Red on White
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader
Tags: Angst. Hurt. Sprinkles of comfort.
Warnings: Violence. Depictions of Physical Wounds. Referenced past SA. Dehumanization.
Summary: The Soldat found a grey zone in its orders and used it to protect the one who cared for it. The retaliation, as always, didn't come late.
Word Count: 4.2k
note: There wasn't a Whumpcember this year, but I saw this list of Festive Prompts from @thoughtsonhurtandcomfort and wanted to write at least one story. The prompt of choice was Candy Cane: struck, hit, beaten.
note2: This is a side-story of the fic Toy Soldier. There's a scene in Ch. 3 where Bucky remembers "the others" and this is the aftermath of what happened in that memory. I think it can be read as a standalone.
The guards came for her at the usual time.
They'd been using her more frequently since they started cycling the Soldat through training sessions with the others, the new assets, the prototypes, the ones who made the handlers nervous.
Today should have been routine: the Soldat broke, and she would fix him. Repeat. Ad infinitum.
She stood without being told, and they took her arms, guiding her into the corridor.
She expected the familiar route: left at the junction, third gate on the right, the infirmary near the training rooms.
But they didn't stop at the infirmary door.
They kept walking.
Her step faltered. The guard on her left tightened his grip and kept her moving. She didn't ask where they were going. Questions weren't encouraged. Questions got you hurt.
They kept walking, and the sounds changed. The air tasted like metal, old sweat, and something else. Fear, maybe, or just the accumulated weight of pain.
She knew these sounds.
Flesh on flesh. The duller thud of impact on muscle, the sharper crack of bone meeting bone. Grunts of effort. Barked orders in Russian.
Training.
But there was something different today. Why were they guiding her farther into the new wing?
"Thought you could use some field work," the guard on her right said. His voice was casual, almost friendly. It was worse than outright cruelty. "Since you like using the infirmary as a brothel."
The words hit her harshly.
The cameras saw everything. They always saw everything. They saw the new asset enter the infirmary while she was alone, saw him cross to where she stood by the supply cabinet. Saw him drag her toward the medical cot, saw him turning her around and bending her over the edge of the stretcher.
Saw the Soldat walk in two minutes later -routine check-in, damage from training, but nothing urgent- and freeze in the doorway.
Saw him process what he was seeing.
Saw something behind his eyes, some fragment of autonomous thought navigating the grey spaces in his programming. Training ground protocols: measure your force, don't damage the assets, they're Hydra resources.
But the infirmary wasn't a training ground.
And the healer being violated wasn't part of the training.
Saw him cross the room and grab the asset by the throat, saw him use his full strength to break him, then drop him like a defective thing after he was ordered to let him go.
The cameras saw all of it.
And they were blaming her anyway.
Of course they were.
She was valuable, had an irreplaceable mutation, and was the reason their greatest weapon stayed operational. But she was also the variable that caused the Soldat's deviation. The crack in his programming.
The equation was simple to them.
An asset attacks her: inconvenient.
The Soldat deviates from protocol to stop it: unacceptable.
So it was her fault.
The corridor ended at a reinforced door with bars. Beyond it, the sounds were louder, clearer. One guard punched in a code. The lock disengaged with a heavy clunk.
They pushed her through.
----
The room had low ceilings crossed with industrial piping, walls of poured concrete, and a floor stained with old blood that no amount of cleaning ever fully erased.
One wall was barred, thick metal rails like a prison cell, and the guards walked her toward those bars without ceremony.
She didn't want to look.
But she did anyway.
The Soldat was in the center of the space.
He wasn't alone.
Four assets circled him -sleeker than the Soldat, their movements predatory-. They were barely marked. A split lip on one. Scraped knuckles on another.
But the Soldat was destroyed.
Blood streaked his face from a cut above his eyebrow, running down into his eye, dripping from his jaw. His lower lip was split and swollen. The entire left side of his face was darkening, purple-black bruising that spread from cheekbone to temple. His right eye was nearly swollen shut.
His tactical suit was torn at the shoulder, stained with blood. His flesh arm hung slightly wrong, protecting his ribs.
The metal arm gleamed dully under the fluorescent lights, smeared with red.
He was breathing hard, harsh, labored breaths through his nose. But his face was blank. Empty. That terrible nothing-expression that meant he was deep in the programming, running on pure conditioning.
A handler stood near the wall, notebook in hand, watching with clinical detachment.
"Again," he said in Russian.
The assets moved.
The Soldat blocked, barely. His responses were slow, defensive, all wrong for someone she'd seen move like liquid death. An asset feinted left, struck right. Fist to the ribs. The Soldat's body jerked with the impact, but he didn't counter effectively.
Another one closed in. Kick to the back of his knee. He stumbled, caught himself.
They were playing with him.
No.
Not playing.
This was deliberate. Methodical.
She'd watched him train before, watched him dismantle practice targets and sparring partners with ease, taking down twelve armed hostiles in ninety seconds, moving through them like a scythe through wheat.
This wasn't the same person.
Except it was.
He was letting them hit him.
She realized, with horror, that they'd ordered him to hold back. To take the beating. To break himself against these inferior partners as some kind of recalibration, punishment dressed up as training.
The guards shoved her against the bars. The metal was cold through her thin clothing. One of them kept a hand on her shoulder, holding her in place.
"Watch," he said. "This is what happens when you behave like a little slut."
An asset charged. The Soldat sidestepped -too slow- and took an elbow to the face. His head snapped back. Blood sprayed from his nose.
He didn't retaliate.
Just reset. Stance wide, metal arm loose at his side, waiting for the next strike.
Her hands found the bars without her permission. Fingers wrapping around cold metal, gripping until her knuckles ached.
----
It happened fast.
One of the assets overcommitted, making a wide haymaker that left him open. For a fraction of a second, something flickered across the Soldat's face. Not quite an expression. Just a tensing around his eyes.
Anger.
He brought his metal arm up -fast, efficient, real- and blocked the punch at the forearm. The sound of metal meeting flesh was sickeningly loud.
And then he moved.
He drove his right fist forward in a perfect, devastating arc. Caught the asset square in the chest. The man flew backward -actually airborne for a moment- and hit the concrete wall with a wet crunch.
Didn't get up.
Silence.
The Soldat stood there, breathing hard, still raising his metal arm, and for a second he looked like himself. Like the weapon they'd built him to be.
"SOLDAT!"
The handler's voice cracked across the space like a gunshot.
The Soldat went rigid.
"Kneel!"
He dropped. Instantly. Hitting concrete hard enough with his knees that she heard it even from here.
The handler crossed the floor in four sharp strides and grabbed a fistful of the Soldat's hair -dark and sweat-soaked- and yanked his head back.
"You clearly didn't understand your directives." His voice was cold. Precise. The kind of calm that was more terrifying than shouting. He leaned down, close to the Soldat's face. "Perhaps we need to wipe you again."
The reaction was instantaneous.
The Soldat's expression broke. Just for a second, just a flash of something human and aware and afraid before the mask slammed back down. But she saw it.
He knew.
Knew what they were going to do.
Was aware enough to dread it.
The handler released his hair. Stepped back and nodded to the other operatives.
"Continue."
The remaining assets moved in.
The Soldat started to rise from his knees, a habit, training, the ingrained instinct to defend himself.
"You. Stay."
He froze. Stayed kneeling.
Vulnerable.
Open.
The first kick came from behind. Boot to the kidneys. His body jerked forward, but he didn't fall, didn't raise his arms to protect himself.
The second kick hit his ribs.
She heard the crack, distinct and horrible, the sound of bone breaking.
The Soldat made a sound. Not a scream. Just a choked-off grunt, air forced from his lungs.
Her hands were shaking. Couldn't look away. Couldn't close her eyes.
Couldn't breathe.
And then-
He was looking at her.
Still on his knees, blood running down his face, ribs broken, and he found her eyes through the bars. For a moment -just a moment- the room fell away. The handlers, the guards, the other assets. Gone.
Just the two of them.
His gaze was steady despite the pain, despite everything. She couldn't read what was in it. Didn't know if it was accusation or understanding or just animal primal recognition: you're here, you're watching, you're the reason.
Or maybe: I'd do it again.
She'd never know.
"Keep going."
The handler's voice shattered the moment.
Another asset stepped forward.
The Soldier's eyes leave hers. Turn forward. Empty again.
Obedient.
Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
----
She didn't know how long it continued.
Time fractured in places like this. It became elastic, unreliable. Could have been minutes. Could have been longer.
She just knew that at some point, the sounds changed. The wet impact of fists on flesh became something else. Heavier. Slower.
The Soldat was on the ground now.
She could see him trying to push himself up on his metal arm. It responded -servos whirring- but his body didn't cooperate. His right arm buckled. He got halfway up before collapsing back to the concrete.
Tried again.
Fell.
Blood pooled beneath him, spreading slow and darkly across the stained floor.
"Enough." The handler's voice cut through the space.
The assets didn't stop immediately. One landed another kick, reflex, momentum, or just because he could. The Soldat's body jerked with the impact, but he didn't make a sound.
"I said stop."
This time they listened and stepped back, breathing hard, barely marked, while the Soldat bled on the floor and struggled to do something as simple as kneel.
The handler turned toward the bars. Toward her.
Made a gesture.
One of the guards moved to the wall and hit a switch. The barred door ground open with a mechanical shriek.
"Get in there."
She moved before thinking about it. Her feet carried her through the opening, into the training space where the air was thick with sweat and copper.
She went straight to the Soldat with her eyes.
He'd managed to get to his hands and knees now, head hanging, blood dripping from his face to the concrete. His breathing was wrong: shallow and labored, ribs too damaged to expand properly.
She took a step toward him.
"Stop."
The handler's voice froze her mid-stride.
He gestured to the assets, the ones standing around looking barely winded, sporting split knuckles and shallow bruises at most.
"Them first."
The words didn't make sense for a second. She stared at him, then at the assets, then back at the Soldat on the ground, still trying to lever himself upright and failing.
"I said, them first." The handler's voice was patient. Almost kind. "Or do you need clearer instructions?"
Her legs felt distant as she walked toward the nearest asset. He had a split lip, already half-healed on its own, and bruised knuckles on his right hand. Nothing serious. Nothing that wouldn't heal naturally in a few days.
She reached for his hand anyway.
She wrapped her fingers around his -warm skin, steady pulse, alive and whole and fine- and she let the power flow. Felt the familiar heat in her palms, spreading through her fingertips, knitting split skin and reducing inflammation.
The man watched her with cold curiosity. Like she was a tool. A resource.
Which was what she was.
She could feel the Soldat's gaze on her back but she didn't look. Couldn't look. Just moved to the next asset. This one had a shallow cut above his eyebrow and a bruised shoulder. She fixed both. The healing pulled at something deep in her chest, draining her reserves, but not significantly. These were minor injuries.
Cosmetic damage.
The third asset had scraped knuckles and a bruised jaw. She took his hands, healed the abraded skin, moved to cup his face, and reduced the swelling.
Behind her, she heard a wet, rattling breath.
The Soldat was still on the ground.
Still bleeding.
Still broken.
The handler made a sound, something between a laugh and a scoff.
"You know," he said conversationally, "you turned out to be quite an ungrateful bitch."
She kept her eyes on the asset in front of her. Finished healing his jaw. Moved to the fourth one.
"The Soldat received punishment because of you." The handler's voice was light, almost amused. "And here you are, ignoring him. Prioritizing everyone else."
The fourth asset had barely anything wrong with him. A shallow cut on his forearm from where he'd caught the edge of the Soldat's metal plating. A minor bruise on his ribs.
She healed them both, and her body ached to turn around.
Because she could still feel it, the weight of the Soldat's gaze on her back. Could hear his harsh breathing.
Could smell his blood.
"There." The handler sounded satisfied. "Go attend to your... favorite patient."
She turned.
The Soldat had made it to his knees somehow. Swaying slightly, bracing his metal arm against the concrete, still hanging his head. Blood ran down his face in steady streams, from his eyebrow, his nose, his split lip. His tactical suit was torn and soaked through in places.
And he was looking at her from the side.
Not with the blank compliance she was used to seeing.
Something else.
She couldn't read it.
Didn't know if it was an accusation, understanding, or just the simple awareness of pain.
"You have twenty minutes," he said. His tone was almost bored now, like the entertainment value of this had worn off. "Then he goes to engineering for the arm."
He gestured to the other assets. They filed out, echoing their boots on concrete. The handler followed, tucking his notebook under his arm.
The heavy door clanged shut behind them.
She was alone with the Soldat in the training space.
Not truly alone, there were cameras in the upper corners, blinking their red lights steadily. Guards posted outside the bars. This privacy was permitted, not stolen, which somehow made it worse.
But at least there were no visible eyes on them. No audience.
Just the two of them and twenty minutes and the slow drip of blood on concrete.
----
She knelt in front of him, close enough that her knees almost touched his legs.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. The words felt inadequate. Pointless. But they came anyway. "I'm so sorry."
He tracked her face with his eye. Didn't blink. Didn't respond.
She reached for him, hesitated, then made herself do it anyway. Her fingers found his jaw, careful around the swelling, tilting his face toward the light so she could see the full extent of the damage.
The cut above his eyebrow first. Deep enough that she could see bone beneath the split skin. She brushed just below it with her thumb, feather-lightly, then let the heat build in her palm, and watched the flesh knit back together, slow and delicate, like she was mending something precious.
Because he was.
She moved her fingers to his cheekbone, cupping the bruised and swollen tissue. The discoloration faded under her touch, purple-black shifting to green-yellow to nothing. She could feel the fracture beneath -a hairline crack in the bone-and focused the healing there, patient and thorough.
"I've got you," she murmured. "I've got you, darling."
The endearment slipped out without permission. Dangerous. Stupid. The kind of thing that could get her in trouble if the wrong guard heard them.
But the cameras didn't have audio in here.
His eye followed her movements as she worked. Not empty now. Something present in his gaze, even if he wouldn't respond.
Next, she moved to his nose. It was broken, bleeding sluggishly. She pressed her fingers on either side, gently despite knowing this would hurt, and pushed the bone back into alignment. He tensed but didn't pull away. She healed it quickly, stopping the bleeding and reducing the swelling.
Then his lip. Split in two places, the lower one painfully swollen. She traced her thumb along the edges of the wounds, knitting them closed, and maybe her touch lingered a little longer than necessary. Maybe she brushed her thumb across the newly-healed skin in something that was almost a caress.
Maybe, he noticed.
"Breathe for me," she said softly.
He did. Or tried to. The inhale was shallow, pained, and cut off halfway with a barely-audible hitch.
The ribs.
She glanced down at his torso. His tactical suit was torn at the side, and through the gap she could see bruising, dark and livid, spreading across his ribcage like spilled ink.
"I need to touch your chest," she told him. Warning. Asking for permission he couldn't give. "This is going to hurt."
His eye met hers. There was something in that look. Acknowledgment, maybe. Trust.
Or just acceptance.
She placed both palms against his ribs, feeling the damage beneath. Three fractures on the right side. One completely broken, with bone fragments pressing dangerously close to his lung. The others were cracks, painful but less critical.
She closed her eyes and pushed.
The healing felt different with injuries this severe. Deeper. More draining. She could feel her energy bleeding out through her hands, pouring into him, convincing his body to do in minutes what should take weeks.
The bone fragments shifted back into place, the fractures sealed, and the tissue repaired.
His breathing changed under her palms, still shallow, but easier. Less labored.
When she opened her eyes, he was watching her. His right eye had opened partially now, the swelling reduced enough to allow it.
"Better?" she asked.
He didn't answer. Couldn't, or wouldn't, or wasn't allowed to.
She should have moved on. Checked his ribs more thoroughly, assessed the damage to his shoulder, his back, anywhere else they'd hurt him.
Instead, she let her hands rest against his chest for a moment longer than necessary. Could feel his heartbeat under her palms, steady, strong, despite everything.
"You shouldn't have done it," she whispered. Not an accusation. Just a fact. "You shouldn't have helped me. Look what they did to you."
He held her stare.
She saw it then -just a flash, there and gone- something defiant in that gaze. Something that said I'd do it again.
Or maybe she was imagining it. Projecting what she wanted to see onto a man who couldn't afford to want anything.
She moved her hand from his chest to his face again, cupping his jaw with her palm. She stroked her thumb along his cheekbone, the one she'd just healed, smooth and whole now.
Then she shifted her touch higher, fingers gentle over his right eye. The one that was still swollen, only partially open. She could see him trying to focus through the narrow slit, the effort it took.
"Let me," she murmured.
She pressed her palm carefully over the orbital bone, avoiding the eye itself, and let the healing flow. The swelling receded slowly under her touch, the tight, angry tissue softening.
When she pulled her hand away, both his eyes were open. Clear. Watching her.
For a moment, they stayed like that. Her hand on his face, his eye on hers, the space between them charged with something she couldnât name.
Then, she made herself pull back. Check the rest of his body.
The right shoulder was dislocated; she could see it in the way he was holding it, the unnatural angle. She moved behind him and positioned her hands carefully on it.
"On three," she said. "One-"
She didn't wait for three. Just pulled, sharp and fast. The joint popped back into place with a sickening noise. He went rigid, forcing a harsh exhale through his teeth, but he didn't cry out.
She healed the damaged ligaments immediately, gently, and maybe her cheek brushed his hair.
Maybe she whispered "I'm sorry," against his temple like a prayer.
The flesh arm next. His knuckles were shredded, again, bone visible in places. She took his hand in both of hers -so careful, like he was made of something breakable- and healed each finger, each knuckle, each torn piece of skin.
His hand was limp in hers when she finished. She didn't let go right away. Just held it, brushing her thumb across his now-scarred knuckles. The healing closed wounds, knit bone, stopped bleeding, but it didn't erase history. Couldn't turn back time.
Every mark he'd ever taken was still there, written into his skin.
Finally, she made herself focus and looked up at his face.
"Can you-" She swallowed. Tried again. "Can you show me if there's anything I'm missing? Anything that still hurts?"
He didn't move. Just looked at her with those too-blue eyes, expression unreadable.
"Please," she whispered. "Please, darling."
For a moment, nothing. Then he moved his metal hand -slow, deliberate- and pointed to his left knee.
Her stomach dropped.
She shifted position and knelt beside his extended leg. She found the laces of his boot with her fingers, working them loose with shaking hands. The boot came off, then the tactical sock. She pushed the pant leg up as far as it would go, not far enough; the fabric was too thick and reinforced to roll properly.
If they'd been in the infirmary she could have cut it away. Stripped him down properly, assessed everything systematically.
But they weren't in the infirmary.
They were in a room that reeked of blood and sweat and violence, and she didn't know how much time they had left. Seven minutes? Five?
The knee was swollen badly. There was bruising along the lateral side, dark blue spreading toward purple, an unnatural bulge of fluid, and inflammation.
She thought about him kneeling. Staying down when the handler ordered it. Taking kicks to the ribs while all his weight pressed into this damaged joint.
She hovered her hands over the knee, and for a second, she couldn't make herself touch it. Couldn't stand the idea of causing him more pain.
Then she did it anyway. Placed both palms over the swelling, as gently as she could manage, and pushed the healing through it.
The exhaustion hit her immediately.
She'd been healing multiple fractures, dislocations, lacerations, and contusions. Major trauma.
Her hands started to shake. She could feel the power draining out of her, pulling from reserves that were already dangerously low. The swelling went down slowly -too slowly- and she had to grit her teeth and push harder.
Eventually, the bruising faded. The inflammation reduced. The joint stabilized.
Her vision blurred at the edges.
"Okay," she murmured, voice thin and distant to her own ears. "You're gonna be okay now."
It wasnât true. He'd never be okay, not really. Not in this place.
But physically, at least, he was whole again.
That was what they kept her for, wasn't it? This. Putting their deadly puppet back together when it broke. Maintaining their investment.
Her hands were still shaking when she pulled them away from his knee. She had to brace herself on his shin for a moment, just to stay upright.
Breathe. Just breathe.
When she looked up, he was watching her. Again she couldnât read him. Didnât know if it was concern, maybe, or just calculation. Assessment.
Wondering if his healer was about to collapse.
"I'm fine," she lied. Her voice sounded steadier than she felt.
She tried to push herself upright, but her legs wouldn't cooperate. The world tilted sideways, and she had to catch herself with one hand against the concrete floor.
Then she felt it, the weight. A gentle pressure on her shoulder.
His metal hand, resting there. Grounding.
She looked up. He wasn't looking at her face; he was fixing his eyes somewhere past her shoulder, expression carefully blank. But his hand stayed where it was, cool metal against the thin material of her uniform, barely brushing her skin with his thumb through the opening of the collar.
Keeping her upright.
She took a breath. Then another. The dizziness receded slowly, and she managed to straighten, just a little.
His hand didn't move.
Not until her breathing evened out. Not until she stopped swaying.
Then, slowly -so slowly it felt deliberate- he withdrew his hand. Let it drop back to his side like the contact had never happened.
But she could still feel the phantom weight of it on her shoulder.
"Soldat-"
The gate rattled open.
A guard stood in the doorway, slinging his rifle over his shoulder, expression impassive. "Time's up. They're expecting you in the lab to assess the arm."
He straightened slightly, and whatever had been in his eyes a moment ago was gone behind the mask of compliance.
The guard jerked his chin at her. "You. Up."
She pushed herself to standing. Her legs felt unsteady, muscles weak from the drain of healing so much damage. But she managed to do it.
The guard at the door called over his shoulder. "Dima! Take this one back to her cell."
Another guard appeared. Younger, bored-looking. He grabbed her arm without ceremony and started pulling her toward the exit.
She didn't know when she'd see him again. Only that she would.
And when they brought him back broken, she'd have to pick up the pieces and make him useful once more, even when it destroyed something in her.
Because that was her purpose. That was all she was allowed to be.
