Bucky moved slowly, his hand outstretched, palm up in front of his body, like a surrender. He watched the other soldiers wearily. They had turned their full attention on him now. Their hands were ready, twitching, one finger on the trigger.
Bucky thought of Steve and what he would do once they found his body.
Do it for the kids. Keep walking. One foot in front of the other.
A nervous drop of sweat ran down his temple and disappeared under the fine cloth of his undergarmet. Bucky kept his pace, slow and steady, expecting signs that they were going to blast him right then and there every second now but nothing happened. The children didn't seem to notice the tense atmosphere at all.
When he finally reached Ward, miraculously still unharmed, Bucky swallowed hard and gathered up his courage. He couldn't fight, he couldn't run, he couldn't resist. Instead, he took a deep breath, stood tall and gave his former handler a stiff one-armed embrace.
Ward wasted no time. When he pulled their bodies closer together, chest to chest, Bucky tried not to recoil from the touch. They were almost the same height. Over the agent's shoulder, Bucky kept watching the other men like a hawk, unblinking, anxious to keep an eye out for movement at all times. The group seemed tense, on guard, like they were waiting for something. Bucky realized what it was before it happened. Ward wasn't exactly subtle. His gloved hand slid further down Bucky's spine, slowly wandering lower and lower, over the small of his back until it unabashedly came to rest on Bucky's ass.
He wasn't surprised. Not really. Hydra's special brand of fascism and toxic masculinity was bound to attract men like Ward - the ones who got off on exerting dominance over their victims. Sexual harassment was a means of control to them. It affirmed the 'natural order' of things. Bucky knew not to resist unless he meant to escalate the situation. He couldn't. There was nothing to be done about the groping except to steel himself against the sickening sense of 'wrong' and wait it out until they got tired of humiliating him. The others chuckled and whistled at him while their leader copped a feel. Bucky gritted his teeth and imagined what their corpses would look like after Steve was through with them.
Eventually, Ward stopped squeezing and relaxed his grip. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" he whispered hotly in Bucky's ear. "If you comply, maybe I'll let one of the kids live."
Bucky flinched in shock, his eyes opened wide. He tried to pull away but Ward squeezed him against his body and kept him in a tight hold, one arm locked behind Bucky's head. "Stay," the Hydra agent ordered as if he was commanding his lap dog.
Bucky could have broken his arm with ease but he already knew what the consequences of that would be, so he did nothing. Not an option. Unfortunately.
"Don't—" he hissed at Ward, carefully keeping his voice down, "...don't hurt them."
"Oh, you like those little fuckers, don't you?" Ward whispered in his ear. The hot breath on his skin made Bucky break out in goosebumps. "You actually care about them, huh? That's so sweet."
He grabbed Bucky's left shoulder painfully, squeezing the sensitive stump on purpose as he went until Bucky let himself wince. Then he was shoved and turned around to face the children.
Bucky stood stock-still, unresisting and making a show of it, while Ward obnoxiously plastered himself to his back, threw one arm over Bucky's chest and rested his chin on his shoulder. He continued to smile unnaturally bright towards the little group as if he didn't know what the real thing was supposed to look like. Almost like Bucky before he had learned how to be a person again. A joyless wolfish expression that threatened violence and nothing else.
"What shall we do with the little ones, huh? What do you think, "Bucky", wouldn't they make perfect recruits for Hydra's new army? Look at them. Look! Look how they worship you with these big dumb eyes. You're their fucking hero."
Bucky clenched his jaw. It was true. Even now the children watched his every move, suspicious but still unaware of the danger they were in. Their attention had bothered him at first. In Wakanda, he stood out like a sore thumb. His white skin and the missing arm made him an oddity. People here looked at him with an even stranger expression then before. He might have worn the asset's mask just as well.
Thankfully, time had worked in his favor. After a while, he'd gotten used to his reputation as the "White Wolf", the crazy foreigner with the thousand yards stare. The constant presence of his uninvited young guests had helped to ease the way. When the people stopped treating him with fear, Bucky noticed that the sentiment went both ways. After he held Tamia's fragile body against his own for the first time and swooped her up to dance, no longer concerned that he would clutch her little hands too tightly or dirty her with his touch somehow, he was a changed man. Now he was just some funny uncle with a missing arm and a wild herd of goats.
Bucky's eyes dropped to the gun that was pressing at his backside. Ward kept it in a thigh holster, unsecured. It was a dare, a false opportunity for Bucky to lose his cool, to reach for it and do something stupid that would get them all killed. He couldn't take the shot. He had way too many eyes on him as it was, too many to try anything. Not when the kids were in harms way. The risk was too high. Unless Bucky could take every single Hydra agent at once, the body count was bound to be catastrophic. He wasn't prepared to pay the price, and they knew it.
"I'm no one's hero," Bucky said pointedly, gritting his teeth.
"That's right," Ward drawled. "We're gonna show them what you really are, won't we?"
—
"After you."
Goon number 2 shoved Bucky backward through the opening of his hut, following right on foot. Bucky stumbled but managed to catch his weight by clutching to the rattling chains of the old cauldron he used for cooking. He steadied himself and stepped aside so the soldiers could herd the children into his small home as well.
There was an olalem, a beautiful traditional machete on the wall to his right. It was useless to him at the moment. He couldn't get to it and even if he could, he couldn't do enough damage with it before the kids' chances of survival dropped to zero. These guys knew what they were doing.
Two men flanked him, gun ready at his head while the others lined the children up against the wall expertly, controlling the space. The guards with machine guns covered the oldest ones.
Bucky called them Number 4 and 5 in his head. Number 2 and 3 were covering him and constantly looking to Ward for approval. 5, 6, and 7 also remained by the wall with the children. 8, 9, and 10 were waiting outside, securing the parameter.
Someone had to be the weak link.
"Kids? Everybody stay calm, ok?" Bucky addressed the confused children. They seemed to have noticed that something was going on by now, something bad. Most of them were frowning and sticking together as close as possible. Some kids held hands or had latched onto the older ones' coat-tails.
"Hlala uphole. Thula," Bucky repeated in their native tongue. Stay calm. Be quiet. "Nothing bad is gonna happen to us if we do as they say," he declared pointedly, addressing the men rather than the children.
Ward snorted loudly and clapped his hands together. "Alright? You heard the man. Stay calm! Don't be shy, Bucky. Why don't you give us a little tour?"
Bucky's eyes darted back and forth between Ward and the exit.
"OK. This is where I live. Not much to see."
"Oh really?" Ward turned his back to him and walked around in a circle, stopping in front of the rumpled blankets on the ground. "What's this, smartass? The marriage bed?" he asked sarcastically, gesturing to the grey wool-blankets on the ground.
When Bucky didn't comment on it right away, Ward kicked the pillows aside and stepped on them with his dirty shoes, messing up the bedding and leaving ugly footprints.
It was true. This was where he slept with Steve, in just about every way a person could sleep with another whenever he took a break from his endless undercover missions with the rogue Avengers and visited Wakanda.
When Bucky had come back from the dead, practically reassembled from the ashes Thanos left behind, Steve had promised to stay, to give up the mantle of Captain America and retire. Cherish the life they could have together, but in the end, there was another crisis, and Steve being Steve couldn't stand by idly. The same way it had always been.
In the meantime, Bucky took care of things at home and did his best to make it look presentable. The small hut and what was in it, including Bucky himself, was in for a thorough makeover when he knew that Steve was coming over, coming back to him. As if there was any reason to pretend. Steve already knew what it was like to live with him, and had seen him at his worst, but it was nice to nest, to make a solid effort at looking sharp. Bucky called it being a good partner. It kept the romance alive.
Of course, once they were together, they stopped picking up after themselves immediately. They never made the bed, forever the bachelors they were before the war. It was too comfortable, time too precious to waste on clean-up.
Goon Number 2 stepped closer. Bucky barely had any time to brace himself before he got slapped across the face, hard. The sound rang too loudly in the enclosed space and Bucky let his body turn with the impact to absorb the shock and hide his face.
One of the children started to cry out. The others gasped and held on to one another, fear settling in.
"The commander asked you a question, bitch!" the guy barked at him.
Bucky focused on breathing deeply. Staying in control. In and out. When he picked up his head and tried to face Agent Ward again, Number 2 backhanded him, hitting the other cheek this time.
Fine. This, he could handle.
