Running Up That Hill
If I only could make a deal with God, get him to swap our places.
Tony finds him first. As in, he barges into his room the next morning.
"I'm fine." Are the first words out of Stiles' mouth.
Tony huffs out a laugh and sits at the foot of Stiles' bed.
"I think we both know that," Tony gestures towards the door, then back at Stiles. "That was not fine."
Stiles grimaces and then stands, abandoning his bed.
"Dude, look." Stiles begins pacing, trying to find the words.
"I know you mean well. It's - I'm just. How is talking going to help?"
Tony stands up with him.
"You're not the first person in the world who's been kidnapped, you know. Not even the first person in the room."
"I know!" Stiles yells back at him, throwing his hands down by his sides in frustration. Which, he dimly realizes is not a good way to get his point across.
"I know." Stiles tries again, more sedately. "I know. I know."
"If anybody is going to get what happened, it's going to be one of us here." Tony tries, reaching out to touch Stiles.
Stiles watches Tony's hand make it's way to anchor itself to his bicep. He sees Tony's eyes imploring him to understand the depths behind them - all the unsaid words.
"I'll think about it."
__
Clint comes next.
He plops down next to Stiles, perching on the counter near where Stiles is attempting to put together his lunch.
Two slices of bread. Sliced ham. Swiss cheese. Stiles was just debating whether or not he could stomach a handful of chips when the man appeared.
"Hey there small fry." Clint tries, easing in.
Stiles can see straight through it. A co-ordinated effort to lower his defenses.
"Clint. Hey." Stiles greets.
"So what was that last night? Panic attack?" He hedges, legs dangling over the edge of the counter now.
Stiles grits his teeth in effort to bite his tongue, deciding to not grab the chips.
Stiles grabs his plate between too tense fingers and leaves the kitchen.
Back in the safety of his room, he sets the plate on the dresser by the door and spends 30 minutes staring at it before he calls the whole effort off and scrapes it into the trash. He wasn't that hungry anyway.
____
Stiles decides, between his missed lunch and the dinner he was planning to skip, it would be best to just leave.
He packs his little belongings into a duffel bag he found in one of the many storage closets he's found and decides to leave later that night.
_____
In the quiet of the night, just after 3am, he tiptoes past all the doors on his floor and makes his way to the elevator.
"Stiles."
Bucky. Again.
"I don't have time for this!" Stiles hisses, looking towards Steve's door. "I have to go."
"Go where, Stiles? Where could you possibly go? You're alone."
Bucky's on the offensive. Which, actually kind of surprises Stiles. He feels the sting of the statement like a slap across his face.
"I know I'm alone." Stiles holds back the tears brimming in his eyes. "That's the whole point! I'm alone!"
Bucky looks at him with pity, like he's a fragile flower that might get carried away into a gutter or some polluted lake. Like no matter what Stiles does, he's no more than something to cause concern.
"They might not know exactly what happened to you, but they want to help." Bucky tries.
Stiles isn't having any of it.
"So what, they decided they're gonna take turns trying to break me down until someone manages it? So that way they can see what I'm really made of? So they can see me- see how far I'd go to survive? I'd rather go out on my own terms, thank you very much. Before they actually do see what I'm made of." Stiles rants. "And I don't have time for this! I have to go. Now. Before I have to defend my choices to anyone else tonight."
"It's not like that!" Bucky exclaims, louder than he might have intended.
"Shut up!" Stiles whispers back to him.
"Absolutely not." Bucky says at a normal volume, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm used to talking idiots out of stupid decisions that will only hurt themselves."
"You don't know anything about me!" Stiles yells back at him. "You don't care! I'm just a little pet project."
Steve chooses that moment to pop out of his room, running a hand through sleep-tousled hair.
"We didn't sit down and plan to talk to you, Stiles. Clint, Tony, Bucky - we all care about you. It's our fault you were taken in the first place. And you're clearly not oka-"
Stiles tries to block it out.
"I'm nobody"
"You're not nobody." Bucky and Steve reply together.
Stiles feels the fight leave him. He lets the back over his shoulder slump to the floor.
"I just want to go home." He says, tired of the pretense. "I can't do this."
Steve walks over to him and wraps his arms around Stiles. His body feels like a board, hard muscle where all the soft parts should be. But even despite all that, Stiles cracks.
The tears he had been holding back come unbidden into heaving sobs.
"Steve, I'm so alone. So alone." Stiles manages in gasping breaths around the snot and the tears.
Steve tightens his grip, bringing a hand up to cradle Stiles head as his legs give out from under him. They both slide down to the floor, Steve doing his best to not falter in his grip.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I didn't want to. I wasn't strong enough to stop it." Stiles babbles between his breathless sobs. When this doesn't cause Steve to let him go, he barrels on. He's not even sure he wants to let go of this comfort, but he doesn't deserve it.
"I'm a murderer."
The admission causes a new wave of sobs to wrack from Stiles' body.
Steve's murmuring nonsense back at him. 'It's okay's' and 'you're okay' and 'it's not your fault's'. Stiles can't take it.
He pushes away. It takes a minute for Steve to let him go.
Stiles wipes the snot from his face with his shirt sleeve and looks Steve dead in his eyes.
"A murderer, Steve." Stiles doesn't know why he's pleading with him. "I'm a murderer. Me. Again. A cold-blooded killer."
He has to look away again, scared of what he'll see in Steve's eyes.
Bucky's voice startles him when it comes.
"You don't look very cold-blooded to me, kid."
Stiles snaps his head up to look at him. He looks so sure of himself. That causes a bubble of laughter to escape Stiles mouth.
The laugh quickly turns back to sobs, but this time. They just let him cry it out.
"I guess that's a pretty good point." Stiles says, after he regain control of his faculties.
"Bucky rarely has good points - I think you better take it before he goes back to being an idiot." Steve quips back lightly.
"Oh yeah, I'm the idiotic one." Bucky deadpans.
Stiles feels a small smile crossing his face before he looses the feeling again.
He drops his head back to the wall behind him and lets out a deep sigh. This solves everything and nothing.
"I'm so tired." Stiles says. And he is, tired of everything that is. But mostly he's just tired.
"Here," Bucky says, reaching a hand out to help Stiles rise.
Stiles lifts his weak arm up and grips Bucky's like a lifeline as he's pulled to his feet. Steve grabs Stiles' bag from the ground a slings it over his arm.
"I'll go put this back in your room, okay." He offers.
Stiles nods his head and watches Steve disappear down the hallway.
Stiles looks down to where he and Bucky's hands are still locked together, and then looks back up to meet his eyes.
"I.." he trails off, looking back towards the ground. "I don't think I should be alone tonight. I can't trust myself."
The bottles of alcohol in his room are calling to him to relieve the pain he can't escape. He could jump off the edge of the tower. Because any escape is a good escape and it just feels so good to feel cared about. Even if this all will dissolve in the morning.
"Come on then." Bucky leads Stiles two doors down, turning the handle. Stiles steps into the ice cold room, shivering in the contrast between the hallway and the air conditioned room.
He doesn't flip on any lights, just walks Stiles to the bed and crawls in first.
In the dim light from the window, crescent moon shining in and turning the whole room a dark blue, Stiles watches Bucky scooch to the far edge of the bed where it's pushed up against the wall. Stiles stands there so long, Bucky pats the bed next to him.
"Gonna join me, or you wanna go ask Stevie if you can share his bed?"
Stiles shrugs his shoulders and stands there another moment, trying to figure out what he finds so weird about this situation.
In the end, he gives up and crawls in next to Bucky, facing the door and making sure to leave a wide berth between them as he parts the blankets from the bed and gets underneath them.
Bucky huffs a laugh under his breath. Stiles is about to ask what, before he finds out. Bucky moves a couple inches closer and wraps an arm around Stiles, pulling him flush against his body.
Stiles gasps, feeling the warm, hard body pressed against him. The arm over his body, simultaneously trapping and holding him close. His heart starts pounding but it's not fear he realizes belatedly. It's desire.
He feels himself getting hard, which is a revelation all it's own.
"Fuck." He groans, rolling over in Bucky's arms, hoping he's not misreading the situation. Bucky's looking at him in the pale moonlight, searching for something. Stiles can't bring himself to ask or to care. He's weak.
Stiles rolls over to straddle Bucky, planting a messy kiss to his lips.
Bucky responds immediately, surging up to meet Stiles halfway for the next kiss, wrapping both hands around Stiles' face.
Stiles feels Bucky getting hard and plants a leg between them allowing them both to feeling the delicious friction.
Bucky reaches his hand down and palms Stiles through his pants.
Stiles lets out a whine, aching for more, wrenching his hands from where he's holding Bucky to take off his shirt.
Bucky flips Stiles over, a thrum coursing through Stiles at the action.
"I need you, fuck fuck fuck." Stiles babbles, watching Bucky take off his own shirt over him. Stiles watches Bucky reveal his muscles hungrily. Bucky grins at him.
"Oh, so you like what you see?" He asks cheekily.
Stiles, beyond words, just grasps at Bucky's shoulder to bring his back down closer. He complies, their mouths meeting again.
And after, both sticky and satisfied, Stiles falls into a deep sleep and has his first good dream since he's been back at the tower.