#on what smooth surfaces do or do not trigger the Water Glass Terror

[tiktaaliker]

i have this thing where sometimes i see a smooth surface (cgi is specifically bad for this) and some part of my brain goes. hey wouldnt it be fucked up if that was Flawlessly and Perfectly Smooth. and i go yeah that would be fucked up and proceed to have an anxiety attack over the concept of a really really really flat rock face or some shit like that

[aspiratixxn]

Flowers on the grave of memories (2/?)

Summary: Meeting the winter soldier and the remnants of one James Buchanan Barnes. 

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, torture, mentions of death, brainwashing.

Word Count: 1670

Notes: I really wanted to play with the idea of some kind of goo because when I’m not me it feels gooey. Continuation from @nacho-bucky‘s writing challenge. Anyways I hope you enjoy!

Find Part 1 [here]

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The winter soldier is neat and organized, like beige file cabinets with individual files labeled in square text. Everything is done cleanly, orderly, obsessively. Know only the mission, nothing more and nothing less. Forget no spare detail, not until the report is given. The cabinets sit in an endless white room, blindingly white. Tucked in the corner though, there is a cabinet swathed in black, no handles visible to open. It rattles, at times, but nothing ever comes out and eventually it stops so he doesn’t pay any mind to it.

Except one day it explodes. It bursts open and black sludge pours out, drowning the white floors, crawling up the walls and dousing the room in darkness. The file cabinets are but cubes haphazardly thrown about now. He doesn’t understand, doesn’t know what’s happening but he knows what triggered it. His target, who could dodge and fight. That man, the one who had looked at him like he was the answer to the universe.

“Bucky?”

Was it someone from Before? He doesn’t know and it’s hard to decipher anything in the sludge. It’s a blanket of pain, pain that stings and burns and aches. Instead, he growls and lunges for the throat.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

It gives him a splitting headache later, that name. Bucky. Who in the goddamn fuck is that? He stares, in the lab, out towards the stains on the wall. Pierce comes in and Winter looks up. Though Pierce is speaking, none of it registers. “I know him.” A sigh, exasperated and definitely not willing to listen. But he can’t stop thinking about it. “But. I knew him.”

“Wipe him and start over.”

The sludge in his mind needs to be shoved back, so he can do his work. He takes the mouth guard and bites down hard, even though they’ve just barely started. The chair restraints fling out and around his arms and he feels his heart race, his breath coming in pants and wheezes too fast. The panic shows in his chest’s rise and falls, in his wide eyes though he might try to be brave. The machine rotates, the terrifying prongs sparking in preparation. They latch into his head and they buzz and he screams. Screams as the sludge is forced back, even as it wriggles and fights. No, no! I’ve finally seen him! No!

The doctors fix it, temporarily every few missions. They use their machines, use their drugs, and force it back into its file cabinet, but it’s sloppy. It bubbles and oozes, trying to see the other cabinets again. They force it back every time and he accepts it, it’s easier than trying to deal with it himself after all. He’s a short-term tool, he knows that.

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Each mission is coordinated and scripted, just how it should be. Not like that fight with the curious man. And yet the darkness lurks against the edge of his mind, ready to consume him again. He doesn’t like that. It’s too much of a variable, so he requests that they do the shock treatment just before being sent out on the final mission. Well, perhaps not requests so much as coerces them into it, but the Winter Soldier does not stand for uncertainty. There is only the mission and the mission’s successful completion.

Someone had argued once that this blood lust would come back for him. That someday someone would face him with the same edges and chip at his perfect blade.

It sounds like thunder, but feels like an earthquake and he’s thrown, slamming against the thick glass. If it had been any thinner, perhaps he’d be free falling to his death again. Again? Who? Has he died before? Then he’s pinned under the bars and he shrieks, panic pushing his limbs to action. But as strong as he was made, there are some things he can’t do. Bile rises to his throat and he wildly looks around, looking for something, anything. He can’t die here, not yet, not again.

And there he is again, that man whose very presence drowns him. He swallows thickly, eyes so wide they might just pop out of his head. He won’t beg for mercy, not like this. He refuses, it’s a fate worse than death to be begging for mercy like so many he’s seen before. And he certainly won’t do it to this man, who’s bloodied appearance makes his heart ache and cry (no, Steve, Steve! Steve! I’m right here! Please, Steve!). But the man doesn’t do anything to him, doesn’t try to kill him or leave him there to die. Instead he lifts the bar even an inch up, giving the winter soldier just enough space to dart out, like a cat escaping through a closed door. They wheeze together on the glass, even as everything rumbles around them, collapsing on itself.

The black bursts from the cabinet again, and he’s losing control and he’s there, he’s there punching and punching and punching until there’s blood spattering against the glass. Why didn’t he fight back? Why did he throw away his shield? Why why why why why- The black isn’t just covering things now, it’s filling the room. It’s consuming the cabinets, consuming the fabricated memories, consuming the protocols, consuming everything that the winter soldier is and he screams, smashing his fist into the other man’s face one more time. He grinds out each word, “YOU. ARE. MY. MISSION.” A pathetic attempt to regather himself, as if saying that with enough desperation would make it true.

But it hurts. It hurts, hurts, hurts, it’s cold, it’s cold? The winter soldier doesn’t feel cold. His hand is reared back and he can’t breathe, his chest so tight it might just crush his heart and lungs. There’s buzzing in his ears, whispers from someone who shouldn’t exist. It whispers of darkness, cold, fear, pain, loneliness, nostalgia. And what cut through the buzzing, are the quiet words, “So finish it. Cause I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

End of the line. With you ‘til the end of the line, end of the line, end of the line.  Winter is consumed, in murky memories that blur at the edges. Laughter, bright and lovely and loving. Touches that are firm and kind and warm. Hugs that feel like home. He can’t handle this, these aren’t his to know, and he lurches back, terror firing off every nerve. It’s like he’s been doused in ice water, everything tingles and burns and he can’t breathe and-

He needs to move, needs to go because he failed his mission, he failed. But his body won’t move, doesn’t want to move. The exhaustion and wounds run bone deep, suddenly weighing his bones, and he can’t make himself move. It’s reflex that grabs the railing as the glass caves and the blond man drops, falling without any resistance. Not even an attempt to reach out for the railing. And Winter watches him.

It’s graceful, in the way that battlefields are. With the still smoldering edges of debris and the man slowly vanishing to a blur of blue and red. The small white water splashes that he sees make something inside of him crumble. Crumple like the warping metal around him.

He swallows.

He lets go.

He falls.

And again there’s that sensation of dying. The room in his mind is completely submerged in black, and the memory sparks. Falling surrounded by blue and grey and white, away from that man, falling away and crying out and absolutely surrounded by the bite of winter chill. This time it’s falling from blue skies, warm sunlight, a few clouds fluffy in the sky. The green of the forest blurs past along with some grey-red-orange pieces.

He takes the dive, executed like an Olympic gold medalist. There’s hardly a sound as he hits the waves at near maximum velocity. It’s cold but not like before. He closes his fist around a mop of wet fabric but for a moment, even though they’re in the water, he feels weighted. Like he can never rise to the surface and his body reacts without his brain, clawing for the surface.

If the dive down was simple, the way up is like dragging himself from the fields of punishment in Tartarus. An unending, cruel punishment to always be pulled down when the goal is the surface. When he breaks, it’s like a baby’s first breath. And he wheezes, as he treads water with the unconscious weight in his arms, looking for a shore.

Nothing looks like a shore, but he blindly chooses what looks to be the closest tree and aims there. None of his movements have the same efficiency as before but they’re still smooth as butter.

It would be easy, to just leave him there to die. He’s meant to die after all, it’s the mission. And yet he doesn’t let go, doesn’t let him fall into the water again and into its dark depths. Why? Why is he rescuing this man? The mission- The mission doesn’t matter anymore because I’m with him ‘til the end of the line. Winter stops moving again, bobbing in the water in an almost comic manner. Who was that? Why did it sound so familiar? Why does it ache?

His feet hit the ground and he huffs as he takes the last steps up the shore. The gravel crunches beneath his feet and he drops his luggage with an unceremonious thud. He has to go, he has to hide, he can’t be found like this. The black sludge is half urging him but Winter also can’t risk being found again. They do not treat failures well, and even if he is an elite unit, anything that doesn’t serve its job is dead weight. So he staggers off, into the woods, but it feels like he’s leaving something behind with that man laying on the shore. He swallows the feelings and locks them away, somewhere in the sludge.