Road Trip from Hell
Harry was hot.
Harry was bored.
Harry’s left leg was once again wrapped up and strapped to a board.
And Bucky kept saying they were ‘almost there’.
As in, almost to Mexico to hide Harry from wizards working with HYDRA to assassinate Harry as some grand plot to… to… probably just piss off Voldemort and Tony both in one go.
“Bucky, please… please… can we pull over?” Harry asked weakly, too tired and miserable to put much force behind his words. “I’ve got to take a piss, I think I’m going to be sick, and if I don’t get water soon then I’m going to die and this whole bloody mad plot of yours is going to be for nothing.”
Bucky looked up in the rearview mirror and Harry must have looked as pathetic as he felt because Bucky frowned and a flash of concern washed over his very crazy face.
“Yeah, there’s a rest stop coming up,” he said soothingly. “We’ll grab some water and snacks from the vending machine, okay?”
Terrific.
Because what Harry really wanted was more crisps and fruit snacks when his stomach felt weak and shaky after who knew how many doses of pain medicine and precisely zero doses of Harry’s actual medicine.
“Thanks,” Harry said flatly. “It’s a true kindness you’re showing me.”
Bucky snorted at Harry’s sarcasm and Harry turned his head to watch the scenery fly by them on the road trip from hell.
“Where are we anyway?” Harry asked without any real curiosity. The scenery was boring, it was miserably hot even with the air conditioner on, and Harry knew that he was not a person cut out for living in a hot climate.
“Almost to Dallas,” Bucky said from up front. “Sorry about the heat.”
Harry raised a brow at him, waiting for Bucky to glance up in the mirror. “Just to be crystal clear here- you’re apologizing for the temperature outside but not for kidnapping me?”
“Right.”
“Right,” Harry repeated. “Bloody psychopath.”
Neither of them said anything else and it was only a few minutes later that Bucky took an exit for a rest stop.
It was a mark of how resigned Harry was to playing out Bucky’s ‘rescue mission’ that he didn’t even bother struggling when Bucky helped him out of the van they were in and put Harry in the wheelchair he stole somewhere in Arkansas.
If Harry could use the loo and get a drink, he wouldn’t even scream at strangers like he had the last time they stopped for Bucky to steal a new car.
“If you follow me in the loo then I’m going to scream the entire rest of the drive,” Harry warned Bucky when it seemed like he was prepared to do just that. Bucky let go of the wheelchairs handles and held his hands up placatingly.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll grab drinks and snacks, okay?”
“‘I’ll grab drinks and snacks’,” Harry mocked him quietly after rolling his eyes at Bucky. Harry pushed himself in the loo, grinding his teeth when he accidentally bumped his leg against the door, and wondered if he could quickly learn to wandlessly cast Avada Kedavra.
Probably not.
Once Harry finished in the loo, a bloody nightmare considering how hard it was to do while only having one good leg, he rolled himself back out to the parking lot and tried to beat Bucky back to the van. If Harry could steal the van, maybe he could get somewhere with a phone. Or, at a minimum and much more likely, someone would call the police when Harry inevitably wrecked it on the highway.
No such luck.
Bucky was leaning against the drivers door and watching the loo doors sharply for Harry to exit. He rushed over once Harry did and grabbed the handlebars to guide him back to the van.
“I’ll climb in myself,” Harry snapped when Bucky bent down to lift Harry. Harry wasn’t an invalid, he was a teenager who had been kidnapped by a brainwashed assassin and being taken to Mexico against his will with a leg that had bone sticking through it and was then stitched together by the aforementioned brainwashed assassin.
But he wasn’t an invalid, damn it.
Harry was distracted enough by his leg, his general disdain for his life, and anger so deep it was like a bottomless pit for Bucky that it took him entirely too long to notice that there was another person in the back of the van.
“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!” Harry screamed, rolling to the side to get away from the… whatever they were… and accidentally rolling on his broken leg.
Harry groaned at the increased level of pain and tried to inch more carefully away from the person sitting cross-legged in the back of the van right up against the trunk. Whoever they were, they looked like one of Tony’s superhero mates with the red mask with creepy black eyes and the handles of what looked like thin swords strapped to their back.
At that point, Harry wasn’t even sure if scooting closer to the front seats where Bucky would be in a moment was safer than being near the person with the swords.
“Ooh, so close,” the bloke, it sounded like a bloke, said in a cooing tone. “It’s Wade, actually, but you can call me Jesus if you want.”
Harry was so caught off guard by the casual, almost teasing, tone from ‘Wade’ that he twitched when Bucky climbed in and slammed the driver's door shut.
“Ready?” Bucky asked, looking in the rearview mirror.
Harry looked from Bucky to Wade, Wade to Bucky, then back to Wade.
“Harry? You okay?” Bucky asked gently.
“Can- what… why…?” Harry was stammering and unable to even ask a coherent question. “Do you two know each other??” Harry asked them both as he kept turning back and forth.
“Nope!” Wade said in a chipper tone.
“Know who?” Bucky asked. He turned around and squinted at Harry hard. “Are you seeing things, kid?”
Harry gestured wildly to the very large, very red, bloke sitting in the back of the van with him. “Can you not see him?!” Harry demanded.
Bucky looked where Harry waved and then shook his head at Harry. “Here,” he handed Harry a bottle of water. “You might be getting dehydrated, drink up, okay?”
Oh God.
Bucky’s madness was contagious and Harry was having auditory and visual hallucinations.
“He’s not real… he’s not real…” Harry hummed to himself over the sound of Wade loudly eating a bag of crisps beneath his mask. Harry’s eyes kept flickering back to Wade and then he determinedly looked away, refusing to give in to his own madness.
“You’re going to hurt my feelings, you know,” Wade said lightly. He threw a crisp at Harry and Harry hummed even louder. “What? Just because Bucky the nut job can’t see me and suddenly I’m not real? You’re really going to let that guy decide if you’ve been hitting the needle too hard or not?”
That…
That was an excellent point, actually.
Harry watched Bucky’s face as he replied to Wade, watching for any reaction at all.
“Can he hear you?” Harry asked Wade.
Bucky didn’t so much as twitch or anything.
“Nope! Watch this: HEY, BUCKY, I BET YOU CAN BOUNCE A NICKEL OFF STEVE’S ASS, IT’S SO TIGHT!”
When Bucky still didn’t react, that settled the matter for Harry. Either Harry was completely insane or Bucky was, but at least Wade was someone to talk to.
“Why can’t he hear you?” Harry asked Wade.
Wade shrugged broad shoulders, “It didn’t fit in the authors agenda.”
… whatever the hell that meant.
“I’m Harry,” Harry said politely, reaching over to Wade to offer his hand. Even if Wade was a figment of Harry’s imagination, he was still a way to distract himself from his never ending boredom, the pain in his leg, and his desire to go home.
Wade snorted and grabbed just Harry’s thumb, shaking it enthusiastically.
“I know, I’ve read like alll your books. Big fan, honestly,” he said gushingly. “You missed a lot of opportunities to make wand-dick jokes, but I made them on your behalf when I read them.”
Harry blinked when Wade dropped his hand. “Books?” he asked dumbly.
“Uh, yeah,” Wade said. Somehow Harry felt like Wade was rolling his eyes at him. “The third one is my favorite, but I’m just a slut for Sirius. Do you have any idea how hard I cried when he died? Ugh. I know you really blamed yourself for that, but I liked the whole ‘fuck you, Snape, we’ll save him ourselves!’ bit. Very rebel with a cause of you.”
Harry had somehow began hallucinating a bloke who talked nonsense… and somehow it wasn’t even the lowest point in his life.
“Sirius isn’t dead…?” Harry said, mentally praying it was still true. “What are you on about?”
“Uno momento, my very concussed friend,” Wade said, holding up a finger. “Let’s see… what did the tags say…? Ah! Post-Goblet of Fire! So Sirius hasn’t died yet! Yay!”
“Every person in this car is insane,” Harry moaned to himself. “I want to go home.”
“Have you tried clicking your heels together three times?” Wade suggested.
Harry turned and scowled at him. “Yeah, mate, let me just click my fucking heels together, because I’m sure that won’t hurt like a bitch at all.”
“You are a feisty little kidnap victim, aren’t you?” Wade laughed. “And here I came to help you.”
“Wait, what?” Harry turned his head so quick toward Wade that he felt it crick in the side. “You can help me?” he whispered, despite it seeming as if Bucky were entirely deaf to their conversation. “Do you have a phone? Or- or a way for us to escape?”
“Even better,” Wade whispered back, leaning toward Harry conspiratorially, “I know how you can drive Bucky completely insane.”
“Oh, piss off,” Harry scowled, leaning back against the wall of the van. “He’s already completely insane if you haven’t noticed.”
“Oookay, but I’ve got a whole list of ideas from the discord about it,” Wade said in a sing-song voice. He really cemented the fact that Harry was as crazy as Bucky was when he pulled a sheet of paper from thin air and waved it around. “Don’t you even want to hear some of their ideas?”
Well it wasn’t as if Harry had anything else to do.
“Okie dokie!” Wade shook the sheet of paper after Harry mumbled an agreement to hear whatever the discord told him to do…
Whatever the hell a discord was…
“First off, they said you should be kicking the hell out of Bucky-Boo’s chair, but maybe with the right foot not left,” Wade said, causing Harry to instantly scowl. “Go on, give it a shot! Don’t leave the fans in suspense to see how it plays out!”
Harry narrowed his eyes suspiciously at his hallucination (illusion? delusion? Harry wasn’t actually sure…) and then stretched his right leg out and kicked the back of Bucky’s chair, hard.
“What’s up?” Bucky asked, turning to look at Harry.
“I want to go home,” Harry said, kicking the chair again with Wade’s encouragement.
Bucky sighed, sounding disappointed with Harry’s dislike of his crap kidnapping plan.
“I know, kid, you’ll go home as soon as—”
Harry kicked the seat again, actually rather enjoying the way Bucky’s eye twitched with every kick.
“Now,” Harry stressed. “Bucky, I want to go home, now.”
“More whiney,” Wade said with a cheer. “Come on, really give in to the five year old you never got to be! Channel your inner Dudley when he only got thirty-six gifts!”
Harry grinned a little and then kicked the chair hard over and over with his good leg.
“I. Want. To. Go. Home!” Harry said, punctuating each word with a kick to Bucky’s chair. Wade was yelling with laughter when Bucky reached out with his hand and tried to smack Harry’s leg away.
“Quit, Harry,” Bucky snapped. “You’re damn near an adult. Grow up.”
“See?” Wade laughed loudly. “It’s fun!”
“It is a bit fun,” Harry admitted. If nothing else, it was at least making Bucky deal with a fraction of the frustration Harry had been dealing with since being kidnapped. “What else?”
“This is suuuper important,” Bucky said. “You have to demand McDonald’s. We need McNuggets and fries, it is absolutely crucial.”
Harry didn’t bother to question his hallucination anymore. It was something to do and a way to bother Bucky.
All good enough reasons for Harry to embrace his insanity. Also, Wade (Harry’s subconscious?) was right, Harry never got to be a spoiled brat as a kid and it was fun to act like Dudley knowing that nobody important could see him act so immaturely.
“He doesn’t have any money,” Harry told Wade.
“Voilà!” Wade pulled a twenty dollar bill from thin air, and handed it to Harry. “Courtesy of the Discord Cult of Rabid Harry Fans. Not to be confused with the Discord Cult of Hairy Rabbit Fans, of which I’m also a member.”
“… right,” Harry said blankly. He kicked Bucky’s seat again. “Oi! Can we stop for real food? McDonald’s?”
“You got— where the hell did you get that?” Bucky asked when Harry leaned forward to thrust the money at Bucky.
“My arse,” Harry deadpanned, smacking Bucky in the face with the money. “C’mon, mate, you kidnapped me and broke my leg—”
“Pretty sure you broke your own leg,” Wade said thoughtfully. “It’s not like Bucky shoved you from that car going 160.”
“—the least you could do is pull through a drive-thru,” Harry told Bucky, subtly flipping Wade off with his other hand. Maybe jumping from the car hadn’t been Harry’s best plan, but he hadn’t seen a lot of options at the time.
“Fine,” Bucky snapped, snatching the money from Harry’s hand. “What do you want?”
“McNuggets, large fries, and two sprites,” Wade said.
“McNuggets, large fries, and two sprites,” Harry repeated to Bucky.
“See? And Snape said you don’t know how to listen!” Wade said. “Ugh, the way his story ended sucked. I bet you were so shocked when he killed Dumbledore— oops!” Wade covered his masked mouth with his hand. “Spoilers, amiright?”
As much as Harry hated Snape, thought him capable of cruel and nasty deeds, he wasn’t sure why his red masked illusion (?) would think Snape could ever kill Dumbledore.
“It looks like we’re eight miles to the nearest exit,” Harry said, spotting a sign on the side of the highway. “Let’s hear some more spoilers.”
“Let’s start with all that thick, steamy, sexual tension between you and Draco in year six,” Wade said, shivering from head to toe.
By the time Bucky pulled up to the drive thru window to place their order, Harry very much regretted asking Wade for ‘spoilers’ about the ‘Harry Potter series’.
“Kreacher really liked you in book seven,” Wade said eagerly. “Maybe you should call for him! He could pop you back home!”
Harry blinked, shocked at the simple logic. He hadn’t liked Sirius’ house-elf when they met over the summer, but a call was a call.
“Kreacher? Kreacher!” Harry called.
“Ooooh…” Wade clicked his tongue when nothing happened. “It’s because Sirius hasn’t died yet so you’re not Kreacher’s master.”
“Sirius is not going to die,” Harry hissed at Wade. He held his arm up to show the bloke the goosebumps he got every time Wade mentioned Sirius falling in a veil and dying. “Quit being a wanker.”
“If you weren’t a fifteen year old virgin, I’d make so many wanking jokes,” Wade sighed. “Ooh, chicken nuggets!”
Harry rolled his eyes at Wade, but turned around to see that Bucky was picking up their order from the window.
“Here,” Bucky handed back a bag after snagging a red box of chips from the bag for himself. He also handed Harry the two sprites, one of which Harry gave to Wade at his hand command.
“Bloody hell, these are good,” Harry breathed after eating the first bit of hot food he’d had in… in quite a while.
“They aren’t for eating!” Wade scolded Harry after he shoved six chips in his mouth at once. “Watch and learn my twitchy little traumatized protégé…”
Harry watched as Wade wadded up the straw from his drink wrapper and stuck it in the end of it then blew the wrapper up front and smacking Bucky in the back of the head with it.
“Harry, seriously, stop,” Bucky said, finally sounding irritated rather than the annoying calm he had since the moment their road trip started.
“It wasn’t me, it was Wade,” Harry deadpanned, holding Bucky’s gaze when Bucky looked in the rearview mirror.
“You’re cracking, kid,” Bucky said with a roll of his eyes. “We’re almost there. Just hold on to whatever sanity you have. And drink some water.”
“Ready to move on to the next step?” Wade asked Harry after Harry began quietly snickering at Bucky’s exasperation.
“Absolutely,” Harry said brightly.
“Tell Bucky he forgot your ranch.”
Harry crinkled his nose up. “I didn’t order ranch?”
“I know,” Wade huffed. “Tell him anyway.”
Harry wadded up his straw wrapper and stuck it in the straw, blowing it at Bucky’s head as Wade had done before him.
“Oi, mate,” Harry gave Bucky a smile when he turned his head to glare at him, “you forgot my ranch.”
“Harry… you’re fucking with me,” Bucky said exasperatedly.
“Say ‘not yet but I can if you want me to’,” Wade whispered.
“Not yet, but— oh, mate,” Harry turned and shook his head at Wade, his face scrunched up with disgust. “He’s over a hundred.”
“So he’s really experienced,” Wade said in a simpering tone. “God, he’s hot, right? Like, be honest, did you get a little hard when you woke up in his car- alllll alone?”
“You are disgusting,” Harry said, a faint blush on his cheeks. Bucky was fit as hell, but he was also crazy. And if the hot-crazy scale Tony told him about once was real, then Bucky was probably crazier than he was hot…
Probably.
Wade encouraged Harry to whine, threaten, and even force some tears in order to make Bucky turn the van around and go back for ranch dipping sauce that Harry never originally asked for.
“Now tell him you hate ranch,” Wade whispered. “Maybe even throw it.”
Harry bit his lip to keep from laughing his arse off when he opened the little rectangle box of ranch and threw it up front, smacking the windshield with it and getting the sauce all over the place.
“I hate ranch,” Harry told Bucky.
“Jesus Christ, are you always so god damned annoying or is this my thank you for saving your fucking life?” Bucky demanded, slamming on the breaks so he could turn clear around and glare at Harry harshly.
“Say thank you and throw a fry at him,” Wade whispered.
“Thank you,” Harry told Bucky earnestly before he threw a crisp at him, smacking him right on the nose with it.
Harry and Wade were shrieking and giggling with laughter like little kids when they continued assaulting Bucky with crisps until Bucky finally pulled the van over and got it with a slam of his door.
“Hurry up and eat a bunch of those nugs,” Wade told Harry while they watched Bucky punch the hood of a car.
Harry looked at Wade, rather pleased that his delusion was such a fun bloke. “Why?” he asked.
“Oh because he’s absolutely about to drug you with that stolen dilaudid until you pass out,” Wade said knowingly. “You’re like super annoying. And drugs are much better on a full stomach.”
Harry warily watched as Bucky straightened up and started toward the van with a set jaw and a real look of annoyance on his face.
“Fuck,” Harry muttered, sure his brilliant delusion was right. Harry quickly shoved a bunch of the nuggets in his mouth and chewed frantically, actually wanting some of a hot meal before Bucky drugged him.
“Okay, kid, listen- you need rest and I need to get us to the border before it gets dark,” Bucky said after sliding the van door open. Harry saw him pull a small glass vial and a needle from his pocket, probably the pain medicine he stole off the ambulance.
“I’m resting just fine,” Harry said around a mouthful of food, his voice coming out muffled.
“Oh, no, you’re absolutely not exactly well-rested,” Wade snorted. “I think my presence is proof of that.”
“Shut it,” Harry told Wade.
Bucky took the chance when Harry turned his head to snap at Wade to lunge forward and jab the needle in Harry’s hip, pushing the plunger down before Harry could shift away.
“Goodnight,” Bucky said, sounding entirely too relieved, before slamming the van door shut.
“Ugh, Daddy Bucky showed up and ruined all our fun,” Wade whined. He crossed his arms across his chest petulantly. “Next time he should just spank you and move on.”
Harry’s entire face turned dark red when he heard the innuendo in Wade’s voice.
“You’re sick,” Harry said, already feeling the pain medicine flowing through him.
“And you’re a dumbass kid playing out some Criminal Minds fantasy of a whacko,” Wade countered with. “So who’s the winner here?”
“Not me,” Harry said thickly. He blinked heavily, his eyelids wanting to close. “Will you be here when I wake up?”
“Not a chance,” Wade said quickly. “As much as I love tacos, tequila, and a thick beefy mustache ride- I tend to avoid Mexico like the plague of crabs I caught last time I was there.”
Harry made a hum of acknowledgement and laid his head against the wall. “Thanks for this,” he slurred, hoping Wade understood him. “‘S fun.”
“Don’t thank me, thank all the benadryl your author is on!” Wade said. He brought his hand up to his forehead and saluted Harry. “Wear a condom, kid, crabs itch like a son of a bitch. Deadpool out.”
Harry was too tired to even flinch when the trunk opened and Wade rolled out of the back of it. It took only a split-second where Harry panicked about the safety of his hallucination before he saw Wade pop up, now miles behind them, and blow enthusiastic kisses to Harry.
Illusion, delusion, hallucination… whatever Wade was, Harry rather liked him. Even if he was completely insane, he hadn’t kidnapped Harry so he was already leagues more tolerable than Bucky currently was.