Bucky Barnes | Victor of District 10 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hollowvictor) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
makinglies2016-09-02 11:59 am
hollowvictor) wrote in makinglies2016-09-02 11:59 am
Gamesverse: Detention Center | Flight of the Falcon
It had been going so well. They'd busted into the Detention Center, guns blazing, only to find those they were trying to rescue had started to rescue themselves. Good thing too, cause more than likely, neither of their groups would have been able to make it all the way in or all the way out without the other.
The four of them were nearly out, the ruined Capitol out ahead of them and a new burst of Peacekeepers from who even knew where had burst from the depths of the building. Bucky had stopped to grant them cover, the two cyborgs too injured to risk stopping and fighting more than they already had.
There were more than Bucky had accounted for.
Part of him very nearly considered putting his gun to his own head before they could get their hands on him. He'd vowed so many years ago to take the Capitol down or die trying, he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of his capture. But he'd found someone who needed him. Someone worth the promised pain of living.
'Go. Go and finish this and then come back for me.' He didn't share the mental link the three of them did, but he had no doubt Sam knew. He remembered shouting to him, telling him to go and get his friends out, knowing at least Albert would stop Sam from running back in to save him. The risk would be too high. Bucky'd shot into the Peacekeepers until one finally got the jump on him and knocked him on the back of his head, turning his world black.
---
When he woke, the first thing he felt was pain. Searing pain through every limb and every vein as though his blood was on fire. He heard himself gasp and a sound ran in his ears, something keening and agonized. It took him a moment to realize it came from his own mouth.
Breath uneven but his mind slowly coming back to him, Bucky waited for his vision to clear and his head to stop buzzing so badly. The rest of his senses slowly caught up to him. He could feel he was on his back, metal straps on his wrists, ankles and across his chest. There was something in his arm, an IV maybe and there were machines all around him, offering incomprehensible readouts and beeping annoyingly. The room smelled dank and like chemicals and it took him to realize what he was staring up at wasn't a dark lab, it was a plain concrete room. Whatever they were doing here, they'd thrown it together in some room in the Detention Center.
It couldn't have been long then. War was wreaking the city, but Snow's pockets and forces still ran deep enough to do what he wanted with what he had. They surely would have moved him if they felt they could or had the time to do it. The rebels must still be in the area if they weren't moving.
Were they torturing him? Wouldn't they have wanted him awake for that? What point would there be now? Surely, that would just be a waste of their resources. It had to be something else then.
A gasp of pain ripped from his lungs and his eyes screwed shut when he tried to pull against the restraints. Whatever they'd done, it wasn't out of his system yet.
Which just begged a question that he felt foolish for not thinking of before: why in the hell was he alone?
Where were the peacekeepers?
The four of them were nearly out, the ruined Capitol out ahead of them and a new burst of Peacekeepers from who even knew where had burst from the depths of the building. Bucky had stopped to grant them cover, the two cyborgs too injured to risk stopping and fighting more than they already had.
There were more than Bucky had accounted for.
Part of him very nearly considered putting his gun to his own head before they could get their hands on him. He'd vowed so many years ago to take the Capitol down or die trying, he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of his capture. But he'd found someone who needed him. Someone worth the promised pain of living.
'Go. Go and finish this and then come back for me.' He didn't share the mental link the three of them did, but he had no doubt Sam knew. He remembered shouting to him, telling him to go and get his friends out, knowing at least Albert would stop Sam from running back in to save him. The risk would be too high. Bucky'd shot into the Peacekeepers until one finally got the jump on him and knocked him on the back of his head, turning his world black.
---
When he woke, the first thing he felt was pain. Searing pain through every limb and every vein as though his blood was on fire. He heard himself gasp and a sound ran in his ears, something keening and agonized. It took him a moment to realize it came from his own mouth.
Breath uneven but his mind slowly coming back to him, Bucky waited for his vision to clear and his head to stop buzzing so badly. The rest of his senses slowly caught up to him. He could feel he was on his back, metal straps on his wrists, ankles and across his chest. There was something in his arm, an IV maybe and there were machines all around him, offering incomprehensible readouts and beeping annoyingly. The room smelled dank and like chemicals and it took him to realize what he was staring up at wasn't a dark lab, it was a plain concrete room. Whatever they were doing here, they'd thrown it together in some room in the Detention Center.
It couldn't have been long then. War was wreaking the city, but Snow's pockets and forces still ran deep enough to do what he wanted with what he had. They surely would have moved him if they felt they could or had the time to do it. The rebels must still be in the area if they weren't moving.
Were they torturing him? Wouldn't they have wanted him awake for that? What point would there be now? Surely, that would just be a waste of their resources. It had to be something else then.
A gasp of pain ripped from his lungs and his eyes screwed shut when he tried to pull against the restraints. Whatever they'd done, it wasn't out of his system yet.
Which just begged a question that he felt foolish for not thinking of before: why in the hell was he alone?
Where were the peacekeepers?
no subject
Goddamn but Sam loved him.
The second he'd laid eyes on Jet and Albert, he'd pulled them into hugs as tight as he dared, with their injuries, and the only reason he'd let go after less than a minute was that they had more pressing concerns than a proper reunion right now.
And then it all goes to shit, and he's watching Bucky get slowly overwhelmed.
For a moment he panics, wings flaring, because he knows just how much Bucky doesn't want to be captured by the Capitol. It's the fear of what Bucky might do that has him fighting to get to Bucky's side, turning on anyone who tries to stop him - except then it's Albert and Jet, and even as messed up as he was months ago, he'd know them. And he stops enough to get a closer look at Bucky.
Sam knows what Bucky's planning on doing almost before he locks eyes with him. By now he doesn't need a mental link to understand what Bucky's thinking in a time like this - but he sure as hell wishes they had one, so he could get across exactly what he thinks of that idea.
He shouts back 'Don't you fucking dare Barnes' and Sam's not leaving no matter what Bucky tells him, he's not. It's worse than when Bucky had to pull him away from Albert to escape, way back when Sam was still under the Capitol's control. The thing is that Sam's practical, always has been. He's the guy that tells the hard truths, that knows sacrifices have to be made and isn't afraid to make them.
But all of that gets blown out of the water when it's Bucky, when he's looking at losing the man he loves and he can't just fucking stand there and watch as his world gets ripped away from him, not again.
It's Albert who gets up in his face to stop him from going after Bucky, Sam's not out of control enough to attack him - someone else, yeah, but not his brothers - but that doesn't mean he doesn't fight it. He shouts at him to fuck off, that it's Sam's fault that Bucky's in here in the first place, that they owe Bucky better than this. That this is gonna be on Albert and Sam will hold it against him. He's pretty sure the word hate gets thrown around in there, but he's not sure if he's talking about Albert or Bucky or himself.
Because Albert stops him him enough to think, and Sam knows he's gonna do what Bucky told him. Sam leaves, and he makes it out with the two people he'd gone in there swearing he'd do anything to get back, but it isn't even bittersweet. It's marred by the emptiness that echoes through him, by the way he only feels like half a person - and by the regret for the things he said that grows bigger the further they get away.
He murmurs apologies that he means, but they feel hollow. But then again, everything feels hollow, and Sam can't - he's dealing better than he would have months ago, fresh from the Capitol and with Bucky as pretty much his only tether to reality. But he's dealing with it worse than he would have before, a lot worse, and knowing that doesn't help anything.
Sam focuses on Jet and Albert, on trying to keep his brothers safe, and on trying to win this war. The sooner they finish this, the better chance he has at getting Bucky out.
But when Sam's injured enough to hold him back from pressing on, he takes it as a blessing. If he's honest - he could push through, he could. He's finished missions hurt worse than this, and with his cybernetics, he could keep going. But he doesn't want to. Because if he's honest, the only reason he got hurt this bad in the first place is because his heart isn't in this fight any more. It's back with Bucky, who he fucking left in the detention center, who deserves better than to be an acceptable casualty in this war, someone left behind because there was a cause more important.
As though there was anything more important than Bucky Barnes.
But he waits long enough to heal up a little, enough that he can be effective - and then he sends out his birds. Sam hasn't used them much, except for Kate. He'd wanted to hide them from the Capitol, didn't want them to get involved more than having them watch out for his family when he couldn't be everywhere at once, but things change.
Things change, and at this point he's so desperately focused on getting Bucky back that he doesn't think he could stop them from searching for him if he tried. Sam doesn't think they'd have had enough time to move Bucky out of the detention center, not with a war going on around them, so that's where he makes his way back to.
Sam might be just one man, but he's never been more grateful for his cybernetics now as he moves through the Peacekeepers trying to stop him. He's not sure what it says about him that the shield has never felt more like an extension of him, almost as much as his wings do, but he doesn't care. Not when it means he can cut through swaths of Peacekeepers as he twists in mid air, wings curling around him and flinging his shield out ahead of him.
His birds are mostly out searching, but some of them give him cover, providing a distraction as he kills his way into the detention center. For once, even the low level awareness that this isn't right, that he wouldn't have done this back when he was human is silent.
Sam would have done this back when he was human, if they'd taken Bucky. He just probably wouldn't have succeeded.
There's a flash of awareness at the back of his mind - they've found him - but Sam doesn't falter as he shoots down another Peacekeeper. He can't get distracted right now, not even with something like hope or relief.
"Go," he murmurs, a quiet plea. He can't get to Bucky yet, but he needs Bucky to know that he's almost there, that he just needs to hang on a little longer.
And if that means sending a tiny sparrow on ahead, one who can duck under the door and hop up onto Bucky's chest to chirp at him while the sound of fighting gets closer, well. He'll just have to hope that works.
no subject
It was vague, detail-less faces around him, garbled words his brain couldn't sort, nothing useful. But just as he thought the non-stop pain might just drive him back into unconsciousness, it ebbed, turning into more of a throb that matched the beeping from the heart monitor. Whatever it was, it was passing, he could get through it, he could.
There were sounds in the distance, now that his ears weren't full of beeping and the sound of his own blood rushing, a fight? Was the war really so close that he could hear it through these thick walls?
Something chirped over his shoulder and then fluttered down to his chest and peered at him. A sparrow, a little brown thing, there'd been so many in District 10, they'd been considered pests. This wasn't a pest, it was the single best thing he could have ever seen.
It wasn't a war he was hearing. It was Sam. His Sam.
Part of him felt a surge of protective anger, what was he doing? Bucky had told him to go! Had he come back? Was he alone? What if he got hurt trying to save him?, but another part of him felt immeasurable relief. Sam Wilson, his one-man army. Bucky'd give anything to see him again when he hadn't even been sure he'd get the chance. Not before they'd brainwashed him, at least.
"Hey." He smiled at the sparrow and tried not to wince at how rough and raspy his voice sounded. It was okay. Sam was coming.
no subject
It's something to hold onto, because of course Sam had come back. It'd taken everything out of him to leave Bucky behind in the first place, and now the only thing that matters is making sure that mistake didn't cost him all he had.
There's silence in the halls now, no more echoes of gunfire or shouts or footsteps, and Sam assumes that means he's at least got a lull before any more might come after him. More importantly, it means there's nothing between him and where Bucky's being kept, and he bashes the shield into the door until the lock gives way and Sam can charge inside.
Anger rises up almost immediately, an all encompassing rage at the Capitol, at anyone who even touched Bucky, but he manages to let it pass. Mostly because it's not helping right now. He moves to Bucky's side, eyes flashing red as he takes in Bucky's vital signs, scanning for injuries, trying to figure out why the fuck he's hooked up to all these machines - but he doesn't like the nagging suspicion he's starting to have.
There's no way he can be this close to Bucky without touching him, though, and his fingers are tangling in Bucky's hair before he even realizes it, leaning down to kiss him.
And then he drops the shield to the ground so he can start undoing the straps holding Bucky down.
"Don't ever ask me to leave you again."
no subject
Sam's fingers are in his hair and he's already leaning his face up as much as he can to meet that kiss with all the need and joy and relief hammering through his veins.
"I won't."
What he suspected to be empty words he was surprised to find he meant. He'd wanted Sam safe, thought to himself it would surely be better if Sam got his friends away than to have them all lost to the Capitol. Logically, it was better, but he didn't think either of them could take it again. If he'd allowed himself to remember how torn apart his heart was when he'd lost Sam initially, maybe he wouldn't have made that call and done the same thing to the man he loved.
As soon as the straps were undone, Bucky's arms reached out to pull Sam close in a tight hug. Tighter than he used to give, though it was more like an observation in the back of his mind than an actual warning.
"I'm sorry. Thank you for coming back."
no subject
For as practical as Sam is, logic means absolutely nothing when it comes to Bucky. There's a big part of him that knows that he and Bucky are too dependent on each other, that they've been that way for a while, but he honestly doesn't care. Bucky promising that he won't make that call again, it means everything.
Once Bucky's free, Sam sinks into the hug, burying his face in the crook of Bucky's neck. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Sam notices that Bucky's grip on him is tighter than it'd ever been before - notices and knows, distantly, because it's almost the same way that Sam had been able to hug tighter when he came back from the Capitol - but that's so far down on his list right now. He likes that Bucky's holding onto him that tight, that he can return it. It reminds him that they're both real, that they're back together.
"I'll always come back, farm boy, ain't nothing that'd ever be able to keep me from getting to you." He pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against Bucky's. "It's you and me, Buck, okay? We're never going to lose each other again."