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noctimusprime · 20 days ago

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Kintsugi (Bucky x OMC)

Chapter 1: Not a Corpse

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Original Male Character

Summary:Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of crack with lacquer mixed with powdered gold Altair has only known an underground lab for the last five and a half years. That is, until he escapes and ends up in the avengers' tower to endure the torturous road to healing. This is his tale: confronting his past, forging his future, and finding himself along the way. Bucky has been freed from his Hydra brainwashing, but he still feels like a ticking time bomb, especially while everyone looks at him as if he is. However, the newbie in the tower makes him feel normal, useful. How far will he go to keep feeling it? - Or: my therapist suggested writing about my own trauma personified being loved

Word Count: over 4k

Warnings: human experimentation, blood, implied abuse, suicidal ideation, Trauma

A/N: (1) I'm pretty notorious for not finishing fics, but seeing as this is technically an assignment from my therapist, I'm hoping I might actually finish it. yell at me when I take too long. (2) This fic is SUPER canon divergent. Do I know what's going on? No. No I don't.

The man shivered underneath the thin, scratchy blanket that had held him more often than anyone else. He absently picked at the red stains on the edge nearest to his face, lost in a world all his own. In his mind, he could run farther than the pristine white walls would allow him. He could sprint through trees, through the soft spring grass, and through the ice-cold river near his childhood home. Confined to four walls that appeared to move closer and closer when he wasn't paying attention, he ate slop that passed for food injected with whatever shit his captor deemed necessary. His only hobbies were counting the sprinkled ceiling tiles and trying to step directly in the middle of the pristine hospital-tiled floor.

He sighed and rolled over to face the wall, imaging himself back on his family's farm with the warm sun caressing his skin as it began its journey below the horizon. He almost felt the long grass tickling his bare feet as he sat on a sturdy wooden fence; the rough wood beneath him scraped the backs of his legs exposed by his shorts. He laughed with a faceless figure perched next to him in a white floral dress. Their voice sounded like bells in the breeze as he pointed at the sky with a carefree grin plastered to his face. He could hear the soft snuffling of the pigs lounging in the mud behind him. The smell of the feed and the grass made him dizzy with yearning. It was so close that he practically touched the sky.

A red light flashing above the locked door distracted him from the daydream and he groaned before burying his face into the cold, ratty pillow under his head. He knew it meant that he was being summoned for another torturous session with her. He also knew that if he wasn't on his feet by the time the door opened, the backs of his legs would kiss the batons.

With a deep sigh, he sat up and swung his legs off of the board of metal bolted to the wall that served as his bed. The lumpy plastic mat beneath him that served as his mattress desperately needed replacing, but he didn't expect a new one anytime soon.

He rose to his feet just before the clunking of the lock mechanism echoed throughout his empty room. The heavy metal door opened with a groan and in the doorway stood two men in dark uniforms filled up the doorway.

The guards were on the younger side, probably his own age. One of them was a redhead with a face full of freckles. The other had long black hair pulled into a ponytail with a matching trimmed beard. Altair could see the hint of a tattoo peeking out above the collar of his uniform. Both of them stood a full head taller than him, and they could overpower him with no effort on their part--especially with the help from the tasers strapped to their belts. Sometimes Altair wished that they would just shoot him and put him out of his misery.

Briar would lose her prized dog, though.

The redheaded guard prodded him in the ribs with his baton. "Come on, Stitches. Poison Princess wants you in the lab." The nickname they gave him hung heavy in the air. Altair attempted to avoid looking at the scars littering his exposed arms from various sessions with Briar, but his fingers still found the puckered skin of the back of his arms as he folded them across his chest.

Falling into step with the men, he shivered against the cool air moving through the corridor. His thin gown did little to block out the cold; it remined him of a hospital gown without the exposed back. The two men more or less ignored him. They chattered on and on about a date that Beard had complete with obscene gestures and hip thrusting that looked more like he had a bad cramp since he continued forward during the thrust. Altair cringed behind them.

Something clicked together in the back of Altair's mind. He was acutely aware of their biggest mistake: letting him walk behind them. They weren't ever supposed to have Altair behind them because it meant that he could attempt to escape from them. Briar had fired other guards over less serious infractions. A shiny plastic keycard caught his attention dangling from Beard's belt. It would be so easy to swipe it from him and hide it in the folds of his gown.

Not taking the time to argue with himself, he delicately unclipped the card from the guard's belt and clipped it to the inside of his gown behind the breast pocket. He shook out his arms and adjusted the gown to look as natural as possible, which was fairly easy because of his malnourished body. Sweat began to bead on the small of his back, his heart pounding in his ears as they traveled closer and closer to the lab where his worst nightmares occurred.

He needed to calm his hammering heart down. If it was too fast for Briar's tastes, he'd be sent back to his room where there wasn't a card reader to let him out. He needed to be in the lab so he would be alone for a few minutes to run. He needed that window of time.

He wiped his forehead, slick with sweat from both the exertion of the long walk and his own frayed nerves. He willed himself to calm down. He thought again of the daydream from laying in his bed. he pictured the setting sun illuminating the green of the leaves of the trees ahead of him. He thought of the wood beneath him and the hundreds of slivers that he had gotten in his legs because of the age of the fence. He thought of the faceless figure next to him and tried to come up with features: a long hooked nose, full lips, and soft brown eyes brightened by the last streams of sunlight.

It worked.

As the guards opened the door to the nearly empty room, he all but collapsed onto the chair bolted to the floor in the center. The guards ensured that he was indeed in the room before closing the door and leaving him alone with his racing thoughts. He needed to pace himself. If he left too early, he wouldn't have enough time to escape before being caught once again. His mind raced with potential outcomes. He could get caught without even making it an inch out of the room. He could get divebombed by jacked men after just making it outside.

He could also get away--as far away as travel could take him.

Every outcome ran circles around him until Briar--the face that he once loved--entered the room without looking up at him. She stood slightly taller than Altair with her once frizzy hair pulled back into a high ponytail full of tight curls. Thin-framed silver glasses rested on the bridge of her nose as she examined an open file in a clipboard in front of her. "Naomi, how are you doing today?"

At the sound of his birth name, he cringed internally. He had come out to Briar before they moved away from their hometown, and after the experiments started, she made a point to use his legal name. "I'm alright."

"You know what we talked about, Naomi; you need to use actual descriptors to tell me how you're feeling." Her velvet voice grated against his nerves, as if she were an ice cream cone that he took a bite out of.

"I'm exhausted, like always. My head hurts. I'm freezing," he spat bitterly as he folded his arms over his chest, completely forgetting about the keycard clipped to his gown.

"How long did the side effects of the most recent test last?" She asked, ignoring his tone.

A few hours, I think."

She looked up at him from her clipboard with a stern expression. "Naomi, I need the exact time frame."

As if he could give her the exact time. There was no clock or watch or any other time-telling devices in his room. He only had loose paper and flimsy ink straws wrapped in rubber tubing to prevent him from trying to off himself. "When they started kicking in until after I ate. I can't tell you what time it was."

Briar scribbled his response onto the paper on the clipboard. "Any residual side effects?"

"Only a headache that I've had ever since." He picked at the hem of his gown that reached his knees while he was sitting. When he was first subjected to the lab, the shortness of the dress embarrassed him, but now he was only mildly insecure about flashing Briar.

"On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the headache?" she asked, looking up at him with a neutral expression at that moment. How she could sit there and look at him like he meant nothing to her, he didn't know. He thought that she loved him once.

"Six."

She seemed to be satisfied and set the clipboard on the floor near the door. Pulling out a large clear syringe full of something dark purple. She pulled out a package with a sterile needle from her other pocket and cleaned his inner elbow with an alcohol wipe she seemingly pulled out of nowhere. She stuck the needle into his arm and he watched as the purple substance entered his body.

It burned. The substance felt like fire spreading through his body and tears welled in his eyes. Coughing to cover up the whimper that threatened to escape him, he waited until she had wrapped his elbow with the scratchy red gauze tape before moving his arm away from her. He never wanted to give her the satisfaction of seeing the side effects of the injections.

"I'll be back in a few minutes to make sure that the serum is working and then we'll proceed to the course." With that, Briar scanned her own keycard and left the room. Halfway through counting to sixty, he felt the pounding in his head worsen. He heard the blood swishing through his ears as he tapped the keycard he fumbled for in his gown on the reader. The little red light on the black box switched to green and Altair softly opened the door to check the hallway.

To his surprise, it was empty.

Slipping into the hallway, he began to trace his to the exit, following the signs on the wall pointing in various directions like a hospital would have.

Convenient.

He had almost reached the corridor that held his room when he felt the first wave of nausea hit him like a speeding car into a brick wall. Stopping long enough to empty his stomach in the hallway as quietly as he could manage, he continued forward. The path in front of him twisted and wiggled and stretched while the lights seemed to stab his eyes. With his head pounding harder and harder, he thought things couldn't get worse until the lights flickered off and turned a menacing red color as a siren started screaming into the empty air.

Doors opened on all sides of him as he stumbled through the hallway and dozens of guards poured out into the corridor behind him. The heavy footfalls seemed to slam into the ground in time with his heartbeat. He could hear incoherent yelling as he started sprinting. His legs felt heavy and numb, and the room spun as his vision filled with black static. Every sound was suddenly muffled as if someone had stuffed cotton in his ears as a high-pitched ringing started in his ears.

His body slammed into the metal door and he had enough sense to slam the keycard into the card reader. The heavy door opened into a fenced yard surrounded by thick firs and spruce trees. Altair didn't have time to stop to admire the orange-streaked clouds above him. He had to disappear into those trees.

Altair stumbled down the concrete steps and lurched towards the fence that stood at least twenty-five feet above his head. He had no idea how he was supposed to get over it, but he couldn't stop to think about it. He had to trust himself. He had to believe that he was going to make it. If he thought--for even a moment that he wouldn't make it, he'd lose his nerve and walk back into the compound with his proverbial tail between his legs.

Altair misjudged how far away he was from the fence. Lunging forward, Altair rolled on the hard ground. He was too far from the fence. Spitting out the clump of dirt and grass, he could feel the guards closing in on him. Fear flooded his system, adrenaline driving back some of the effects of the serum. Hands grabbed for his thin gown. Screaming, he wrenched himself away. Sparks flashed between him and the men who held him. Several of them dropped to the ground and started seizing. Those who didn't have a hold of him started murmuring amongst themselves. Taking advantage of the pause, Altair bolted for the fence. He didn't stop until he collided into the fence with a fistful of the chain-link in his hands and began climbing.

A surge of energy seemed to hit him and only got stronger the further he advanced up the fence. When he reached the top, he risked a look back and saw three of the men writhing on the ground next to the fence. Another guard gingerly reached out to touch the metal with the end of his baton and sparks flew before he staggered backwards.

The fence was electrified.

Altair was climbing on the electrified fence as if it were off. He didn't feel anything expect energy filling him up. He felt like he was able to run for miles without stopping. He felt on top of the world.

Jumping from the top of the fence, he felt the fabric of his gown pull against him and a loud rip filled the air. Landing in a heap of his own limbs with pain shooting through his arms and knees, he barely noticed the gown split down the middle of his back. His head was pounding and he swayed on his feet as he stood up. Taking in a lungful of air, Altair set off into the forest at a sprint. Twigs scattered on the ground poked at his bare feet. He tried to avoid the rocks protruding from the dirt, but the light from the setting sun was fading fast and the canopy of the trees above him already blocked a majority of the light.

His lungs burned. A cramp in his side pulsed in time with his breaths. The world tilted in front of him as if he were on a twirling roller coaster. Another wave of nausea rolled through him and he fought back the urge to vomit again. He had to keep going. He couldn't afford to stop and give the men behind him time to catch up. He could almost feel the heavy footfalls of people following him through the dirt under his feet.

He veered hard to the left, he weaved between the trees until his legs collapsed from under him. Sprawled on the ground, he rolled over onto his back and stared at the canopy of tree needles above him. He spotted the first glimpse of stars in the darkened sky. Giggles bubbled up from his chest. Tears welled in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks to collide with the ground beneath him. He brought his hands to his face and laughed harder than he ever had.

He was free.

It took him a few minutes for the giggles to die out. Clearing his throat, he stood up and slid the gown off of him before turning it around to act as a robe. He avoided looking down at his body, the scars a painful reminder of what he just escaped.

Escaped.

The dark sky gradually paled as the night turned to early morning. As the moon grew closer to the horizon, the sky faded into a soft purple. The first rays of sunlight reached out from behind the mountain in the distance. Altair's legs shook with each step he took through the trees. Dead needles, sticks, and rocks had rubbed the bottoms of his feet raw. He limped forward and stopped every so often to crouch down and listen for the heavy footfalls of anyone following him, but the forest remained silent except for the birds waking to the dawn.

He sighed. He knew that the facility was well hidden considering that he'd never been found, but he didn't think that it was that far out of the way.

A loud pop echoed through the forest as if someone had twisted a capped water bottle until the cap shot off. Something hit him in the back of the thigh, and he spun around to see what hit him. Not immediately seeing anything, he turned back around to continue walking only to be met with a searing pain through his leg. It felt like someone was pressing a hot metal poker into his thigh.

His heart hammered in his chest as he saw the dark red blood dribbling down his leg. He felt around the back of his leg and found a hole the width of his pinky finger. He lunged forward despite the searing heat in his leg and sprinted blindly through the trees until he burst out of the forest line onto a paved road. He spotted a beat-up red truck in the distance coming toward him and limped to the middle of the lane waving one of his arms and holding his gown closed with his other hand.

The truck honked at him a few times before slamming on the brake when the driver realized that Altair wasn't moving out of the way. An older woman with short gray hair wearing a blue flannel shirt scrambled out of the truck while yelling for a younger man with a beard and a brown dog in the front seat to stay as soon as she noticed the blood and hospital gown. "Hun, are you-"

"Please...please help me," he begged. He glanced back at the tree line, eyes darting back and forth before looking at the woman with as much of a pleading expression as he could muster. He had no idea how pathetic he could have looked to this stranger: a dirt-caked hospital gown, blood staining his legs, wild matted hair, tear stain tracks through the dirt on his face.

"Alright, I'll help ya into the truck bed," she wrapped his free arm around her shoulder and turned her attention to the man in the truck. "Korbin, get me the towels from under the passenger seat and drive to the hospital, fast as ya can."

Altair could feel his leg throbbing with each second he stayed on his feet. He limped against the woman as she and the man helped him into the back of the truck. It smelled like straw and old grass clippings. The woman put down a torn blanket and had Altair lay on his stomach so she could press the towels on the hole in his leg.

The truck lurched forward as the man sped off down the road. Every pothole and speedbump they hit sent agony throughout Altair's body. It was too much for him and eventually, his all-night trek through the woods and the pain of the gunshot wound caught up to him. Unconsciousness overtook him and the yelling of the woman next to him did nothing to deter it.

🗲 🗲 🗲 🗲 🗲 🗲

The noise of the small cafeteria buzzed throughout Altair's head. His long, dark hair acted as a curtain between him and the noise. He sat alone at the end of one of the four long tables centered in the room. The students behind him chattered loudly about an upcoming football game against the rival school; they rattled off the names of student players that meant nothing to Altair. Music pounded from his one functioning earbud as he tried to drown the noise out with an angsty emo band.

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?" A soft voice interrupted his music. Pushing his hair out of his eyes and behind his ear, he looks up at the stranger in front of him. She was slightly taller than him with frizzy blonde hair and thick square glasses. Standing in an oversized hoodie with a purple backpack slung over her shoulder, she held a tray of food in front of her.

"Uh, no. It's not," he replied softly, still staring at her.

"Can I sit?"

"Sure, if you want to." He moved his own ratty backpack off the table to let her set her tray of food down. She slid onto the bench on the other side of the table, and suddenly, the scene changed to the red and black lobby of the burger restaurant from Altair's hometown. The girl reached forward from her spot across from him and took his hand in hers.

"Naomi, come on. We could do it yknow? We could run from here and live our lives our own way. Away from your overbearing parents, away from my abusive ones. We could do it together." Her bright blue eyes softened as she tilted her head. She rubbed her thumb over his wrist.

She pulled away and Altair looked down at his hands, black bracelets adorning his wrists that thickened and hardened to metal shackles. He struggled against them, but he couldn't move. He stared at the ceiling above him as he laid there paralyzed. He could just make out the girl's curls hidden underneath a surgeon's cap as she bobbed in an out of his field of vision. She was poking and prodding at his insides while the heart monitor blared warnings above him.

Altair's eyes fluttered open. He found himself on his back facing a dim tiled ceiling. An incessant beeping filled his head. Turning his head to find the source of the noise, he discovered several people in armored uniforms standing at the door facing the hallway. At first, he thought he was back in the compound; fear for the old woman and the man who helped him flooded through him. Are they okay? Are they dead?

The heart monitor began blaring an alarm as his heart hammered in his chest. It wasn't until a short brown-haired nurse bustled into the room. She smiled at him when she saw that he was awake. "Oh! You're awake! I'll let the doctor know right away." She checked to make sure that he wasn't actively dying before disappearing between the armored guards.

Altair tried to adjust his position in the bed only to find a thick white cast covering his leg from the top of his thigh to just below his toes. He wiggled them to ensure he could still feel them. He also noticed an IV on in the inside of his elbow preventing him from bending it. The most surprising part of the discoveries is that...he really didn't care. He was pretty unbothered by his current condition now that he knew he wasn't back at the facility.

A few minutes later, a middle-aged man in dark scrubs walked in with a tall dark-skinned man in a black trench coat and an eyepatch on his heels. "Hey there, how are you feeling? You gave us quite the scare there, Kid." The man in scrubs pulled the small circular chair up to the side of Altair's bed. He gave a short nervous laugh while glancing at Eyepatch out of the corner of his eyes. "My name is Dr. Sinclair. Can you tell me your name?"

"My name is...Altair. Altair san Martín." Altair had picked his name a long time ago, and he had honestly almost given them his birth name. However, if Briar was on the hunt for him, he knew he couldn't give them that name. He watched Eyepatch turn away from him and heard him mumble something into his coat.

"Can you tell me what happened to you?" Dr. Sinclair asked after scribbling Altair's name down.

"I was shot," Altair said flatly.

"Okay, what were you doing when you were shot? And why were you in a hospital gown?"

Altair stayed silent long enough that Eyepatch frowned at him. "I...I can't tell you. Everyone would be in danger, and I don't want it to be my fault."

The doctor glanced at Eyepatch who stepped forward. "Is someone after you, Kid?"

Altair nodded, but didn't say anything. He pursed his lips when they both asked him who it was that was after him. He really didn't want to say anything, but the longer that the interview took, the more his body started to hurt and the more annoyed he got.

Eventually, they both pried her name out of him. Before Eyepatch could question him further, Dr. Sinclair told him that he'd gotten enough information. He stood firm in his decision to kick Eyepatch out of the room.

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