The Pen is Mightier! (penismightier) wrote in chaotic_library, @ 2015-07-14 10:15:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | bruce banner, bucky barnes, marvel, novel, pepper potts, r-rated, steve rogers, tony stark, yuuo, yuuo: marvel |
[Bucky Barnes; R] Puddle Of Grace: Chapter 1
Character/Series: Bucky Barnes; Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: R
Notes: This a ground up rewrite of Dirty Little Secret. The original has been bugging me since I put it up. Especially as the series went on and I realized that there were several things that the fic needed to address that it didn't, so I'm fixing things now. (Now with more pop culture! I can't even blame Tony this time.)
Title: Puddle Of Grace- Chapter 1: Trouble In Shangri-La
Author: yuuo
Word Count: 4472
Summary: It was supposed to be a simple trip to an abandoned (they hoped) Hydra base in Kiev.
i guess we don't believe
that things could go that far
we all believe in people
that we think believe in god
-Stevie Nicks
It was supposed to be a simple trip to an abandoned (they hoped) Hydra base in Kiev.
But, you know, it might've been smart if they'd taken a closer look at where the Russian separationists had set up camp in the city before going. Getting greeted by a whole lotta Russians and possibly some Ukrainians who wanted in on the deal, all of whom were well-armed, was not in the plan.
Well, too little, too late.
Taking them down wasn't problematic, not with urban warfare. Plenty of places for Bucky to hide to take his shot, and plenty of walls for Steve's shield to make the rounds against, knocking out the maximum number of people as possible. There were a lot of nasty ways to die happening as the shield ripped through fleshy bits that really weren't designed by nature to withstand a thick metal projectile thrown with enough force to lodge itself in metal.
Bucky didn't remember quite this much acceptance of that damage back during the war, but all that meant was that Steve had gotten more adept at using that damn thing since then. Good. Meant less work for Bucky.
Bucky was focusing on his sniper skills- he had no proper snipe, but he was the Winter Soldier, he was the sniper for the Howling Commandos. He could turn anything into a snipe if he wanted. He let Steve throw the shield around to keep the ground forces busy while he took up position on a roof to take out the enemy's forces that decided that they didn't have to be on the ground level to take their lumps from Captain America.
Bucky idly wondered they'd forgotten that Captain America didn't work alone.
As Steve moved through the streets, Bucky followed him from rooftop, taking out pests as he went. Each time, he'd come in from behind, ducked low in the fading twilight, hard to see except where the light hit his arm. With the latest target so focused aiming his nicely-made M4A1 down at Steve, he didn't see even that glint until Bucky had already pulled one of his knives and slit his throat. With a fluid motion of a well-trained soldier, he turned and flung the knife into the throat of separationist on the next building over.
Two more down, and one more nice weapon to 'borrow' to take out more until Steve got out of range and Bucky was forced to move on, usually abandoning the stolen weapons as he went. His weapons on his person were great, but an M4A1 had some advantages over them, and he wasn't responsible for finding ammo to replace what he used for his temporary spoils of war.
He grabbed the M4A1- oohh, a custom altered with a different lower and upper receiver. How nice. And it worked perfectly for knocking off a few more people who were just starting to notice that there was less gunfire than there should be from his direction. He might keep this one.
Three more down. Steve's shield knocked another five on the ground down, but he was starting to get swarmed. Bucky knew Steve could handle it, but he still worried.
Bucky jumped buildings, taking his combat knife back from the neck of the other wannabe pain in the ass. He liked that knife. A quick glance around, taking in every detail he could, Bucky realized that they were badly outnumbered. They could maybe get through this to get to the Hydra base, but they may be forced to retreat and try another way through. That was, of course, assuming that the separatists would let them go.
Ah well. They could run faster than these assholes.
Seconds lasted lifetimes. For every squeeze of the trigger from Bucky, from every throw of the shield from Steve, a dozen could go down.
Still left too many. Where the hell did these guys all come from?!
Oh. Right. Russia. Big country. Lots of people.
The temptation to get down in the middle of the fray and hunt was strong. That was the way Hydra had trained him. Not to sit in a perch and take in details in one area before moving on to another, but to see everything at once, discarding details that were irrelevant to the mission objective, which was always to kill.
But Bucky stayed up on his position on the rooftops as Steve's watcher, making himself fall back on the sniper's mindset. He put his focus on Steve, became aware of everything around Steve. He was his own Winter Soldier, not Hydra's. He didn't fight like that Soldier. He made that a mantra in the back of his head on every mission. He didn't trust himself otherwise to not slip.
His hyper-awareness of Steve's location and that distracting voice in his head was why he almost missed the guy with the RPG-7 a few buildings over. It would've been nice if the asshole had fired at Bucky, but oh no, he just had to fire at Steve, didn't he?
Bucky would thank him later for that. And by 'thanking', he meant a neck wringing.
Heartbeats counted off the seconds.
One- the separatist raised his weapon.
Two- Bucky was too far and at too bad of an angle to get a good shot on him before he fired. He yelled a warning out to Steve.
Three- that thing was aimed right at Steve and Steve wasn't moving fast enough, kept too busy to react.
Four- after taking a wild shot in the separatist's direction, then abandoning the M4A1, Bucky pushed off the edge of the roof he was on with every bit of strength he had, sending him flying down to the ground, right between Steve and the oncoming warhead. Bucky really hoped that it was a fragmental anti-personnel and not something that would blow his arm apart like a thermobaric.
Five- the last second Bucky had before the grenade smacked him soundly in his left arm, sending him down crashing into Steve's back. The fragments tore apart in all directions, his upper arm absorbing the main impact.
Before he was even able to register hitting the ground he knew something was wrong with his arm. It sent painful feedback from the wires inside somewhere that made everything in that area hurt. It barely responded to his efforts to get up, leaving him to have to rely on his good arm to stand.
The pain brought a wave of dizziness. There was no way he was going to survive a fight with one arm dead and pain haze making his brain do funny things.
"You okay?" Steve demanded, half-distracted by blocking incoming bullets with his shield. He backed them towards the shelter of a dead-end alley, giving combatants only one direction to fire to.
"My arm," Bucky said, voice cracking from pain. He'd been hurt before, kept going through it, but the intense pain right into the nerves of his entire left rib cage and shoulder girdle, in the part of his arm that remained inside the computers and metal, it was blinding him on that side. "We gotta get outta here."
Thank everything that Steve didn't question what happened, just grabbed Bucky's Skorpion off his back holster and laid down some cover fire. They ran towards the dead end wall. Bucky grit his teeth against the pain, jumping up against one wall, pushed off to the adjacent wall, back to the first, then over the top of the wall blocking the end of the alley. Steve followed just on his heels, up and over.
The metal arm began to hang limp as they ran, which was a thousand times more frightening to him than the possibility of pursuers. Even with the damage done over the years, even holding up against Steve's shield, he'd never lost full control for this long over his arm. He wouldn't be able to defend Steve or himself properly if he were half-crippled.
The sounds of gunfire and human voices faded behind them as a mile disappeared underfoot. The pain in his upper arm grew worse. Another mile.
Their convenient hiding place where they'd landed the quinjet that they'd been granted use of when on missions against Hydra came into view. Bucky could've kissed the damn thing just for seeing it.
Once up in the jet, Steve didn't waste any time getting them up in the air. They didn't have enough fuel left to get back to DC; they'd planned on stopping at a US-friendly military base in Sweden that they'd already been in contact with on the matter. That meant Bucky was going to have to make it at least as long until he could get his arm looked at properly. Steve was good with technology on the user end, not the engineering end. And it'd been too many years since Bucky had picked up a tool for him to be much good, and he'd never worked on computers.
He was also fairly sure that he'd be too distracted by the pain to be able to focus on not cutting a wire or something.
"Lemme see," Steve said.
Bucky opened his eyes, finally, reluctantly, looking at the damage. He had to grab his wrist and pull it up to put the damaged upper arm where it could be seen.
There was a large piece of shrapnel from the warhead jammed neatly between two plates of metal that had shifted to absorb the impact. Yeah, unhelpful timing for his arm's responses to do that. Steve tugged at it just slightly. "Bucky, you know my shield could've taken that better than your arm."
Bucky glared at him for the scolding, and also because he was in pain, and being in pain didn't exactly keep the cranky pants off. "Excuse me for being concerned about you. Your back was turned, I warned you, and you didn't turn in time. You're welcome for saving your ungrateful ass."
Steve took the reaming out with grace, keeping his focus on the shrapnel. "That is an impressive piece of a warheard. It looks lodged pretty deep. That's not where your stump still is, is it?"
Bucky took in a deep breath before taking a closer look. If it were high enough to be in his stump, any injury to the flesh would bleed into the connecting computers. He had no idea how they'd handle that. Gingerly, he tapped the embedded shrapnel, the wires that acted as artificial nerves screaming in protest, the thin copper inside the burned up insulation probably getting severed.
He shook his head. "No. I don't feel anything there. It's below where the arm ends. It's cut open some of the wires." He thunked his head back against the copilot's seat. "Which means it needs more work than either of us are capable of. I don't know how to repair it, so I can't, and I can't tell you how to, either."
Steve sat back in his seat, looking over at Bucky's arm. "I know who to take you to," he said after a few seconds of silence save the quinjet's engines. Bucky turned his head to look at Steve, not once lifting it from the headrest of the seat, and waited for Steve's answer. "Tony Stark. If anyone can fix that, it's him."
Stark.
Howard's son.
If the painful feedback in his arm wasn't enough to make him feel nauseous, Steve's suggestion certainly was. He turned his head the other way, trying to block out the smell of that burning car, the sound of Howard's screams, the perfect amount of pressure to snap a man's neck-
Bucky felt himself beginning to shake, his breath hitching and his head spinning as he tried to keep the attack under control. He couldn't handle that, he wasn't ready to go back there. He wanted to throw up. He wanted a warm little corner to curl up in and cover his head with his hands until his mind stopped moving in crazy circles and things stopped feeling like he was being crushed under something.
"No. Not Stark."
"Bucky-"
"Not. Stark."
Steve's voice turned gentle, the same soothing tone he used when trying to calm Bucky down from an episode. "Bucky, I know that you're not ready to go back there. And I'm not going to make you go back there. We'll worry about that later. Right now, what matters is that you're in pain with a broken arm. Even if we don't come back to Kiev to raid that base, you can't be without a functioning arm, not with the lives we lead."
The idea of having to go half-crippled scared Bucky, almost as much as having to revisit Howard's death to explain it to Tony and hope for forgiveness, or at least enough of a kindness for Steve's sake to get his arm repaired. But he couldn't go back there. He couldn't. He wasn't ready. Steve was very right about that.
"What're you going to tell him?" Words were difficult during these episodes- compounded by the pain -but he managed a few, searching for something in this idea that would settle him down. The pain in his left arm made his left eye feel slightly blind, it was almost enough to make him miss the chair. Almost. And then bringing up the Starks. Not what he needed right then.
"For right now? Nothing."
That took a few seconds to sink in past the pain and the fear and mostly the pain. Once he was sure he'd registered what Steve had said right, he turned his head again to stare at him. "You're going to lie to your friend about his father's death just to use him? Steve, that's not you."
Steve took in a large breath, like he was buying time to come up with a reply. "I'm more worried about you. I'll handle Tony. We don't have time right now for his temper to wear out to something reasonable so we can explain how it wasn't your fault. The pain you're in alone makes me willing to figure out how to get his help immediately. I don't know who else we can turn to."
Bucky could only stare at him for a long few seconds. "You've gotten cutthroat."
Steve looked out the cockpit. "You'd do the same for me. I owe you nothing less." He shrugged. "Besides, he'd do the same for Pepper if positions were reversed, and I'd hope we'd understand. I'll handle Tony. After your arm is fixed."
Bucky sighed, closing his eyes again, trying to will away the pain and keep it from feeding the tiny starts of an episode that the name Stark had brought up. "Fine. But only because I'd do it for you. I don't like that you've become like me, though."
There wasn't an immediate response forthcoming, and Bucky nearly dismissed the idea of getting one at all; when Steve got caught doing something he shouldn't do, he tended to get a bit quiet.
"You never had to see the stranger in your best friend's eyes," Steve said, voice low. "Not the way I did. I don't care what I have to do to make sure you never look at me that way again. I can't do that. You're not the only one that got messed up in this."
If Bucky could move his metal arm- the one closest to Steve -he would've put his hand on Steve's shoulder, the only response he could think of while being stuck in their seats. A hug would've been better. But there were no words to go with either gestures. Hydra had taken them away, and even if they hadn't, he simply had no idea what he could say to that. Not beyond "I'm sorry." He hoped that was enough.
He felt Steve's hand on his shoulder and neck, just past where the metal sank into flesh. That area hurt, was tender, but Bucky resisted the urge to wince, mentally clinging to the comfort it provided.
"It's not your fault. Hydra's the only one to blame in this. It's not the first time Hydra's made me run counter to my normal nature."
Bucky had to turn his whole head to see Steve- his left eye was still a bit blind from the pain and he seriously hoped that didn't turn out to be permanent -and looked at him, silent as he took that in. He wasn't sure he knew what Steve was talking about, and right that minute, he didn't want to know. He couldn't remember what it was, so either it was locked in a hole somewhere still, or it was something that happened after the train. In that case, he could take guesses, but he decided that he wasn't going to let his brain go down that further.
Steve's willingness to use a friend to help Bucky scared him enough as it was. He'd never wanted Steve to get to that point. Steve never should've had to rewrite his moral code just for Bucky. That was Bucky's job as the older brother.
But, Steve was a full-grown man, capable of making his own choices, and even though Bucky had rarely seen it in his friend, Steve was right: the mess Hydra made of Bucky affected them both.
With a deep sigh, Bucky turned his head again to watch forward out the cockpit. "We'll make them pay," he said, assuring himself as much as Steve.
The stop in Sweden was brief, just long enough to fuel up and for emergency medical personnel to get a look at Steve and Bucky for any wounds beyond Bucky's arm, which they flat out refused to touch. There were some surface wounds, a few burns, a couple scratches that had already stopped bleeding, and some bruises that were going to be tender for awhile. Nothing that wasn't expected.
They offered Bucky something for pain, and he declined. There really wasn't anything that was going stay in his system long enough to do any good anyway.
While the jet was getting refueled, Steve flagged down one of the first aid workers that had sat him and Bucky down for an exam. "I need to contact Tony Stark, he should be at the Avengers Tower in Manhattan," Steve said in Swedish, although his accent sounded different from the personnel they'd encountered. "Got a line I can use for that?"
The medic nodded. "Of course, Captain. Does it need to be on a secure line?"
"Shouldn't," Steve replied. "Just ask Tony if he's available to do some tech work for us."
The medic glanced at Bucky, and if Bucky had more energy, he'd snarl at him, just to scare him. It was obvious that 'tech work' was 'fix someone's mechanical arm'. The medic, however, was refraining from saying as much. Score one for him.
The med tech stepped outside of the room to put his call into the base's communications department, if Bucky had to guess, leaving Steve and Bucky mostly alone. Steve moved over to lean against the wall next to Bucky's chair. Upon seeing that Bucky's injury was mechanical and nothing they could help with, the medical staff had simply shown him to a comfortable chair to rest in while he and Steve waited on the refuling.
"I have a feeling this is probably a stupid question," Steve said in a low voice, switching to English.
Before he could get it out, Bucky interrupted him. "Then don't ask it. And to answer it, it feels like total protonic reversal." At Steve's blank look, Bucky growled, gingerly moving his metal arm by the wrist to sit on his lap. "Ghostbusters, Steve. That movie Sam made you watch."
"There's been a lot of movies Sam's told me to watch at this point. I remember that one, but I don't have any idea what protonic reversal means."
Bucky grit his teeth. Steve's normally perfect memory, failing him. It was unfair to expect him to remember every line from every movie he'd watched, but of all the times for him to forget. It meant Bucky had to try to remember how that phrase was explained. Not easily done while in enough pain to make him blind in one eye and make breathing an effort. "'Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.' Sound familiar?"
"Now it does." Steve raised an eyebrow and gave him a rather pointed look. "Although for being in so much pain, you're sure mouthy."
"I'm a cranky patient," Bucky said. "And I'm trying to think past the pain. Humor me."
Steve didn't reply at first, which Bucky took as a blessing because the pain was starting to get bad enough now for even sarcastic words to start finding that great abyss where most of his other words had gone to.
"You gonna be okay to get to New York?"
Bucky rested his head back on the wall behind him, trying not to make the pain too obvious, but he was stretching his ability. "No. I'll probably pass out, or throw myself off a cliff and hope it works this time."
"That's not funny." Steve sounded genuinely angry about that. Bucky didn't blame him.
"No, it's not, and neither is how much this fucking hurts."
"Tony'll fix it." His tone suggested that Steve might hold his shield over Tony's head until he agreed, and if Bucky had been in any better of a state of mind, he would've commented on it. Goddamnit, Steve, you're not the one that's supposed to have fucked up morals.
"Captain?" The med tech's voice interrupted any other thoughts or words Bucky might've dredged up past the pain. "We got ahold of an AI called JARVIS. He says Mister Stark isn't at the Tower right now and wanted to know if it's an emergency."
Bucky wanted to jump out of his chair and strangle the man. There was a large piece of shrapnel jammed in his arm and he couldn't think to tell JARIVS that yes, it was a fucking emergency?
The man was very lucky that Bucky didn't want to move unless he had to and one hand was disabled so strangling would be difficult.
Steve managed to sound like he was staying calm against his will when he answered in Swedish with that odd accent. "Yes, it is. Tell him Steve needs him to look at some advanced tech. Willing to pay."
Well, okay, if Steve actually paid Tony for this repair work, Bucky would feel a bit better about going to him. He hoped that Tony would demand payment.
The man disappeared again, and this time Bucky couldn't bring himself to say anything or even really think anything anymore. It hurt. His face hurt, he could feel muscles spasming all the way down the side of his face, his neck, the bit of flesh arm left, his rib cage. Everything was on fire.
This time, the medic returned almost right away. "The AI says that he will contact you on a secure line once you're in the air, and is sending you coordinates for your on-board navigation system."
Steve nodded once. "Thank you."
All that was left at that point was waiting for their quinjet to finish getting refueled. Bucky had no idea how much time passed before they were notified that it was finished, but he was fairly sure he spent part of that time not quite conscious.
They were escorted to their refueled jet by a few security personnel, then guided to take off. Bucky spent the whole time in his seat, trying to tune out the way his nerves were doing the riverdance all over the attached muscles, the relentless pounding stretching down his whole left side. He counted his heartbeats, slowed them down as if about to take a shot with a good snipe.
Steve initiated a communication with JARVIS once they were safely on their way towards the northern part of Greenland. "JARVIS, it's Steve. What's going on with Tony being out of town?"
Bucky leaned forward just enough to eye the coordinates that had been programmed into their navigation system. Somewhere in the southern coast area of California. That was as far as he cared to lean forward anymore though, so he sat back and closed his eyes again.
"Mister Stark and Miss Potts maintain permanent residency at the Avengers Tower in New York City," JARVIS replied. "However, Mister Stark missed having a quieter location to work on projects. He said he had more room and fewer people underfoot in a vacation house than he does at the Tower."
There was a pause while Steve took that in. Or something. Bucky's eyes were closed, he couldn't tell for certain. "Isn't putting it right back so close to the house the terrorists destroyed kinda risky?"
"The location is known only Mister Stark, Miss Potts, and Doctor Banner so far," JARVIS replied. "If you discount the government agencies that need to know for property tax purposes and local utilities companies. Those are registered under pseudonyms."
"Naturally. So he's willing to help out?"
"He is willing to assist with a technical problem, yes. However, he requests more information as to the nature of the problem."
There was an extended silence that prompted Bucky to look at Steve. Steve was staring at him. Bucky frowned. "What?"
"How much do you want Tony to know about your past? We won't go where you're not ready, but he might want to know about your identity."
If he were in a better state of mind, he would've sworn and put more thought into it. "Tell him what he needs to know. Just don't make me go back there."
He shied away when Steve reached over to pat his shoulder- everything in that area was hurting, no matter how comforting Steve intended that gesture to be, it was going to be painful.
Steve withdrew his hand and turned back to the comm. "Basic briefing? Bucky didn't die in the mission to capture Zola. He survived the fall. He's been experimented on, he's got roughly the same enhancements as me, but his left arm is computerized. He's got some shrapnel jammed pretty good in his arm just above his elbow and it's causing nerve pain. I have no idea what might be wrong in there, but Bucky's in a lot of pain. The quicker this can get repaired, the better he'll feel."
The conversation began to fade in Bucky's awareness as his brain started shutting down in protest to the pain levels.
He spent the rest of the trip passed out.