"Winter" - a Howard Stark/James Buchanan Barnes fic
Title: Winter
Pairing: Howard Stark/James Buchanan Barnes
Rating: Adult
Summary: The Winter Soldier experiences some disturbing memories.
Warnings and disclaimers: The characters belong to Marvel. Spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but only if you haven't seen the trailer.
Notes: There just isn't enough Howard Stark slash fiction out there, so I decided to write one. I had to guess a bit about Howard's death because I never paid much attention to the character until he looked like Dominic Cooper. Also, I decided he didn't turn into John Slattery some time after the war, but still looks like Dominic Cooper at the time of his death. Call it creative licence.
He is choking. Ice water in his lungs. Struggling against unseen bonds, a lethargic weight in his limbs. Pain, burning his chest. Burning ice.
Peace comes in floating images, short as magnesium flashes. Full lips, curling minutely at one corner. Snatches of music, far away. Bourbon-scented breath. A honey-smooth voice.
Icy needles against his face. Gasps against cold, unfeeling air. Not enough air. Blood filling his mouth. Skin burning with cold.
Warm. The light, the soft cloth against his back. The honey voice again: "...stop." The full lips, soft and hard against his mouth. Music.
So cold. Air, filling his lungs, freezing him from the inside out. Metallic voices, short barks all around. Pain in his left arm, as if his flesh is ripping.
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The repetition becomes monotonous: pain, dark, cold, silence, blood. Cycles of it, interrupted by that other world: warmth, faint music, life, touch. The vision becomes more complete as his body acclimates to the cold and pain. He can barely tell which world is real now.
He knows there is a third universe, cold but light, full of cries and blood, where he goes now and then, but an unspeakable pain in his head prevents him from thinking about it. He prefers to live in the warm world, where the pain is different, more heartache and somehow pleasant, like the ghost of future heartbreak.
The bourbon taste fills his mouth now, warmer and spicier than when he drank it from the glass. The warmth of it pools considerably lower than his stomach, radiating out to his chest, toes, fingertips. The firm mouth and expert tongue pull away and he feels cold and bereft, embarrassed by his perceived neediness. The dark eyes are still warm, but their usual mischievous glint is muted, softer.
"Tell me. To. Stop". Each pause punctuated by a too short kiss or lick to his open, panting mouth. He shakes his head mutely, the other's mouth so close that he feels the bristly brush of the moustache against his lips. The next kiss is deep and demanding, almost possessively ferocious, leaving him feeling like the inside of his mouth is not his own yet he has never been more aware of each tooth, ridge and nerve ending.
The kiss ends with a protracted pressure, almost chaste, against his bruised lips. The skin under his nose and at the corner of his lips feels raw from the unaccustomed friction of another's facial hair. This time the older man is also gasping for breath, face a little flushed and eyes decidedly less focused.
"Beautiful." The man breathes the word, eyes locked with his, callused fingertips tracing his lips, jaw, ear, neck. He stops at his collarbone, fingers drifting under the coarse wool of his shirt. "Tell me to stop."
He shakes his head again and the hand slides under his shirt, palm pressing against one nipple, the metal of the man's wristwatch sharply cold against his overheated skin. He leans forward, making the other man hesitate, then smile that slightly smug smile when he pulls off the shirt and drops it to the floor.
The man grabs a hold of his dog tags and pulls him into another passionate kiss. They somehow stand and stumble over to the small bed in the corner, where firm hands against his shoulders force him to sit. He swallows with difficulty, heart hammering against his ribs, not only from the effect of lust.
He exhales a breath he hadn't been aware of holding when the other man smoothly kneels between his own spread knees, licking a line from his waistband to the middle of his chest, teeth briefly closing around his dog tags with a metallic click. The man looks up at him, eyes unwavering, one hand palming his hard cock through U.S. Army issue pants.
"Tell me to stop." The honey voice is rough, shaky. He shakes his head.
His pants are unbuckled and pulled down, the man's full mouth wrapped around his cock before he can take sufficient breath to brace himself. The chocked gasp/moan that escapes him would have shamed him at another time, and probably will later, not discounting that the way the man's lips curl into a smirk around his member would normally have made him want to punch it off his face.
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The cold is a sudden, cruel grip in his gut, where a heartbeat before there was nothing but warmth and lust. The absence of touch hits his skin like pain, his metal fingers closed in an empty fist where flesh gripped the smooth skin and bristly hair of someone's nape.
The memory evaporates in the harsh white light of the lab, overlaid with a red, white and black image: twisted red metal, pristine snow, black leather gripping the matte black hilt of a pistol. A white face streaked with blood, dark hair falling over dark eyes. The man's mouth moves, a dark hole, white teeth covered with red.
The Winter Soldier waits, the mission's threat level considerably lower after the shiny red automobile's sudden stop against the black tree. The mission level the gun at his face, the dark eyes narrowing. Confusion is etched in every line of his face. Sudden resolution in the dark eyes, the hand steadies.
The Winter Soldier waits.
"Tell me. To. Stop." The mission says, laboured breath filling each stop.
The Winter Soldier steps forward, wraps his metal hand around the back of the man's head. The pistol wavers and falls, the man breathes one last, incomprehensible, word.
"Bucky."
The metal hand is warmed by the mission's blood as his skull caves.
THE END
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