Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The worst part isn’t that Steve knows.

The worst part isn’t that Steve puts it together, so quickly that Bucky can practically hear the pieces clicking into place on the flight home.  Because how could he expect Steve not to, with the way they found him, with the way Rumlow left him, and the part of him that isn’t rattling hollow and empty wants to laugh hysterically.  Of course Steve was going to figure it out.

The worst part is that Steve knows, and figures it out, and cares.

The flight home could be the first, with tense silence around him while Bucky stares at his hands and doesn’t know what to say.  Except Natalia and Barton aren’t there, tracking down Rumlow.  Except Sam’s nervous and doesn’t bother hiding it, flicking through his ipod too fast to settle on anything.  So the silence stretches out under the throb of the engines, Steve’s hand heavy on Bucky’s thigh.  It could be any flight, with Rogers or Rumlow or anyone in the seat beside him.  The hand on his thigh is warm and broad, thumb and index finger pressed sharply into the muscle to keep him in place.

Rogers and Sam supervise his trip to medical, hovering just out of sight during the examination and talking softly past him after.  No one touches him without latex protection.

There’s nothing medical can tell them that they don’t already know.  Ingrained situational response.  Evaluation for further fieldwork required.  Microtears consistent with penetration, multiple subcutaneous hematomas.

Rogers clarifies that only one of the hematomas is new, because he and Sam know better than anyone.

He follows Rogers back to quarters because no one tells him not to, and Rogers sidesteps away from him when Bucky leans too close as they walk.  Their bootsteps echo off empty glass and stone corridors and Bucky wishes for Sam’s easy presence, but Wilson’s been dismissed somewhere since medical.  Rogers doesn’t want an audience.  Bad enough that it has to be done at all.

The quiet emptiness of Rogers’ apartment used to be a comfort, and Rogers kicks out of his boots while Bucky pads silently behind him.  They’re reflected briefly off the dark glass of the faux windows before the AI switches it to a view of the grounds, grass stretching to trees.  Too dangerous to put living quarters above ground, too claustrophobic without fake windows.  Bucky catches Rogers’ eyes in the reflection for a half second before they’re both erased by faux sunlight.

Rogers sets out a change of clothes for him and points him at the shower without saying anything, and Bucky takes the unspoken order.  He still smells like sweat and come and fear and Rumlow’s hands, but the water can’t wash that last one away.  Rogers’ shampoo smells like sharp, uncomplicated citrus.  Clean and honest, and that’s as much of a lie on Bucky as everything else.

The clothes are Bucky’s, the set of dark blue flannel pants and soft black tshirt Wilson gave him that first morning.  Not makin’ pancakes for someone wearing jeans to the breakfast table, it’s a Sunday.

The boxers Wilson picked out are ruined, the black pair with the little flowers in the trash.  The rest of the set, decorative and soft, blue with black flowers, pink with black plaid, gray with blue flowers, are back in the bare little apartment still nominally called Bucky’s even though he’s slept in Rogers or Wilson’s beds six nights out of seven for the last four months.  

It’s okay to wanna look good, man.  Lot of options these days, pick what you want.

You look good, Buck.  Real good.

Christ it’s pretty like that.

The boxers Rogers set out are plain black, nondescript, utilitarian.  Nothing anyone wants to look at.

Rogers is showered and changed by the time Bucky’s dressed.  Gone to the gym and back, probably, his short gold hair sticking up still damp.  He’s beautiful in all the ways Bucky has never been, sitting there on the bed.

There’s text on the tablet in his hands that Rogers closes before Bucky can see more than snippets.  

—incapable of consent—conditioned fawn response—trained to respond to performances of authority—

Bucky sits next to him on the bed, aching.  In his shoulders, in his chest, behind his eyes.  His neck and throat and thighs feel hot, burned.  Scalded.  Deep, like a radiation burn or oil, but the skin’s unbroken.  The pain makes him sag against Rogers, the strings that have been holding him up cut.

Rogers puts an arm around him, and it almost shatters him, almost breaks him, the tiny pieces he’s been holding together for a year starting to slip through his fingers.  He twists into Rogers, looking for something, trying to hide in him, cowardly and disgusting.  Rogers smells like his citrus shampoo, clean and sharp and honest.  Bucky smells like sweat and fear and come and Rumlow’s hands.

You like that, sweetheart?

Rogers puts a hand on the back of his neck, fingers in his hair and thumb brushing his cheek, and Bucky twists up to kiss him because this is familiar, this is knowable, this is safe.

Christ I missed you.

Christ you’re pathetic.

Rogers’ hands go still, pull back.  Rogers pushes himself back, putting distance between them, because he knows.  “Bucky, I’m not sure—I don’t think this is such a good idea right now.”

Bucky flinches back like he’s been burned, a blink and a swallow to avoid Rogers’ knowing hands.  

Fucking pathetic.

Rogers moves further back, slow, telegraphing his movements so the asset doesn’t spook.  “I was just thinking it might be good for us to, you know, slow down for a bit.  You don’t—you don’t have to feel like you have to do this,” Rogers says, and his hands are carefully still in his lap where Bucky can’t touch him.

Disgusting, who’d want it after that.

“Are you okay?” Rogers says.  Shut the fuck up.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I—“ Bucky starts, chokes on it.  “You’re right,” he says, past his throat closing up.

“You can—“ Rogers’ hand moves, goes still again in his lap.  “Your room’s still there, if you need the space.  We don’t have to do this.  You don’t—”  Rogers goes silent.  Nothing else to say.  Rogers has always been kinder than he needs to be.

There’s a terrible shuddering in his chest, juddering and unsteady.

Heartbeat.  His heartbeat.  That’s what his heartbeat feels like, under Rogers’ eyes, under Rumlow’s hands.

Rogers is silent as Barnes stands, and it’s as much of a dismissal as he’ll ever get from Rogers, and he takes it gratefully.

The apartment—holding cell—is as bare as when they first put him in it almost a year ago.  Narrow bed, hard mattress, a dresser with uniforms, running gear.  Necessities.  Wilson and Rogers’ additions.  His clothes live here but he never has.

He doesn’t sleep, but he never used to.  Not like he’ll ever pass for normal, and now Rogers knows that, so he doesn’t try.  The hours of quiet are almost like sleep, and without the soft breathing of a team or a handler or the bowstring tension of sitting watch to break the meditative stillness of it.

Swallowing hurts.  The skin around his eyes prickles hot.  

He stirs at five, dresses and trains at five after, eats at ten to seven.  Precise as clock work in the empty, bare little room, because he’d always been, had no other way to be.

There’s a soft tap on the door at precisely seven, and Rogers stands there in running gear, because of course he does.  Wilson stands behind him, light on the balls of his feet despite his smile.  They’re ready for the unpredictable, poised and hair trigger.  Barnes stands aside to let them in, because an unspoken order is still an order.

They talk at each other and past him, empty nothing filling the room as he changes and pulls on a shirt.  Out of leggings for pushups and stretches, into sweatshirt and sweatpants for running outside.  He can feel their eyes on his back as he strips, but there’s nowhere to hide in the little room, no part of him that they can’t see and dissect.

Why d’you think it’s scarred all around the arm if it doesn’t scar anywhere else?  Dunno.  Cauterized, maybe?  One way to find out.

Running’s honest, the air cold and damp above ground, the edge of thaw enough to make the cold air heavy and clean.  Rogers and Barnes lap Wilson and the training squads, and Rogers doesn’t say anything until they’re standing over a panting Wilson who grins and curses.  Rogers directs his jokes and his looks at Wilson, keeping careful distance between himself and Barnes.

They walk back to the bare little apartment and Barnes follows because no one tells him not to.  He opens the door for them, but Wilson and Rogers stop just out of reach.  They say something about meetings and move to go.

Rogers stops a few strides away, looks back.  Wilson stops, watches, stays where he is as Rogers walks back to where Barnes is still waiting by the door, watching but not looking at either of them.

Rogers stands closer than he has since the plane, ducking his head to look at Barnes’ face.  He reaches out to put a hand on Barnes’ elbow and the asset stays still.  “Buck, you—you know you could have told me, right?” Rogers says, quiet, barely audible to him, low enough that Wilson can’t over hear.  “I wouldn’t have asked you to—I wouldn’t have asked if I’d known.”

Barnes nods tightly, eyes on the floor, because eye contact is a challenge, defiance is a provocation, and he’s had seventy years to learn that wishing for something doesn’t make it true, doesn’t make it stop.  Rogers was going to find out sooner rather than later, and it had been a delusion to keep it from him.  Barnes keeps his eyes down as Rogers starts again.  “You’re—“

—fucking pathetic.

—fucking disgusting.

—just fuckin’ beautiful.

Whatever Rogers was going to say hangs in the air between them unspoken.  “I’ll—see you around?” Rogers says, and he nods tightly again, because where else does he have to go.

Chapter Text

They leave at ten after eight.  He’s out of the shower at twenty after.  At five after nine the therapist wants to know what happened; at ten after nine he tells her.  She asks about Vientiane, about Rumlow, about Hydra.  About Pierce and order and pain.

At quarter after she asks how he feels.

At twenty after she asks again.  

At half past he lists the pain in his chest, the hot prickling pain around his eyes, the dull choking pain in his throat.

She asks if there were other times.  If it happened before.  How it happened before.  

She doesn’t ask: 

Why it happened before, why he let it happen again.

Why is clear enough, even to him.  Especially to him.

She asks what he wants.  Five minutes later she asks what he needs.  He asks for a glass of water.

She ends with a list of objectives.  Physical therapist at eleven; massage therapist at one.  Lunch with Wilson or Rogers or both.  Sleep.  Exercise.  Dinner with Wilson or Rogers or both.  Complete as many objectives as possible before next session, make contact in case of emergency.

The physical therapist is at the gym.  

Rogers is at the gym.

Boxing.  Angry.  Betrayed.  Barnes hovers to watch him, the beautiful lines of his back, the tension in his arms, the pain in his movements.  It’s too much to watch and Barnes has always been a coward.  To apologize he’d have to interrupt, so he doesn’t.

The physical therapist is necessary pain, walking him through the motions of stretching the scarred tissue around his arm, burning then easing some of the heavy pain in his shoulders, neck, and thighs.  She asks where she can put her hands, because she’s always asked, and laughs when he asks her to stretch his arm in the way that makes his back crack again.  Her hands are small and strong, she’s small and strong, and the precise, painful order of the session is a comfort before dragging himself through the rest of the objectives.  She doesn’t pull away when he leans against her briefly at the end, Rogers gone.

The AI says Wilson is in the cafeteria, in their usual spot overlooking the grounds.  Real windows, real sunshine up here, weak as it is in the cloudy gray of a New York March.  The therapist said to stick to his routines as much as possible; high protein, high iron, complex carbohydrates and sugars.  Sleep and water and exercise.  Order.  

Wilson is in civilian clothes, normal.  Colonel Rhodes sits across from Wilson, dangerous and skeptical.  Barnes hesitates too long, caught.  The girl who sees everything sits near the windows, watching him.  The cafeteria is exposed, open.  Too many bodies, too many eyes, lunch at noon and he stands out like a blister in the crowd.  He’s visible from every angle, from the inside and the outside, the girl who sees everything searching him and Rhodes weighing him.  

He holds the cafeteria tray so tightly he can feel his heartbeat in his right hand, but the therapist put this on the list of objectives.  She didn’t say what to do if the objectives were contradictory and impossible.

There’s a compromise.  Half measures and tactical retreat.  He sits where Wilson won’t see him, eats without meeting Colonel Rhodes’ critical, measuring look, goes through the motions of eating the dry, over cooked beef and drinking the thick, grainy protein smoothie.

Goes absolutely still when Wilson looks over his shoulder and stands, slow and easy and inevitable as Rumlow.

“Mind if I sit?” Wilson asks, and hesitates just long enough to make it a question before seating himself on the bench at Barnes’ right elbow.  He keeps his hands visible and flat on the table, minimizing the appearance of threat, not facing Barnes straight on.  Barnes does the same, matching Wilson’s even breathing, opening his body language to mirror.

Head up, shoulders back.  Make eye contact.  Smile.

Act like a fucking person.

Wilson eyes him up and down, looking for something in him.

Christ, don’t look at me like that.  Fucking creepy.

“Bucky, are you okay?” Wilson says finally.  The tray sits between them, cold and neglected.  “I’ll back off if you tell me to, but you just—you don’t seem okay, man.”

 Swallowing hurts.  Talking hurts.  His hands curl around each other in his lap, the knuckles of the right aching in the left.  “Just—needed some space.  Some time.”

Won’t remember it in a couple hours anyway.

Wilson looks right through him, like he’s peeled open raw or about to be.  “Yeah, man, I know Steve said you needed some space, but what do you need?”  Wilson’s hands flex on the table and Barnes flinches away from him, a hard blink and half turn of his face.

“Can I touch you?  Put a hand on your shoulder?” Wilson asks, leaning towards him, body language open.  Barnes nods because there’s no reason not to; it never made a difference, not for Rumlow, not for Rogers, so why should it make a difference with Wilson.

Wilson’s hand is light and warm, barely fingertips ghosting over Barnes’ right shoulder through the thin fabric of the shirt.  Sam rubs a thumb over the shadow of a bruise he can’t see, fingers pressing circles into the stiff muscles of Bucky’s shoulder.  “Is this okay?” Sam says, starting to put an arm around Bucky’s shoulder and he leans into it, disgustingly grateful.

He nods against Sam’s shoulder, and it turns into a shudder and the shudder turns into full on shivering, waiting for Wilson to push him away like Rogers did.  The waiting for it, bracing for it makes the pain in his shoulders flare, tight and strained.

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Wilson says, pulling back like he can be contaminated.  Like the evidence of it is sloughing off, because he still smells like sweat and fear and Rumlow’s hands.  Because he smells like—

—burning hair and—

—Brylcream, oh my god Bucky, I didn’t think they still—

—old blood and—

“I’m not going to hurt you, I’ll stop.”

Barnes doesn’t say—

—but I wanted it.

—but I came from it.

—but it hurt.

—because not saying it hurts so much less than saying it, and everything hurts so much he’s cowardly desperate for something that just hurts less.  His shoulders are tight, his throat aches, his eyes burn, the effort of containing all the messy, broken pieces of himself too much because it had never been enough and it never mattered anyway.

Not like he’d ever pass for normal.

Barnes swallows around the knot in his throat.  Choked and suffocating like he’s muzzled.  Makes himself say it anyway, because he deserves it, because the emptiness aches, because he’s a coward.  “Where’s—“—Rumlow—Rogers—“—Steve.”  

Wilson gives him another measuring look, like Rhodes, like Pierce.  “Running.  You want me to get him?”

“It—“

—fucking likes it, Jesus tittyfucking Christ, look at that.

—can’t tell the difference anyway.

—hurts.

“—doesn’t matter.”

Wilson’s hands flex on the table again, restless.  Dangerous.  He stands, putting a careful hand on Barnes’ elbow to tug him up.

“Bucky, yeah, it matters a lot whether you want to see him.  Come on, we’re gonna go home and I’m going to call Steve to get his head out of his ass before I replace it with my boot.”  Sam puts a hand on Bucky’s back as they walk, heavy and warm.

Wilson deposits him on the edge of Rogers’ bed, what used to be their bed, what still is Rogers and Wilson’s bed, either intentionally kind or intentionally cruel, painful either way.  It’s pity and kindness and mocking, everything he shouldn’t have asked for.

Wilson slept here last night, after Barnes was sent away.  His things are on the nightstand and the sheets still smell like him, warm safety under Rogers’ crisp honesty.  It’s a twist of the knife under all the other dull aches and it shouldn’t matter but he’s weak, a disgusting mess of need.

Wilson leaves him there and paces in the other room, door safely between them.  “Steve, I get it, believe me I fucking get it, but he needs you here.”

Christ, Rollins, you can’t just fuckin’ leave it like that, it’ll get blood everywhere.

He could just leave.  Should just leave.  A stolen car would land him in a different kind of prison, but a two day walk would take him to Saratoga and from there the train.  Away.  Better than the waiting, trying to erase himself as a cankerous reminder and failing at even that.  No wonder Rogers won’t even look at him again.

“No I don’t fucking know him like you do, but Jesus—“ Wilson’s rising voice suddenly drops in the other room, his footsteps moving away.  “Jesus, Steve, you think I’m not just as fucking angry about finding out this way?  Just get your ass back here and help me deal with this instead of playing the goddamn selfish martyr.”

Better to leave on his own than waiting for Rogers to make him, because what use does anyone have for him now.  He’ll never be cleared for field work again, not when he’ll get on his knees for anyone, not when Rogers and Wilson can’t trust him not to lie to them, should never have trusted him in the first place.  And if it hurts—

—it’ll heal, and anyway, it gets off on pain—

—it’s not like it can say no—

—bite down and shut up—

—then it’s his own fault for believing he could ever pass for normal.

But even as he thinks it, he knows he’ll never do it, because he’s a coward, because his fear of Rumlow is worse than his fear of Rogers and Wilson, because he stinks of it, fear and sweat and every reason he shouldn’t be polluting Rogers and Wilson’s bed.  There’s just the tiny weak part of him that wants to cling to this, the thin illusion of safety that this half life of wanting what he can’t have is better than being sent back to that unrelenting sick sweetness without even a chair to wipe it away.

Rogers made sure of that.

Wilson’s voice cuts in, makes him flinch.  “For fuck’s sake, that’s not dealing with it, that’s isolating him and making him deal with it alone, but I guess you’re the expert on how great that works out.”  Then there’s a long silence.  The sound of the phone being put down.  Wilson shifting his weight on the carpet.

The door slides open, more gently than it needs to, and Wilson pads in.  Crosses the room and pauses in front of him, measuring.

Wilson sits down next to him with a sigh and rubs his face.  Tired.  Tired of dealing with this, tired of problems he didn’t ask for.  That Barnes lied to him about.  Lied his way into their lives, their beds, because he was too desperate and cowardly to manage on his own.  Desperate and cowardly enough to lean into Rumlow’s hand in his hair, on his face, hoping it would be one of those times.

And this is why he had to, because he knew they wouldn’t have him if they knew.  Wilson looks sideways at Barnes, close enough to kiss, but carefully not touching.  No reason to now, now that they know they’ve never been the only ones.  “You okay?  Steve’s on his way.” 

“Yeah.  Yeah, it’s fine,” Barnes says, looking at his hands.  It’s not, but what else is he going to say after Rogers and Wilson have made it clear they’re not going to touch him.  The therapist says numbness is a drug like any other, attractive and addictive.  The therapist says anger can be healing, part of the process of reclaiming his boundaries and sense of self.  In the end it didn’t matter whether he had anger or boundaries or a gun because it never mattered at all.

“You want to lie down with me?” Sam asks, putting light fingers on his left wrist, where the pulse should be.  “It’s been a long day.”

His hands stay light as he coaxes Bucky down to the mattress.  Sam lies on his side, facing, watching, with a handspan of space between them.

It’s pathetic how much he needs it, but Bucky leans into Sam, tipping towards him and into his hands like he did for Rumlow, needing to torture himself even though he knows how it’ll go.  Sam’s hands on his shoulders are inevitable as yesterday had been, but this time he pulls Bucky into him instead of pushing away.

His breath is warm and his nose brushes Bucky’s forehead a heartbeat before his lips do.  It’s like a benediction and a goodbye and Bucky wants to suffocate in the bed one last time.

The door clicks open and Barnes stiffens, caught.  Wilson strokes his hair oblivious, blunt fingers carding through as Rogers’ footsteps approach the bedroom, heavy and inevitable.  “Don’t tell Steve.  Please—don’t tell Steve.”

Wilson makes noncommittal noises, his body gone tense and his hands gone loose.

Chapter Text

He tries to pull away but Wilson catches him by the hair, fists a hand in his shirt and it’s obvious what they were doing from the way Rogers catches up short in the doorway. Wilson props himself up on an elbow, insouciant even as Rogers yanks him up off the bed.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Rogers hisses at him, pulling Wilson into the living room with a backward glance at Barnes. “This is the problem in the first place.” He keeps his voice down but they don’t bother closing the door, Rogers just pulls Wilson out of sight.

“The problem,” Wilson says, slow, level, dangerous, pulling away from Rogers, back where he can glance back in the bedroom, “is that he was raped and needs support. The problem is not giving him affection when he’s looking for it.” They’re squared off for a fight as much as Rumlow and Rollins ever were, and Barnes sits on the bed trying to square his odds of breaking for the door past them.

“And how do you know he is?” Rogers says, grabbing Wilson’s arm, blocking the straight shot. “What if we—what if I—“

The grab turns into Rogers leaning into Wilson, propping himself up as they both stagger against the wall. “Steve. Steve,” Wilson says, in his ordering tone. “Calm down. Breath with me.”

“We can’t, how can we know—“

Bucky staggers to his feet, dragging himself to the door, because it’s not fair, Wilson braced against Rogers. There’s no way to get to the door with the both of them blocking, but it’s not fair to abandon Wilson to this even though nothing’s ever been fair. “It wasn’t his fault,” Bucky says, leaning in the door because he can’t keep himself upright. Everything’s heavy, his eyes aching and his chest tight. “He didn’t want it.”

“Bucky?” Rogers says, turning to him, still propped on Wilson, dragging him down. He looks as exhausted as Barnes feels, in his running clothes and still dangerous despite it. “It’s okay, I’m not mad at Sam, okay? Everyone’s okay.”

You see that? Watch the arm, distract it while I get the—

Easy, big guy—

I lo—

Rogers barely dodges in time and Wilson flings himself over the back of the couch, coming up rolling by the dark windows. Rogers feints and makes him miss, and it’s not fair, it’s not right and he can’t hit Rogers because he could never fight back against Rumlow or anyone else and it’s never been fair. He didn’t fight back because it didn’t matter when he did and it’s not Sam’s fault.

Sam kicks the shield up to toss but it’s already too late, Rogers flips him and pins him to the floor and it’s over, flat on his back with Rogers straddling him. There’s a long ragged silence with only the sound of Rogers and Wilson breathing, startled when he tries to flip Rogers off and ends up with his wrist pinned over his head, waiting for the sound of guns or the stun batons being unholstered.

Better to have let Rogers pin him face down and grind him into the carpet, because Rogers can’t miss it this way. His throat closes up, eyes prickling hot as Sam comes around the couch slowly, still holding the shield even as Rogers’ face goes pink from more than just exertion.

He growls and tries to flip Rogers again, but he’s got no leverage or emotional balance, trapped where Rogers and Wilson can see why he never fought back.

Christ, is it trying to cry? Just slap it, it’ll be fine.

Just a nightmare, Buck, I'm okay.

“Bucky, Bucky, calm down. It’s okay, we’re all okay.”

Rogers is heavy, all his weight thrown forward on Bucky’s chest and he can’t breath, feeling scalded and shivering cold, like shock and a collapsing lung. “It wasn’t his fault, Sam didn’t want it—“

“Bucky, Sam’s okay,” Rogers pants and he smells so good, like honest safety and clean sweat and Rumlow always smelled the same. “I’m not mad, no one’s going to hurt you, you understand me?”

Calm down, big guy, you’re not going anywhere.

It’s okay, Buck, I’m right here.

“You said—“ he takes a shuddery breath, half thinks about trying to throw Rogers again but all it gets him is hands tightening on his wrists and Rogers grinding down harder into him, and he’s so hard it hurts, despite being scared, or maybe because he’s scared, it never made sense and it doesn’t now. He got hard for Rumlow, he got off with Rumlow fucking him, and it’s not fair because nothing has ever been fair and this isn’t any different.

C’mon, baby, don’t fucking mumble. Look at me when I’m fucking you.

Anything you need, Buck, anything you want, just say it.

“You said to not touch anyone,” he says finally, because Rogers is looking at him and Sam is looking at him and there’s no way out of this, his cock pressed hard against Rogers’ ass.

“I said—“ Rogers looks up at Sam wild-eyed and Bucky tries to throw him for real this time, anything to get away from this, Rogers getting hard against him. “Bucky, that’s not what I meant,” Steve says, and suddenly his weight is gone.

Steve lets him up, backing off and he scrambles back, metal hand pressed to his mouth to keep the sounds from escaping. Sam’s braced on the couch and Steve’s fallen back on his elbows, as obviously hard as Bucky and they’re both looking at him and the room is too warm. There’s nowhere to go with his back to the corner but it’s the furthest from them he can get, the most time he can buy himself, the most distance he can get without breaking for the door.

But the wet choking sound won’t stop because it’s him and he’s too weak to make himself keep it together in front of them, peeled open on display already.

Jesus, get the muzzle already—

Buck, it’s okay, you’re safe—

His reflection cringes in the dark glass of the windows behind Sam and it’s fucking pathetic, skin stinging with sweat across his thighs and neck and shoulders. The metal fingers pressing almost hard enough to break teeth hurt in cold contrast but he can’t make any of it stop no matter how hard he presses, Sam and Steve inching closer like they’re trapping a wild animal.

His cock hurts, rubbed raw where Steve ground the zipper of his jeans into it and there’s no getting away from it any more than he could ever get away from anything and Sam and Steve can both see it now even with him hunched in on himself.

“I’m sorry,” he tries finally, because he doesn’t have anything else left for them to want.

Steve’s face falls and Sam eases himself onto the floor with them. The room is untouched but they look ruined, like he really had made for the door and been beaten back into submission. “God, Bucky—“ Steve starts and chokes on it. “God, I’m so sorry, you don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“Bucky, what do you need?” Sam says, voice pitched low enough to barely carry over the sound of Steve’s ragged breathing and Bucky’s strangled noises. It’s a trap question like the therapist’s but it’s his last chance even if nothing’s ever been fair, Sam at least has always tried.

“Don’t—“ he starts, and it hurts, his lips are raw from the metal and his teeth, “Don’t send me back.” It’s been a year but it’s been a year that they didn’t know and even Rumlow didn’t want him after, just left him there like trash for everyone to see.

Steve is at his side fast enough it makes him startle, but he stupidly backed himself into a corner and has nowhere to go, barely room to cringe away from Steve’s broad hands pulling him in. “I’d never, Bucky, I’d never, I love you so much,” Steve says, and his face is hot and wet on Bucky’s shoulder and neck. Sam eases himself across the floor on hands and knees, making sure Bucky can see him coming. “I’m so sorry, I’ll always want you, I never—I never—“

Steve startles himself into hiccups as Bucky untangles from him enough to put an arm around him, too broad to hold in one arm anymore and the empty place where a smaller Steve used to be aches almost as much as his arm, better and wrong all at the same time, but Steve tucks into his side just the same, like he’ll never be too big. Sam settles next to him, reaching across to pet Steve’s hair and lean into Bucky.

“Are you okay?” Sam asks, Steve huffing breaths into Bucky’s chest between hiccups to calm himself down.

Bucky shakes his head, because he’s not, never has been. Sam makes a wordless noise and puts an arm over his shoulders, tangled up against the wall to keep petting Steve’s hair and stroking Bucky’s knee with his other hand. It hurts, his spine twisted up against the wall and Steve’s weight crushing his ribs, Sam’s knee knocking his, but it doesn’t burn and that might be enough.

“You know we love you?” Sam says after a long minute of Steve’s wet hiccups. Bucky leans his head against Sam’s shoulder, too tired to fight him on it, too tired to be anywhere or anything else but trapped between them.