A/N: This story is in the same continuity as two of my previous fics, Blankets and Let Them Eat Cake. However, it's not necessary to have read them to understand this.
This fic makes a lot of references to the film Road House, though I've tried to make it accessible even if you haven't seen the movie. If you haven't seen Road House, do. It's amazingly over the top and cheesy and all around incredible. The short version is this: It stars the late Patrick Swayze as a bar bouncer who takes on a local crime boss. It's a violent action film but was marketed to young women to try and cash in on the popularity of Dirty Dancing. It didn't do well at the box office, but later became a cult hit in the nineties after it was frequently shown in rerun on TBS.
People have asked me if I hold to a unifying theory that informs my writing on cinema. In the past I've told them that I simply judge a movie on its success or failure in representing the perceived point of view of the filmmaker, but now I realize that I was just saying something to get rid of them. What I really believe is that a film should be judged on how well it comes off when compared with the Patrick Swayze film Road House. For Road House is the single finest American film.
— Mike Nelson's Movie Megacheese
It's 1995 and Rumlow's not just stuck on medical leave, he's stuck the sofa. A bad call during the last mission and now he's dealing with three fractures in his leg and a cast that goes all the way up to his hip. And yet the most unpleasant thing about the ordeal is having nothing to do but watch daytime TV. If there is a hell, Rumlow's sure it'll be filled with Miss Cleo infomercials and episodes of Guiding Light.
It's his third day of leave. It's not even noon and Rumlow's already weighing the pros and cons of blowing his brains out as he flips through the channels. He stops on TBS, not because it looks any more promising that the rest of the crap he's shuffled through, but because what's the use? Nothing's going to be any good.
The mulleted man on screen looks vaguely familiar. It takes a moment for Rumlow to place him as that pretty boy from Dirty Dancing. Patrick Swayze. He's in a tight black T-shirt, standing before a group of men. It takes Rumlow a moment to work out the context: they appear to be bouncers, and Swayze's instructing them to be nice to the clientele.
"It's nothing personal," Swayze stresses.
Rumlow's only half-listening. Maybe he can persuade Rollins to get him some tapes from Blockbuster. Or even a couple of books. Rumlow's not much of a reader but at least that way, his brain won't leak out his ears.
One of the other actors—dressed in an unbuttoned, sleeveless plaid shirt—speaks up. "And what if somebody calls my momma a whore?"
"Is she?" Swayze asks, perfectly flat.
Rumlow chuckles. All right, he can kill a couple hours watching this.
When the credits roll, Rumlow hobbles over to his copy of the TV Guide to see when Road House airs again.
"This is going to be stupid, isn't it?"
Rumlow doesn't answer, popping the tape into the VCR. Behind him, Rollins sighs, stretching out on the couch. When Rumlow turns around to grab the popcorn, he finds Rollins checking his watch.
"You know, it's not too late to get to the theater, Brock. If you're that dead set against seeing Eyes Wide Shut, they say The Blair Witch Project is—"
"We're watching Road House," Rumlow says firmly, sure to hold the popcorn out of Rollins's reach. It's no more than he deserves for complaining. "It's a classic."
"I really doubt that."
Not bothering to dignify that with a response, Brock begins fast-forwarding through the previews.
Rollins makes some choked sputtering sounds at the very start—around the time the movie's title credit appears, superimposed over a woman's mini dress-clad ass—but he falls silent soon enough. He begins chuckling around the time Swayze starts stitching up his own, bar fight-inflicted wounds, and he never really stops. By the time Swayze's character is flirting with the doctor and revealing that he majored in philosophy, Rollins is howling. He's laughing so hard, in fact, that there's no way he hears one of the film's best lines: "Pain don't hurt."
Rumlow doesn't mind. Grinning, he looks away from the screen, about to let the words "I told you so" fall from his lips.
He doesn't get the chance, because Rollins speaks first. "This," he gasps between the giggles, "is the stupidest shit I've ever seen in my life."
Rumlow absolutely does not spend the rest of the runtime sulking. That would be pathetic.
"This is a classic?" Rogers asks, studying the DVD cover. He doesn't sound skeptical, just confused. "I didn't see it on any of those top one hundred lists online."
"You can't trust the critics," Rumlow says. Rogers has a gorgeous TV. A gorgeous apartment. It looks more like a set piece than a home, polished and perfect and not at all lived in. That surprises Rumlow. Rogers sure as hell isn't connecting with society, so one would think this place would have the feel of a fortress rather than a show room. "Bunch of stuffy pricks with no sense of fun."
"Some of their choices have been pretty dry," Rogers admits, sliding the DVD into the player.
"I thought you were going off of Avenger recommendations anyway." Rumlow cracks open a beer, reclining on the sofa. "Wasn't Stark getting you to watch Star Trek?"
"I did." Rogers settles down beside him. "But then Star Wars was kind of creepy. There was this actor in the newer films that looked just like Fury and then—well, I figured I'd take a break from science fiction for a while. And from recommendations in general. People get a little miffed when you're not that big on their favorites, you know?"
"Sure you don't want a beer, Cap?"
Rogers waves him off. "It doesn't work on me. It'd be a waste."
After the first ten minutes or so, Rumlow can tell that Rogers isn't watching Road House as much as he's watching Rumlow watch it. Rumlow can feel his probably incredulous stare, but he ignores it. If Rogers can't appreciate the genius in a bar owner changing the graffiti from "For a great fuck" to "For a great Buick," then that's his loss.
He does finally laugh when Swayze is getting the shit beat out of him by the villain's goons as they're intercepting a liquor shipment. It's not a comedic scene, so Rumlow takes notice. "What?"
Rogers indicates Swayze wincing and grunting on screen. "I thought pain didn't hurt?"
And okay, Rumlow laughs at that one.
When they reach the scene of the monster truck plowing through the interior of the car dealership, Rogers sighs deeply and reaches for a beer. When the villain's lackey hisses "I used to fuck guys like you in prison!"—the second best part of the film's greatest fight—Rogers actually checks his watch.
He may be history's greatest soldier, but it's clear he has no taste.
It's not often that Rollins leaves Rumlow alone with the Winter Soldier.
Rollins rarely leaves the safe house. It's a safe house, after all: it's equipped with almost everything they need, at least for now. If there's something they require—like more oxycodone for Rumlow's wounds—Rollins will send the Soldier to steal it. The Soldier is all but unrecognizable now that he's grown a beard and after Insight's failure, they need that stealth.
But there are some things the Soldier can't do, like interact the way an ordinary person would. Sometimes, Rollins has to go out. And sometimes, very rarely, he can't take the Soldier along.
Rumlow isn't sure why Rollins worries so much. Rumlow's still a handler as far as the Soldier's concerned, and when he's conscious and up to giving orders, the Soldier listens to him the best. Sure, theoretically the Soldier could snap and slaughter him when Rollins is out and about, but it's not as if Rollins would be able to stop the Soldier even if he was around to see it.
So far, the Soldier hasn't shown any signs of snapping. Not when Rumlow's lucid enough to notice. The Soldier just waits at his bedside, like a cat, his eyes blue and sad and lost. As though he's waiting for the world to make sense again. Which, really, is just what Rumlow and Rollins are waiting for.
One day they're alone and Rumlow's flipping through the channels. Even that little twitch of the thumb makes his whole hand ache, but he pushes through it. He needs to regain all the mobility he's lost from the scar tissue. The Soldier sits by the bedside, quiet. Rumlow can't tell if he's watching the screen or his commander. He doesn't put forth the effort to turn his head and find out.
One channel displays Patrick Swayze examining a stop sign shoved through his car window. Rumlow smiles. He relaxes his grip on the remote and settles back against the pillow, counting down the minutes until his next dosage of painkillers.
The Soldier doesn't move. Doesn't speak. It shouldn't be noteworthy; he's usually silent. But something in the air is different now. It's an attentive sort of quietness. From the corner of his eye, Rumlow thinks he can see the Soldier lean forward in his seat.
Other than handing over the next dose of pills at the start of the third act, here's no more movement from the Soldier. There's no noise.
Until the movie's incredible, hilarious final line of dialogue: "A polar bear fell on me."
To Rumlow's right, there's a sound.
He can't quite place it at first. It's quiet, like someone clearing their throat. But it goes on for too long.
Rumlow braces himself for the pain and turns his head.
The Winter Soldier is laughing.
He has his hand pressed against his mouth, as if he's been taught such a reaction is forbidden. Maybe, decades ago, he had been. But he's laughing, eyes sparkling, shoulders shaking. It isn't derisive; the Soldier's not capable of that.
Rumlow smiles.
The Soldier catches sight of him and freezes. Rumlow knows that look. He's awaiting punishment.
But Rumlow just slumps back against the pillow. "You know, Winter? You're all right."
Maybe it's just the drugs circulating his system, but he swears the Soldier smiles.
A/N: Miss Cleo was an alleged psychic who was frequently on television in the nineties to promote her psychic hotline. Guiding Light was a soap opera that ran from 1952 to 2009. In the nineties, Brock Rumlow's actor, Frank Grillo, played a role in the show.
Steve wasn't too thrilled about the carbonite freezing in Star Wars.
If you'd like to see the scenes from Road House that I mention in this story, almost all of them are available on Youtube under the channel MOVIECLIPS. The titles of the particular clips that appear in this story are, in order of appearance: "Three Simple Rules," "Pain Don't Hurt," "The Double Deuce," "Monster Truck," and "Prepare to Die!"