin_Zola
  Character:
      James_"Bucky"_Barnes, Brock_Rumlow, Alexander_Pierce, Helmut_Zemo, Arnim
      Zola, Jasper_Sitwell, Jack_Thompson
  Additional Tags:
      Stockholm_Syndrome, Rape/Non-con_Elements, Implied/Referenced_Rape/Non-
      con, Waterboarding, Electroconvulsive_Therapy, Food_Issues, Eating
      Disorders, Dead_Dove:_Do_Not_Eat, this_is_not_a_happy_fic, Bucky_Barnes
      Needs_a_Hug, Psychological_Trauma, Memory_Alteration, Memory_Loss,
      Repressed_Memories, Knifeplay, Gunplay, Violence, Sexual_Abuse, Sexual
      Violence, Mildly_Dubious_Consent, Dubious_Consent, Sensory_Deprivation,
      Alternate_Universe_-_Modern_Setting, everyone_in_HYDRA_is_fucked_up,
      HYDRA_Trash_Party, Gaslighting
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-05-26 Updated: 2016-06-03 Chapters: 5/? Words: 8484
****** It's all been a pack of lies. ******
by Sinsrose
Summary
     He never, he doesn’t understand why they won’t tell him. They don’t
     tell him. They never tell him about the blood on his hands. They
     never tell him that he’s killed. They don’t say you murdered for us.
     They don’t tell James that he’s their soldier. That they broke a boy
     at sixteen, that they tore down his walls and rebuilt them into
     something else. And almost a decade later his head still cannot
     process the abuse, it isn’t abuse to him. It’s more of his captors
     taking care of him, making sure that he breathes that he’s alive.
     That he isn’t dead. That a twenty-six year old man is struggling
     under a weight that no one knows about because everyone that does is
     a part of the problem. That it’s been almost a decade of living among
     the snakes that put him in this cage and he doesn’t even know it. He
     doesn’t remember, time blurs when you become used to living with
     nightmares and trauma. Time blurs when you no longer have control
     over your life or even your body.
     modern au, with a touch of stockhold syndrome, please read the
     warnings.
     updates are every other thursday + weekend, and every other friday.
***** barnes *****
  You hold your breath. Thinking that it will save you. That it will make the
pain in your bare feet hurt less. That it will make your discolored bones feel
a reduced amount of discomfort, as you shift your body to brace against the
porcelain of the tub. You’ve been missing for six months. You know you have.
The times that you have escaped, when you have gotten away from those fingers
pressing across your skin, you saw a date or at least a clock. You don’t
remember the last time you actually saw a clock or calendar.

   Home wasn’t here. It was back in the States. You had been a college student,
you had just doing odd ends of money. You were surviving. It wasn’t your fault
that any of this happened. You were just trying to escape your history. Okay so
you were lying, when you said this hadn’t been home at one point. Your parents
had raised you here in Romania until you were a teenager, and you had only
spent a small amount of time in America.  Your parents had wanted to protect
you from this. They had known about these types of things, been involved in a
life that you were not meant to be thrown into.

     Your feet press against the titles, and you can hear your own breathing.
Your last escape attempt was about two months ago. And they had just found you
now. It explains why you’re in a shittier motel room, well it’s only considered
shittier because it’s one of their hotels. The group your parents had tried to
avoid, and it had cost them their lives. You knew about their deaths, which
that’s why you’re thanking god because Rebeca is safe and tucked away in the
states by extended family.

James breathes out again past frayed lungs. He’s been shaking ever since you
had been found and locked away in the bathroom. Bruised and torn up from when
they grabbed him. James had been carrying just a backpack, he don’t have any
way to get back to the states. He’s tried, they always know someone within the
passport area. They always catch him if he tries to get any paperwork. They
have eyes everywhere. And it’s not fair, even if you know the tongue. He wants
to go back to the states. He misses the people he used to know.
  His fingers sweep across the blood on his temple. Leaning against the tub
more now. James feels like he can’t breathe. He feel like screaming, even
though it wouldn’t get you anywhere. Not after who had found him. Zemo had made
sure James wouldn’t run, tucked him into a little caged box. And it’s why he’s
sitting by the tub, trying to control himself. His backpack is in the corner of
the room, with a change of clothes and some food, but that’s all they left in
there. They took your money (what was left of it), and they took your knives,
and a faked ID that James managed to get, by chance by connection to someone
here.

James can feel the blood all over him. He knows he has bruises all over the
place. James knows there is damage everywhere. The trauma that he’s dealt with
by Zemo alone is enough to last for a lifetime, that man is more than
unpleasant, he rivals Alexander, who is going to kill James when he finds out
you’ve been located. James grip the side of the tub, listening to his own
breathing for moments at a time. He’s tried to leave the bathroom, the door’s
locked from the outside.  Instead you count backwards. There’s only so many of
the men from the group here.

James knows Zemo is one, Rollins James had punched. Sitwell, James had broken
his nose, and Murphy he had stuck a knife into his leg. Alexander’s left hand
man, Zola isn’t here. Thank god, because that would have ended with James being
flown to Russia directly to Alexander who would have done more than what Zemo
had done to James. James is listing these names in his head, only because he
hasn’t shown up yet.
         He puffs out a breath. Another escaped breath leaving his lungs. He
doesn’t remember the last time he left this room. Doesn’t remember the last
time he talked to someone. The last time that he had interaction outside of
Zemo. It’s how they play a game with him, they make him hungry and touch
starved, and then they can get him to do anything. It’s why Alexander hasn’t
killed him despite the amount of times he’s run and the amount of times he’s
been kidnapped by these men. 
 
     Plus in about five seconds, Alexander Pierce could make him wanted by
about twenty or more countries for deaths that that man caused but there’s
enough evidence planted that they could frame James. Which is the other reason
it’s difficult to leave any country without them wanting him to. It’s why he’s
been stuck in Romania for about three years now. His fingers rub across his
short hair, Zemo had been pissed when he had seen that. The way that he’d cut
his hair off shaved it off at point and let it grow short. It was getting in
the way anyway, and it was easier with short hair. 

And now it’s a waiting game really of who is even going to enter this room.
Because it could be days, it could be hours, it could be months. It depends on
their mood. It depends how they’re feeling, if they feel that James has been
good enough to leave his little box. Not that much would change, they would
handcuff him to a bed when he actually was let out to sleep on one. It took a
good three years to actually manage an escape, and it took a lot of planning
and remembering what they did on a regular basis. He sighs heavily, sitting now
on the floor. Staring at the tiles above on the celling.

   If he had to guess it has been around thirty six hours since he was placed
here which would be a little over a day. So he’s got to make do with what he’s
got for now. As far as food and clothing is concerned, there’s a jacket at
least he can use if he gets cold and his other clothing he could bundle in also
but that’s not really the point. The silence is killing him. The longer he
lingers within his own head, the more he starts to disconnect from reality, and
they’ve used this over and over again on him. He gets dependent on the people
that kidnapped him. Alexander also knows this and it’s the reason he hasn’t
killed James yet.


      Another ten or is it twenty hours pass. It could be longer. Somewhere
within the silence time drags on. It always drags on. Time just moves. James
sleeps. He chooses to sleep, despite the fact that he had cuts and scratches,
they aren’t infected, he knows they aren’t they would have cleaned them if they
were. He sleeps, his patterns of sleeping increase when he’s around them. He
chooses to sleep, he’s slept in the worst places and positions. He’s also been
sleep deprived by them for days and days by them also, which is why he chooses
to sleep as much as possible.


                         It’s on the six day, when Barnes hunger is knowing and
he’s living off water. Its six days into being back where he starts slipping
back, and starts living on what is survival, he doesn’t yell or plead for
anyone. He’s quiet, and drinks from the sink every time his stomach growls. He
shuts his body up with hunger. He knows that they will come. They will. He
knows this because he’s hungry, and it pangs him at the back of his throat. It
leaves him with a dry mouth. And it also makes him just want the bag of plumbs
that he was going to have but got grabbed instead of being able to enjoy it.
 
      It’s on this day when a lock clicks open and he hears boots. They starved
him on purpose. They know he won’t have as much energy to fight or to run. And
he can smell- he can smell food. He can smell it and it makes his stomach ache.
He knows the sharp hunger pangs when he feels them, he knows it. The door
clicks shut behind whoever has stepped inside. He knows for a fact that the man
has a trick for getting the door open from the inside but James hasn’t looked
up to see who it is. He doesn’t want to think about if it’s Zemo or someone of
that nature.  However what he does catch is the amount of containers that the
other pulls from his bag. The amount of food that is here. But that means, they
want to know what James knows. He gets the feeling that they didn’t just let
him escape like that, they knew he was going to meet certain people. He knows
the game that they play.  

   His eyes watch the man’s fingers, he’s still keeping his eyes level with the
ground. He can see the man scooping out contents of a soup, leek soup, followed
by setting other types of food onto plates such as, black pudding, lamb,
stuffed peppers, some type of bred and Semolina porridge, and he sees a bag of
plumbs, in which seeing he looks upwards. There’s only one person that would
bring so much food in here, and he won’t get backhanded offhand for looking up
at him.
 
Rumlow has got a smoke tucked at the corner of his mouth. Letting a breath be
sucked in as he takes an inhale. Fingers pulling the smoke from his lips, he
holds it, smoke trailing upwards. Eyes looking over at the man that’s sitting
beside the tub. He’s familiar with this, he’s always been familiar with this.
Ever since he was seventeen he’s been working with shit like this. He doesn’t
care for most of the people that he’s had to deal with. Most of the prisoners
they get don’t last over a month. They never do, this one is a different matter
completely. HYDRA has had tabs on him ever since they took him off the streets,
Alexander made sure of that one.
 Rumlow pauses looking at the state that James is in. Another breath leaving
him. A scowl is evident on his features. It’s not that he doesn’t care, he does
for the kid but their relationship is complicated as hell. A serve case of
Stockholm syndrome if the Americans ever looked at it, which they have he’s
wanted in the states for that reason. He leans against the wall smoking for a
few moments longer, before he dumps the smoke into the toilet. His nerves
aren’t shot, but he is irritated from the events that have pertained over the
last two months.

     “Mission report?”

   It’s a dry statement, which makes James hair stand on end. So he had met
someone of interest to Alexander. So they had set him up to escape again. James
had thought it was too easy getting out the last time, considering it had been
Zemo that he had run from. That statement also makes him wonder who exactly
that he came into contact that was of importance. Someone that they were
looking for in Romania. He also knows very well, that Alexander might be using
this as a bargaining or blackmail gain, considering the facts.

This wouldn’t be the first time, they set James up to murder someone, though
they never make his hands get too dirty. Most of the time it’s been a cyanide
capsule hidden or poured into someone’s drink. The worst death he’s had to
manage was that time that Zemo had him help waterboard someone and that wasn’t
even scratching the surface of what that man has done. But that incident has
also gotten him branded as wanted by one country, he doesn’t remember which one
it was so long ago.

 He has to swallow glancing over towards Rumlow. The man is dressed completely
in black. Barefoot and no injuries. It’s hard to believe that Rumlow even
trusts the floor enough to walk barefoot, but then again they threw him in here
barefoot so it’s not much of a risk. HYDRA does keep most of their shit clean,
they just like to throw him in the grimier looking places. Throws him off more,
not to mention it’s unnerving. He exhales another breath, eyes giving another
glance at the food on the floor, and the pangs of hunger are real at the back
of his mouth.

   “Mission report.” He repeats again.

   Barnes cringes again. Whatever he had stumbled across here clearly was
important as hell. And he shifts his leg for a moment. Still silent. He really
doesn’t want to talk about the last two months. He’d be lying if he said
everything was peachy when he had escaped and made a living. He knows for a
fact half of the shit he had access was more likely HYDRA owned somehow. He
raises or attempts to stand, but only gets about halfway.

   Rumlow has chosen to stand between his legs that are spread apart. James’s
fingers are bracing himself on the tub. Rumlow’s got a hand by his head, in his
hair holding him still and he’s half kneeled down, eyes looking right at him.
The physical contact makes James want to squirm away from it, but his body, his
body is too exhausted to really fuss or put up a fight right now. They have him
where they want him right now.  “Mission report, soldier.”

    James wheezes out a breath. Rumlow is too close. Too close. It’s been
months since he’s been thrown into a room like this with the other. And there’s
a good reason it doesn’t happen. James becomes undone, Alexander knows this,
and he knows what Rumlow does to him. And it can’t even be considered rape
anymore, it used to be. One could argue that James has just learned to deal
with the advances and just use them to his advantage. Aka, he’s attached to his
captors, and he shouldn’t be. But Rumlow is the only one he doesn’t scream or
shout at, there were times in the past where he had and it had gotten him a
stun baton pressed all over his body, and it left him unable to move for hours
on the floor. 
 
    When he talks it’s slow. It’s slow and grating and he goes over as many
details as possible of what happened in the last two months. It’s annoying and
it’s unnerving because if he leaves anything out Alexander will know, he always
knows. And Rumlow keeps him held where he is as he speaks, heels raised on the
floor. He’s exhaling sharply as he finishes talking about one subject and
drifts to the next. This goes on for a while, until his heel starts to ache and
throb from kneeling how he is. But Rumlow holds him there despite his
discomfort and gets him to keep talking. Recap anything and everything
important, his fingers still holding his hair. He only knows he’s done when
Rumlow releases his head, and it feels like hours later.

       And his body falls back down onto the tiles. It’s evident that Rumlow
doesn’t want him standing unless needed by him. And he falls back into what is
deemed as their soldier, his survival counts on that one. Rumlow bends over to
grab the bag of plums, but he also left James a tray of food in the corner,
nothing has been said about it. But he knows it’s for when Rumlow leaves.

“Good. Good, sounds like Alexander found what he was looking for through you
kid.” Rumlow’s fingers are picking up a plumb, holding it over to James’s
mouth. It’s outright cruel doing this to him, making him eat from the hand that
bites him. He takes a bite of the purple fleshed fruit almost slow. As if he’s
afraid that Rumlow’s going to pull back his hand. His first bite of fruit
almost makes him whimper considering it’s been days with nothing but water in
his system. So actual fruit and the stickiness from the juice, clings to his
lips when he bites down on it. Chewing slowly as if to savor it not to mention,
if you eat to fast when hungry your body doesn’t react well. It’s made him sick
one too many times before by rushing eating food. He takes another bite from
the fruit, swallowing looking at Rumlow for a moment.  

 
 “What reason do they even have to keep me alive?” It’s a question he knows the
answer to. He’s known the answer and over and over again he keeps asking it. He
always asks it no matter what. It’s just a question that never seems to get
answered. Never. And Rumlow shoots him a look. Placing the plumb into James’
hand, as he sits beside the man.
 
          “You know the answer to that kid.” He takes a plum from the bag
again, holding it in his fingers again. As James slowly finishes the other one
down to the core. And goes after the next one in Rumlow’s hands. “Though,
Alexander was pissed about the fact you tried to drown Zemo.” James doesn’t
regret that one at all. When they had been trying to take him back, he had
almost killed that man, if you had it up to him he would of if Rollins hadn’t
stunned him with a tazer.
 
    He sighs heavily. Fingers picking at the fruit. The juice staining his
hands as he does so. There’s a silence that stretches, even if he is familiar
and comfortable around Rumlow, there is still that unease that settles into his
frame. Still that feeling of feeling almost suffocated. That suffocated feeling
has always lingered as far as he can remember. Some of the abuse from them, its
left gaping holes in his memories. From the drugs, from things he can’t
remember, somewhere down the line he remembers electricity maybe.  

   His memories aren’t whole. There’s so many things that have happened to him
within the last seven years and it leaves his head in shambles. The buzz of
electricity isn’t something he outright remembers but he know, he knows
Alexander has outright used treatment on him that was illegal in so many
countries even though he doesn’t remember it. He just remembers waking cold or
in a bathtub that was filled with ice water. It was as if he had been thrown
blackened out into the tubs those days, not that he recalls. He never remembers
how he got into the tub, or the damage that he did to end up there. 

    James finishes the fruit. Letting the taste linger at the back of his
tongue. Fingers dropping to his sides, eyes focused on Rumlow. “Why can’t he
just let me go? It’s not like I remember. I barely remember my life before all
of this.” He knows too much. Too much about Alexander’s inner circle, knows how
dirty the man is. Knows how easy it is for that snake to get blood on his
hands. It’s too easy when the blood is thicker than the river you’re standing
in. James has living this disaster of chaos for the last seven years, was it
even seven years?   

                              “Why can’t I just go home? I had a home.” He’s
pleading at the end of his tongue. Rumlow isn’t answering him. No one ever
answers him when he asks about home. When he sees the snippets in his mind that
aren’t the white walls and what remained of other recollections. No one ever
answers him when he talks about home. Did he even have a home? Did he ever have
parents? --- the lines are so blurred by what they’ve done to him They’ve made
him a rat, and put him into a cage. And sometimes throw him the keys, sometimes
toss him out of the cage only to be thrown back. 

He never, he doesn’t understand why they won’t tell him. They don’t tell him.
They never tell him about the blood on his hands. They never tell him that he’s
killed. They don’t say you murdered for us. They don’t tell James that he’s
their soldier. That they broke a boy at sixteen, that they tore down his walls
and rebuilt them into something else. And almost a decade later his head still
cannot process the abuse, it isn’t abuse to him. It’s more of his captors
taking care of him, making sure that he breathes that he’s alive. That he isn’t
dead. That a twenty-six year old man is struggling under a weight that no one
knows about because everyone that does is a part of the problem. That it’s been
almost a decade of living among the snakes that put him in this cage and he
doesn’t even know it. He doesn’t remember, time blurs when you become used to
living with nightmares and trauma. Time blurs when you no longer have control
over your life or even your body.

     James is shaking. He isn’t even aware of it but he’s shaking. Its small
tremors not enough that he’s aware himself but enough that the other man in the
room sees it.  James isn’t worth this, he’s not worth keeping alive. He doesn’t
understand, why they won’t just kill him. He disobeyed them. He tried to run
from them, he- can’t they let him go already. Why can’t they let him go? He’s
suffocating all over again, he can feel his lungs hitch and the way that his
chest tightens.  


               “Steve, you promised he’d come. Why hasn’t he come? Why?” His
voice is a hitch, an edge of something. Something that’s broken, something that
is scared, something that is fractured. Something that is breaking apart. “I
want to go home. You promised. You told me if I was good. Brock you promised
me. You promised.” His voice cracks, he’s breaking down. He’s been here a
matter of weeks, and he can’t last. Sitting in a room with a man that let him
be tortured, let him be made into someone that they can use. He was made into
their ghost. James doesn’t even know if he’s legally alive outside of this
country.

      Fingers are harsh across skin. Harsh and the slap echoes in the room. The
bruise forming just as quickly as he was hit. Brock’s eyes are expressionless.
He has no emotions in them, unlike when he first entered the room. His lips in
a tight line. James has been out of their gasp too long, those ideals were
nailed out of him so long ago. So, so long ago.  “Quiet, soldier. Enough.” And
James still trembles, he is still a broken man. 

 “You’re dead don’t you remember? You don’t exist outside of us. Outside of
HYDRA you are nothing. Nobody is looking for a boy that was found dead. They’ve
given up on you. Your home is with us. It has only been with us. We fix you, we
make you feel better.” Rumlow doesn’t give him a second glance as he stands, he
knows that James will not rise, he will not stand.  
James barely manages to stomach the food after the door clicks behind Rumlow. 
He ends up saving the soup figuring it will be awhile before he gets anything
else.

***** wiped *****
    Nothing gets better. It never does. He gets out of the room they’ve kept
him locked in but he’s deprived of everything. He cannot hear, he cannot see.
James isn’t aware of where he even is outside the bathroom they’ve kept him
locked in. He just knows that the sight and sound return when they move him to
a room they feel comfortable having him in. And having his vision come back
into view, makes him unsteady. He’s not met by Rumlow. God, he wishes it was
Rumlow.

  Alexander is standing watching him. He’s watching James with almost a
thoughtful eye. An amused quirk of the lips but also the hint of something that
is far too unsettling. He’s uncomfortable under the man’s gaze, he always has
been. The way that he’s looked at, like he’s just a weapon. Like he’s just a
device to use for the schemes. He swallows heavily, shifting on his feet. He’s
been here before, standing here in this room with Alexander. It’s the vault, no
one can hear him screaming, and no one knows what goes on here. This is where
they fix him. 

         “Please sir, I don’t need it. I won’t run. I won’t”-

 Alexander raises his hand upwards. Enough to say. Stop. You don’t need to
talk. You weren’t asked to talk soldier. You speak when spoken to, not when you
feel like it. “You’ve forgotten you belong to us, boy. Your name, your body.
You have belonged to us before you can recall.” Alexander’s words are sharp and
low spoken but also like a snake striking towards its prey.

   James wants to curl up and die. He wants to yell, he wants to scream. He
wants to outright protest everything that has ever been done to him here. He
wants to pretend that this has just been a dream that those words that he wants
to use can be said. That he doesn’t just stop talking when they tell him to
stop. That he doesn’t listen to their words. But he does. He does because he
doesn’t really want to die. Some part of himself says at the back of his mind-

         You won’t forget Steve. You never do. You don’t forget home. Your
heart still is home. You only do this to survive. The hurt in his bones makes
him less focused on these types of things. The hurt in his blood makes him
uncoil into this primal wolf with his teeth bared. He wakes into this wolf from
sheep’ skin, he wants and it leaves bruises across his skin. The touches of men
that are unwanted, the touches that his mind does not connect to his body. He
hasn’t he hasn’t for years. The abuse doesn’t connect, it doesn’t linger in his
mind. It drifts away like a bad dream, blurs and moments of it showing when
James sees his own blood. When James smells something that tugs his head back,
and then James screams as if there’s agony in his bones when it’s just his own
head.


    “We need to remind you that you are ours and ours alone.”


     He doesn’t want this. No. No. No. He, please god no. make it stop. He just
wants to go home. He hates being fixed. James isn’t some broken doll. He’s not
a doll you can just play with and put away when you don’t like him. He’s human.
He’s real. He has needs to. He wants his own life. Can’t they stop taking
everything from him?

“You took him from me. You took Steve. You took him from me. I was happy. I
don’t belong to you.” James’s words are cracked and broken. A borderline of a
panic. Of a struggle, this is the way the clockwork goes, he lives and lives
and then they break him. They break him down to the most primal needs, the
things that he misses the most and start to dilute the memories again. Just
give him more drugs, zap his brain, HYDRA has created things that the world
hasn’t seen. While others would call it electroshock theory, its torture and
brainwashing at the highest degree.

       It’s a form of torture that the states aren’t even aware of existing or
maybe they use it for actual torture. And the desperation in his voice, in
James’ voice isn’t just from wanting to go home. It’s from him not wanting
this, he doesn’t want to lose the threads that he’s pieced together over the
last few years, and he doesn’t want to lose himself again. Become their pretty
little monster that gets tucked away.

“You’ve taken everything from me. Why can’t you stop? I played your game. I
want to go home. You promised. You promised.”  He’s been lied to over and over
and over again. And he’s struggling, he’ struggling and thrashing when he feels
people touching him. Touching him and slipping IV’s into his limbs to sedate
and destroy him.

                “Don’t do this to me. Alexander, you promisedme. Please.”---
 
                  A mouth guard is shoved into him. And it’s his body’s own
reflexive nature to bite down. It take ahold of it. He’s been here many times
before. He’s been in this chair, he’s said this all before. It’s not the first
time that the tech, (at least that’s what they call the medical staff) have
seen him like this. And he’s thrown down into sedation, the hum of drugs into
his skin, to get him to be still. To get him to comply. 


           “Your mission hasn’t ended soldier.”

  James closes his eyes shut, fingers squeezing against the bonds on the chair.
When the pain comes. There are no sounds but screaming. There are no sounds but
the muffled harsh screaming. The screaming that goes on for hours. Something
within his nerves burn alive, the damage that they are doing cannot be
explained to anyone. The medical devices they use on him, they are not tested,
and they are kept under lock and key. The serum that has been put in his veins,
it’s something they use on everyone here. It is the reason they can shape him.
It is the reason they can fry his brain alive and he still remains alive. 

    He’s always numb and the roof of his mouth is dry by the end of everything.
It’s dry and the mouth guard is covered in spit when it slips from his mouth.
His head is nothing. There is nothing there no thoughts, nothing. There’s not a
trace of home lingering there. There’s not a trace of much. James still hasn’t
opened his eyes. His body is fried or so it seems, his nerves a scattered mess,
it’s hard to really move anything.

     He’s drugged, and wiped clean. They’ve got their little soldier back.
They’ve got their murdering boy back. It doesn’t matter if it’s against his
will. He’s theirs. James has always been theirs. He’s always been there’s. He
will still will fight. The wiping never lasts long, only calms him for some
time. Not enough if you were to ask Alexander. But then again it’s still a work
in progress.  He bonds are undone, and he remains sitting, eyes vacant staring
into space.

     James hears the footsteps more people. But reminds with the vacant look in
his eyes. He’s just staring at the wall or ground not at people. Even though he
can hear words being talked, he doesn’t listen to them, it’s not his place.
Fingers touch across his shoulder, familiar warmth from them. Rumlow. A voice
whispers at the back of his mind. Eyes looking upwards, the empty look still
there.

               “Ready to comply soldier?”

        “What’s my mission?”

     The grin etched onto Rumlow's features is like a sharks, and laughter can
be heard before Alexander briefs them both.

 James leaves the room, bites and bruises lingering across the skin. No memory,
no struggle or reminder of to how it happened. His mind still reeling from the
drugs, and electricity poured into his veins like some kind of liquid fire.
***** recoil *****
   It’s like a game of chess. The pieces are all placed on the board and chosen
before anyone is really aware of it. The chessboard has been played for ages
and ages, it’s just a matter of how the pieces fall. They fall one by one until
there is nothing left. Missions are murder. They have always been murder,
they’ve always been assassinations. Blood staining hands that are too fragile
to hold the pool of blood in them. They’ve always been shaking, they’ve always
been so small in this world. 

   James Buchanan Barnes wasn’t born a killer. He wasn’t born a man that is
this broken and dehumanized. He hadn’t chosen the life that he was now living,
not that the choices mattered anymore. Everything he did was never his choice
even if he had gotten freedom at points, people had always controlled what he
did. He barely remembers his life among his parents and his sister. He doesn’t
think on them much either when he does begin to recall things. Steve tends to
come back to memory before anyone.   


        He recoils when the blood drips from his fingers. He’s killed someone
again. James has slain someone again for the sake of HYDRA. Not that his
thought process actually matters. What matters is the money that Alexander gets
from the body lying dead on the floor. Cyanide poisoning, one of the less noble
ways to kill someone. It had been painless, well for the person giving the
poison. The blood was from a man that had attempted to kill him after he had
seen the poisoned person drop to his death.  But the one fact that remains to
be said is the fact that, James took five months to do this. It wasn’t
overnight after the wiping.

   It was months of playing a game again. It was months spending like a zombie
and beckoning to HYDRA’s needs.  And fragments of life start to pull together
at the touch of blood on his skin, they always have. Which explains why he’s
bent over heaving his lungs out into a trash can. The recollection of teeth on
skin, bruises that don’t heal. Chaff marks from cuffs, from ropes, evidence of
abuse is everywhere and littered in his memories that he does recall. And it’s
like a bad nightmare standing here over a dead man, realizing these people were
not a home, they were a prison.
 
     James just wants to scream again. Or take the nearest tazer and shove it
up their ass. He’s drowning in his own demons, and it’s not fair. It’s never
been fair on him. He wipes the corner of his mouth, staring at the body for a
small fraction of a minute. He’s got about a half hour before anyone from HYDRA
comes looking for hm. He’s got a half hour period on his own, minus the fact
that Rumlow is around. He’s always around when handling him. He’s got a half
hour before he’s broken over again. And James is visibly twitchy and unsettled.



    He rises ignoring the fact the contents of his stomach are there in the
trash can.  He doesn’t look the body over, ignores the fact it exists. Let’s
his feet pad over to Rumlow and lets himself fall into the habits they’ve
created for him. It’s easier to ignore his own distress, ignore the fact he’s
drowning himself by living with these people. “Body’s yours. The corrosive is
in the bathroom.” James disregards the fact that he sounds so dehumanized
talking about someone being dead in the same room as him, by his own hands.


   Rumlow’s fingers press across his shoulders in a movement that makes his
skin crawl. And his mind drifts back to small fingers from a blonde boy, a boy
that lived back in Brooklyn.That disconnect from reality burying himself in the
fact that someone does miss him, that someone had cared about him.  It’s as if
someone is petting his shoulders, praising him for murdering a man. It makes
him sickened that the give him affection for killing.  He bites down on his
tongue, ignoring the way that Rumlow’s fingers press on his shoulders.  

         “Alexander is pleased you know, he’s letting you out of the cage for a
bit.” 


      Freedom isn’t given, it’s granted. Unless he escaped under their doing.
But the freedom that Rumlow is talking about, it’s another type that is rare.
That’s rare and cruel and something that doesn’t happen often. Rumlow is
talking about leaving this country. He’s talking about being let out to walk
around another place. He’s seen other countries but only for weeks, and those
were outright brutal murders committed. 

               “He said this one counts for some of your debt you owe to us.”

  James doesn’t react to that. They’re baiting him for a reaction. They always
do, they always want his reaction for that one. His debt no one can change, no
one can change that. They have photos upon photos of James drenched in blood,
they have blackmail. They could make him wanted everywhere if they wanted to.
He swallows his tongue trying not to react with how Rumlow is rubbing at that
spot in his neck that makes him let out a keening noise and go limp.

                       “Trip is for five years. He expects twenty
assassinations. No less. He’s placing you in living arrangements with me for
the duration of the stay in the States.”

                      He wants to die. He wants to. But if there was any
indicator that he did, it isn’t shown. It’s never shown. Living with Rumlow no
matter what context is hellish. That man, he doesn’t care what he does to
James. Even if he may treat him better than Zemo or some of the others, he
still doesn’t care for him. But the only thing that is decent about any of this
is, it’s the states. It’s home. It’s home, it’s somewhere he hasn’t been in the
last decade. 

                                     “Don’t do anything stupid.”

   I can’t you’re taking all the stupid with you.

               His fingers dig into his own skin to keep himself composed. He
listens to Rumlow but doesn’t make a sound. Doesn’t make a sound. He still
feels the others finger’s on his flesh. But Rumlow turns away fingers putting
on a pair of gloves to dispose of the body, and James remains still trying to
control his breathing, trying not to recall.

   It never works. 


                   And when they touch down in New York a week later, Rumlow’s
fingers laced into his own he fakes a smile but all of him wants to run. Run
and escape, because here it is harder for them to bring him back, this is his
home not there’s and he doesn’t want them to ruin it.
***** haunted *****
Chapter Summary
     dub-con/non-con
      
     and a plot point.


      Fingers are curved across his mouth as his body arches into the onslaught
of the rough touch. The way that he bends backwards, the way that he outright
comes undone into the touch. You could never say to him it was the drugs. You
could never say to him that he didn’t want this. You couldn’t tell this man
that he was being raped. But he was, you just had to look for the reasoning
behind it. The way that blue eyes are dilated and not normal. The way that the
drug makes his skin feel on fire, the way that his flesh eats him alive and
smothers him.

               The moan that’s muffled under the other’s hand, the way that he
squirms on the other’s cock. The way that he had rode the other, looked him
dead in the eyes. Told him that he loved him, told him that no one takes care
of him better than Brock does. That he’s Brock’s good little boy. That he’s his
slut, that he’s his bitch. Not a soul knows what goes on disclosed behind those
doors. Of course that muffled moan could also be a scream considering the drugs
are wearing off and he’s no longer in a haze even if his body is. His mind is
screaming no while his body screams yes. And he always takes it, he always has
taken. 

         “Brock, please. Please. I’ll be good.”--

    It’s a broken choked off noise. That’s a cross between a moan and a sob.
It’s not just a fuck to Brock. He’s been screwing James for hours upon hours.
It’s not just Brock fucking him. It’s him breaking James down. It’s him leaving
imprints all over his skin, leaving bruises, leaving marks telling other’s not
to touch him. That he belongs to someone. But all of this is abuse, all of this
is nothing but abuse even if Brock said he loved him. James doesn’t even know
if that was a real statement, it could have been the drugs for all he knows.

                Another movement and he chokes on a sob. He chokes on the
noise. He can feel the sharp pain in his body, he can feel the blood on his
thighs. He’d gotten his share of orgasms against his will, and some given to
his drug induced mind that had made him lax in the sheets. But here and now,
this isn’t about him. This is torture to him. This is about breaking his will
down. This is also about the fact that he had tried to escape. This is about
him running, and Brock had caught him and chosen to give him a lighter torture.
Just the drugs but James would rather be tortured by Zemo.
 
       Every rape inflicted onto his body leaves him scarred. Leaves him
knowing he doesn’t deserve to be alive. Leaves him thinking he deserves this.
That these are his captors, that these men have always controlled him. That
this is his life. That he is theirs. That he never had a choice of yes in these
touches, these kisses. These bruises and the blood. So much blood.  He wants it
to stop, he wants the moans from his lips to stop. He hates his traitor body
that they’ve broken him in to get him to like this. That his body is used to
this, that he’s okay with this. That his screaming is something that is normal,
the way that the cuffs bite into his wrists is normal. The way that tears fall
across his face is normal. He closes his eyes, choking on a sob.  He doesn’t
fight Brock. He’s given up. He’s past the point of trying. He just lets the
other fuck him. Let’s him rip him apart. Let’s him dirty him, he knows the
feeling of cum and blood all too well. And he doesn’t speak a word, he can’t
he’s been pleading for hours for the other to stop ever since he came down from
the drugs.
      “You gonna be good now soldier?”

      James barely answers him. An expressionless look in his eyes, when Brock
removes himself from his naked frame. Bruises littering everywhere, even across
his tattoo that stretches on his left shoulder that looks like a metal arm
extending down that side. His bones ache, everything aches, everything hurts,
and everything is just so broken.

                          “Your objective is still the same, find a way to get
close to Tony Stark.”

      James is still slack against the bed, cuffs digging into his wrists,
they’re bleeding when Rumlow does undo them, and actually wipes them off. Cuts
in places where he had let them dig into his skin and from when James had tried
to pull them off. He remains still as Rumlow cleans off some of the cuts and
wounds. He won’t shower until Rumlow leaves with Rollins. He won’t. He’s
allowed out of the house but he’s not going to leave after this. He doesn’t
trust his own reflection if other people saw him like this. As it is he feels
smaller than he should against the other.


      It takes hours for him to rise from the bed to go shower.


                 Three hours later, he’s at a café in Brooklyn getting a coffee
when his dream world comes crashing down.
***** Chapter 5 *****
  You lost your best friend when you were sixteen. You recall the news
clippings. You hit your fists against a wall. You had done everything a kid
could have done if they knew their friend went missing. The blonde stares at
the circled files, the information that has been read at least a dozen times.
He still hasn’t given up on the facts. Still hasn’t given up on his friend. But
it’s been over a decade since he saw the kid, and most assume that he’s dead.
Most that aren’t the director.

   Fury has a different understanding of human trafficking cases not to mention
people that do this type of work. The way that the world crumbles, how these
people tie the ones they took off the streets to them. These aren’t just
victims, they’re forced into more than they ever asked for. He’s seen plenty of
blood on hands of children or even teenagers that it doesn’t belong to. He’s
seen plenty of blood in places that are much worse than a red district in the
states.  Fury wouldn’t have thrown these files at him. But there had been new
connections to this case, it was over a decade over and he still can taste the
bile in the back of his throat.

Taste the way that it leaves him feeling guilty at the mention of James
Buchanan Barnes. The sixteen year old kid that had been taken from his family
when he had been walking home from school. The blonde is still haunted by those
facts because he’d been the last physical person to talk to Barnes. And he
still won’t forgive himself for that. The guilt tends to eat you alive, and he
wonders if he ever could have changed the outcome of the events.

 There had been countless allegations against Alexander Pierce of the years
that had stacked up. At least from the inside where some of his trusted had
turned rather shady things in under a hidden eye. But the problem is, Pierce
knew the games that they were playing. The witnesses or the sources were found
dead in the states right outside their doorstep most of the time. And of course
there were some that had never come back from Alexander.

    Rumlow had been one of those. Working among Fury, and then he had chosen to
hide with those snakes, those vultures. Of course the blonde had tried to shoot
Rumlow but he had gotten away, he had coverage in more places than Steve even
had known. And it still sickens him how much Rumlow had started laughing at the
injuries he had given Steve. Steve had been out of work for almost a year or
longer from the broken ribs.

      And here he was again. Sitting in a café in Brooklyn, mulling over his
notes. The facts that had been collected over the years. People that were
missing, people that were found dead. Traitors. It was a mess, between politics
and an age old case. Fury had told them that they had a reason to believe that
they hadn’t killed Barnes. That this case needed another look at. The problem
was, that a lot of the files had been taken or burned. How it had happened, no
one knew, they just knew that a lot of the information was gone concerning the
case.

             The only real evidence they had gotten was a little red book. It
had come out of a raid a few years after Rumlow had gotten out of the states.
It had been when they had gotten a gasp on Zemo. But it had only been once, and
brief, and it had left their database in shambles. It had been a mess,
everything had been purged, and at least Fury’s records had concerning Zola and
Alexander Pierce. The book itself, Steve had looked over at least a dozen
times.

       It had been entries, records dating back to the early two thousands date
wise. At least that’s what he got but he wasn’t positive considering everything
written in that book was Russian, there was nothing in English. Not a drop.
Well that’d be lying if he said that but when there was English it didn’t make
sense or what was written. Steve had figured out there was a month system in
place by the small numbers in the corner and it was a journal of some point but
he wasn’t sure what exactly.

     He had talked among Fury and Natasha. Natasha had frowned heavily and gone
almost ghost white at the book, and then had left to do other work. Steve had
this feeling that she had disclosed something to Fury later on but if he knew
something Steve didn’t, he hadn’t said anything. And Steve had a hunch it was
of personal importance if that was the case. But none the less the book was
still the only lead they had even if it was a dead set weight in his hands.

    He just knew that it talked about a soldier. That it talked about one a
lot, that no names were given. A lot of the names were either nicknames or what
the people went by within HYDRA. And it wasn’t much to work with, even if they
knew Zemo was involved with HYDRA not a trace of him being involved was within
the confines of that book. Steve sighs again. Fingers picking at his coffee,
coming to a stand. He’d been sent out mostly to calm his head. He knows how
everyone works back at base. Not to mention, Fury knows he can spot things when
he’s wandering that are abnormal or out of place.

So when he rises to his feet, and he bumps shoulders with someone it’s
unexpected. It’s by chance. A chance, or so he thinks. But fate, fate would
always have it otherwise for Rogers. And when he goes to apologize. His words
catch dead in his throat. His mouth clicks open and then clicks closed, because
even after a decade he knows. He knows. He knows those blue eyes anywhere.

     Barnes is thin. Thin but has muscle, there’s muscle and flesh. But he
looks tiny in the clothes that he’s dressed in, almost oversized. A red hoodie
that seen better days, a shirt underneath, jeans that have more dirt than he’s
seen in years on them. He’s dressed in clothing that is too large on his body.
Hair that isn’t pulled back but hangs in his face, concealing eyes. Blue eyes
that had flashed a haunted look almost, but then had gone back to almost numb.

    And Barnes is caught. He’s caught standing there. And the blonde is about
as white as a ghost. He’s lost all color in his face. And he can feel that numb
sickening feeling back in his bones. That same feeling he felt when he had
first learned James had gone missing. That wrenching feeling that has haunted
him for years and years. 

                   “Bucky?”

                “Who the hell is Bucky?”

   And everything crashes on its axis.
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