Chapter Text
It’s the smell that brings the memory back. Bucky stops at the corner of Main Street and Roosevelt as the sun is climbing over the horizon and starting to pick out the grimy stains on the security doors of beauty parlors and pawn shops. When he can’t sleep, he’s taken to walking in Queens because he won’t run into anyone who knows him here. He watches a fish vendor dump the slimy ice from yesterday’s fish, and the scent of that briny sludge slams into him like an attack.
“Yeah, take it, take it.”
Grit of the alley digging into his knees.
“Sweet little mouth, good as a cunt.”
Fingers tangled in his hair, demanding.
“That’s it, boy. You love it. Every time, I know you love it.”
Reflexive tears wetting his eyes when he gags.
“See you tomorrow, honey.”
The money, damp as he clenches his fist around it.
And Bucky remembers. Before the war, he would come here in the early mornings, and for one of the same reasons: so that no one he knew would see him. So Steve would never know. The fish smell blows past him on a smoggy breeze, and Bucky charges through a group of oncoming commuters to brace himself against a brick wall.
For a moment, he thinks he might vomit, but he can’t. His body’s too well-disciplined.
--
Steve touches Bucky on the shoulder and flashes him a brilliant smile on his way into the kitchen. He looks at Bucky like that every day: as if he’s something good, something Steve cares for. Bucky has been thinking, recently, that he could grow used to that, drinking in Steve’s regard like a man dying of thirst. With every smile, every gentle touch and kind word, Steve reminds him that he should be that brave, charming, happy man, should be the Bucky Barnes that Steve remembers.
But he’s not that man, Bucky knows now. Steve never knew who Bucky really was. He’s the man who, when a customer wanted to come on his face, thought of the rent and just said, “Costs extra.” Who, when a sweaty, balding man insisted on keeping up a running commentary (“Suck it, you filthy fairy, you cock-hungry whore.”), simply closed his eyes and sucked harder to finish as soon as he could. Who, when an older gentleman with a fancy aftershave smell pulled him in close and whispered, “I’ll pay triple if you let me fuck you,” only nodded. He’d said yes so easily. He’s always had this darkness in him, perfectly suited to be used. He is made for it, just like his handlers had always told him.
Steve’s wrong. There’s no perfect Bucky Barnes to be, and never has been.
--
He asks Natasha to get him some files, and sits on the floor under the kitchen table, reviewing the information. Natasha doesn’t ask why he needs the intel, or if he wants to talk, and Bucky is shamefully grateful.
He lays the recovered Hydra documents out in chronological order, placing the photographs from medical examinations on top. Each injury is painstakingly catalogued, even ones deliberately inflicted. Bucky makes a few pencil notations—mostly corrections to the English translations that have been provided alongside copies of the original documents, but also a few additions to timelines or facility layouts as he remembers them.
There’s no direct mention in the reports of why Hydra began sexual use of the asset, but now that he understands, he looks for the evidence between the lines of dry, bureaucratic documentation. Perhaps they knew from the beginning what kind of man he was, and that’s why they chose him. Or perhaps they knew the first time he killed at their command; they recognized a pathetic wretch who would submit to any indignity, obey even the most depraved commands without question. They knew he could be used for anything.
So all of it, then, wasn’t the tearing down of an innocent man to remake him as a monster. He had already grown that darkness inside of him. The scientists had simply been plumbing his depths, searching for a limit to how far the soldier could go. Whether he was struggling to breathe around a cock plugging his throat, or writhing with his handler’s fist inside him, or holding his legs spread wide so the doctors could attach electric clips to his balls, he had never said no.
He makes himself look at every photograph, observing his body in various states of disrepair. No one would have given in so easily, no one who had not already been soiled and broken. Steve would have fought. He would never have done what Bucky had done, because he didn’t deserve it the way Bucky did, wasn’t made to be taken and used and tied down and filled up and--
“Bucky?” Steve calls from the front hall. He stops when he crosses the threshold and sees Bucky sheltered under the table, crouched protectively over his research. “Oh, hey.” Then he blinks and keeps moving, as though he sees a super-assassin cowering like a child every day. “I brought hot dogs. Extra relish. You always liked relish.”
Bucky makes himself crawl out from under the table, and after a moment of shaking away the rush of memories that come with that movement (“That’s it, down like the bitch you are.”), Bucky pushes to his feet.
Steve presses two wrapped hot dogs into Bucky’s hand and turns back to the counter to unwrap his own, keeping up a determinedly cheerful commentary about his morning errands that fuzzes to white noise in Bucky’s ears.
Bucky walks three steps to the trashcan, and lifts the lid. He opens his hand and lets the food fall, watches it disappear into darkness and wishes he could do the same.
“Bucky?” Steve’s stopped his monologue. He’s coming closer. “Are you—“
“You should forget about what Bucky liked.” When Steve frowns, Bucky tastes something sour as unwanted come. He has to explain. “He’s not worth thinking about.”
Steve swallows hard. “Would you like something else? A sandwich, maybe. Or we could get pizza.”
“I have to go.” He leaves Steve standing alone, which is an improvement, and goes back to his room, turns on the cold water, and sits under the spray until he can’t think for shivering.