Author's Note: This chapter originally had an imagined blowjob and some accidental stimulation; however, because of site policy, those have been removed to keep the rating at 'M.' The gunkink and objectification remain. The uncensored version is up on AO3 (link to my works is in my bio) and the capkink meme. Also, I have no idea what the bolt-assembly carrier looks like in a real sniper rifle, or if you have to worry about clearing copper from smoothbore weapons like you have to do when cleaning one with rifling; I just based all the weapon descriptions on a combination of what I know about M4s and what I read about Russian large caliber rifles online, in case you're wondering what my references were.


Chapter 7.

He is exhausted and off-balance when the captain forces him to rise from the chair. The asset stumbles over his own feet, his boots losing traction on the wet floor. But he doesn't fall because the captain catches him, wrapping strong arms around his chest to support his weight. He thinks that he must be so much lighter without the metal arm.

Not that it matters. The captain is more than capable of lifting him regardless.

"I didn't know, Bucky, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. . ." comes the captain's soothing whisper. He closes his eyes and lets his cheek rest against the captain's shoulder. The captain will take care of him now. He is okay. He hasn't healed, but he will in a few hours, and he is safe here. The captain told him he was safe. "Let me get you cleaned up."

"Miss Potts," he murmurs the name into the captain's jacket. "She will be upset."

The captain makes that awful, choked sound again. He hates that sound. "No, Buck, you know I wouldn't let you look a mess in front of a lady. Tony's gonna clean up the lab and I'm gonna clean up you and she'll be none the wiser."

It is a strange turn of phrase. He has no idea what it means. The asset assumes that it is another code, perhaps for a cover-up operation. He is familiar with those, though not in quite this context. The captain must have found the asset incredibly useful when they were in the Howling Commandos together for him to be willing to falsify a report to his superior officer even by omission. He is grateful for the second chance, and silently vows to make good use of it.

The asset is half-carried, half-dragged from the laboratory to the elevator, where the captain instructs Jarvis to take them up two floors to what must be the commander's quarters. The furniture is too nice to be asset barracks, he thinks, and there are pictures in glass frames on the walls in the hallway. Assets wouldn't get pictures. They don't need bookcases or doors or locks, either.

They bypass all these things on the way to the master bathroom, where the captain pins the asset between him and the sink counter. His legs are spread slightly for balance, with the captain's thigh planted between his, the edge of the counter pressing into the back of his legs just below his ass. If he unlocks his knees and lets himself slump down, he'd almost be sitting on the counter. The captain leans around him to turn the water on, shifting the asset so that he is positioned just to the right of the filling basin. He takes a washcloth from the towel rack on the wall and wets it before adding soap.

The captain starts at his face, carefully and gently stroking a corner of the cloth over his skin to clear the sweat and grime from his forehead. It feels good across his brow and over his temple, following his cheekbone, the line of his jaw, rubbing light pressure over and behind his ears. The asset closes his eyes again. The captain is cleaning him up so that they don't get in trouble and -

(he can't say anything can barely breathe because he's so damn scared he's gonna get caught and Jesus Mary and Joseph he'd rather die than have to be separated again)

- get transferred to different teams again.

Normally, he is washed down with a high-pressured hose after a mission and debriefing. A medical technician sees him and treats or documents whatever injuries he has received before his commander takes him into another room to spray the blood and filth from his body. Sometimes his skin is scrubbed raw with a hard brush. Then he is roughly dried and taken to the cryo-tank to go back into the ice.

The captain touches him like he is something important, something vital to mission success. He cleans him like a prized rifle, wiping away blood instead of gunpowder residue from the grooves of the scars over his ribs beneath the metal shoulder port. It is a pleasant image, thinking of himself like Captain America's favorite gun. If he were a rifle, then this touch here would be the captain cleaning the bolt slide so that his rounds chamber correctly when he goes to fire. And here where he is touched close to the exposed metal would be like scraping the black carbon residue off the firing and cam pins.

He can hear the water slosh in the sink each time the captain dips the cloth back into it to rinse it out. The asset is cleaned with soap instead of CLP, his owner focusing on sloughing away dirt instead of rust after use. He imagines that the rinsing is like dragging a brush breech to muzzle, that the captain is pulling slivers of copper from the smoothbore inside his barrel.

The asset tilts his head back. His breath is slow, labored and deep. He is acutely aware of the captain's body against his own, of the wet cloth traveling down his chest to his stomach. There is a warm feeling pooling low in his gut again, stronger than when he heard the captain laugh back in D.C. The captain steadies him with one hand, fingers gliding over the long line of his throat, curling around to the back of his neck.

This could go on forever, he thinks. It feels so good, so nice, so soft and he never wants to do anything to make the captain stop touching him like this.

"You still okay, Bucky?" the captain asks.

"Yes, sir," he answers. The cloth stops at the waistband of his pants. His upper receiver is spotless. The asset opens his eyes again, tilting his head to be able to look at the captain without leaning forward.

"Are you good to stand on your own? Your boots need to come off and you're going to have to change out of these pants."

He gives a small sound to confirm that he is capable of holding himself up without support, and then the captain sets the cloth aside and takes a knee to undo the laces of the asset's boots. It is an odd position to be in, though he isn't quite sure how he knows that. He thinks that the captain is not supposed to kneel, and there is something about having the captain's face at waist height that makes his skin feel hot and too small, like he'll burst if the captain touches him too roughly.

His belt follows the boots. The captain's hands are unbuttoning his pants. He is uncomfortable suddenly, and he isn't sure why. A weapon does not have a sense of modesty, does not feel embarrassed to be field-stripped and cleaned of debris. But he isn't a weapon, isn't Captain America's rifle, he just wants to be. He isn't blued steel and bolt-actioned. He is -

(tryin' not to look he swears trying not to open his big fuckin' mouth and ruin it when all he really wants to do is reach for him in the dark not because the captain is strong but because Bucky has always been weak)

- flesh and blood and metal and uncertainty. He is hungry for praise and terrified of punishment.

The captain tugs his pants down. The asset holds his breath.

There is no hiding in this moment that makes him forget what time is. He does not have any memories of the captain on his knees in front of him, but his mind is ticking and supplying him with images anyway. The captain in his mind leans forward those few precious inches, presses warm lips to the sharp lines of his lower abdominals, lets his tongue sweep over the asset's skin.

This isn't a memory. This isn't static or flashes of colors, isn't tactile information imprinted in his coding. He doesn't know what this is. The captain isn't actually touching him like that, he's just sliding the asset's pants down his legs to the floor. His head is bowed and the asset cannot see his face.

It isn't really happening but he is hungry for it, and imagining the captain's mouth on him makes him twitch and shudder all over. He's flushed with desire and he has no idea what that means or what he wants or what the hell he's supposed to do about it.

He is made to step out of his pants. The asset grips the edge of the counter hard with his right hand. In his mind, his other arm has been reattached and he can tangle his metal fingers into the captain's short hair, can pull his commander closer and -

The captain looks. He opens his mouth to say something, then abruptly closes it again. The captain takes a deep breath and lets it out as a sigh, not exasperated or disappointed, just. . . tired. Uncertain. That makes two of them. The asset can feel the rush of warm air over him, and it makes his stomach muscles contract. Blue eyes slowly crawl the rest of the way up his body. He must look like an idiot, all wound up like rifle springs with his pupils blown wide and his chest heaving. He feels like an idiot.

"Do you need a minute?"

What the fuck does that even mean? A minute for what? The asset tenses his jaw and shakes his head from side to side. He wishes they would stop talking in code. He wishes he had been reset and reprogrammed so that he knew what he was supposed to do, how he was supposed to respond. The captain grabs the washcloth again from the sink, rinsing it and applying more soap. He knows what the captain is going to do. The asset squeezes his eyes shut and lets his head fall back again.

He is a rifle, a weapon, a machine. He is smoothbore and cold metal. He is -

The captain has placed one hand on the asset's hip, and the other is scrubbing the washcloth over the opposite thigh, starting on the outside and working inward. These are not the same gentle, lingering touches that the captain had bestowed on his upper body. They lack the tenderness with which he had wiped away the layers of blood and sweat and oil, the grit and dirt that the waters of the Potomac had left on his skin when it dried. This is perfunctory. Necessary. Routine.

He is death and ice and a howling black wind. He is -

All too conscious of the way the back of the captain's hand brushes his inner thigh. The asset bites down on his lower lip. He is discipline. He is -

The captain moves lower, over the knee and down the front of the asset's shin, then around to wipe off the asset's calf. When he finishes that leg, he rinses the cloth, wringing it out several times before rewetting and applying more soap to start on the other side. An embarrassingly desperate whine escapes the asset when he is touched again.

The captain stands, and the asset opens his eyes again. He has ruined it, he knows he has and the captain must be angry, so angry with him that he -

(is getting on a train but he doesn't want to go and the air is hot and heavy and Stevie didn't even see him off because he's still so mad about the)

- will tell Miss Potts to send him away and he'll -

(swear it isn't payback, that he's not still mad about Coney Island or getting stuck out in Austria or letting him get shot in Lyon, but he's getting on the train and then he's falling falling falling and the ice is rushing up to meet him and the wind is screaming in his eyes so loud that he can't)

- get picked up by an extraction team and taken back to the laboratories for decommissioning.

"Turn around," the captain orders, and the asset complies. The counter is cold where it touches his flushed skin. He thinks his skin is going to split when the captain touches him again, that he's going to unravel into a twitching ball of corrupted code and conditioning. He's going to burst, to explode, to fire.

But he is a rifle, and they do not fire themselves. If his chest and his arms are part of his upper receiver, then his hips are the front and rear pivot pins, the skin below his navel is part of his magazine well and release. His thighs are trigger guards, the backs of his knees are pistol grips.

The captain wipes down his shoulders, draws the wet cloth down the length of his spine. Puts tiny circles of pressure into the small of his back with his thumbs. The asset's fingers are splayed on the countertop as he is pressed forward, the tile cracking under the pads of his fingertips. He is a rifle. His charging handle is the shallow recess of his spine between his lower back muscles. His forward assist is a bundle of tight nerves where his neck connects with his trapezius muscle.

He does not have a safety mechanism, but guns do not fire themselves.

The captain touches his ass, soapy fingers on his tense body instead of cloth, and the asset jerks forward against the counter. His dry skin slides haltingly on the cool tile, delicious friction that at the same time makes him bare his teeth in a grimace where he slammed his pelvic bone into the counter. He opens his eyes wide, and he can see the captain behind him in the mirror over his armless shoulder, and then he is firing.

Neither of them say anything. The captain turns him around and wipes the asset off and doesn't make eye contact. He is too drained to worry about what the punishment will be for a negligent discharge right now. His whole body feels weary and boneless but good, with equal parts pleasure and shame washing over him in slow waves and tingling in his extremities. The captain helps him stumble into the bedroom that they had passed through on the way into the bathroom, lets him fall into the bed.

Assets don't get beds. Rifles are kept in gun racks, he thinks, his eyes scanning the room carelessly. This must be the captain's bed under him, the captain's sheets being pulled up over his naked body. He has slept with a knife before, when it was allowed on long missions where he was left off the ice for more than a week. So maybe he's not surprised that the captain would sleep with his rifle in his bed. He wonders idly if the captain will stroke his throat like it's a barrel, will finger his scars like they are scratches along his handguards. Maybe he will be tucked into the captain's shoulder, nestled in close to reduce the recoil.

He doesn't hear the captain order him to get some rest, doesn't know if the captain gets in the bed after him. The asset closes his eyes and lets sleep and exhaustion take him under in the warm darkness.