Chapter Trigger Warnings: Drug Use, Implied Rape (No actual rape scene)
Chapter 1 Characters: Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson, Luis (From Ant-Man)
** This is my first attempt at an X-Reader, so please forgive any formatting/tense errors**
To Save Your Soul: Chapter 1
If someone read my mind right now, what would they hear? You wonder, staring up at the fluorescent light overhead, Static?
It's impossible to say how long you've been laying in the dirty motel room. An hour? Three? Long enough that the ambient odor of stale smoke and cum had faded to barely noticeable levels. Hey, if I wanted a Hilton, I'd have found one. Besides, one night in so much as a Motel 8 would cost the same as a week here, and you aren't exactly rolling in money.
When I go out to find food, I'll splurge on a can of Lysol, you promise yourself, That's good for cleaning, right?
You let your mind wander once more, this time imagining spraying the cleaner and hearing the little screams of "99.9% of bacteria" dying around you. What about that 0.1% though? Will it come for you? There are more than a thousand bacteria in the room, will that 0.1% of them unite to avenge their fallen comrades?
The thought entertains your frayed mind a while more. By the time your head has cleared and your stomach wakes, a fierce battle had been waged- those little bacteria versus the big, evil human who'd destroyed their homes and made a graveyard of their once-proud empire. The capitol cities were the stains on the bed, pillows, floor, walls, and yes- even the ceiling. Well, were being the operative word.
The next batch of bacteria would move in when you left, they'd see the dead empire, sense the lingering poison in the air, and turn right around. Your mark would be forever on this room- on the bones of your enemies.
You giggle in the soon-to-be tomb, then clap a hand over your mouth. Too loud, why did I scream?! Wait, did I scream, or am I just too used to being quiet? You turn your head and groan, My stomach hurts… How long has it been since I ate? You glance at the clock and see that it's just after 8pm. I got here at 2, hopefully that was today. I didn't have lunch, I used my money on the Stuff. Didn't have breakfast… I don't remember dinner yesterday, but that's nothing new. So, it's been at least a day since you last ate. No wonder you feel like shit.
With a sigh you sit up, groaning against the hollow ache in your stomach. You're in your underwear, and even that's barely there. Your bra is unhooked, but still on your shoulders, and just under the shelter of the cup you see the dark stain of a hickie and sigh. On the nightstand you find several bags of the Stuff and a few fresh needles. There are vague memories of letting the dealer follow you into the room to show you some new ways to inject for optimum enjoyment. Nudity isn't part of your little ritual, so he must have taken his payment in something other than cash.
When all this started, the thought would have horrified you, sent you straight to the police. Now? At least he paid you in Stuff. Still… You are not quite numb to it all yet, and what numbness is there makes you sadder than you can stomach.
You throw on some clothes quickly and stumble to the bathroom to gurgle a capful of mouthwash in the hopes that it clears a little of the fog still hanging over you. You are almost relieved to see the condom in the trash… Still, he's the last dealer you let into your room.
Like you haven't said that before.
You pull on your jacket and stick a hand in the pocket. Sure enough, there's the cash you'd promised the dealer. Last time this happened the asshole had robbed you blind. Maybe in this part of the country people really were nicer, if still rapey.
Maybe some of your evil stuck to him, infected him like a disease. It would eat him from the inside out like it was doing to you every damn day. A rot that turned your innards into a black, puss-ridden mass of dead tissue. At least, that was how you'd always pictured it.
You grab your purse and hunt down the room key, then slip out into the night. Your neighbor hesitates halfway out of the door at your sudden appearance, but once he realizes you have zero interest in him he goes back to slowly closing the door. You glance over at him as you turn your key in the lock-is the crazy bastard putting a strand of hair between the door and frame? You wish he didn't have the hoodie on and decide to imagine his face instead- he probably had a tongue sticking out in concentration like a complete tool.
"Paranoid much?" He shoots you a look, but you're already walking towards the gas station across the street. The thought of making your bacteria graveyard is too tempting to ignore.
OK, so maybe you're still a little high.
You wander through the sparse evening traffic, taking your damn time to cross that street, regardless of crosswalks or other drivers. If someone hit you, you don't think you'd even mind all that much. At least then the rot would be all over their car and you'd be free from the poison of your own blood.
Was it the scowl on your face? Your dirty clothes? Your matted hair? The way you stumbled slightly as you walked? Whatever it was, you'd made it as far as the welcome mat of the gas station before the manager came out from behind the counter with his hands up.
"Hey, no. You need to leave."
"What the fuck?" You cross your arms, "This is a free country, prick."
"Uh-huh. We've had enough of your kind in here. You walk around, buy something cheap, and our inventory comes up short."
"My kind?"
"Junkies," he shakes his head. "Look, I'm sympathetic, my cousin was a junkie too, but it's just business."
You hold up the cash in your pocket so he can see that you have money, "Listen, shithead, I just want some poptarts and a can of Lysol. You can follow me if you want, but I'm getting them here." The old you would have taken your business elsewhere, the new you knows that your mere presence offends the fat dickhead, and so you're determined to make him suffer it a bit longer.
You and the manager glare one another down in the doorway, but of course you win. You learned intimidation from the master, and besides- you're still high enough that going full space-cadet is easier than focusing. Eventually he turns away with a sigh of disgust, "What flavor poptart?"
"Blueberry, I need my vitamins." You wait with arms crossed as the manager obediently grabs your purchase and rings it up. You wad up a bill and throw it to him. He dumps your change in the bag and comes back around.
Halfway to you he hesitates and sighs, shaking his head, "Look, I'm sorry for being a dick." He grabs a couple bottles of water from the fridge by the door and hands them to you with your bag. He's being generous- they're the liter size, "That's safer to drink than whatever lead-soaked shit comes out of the drains in that motel. Have a good night, ma'am."
"Go fuck yourself." You drop the waters on the floor, kick one for good measure, and leave.
Master Paranoia, your neighbor, is walking along in the darkest shadows he can find. You watch him for a moment, bemused. Your day literally cannot get any worse, so you decide to follow him a bit. Maybe he'll at least be an interesting distraction. The TV in the room was visibly broken, and you don't feel like returning to oblivion just yet.
He stays to the shadows, walks back and forth along the same routes as if throwing off pursuers, and a few times he vanishes. You wander a bit and, eventually, catch sight of him in the opposite direction you'd last seen him. The Paranoid man doesn't want to be followed, and is damn good at hiding his path, but not good enough apparently.
At first you think he's heading to a church- someone that twitchy has to be an alcoholic. But he gives the churches he passes a wide birth- no matter if the parking lots are filled with alcoholics, junkies, or gamblers. You keep following at a distance as he goes deeper into the skeevy end of town. You've been here for three days and never came this far from the motel- it's clearly industrial, but the warehouses have more broken windows than anything and the concrete walls are cracked, smashed, and covered in graffiti.
He's definitely worth the trip, if only for the entertainment value.
You catch sight of him slipping into a large yard surrounded by a rusty fence topped in barbed wire. Two guys are waiting inside, illuminated by the headlights of an old van. The Paranoid Man jogs over to the men- one tall, black, and athletic (with biceps that barely fit through his sleeves) and a comparatively short, round, Latino man.
"How'd it go? You make contact? She gonna do this or what?" The black man crossed his arms, clearly bored.
The Paranoid Man pulls back his hood, revealing short brown hair neatly cut, "Didn't get the chance." He looked to the Latino, "Thanks for zeroing us in."
"Yo, it's my genuine pleasure man," the little guy sounded too eager and went on at about twenty words per second, "See, the way I see it? We family now, and family helps one another out, ya feel? See, your home boy is my home boy and we all fugitives together now that those Accords happened. Well- I mean, you two are fugitives, I'm a recovering fugitive, all clean here. But if they go after my boy Scott they go after me, ya feel? And now you two are my boys too. Well," he laughed nervously, "you not my boys but you my boys, get it?"
There was a long silence. Just before it got awkward, the white guy clapped him on the shoulder, "Sure do."
Fugitives? What the fuck are the 'Accords'? You hadn't exactly been keeping up with the news the last couple of years as you wandered place-to-place. You were more concerned with making sure he didn't find you than current events.
"We don't exactly have time to waste on this," the black man was speaking again. "I still say we just grab her and sort it out back at home base."
"I don't disagree with you." The white man said matter-of-fact, "Which is why Scott's clearing out the motel as we speak. He'll be here any minute."
"What's your plan for grabbing the girl?"
The white man turned to the Latino, "Got a ranged tazer on you?"
"Sure thing!" The bubbly guy ran over to the passenger door of the van and started to dig around in what sounded like a pile of junk.
You watch carefully, an itch on the back of your neck and a fluttering in your heart tells you this isn't somewhere you want to be. Whatever these guys are into, it's bad stuff. Kidnapping? Fleeing their motel in the middle of the night? They sounded too much like him. The rot in your blood is reminder enough of that world and the people inhabiting it. You'd gone to ground to escape that world, you can't stomach the thought of those men free, but what can you do? Calling the cops would draw unwanted attention. Hydra would come to seek retribution against whoever turned their soldiers in.
They'd find you, capture you, and take you to their General. I'll never go back home, you vow fiercely, Granddad will do whatever it takes to keep me there this time- chain me to the wall, implant a tracker… I'd rather die. Maybe you are condemning a woman to death, but you tell yourself you don't know if they will ever catch her, knowing damn well you're making excuses.
That's what the Stuff is for, right? To make you forget the bad? And I've been through the bad already. Days like today are becoming a weekly occurrence. I don't owe anyone anything.
The Latino man found what he was looking for and ran over to the white man, "Here it is! All charged up! Well, it was three weeks ago. Hey, at least it's enough to hurt, right?" He smiled broadly, "How you gonna get her in the open to use it?"
The white man takes the tazer as you slowly back away from the edge of the fence. You will the plastic bag in your hand to stay quiet as you move, "I'm going to act weird enough to draw her curiosity, run her around town to make sure she's tired and a bit lost, then I'm going to do this."
You give up on the stealth and break into a run as the white man turns and takes aim at your back. You hear a short pop and feel the searing pain of hooks in your flesh- followed half a second later by a wall of electricity that makes you bite hard on your tongue, spasm uncontrollably, and piss yourself.
Your mind is lost in pain and shock as he comes to kneel next to you, "Congratulations, (Y/N). You are now in Avengers custody."