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There’s a rattling in Peter’s bones. A deep hum underlying the static buzzing ringing in his ears. The world is vibrating, pitter-pattering, and even opening his own eyes seems like a nearly impossible task.
Peter groans and forces his eyes open, squinting at the darkness. The world tips on its axis for a moment and Peter struggles to blink the heaviness out of his eyelids.
Last he remembers, Peter was… he had run into the Winter Soldier—Bucky Barnes, he corrected. He had been staking out a warehouse—he wasn’t sure what the group of men inside were doing, but it didn’t look like anything good, given the constant buzz of his spider-sense and the very large guns kept on the two guards outside. Peter crawled to a different rooftop to get a better view of the warehouse, and there he was—Bucky Barnes in the flesh. The man was staring down the scope of a very large sniper rifle and held his body tense, slowly tracking the movements of the guards with his rifle.
Peter didn’t make a sound, silently creeping closer until he was barely a few steps away. He abruptly cleared his throat, making his presence known, and was immediately met with a rifle between his eyes. Peter quickly raised both hands in surrender.
“Woah, man!” he whispered, trying to not alert the guards. “Friendly! I’m friendly!”
Peter hadn’t really interacted with Bucky much, unless you include throwing punches and airport signs between the two to be ‘interaction.’
Bucky lowered the rifle, but remained tense. Bucky stood up warily, looking unsure of what to do now that there’s another person here, similar to how Peter was feeling. “Why are you here?”
Peter shrugs, “Heard something might be going down here soon. Was just checking it out.”
“Who did you hear that from?”
“I have my sources,” Peter says cheekily, before fidgeting as the Winter Soldier stares at him, analysing him.
Peter glances back at the warehouse, but the pair of guards have disappeared.
Peter steps to the roof’s edge. Did they go inside?
“Your sources weren’t wrong, but I have this covered. You can go,” Bucky says tersely.
Peter’s spider-sense is starting to play up, he’s not sure why though.
“The guards are gone,” Peter redirects.
Bucky whirls around, cussing under his breath. “They’ve spotted us. We need to—”
—
Peter needs to get a sense of the situation. Where is he?
He groggily pushes himself up, only just noticing both his wrists and ankles have been tied to the other. He blinks with heavy eyes—he’s probably been given something. He shouldn’t feel this weak.
A bump jostles him and he now recognises that the rattles have been coming from them being inside some sort of vehicle. A small truck, by the feel of it.
It’s dark, but not pitch black. Peter shakes his head, trying and failing to rid himself of his dizziness. Peter looks around, trying to get his bearings—it’s rope keeping him tied up, a man with a gun and something blue on his shoulder snores away in the corner, it’s raining outside, a fly buzzes around lazily above the limp body of the Winter Soldier.
Wait—hold that thought.
The limp body of the Winter Soldier.
Peter’s heart begins to pound loudly, quick and heavy, palpitations signalling the adrenaline his body has surely just started pumping. The dizziness clears just a little. Just enough to clear the static from his ears, though too much so in that it finds itself replaced by a high-pitched ringing.
With wrists and ankles similarly restrained, though with metal cuffs instead of rope—despite working in his favour, Peter’s pride is a little hurt at that. Bucky lies in what is surely an uncomfortable position on his side, face turned away, preventing Peter from seeing if he is awake. If he were awake, Peter would certainly be questioning his choice of position.
Thankfully, Peter is still in his suit, mask included. His identity hasn’t been compromised just yet (he hopes—there’s no real way to tell if they’d taken it off whilst he was out).
The floor dips abruptly and jostles the three of them, the truck having run over a pothole. Both the guard and Bucky don’t wake up though, not letting out a peep. Peter can, however, hear some shouting going on in the truck's front before the vehicle begins to swerve madly, probably to avoid more potholes. Who’s driving this thing? Can’t they stand to slow down a little?
Peter’s not sure if they’re still in the city. The road beneath sounds like gravel.
Either way, he doesn’t want to find out wherever it is they’re being taken.
Peter, with a lot more effort than it would usually take, pulls apart his restraints. He shakes out his hands and stands, stumbling a little from the aftereffects of whatever they’ve drugged him with.
The truck swerves again, sending Peter crashing into the wall. His body makes out a frighteningly loud bang as he hits the wall, and Peter whips his head around, desperately hoping that the guard is still asleep.
Thankfully, the guard remains dead to the world.
Peter rights himself and creeps over—still cautious despite the guard’s obliviousness—to Bucky’s slumped form. He shakes Bucky’s shoulder and sure enough, he’s out cold. That makes things a little harder, even if just for the lack of moral support.
Whatever the plan for the two of them was, Peter would not be hanging around to find out. The truck door is an option, but it’s locked shut, and looks to have been reinforced in one way or another based on the at least five locks covering it. The walls, however, haven’t been locked.
The walls, in all their un-reinforced glory, are looking to be a much better option. Peter’s sure he could pry the metal open just far enough for him and Bucky to squeeze out.
Peter sticks his hand firmly to the wall, pulling the panelling away just enough for him to wedge his fingers underneath and give himself more leverage. He grasps the panel, fingers slipping on the slick wet outside for a moment before he can grip it properly. He wrenches the metal away, the sound of rain loudly filling the space.
Peter glances at the guard. Fortunately, still asleep.
He glances at Bucky. Still asleep, unfortunately.
This isn’t going to be very nice… for Bucky, that is.
Peter grabs Bucky and drags him over, shaking his shoulder one last time for good measure.
“Sorry man, but you’re not waking up for me, so…”
Peter shoves Bucky’s body out the opening, wincing at the splash his body makes as it falls into a puddle. Oops, bad timing. It’s too dark outside to make anything out, so it’s really not Peter’s fault anyways.
Peter slips out the opening too, crouching as he lands on his feet. The cold hits him immediately, the rain pelting down onto his suit.
The truck keeps moving.
Peter stays crouched for a moment longer—tense and unmoving—waiting for his luck to inevitably make the driver notice that their cargo has jumped out the truck.
The truck keeps moving, turning a corner and disappearing behind the foliage.
The tension melts out of him, his shoulders sagging from relief. They’re out of the woods for now at least (or… in, Peter supposes).
Peter straightens himself out but staggers when the floor seems to tilt forwards, sending him sprawling out onto the ground.
The smell of petrichor sits heavy—not that Peter is only noticing it after faceplanting into a puddle. On that note, Bucky is probably still lying in a puddle too. Unconsciously lying in a puddle. And potentially drowning because Peter had forgotten to check he wasn’t.
Peter groans as he forces himself up once again. His feet drag through the mud but when he finds himself standing above Bucky’s body he only scoffs.
Bucky is laying on his back, starfished, eyes wide open and staring up at the cloud-covered sky.
“Why am I lying in the mud?” Bucky asks, not making any move to get up.
“I pushed you out of a truck to stop us from being kidnapped.”
“Asshole.”
“Did you miss the part where I said ‘kidnapped?’ You’re welcome, by the way.”
“I don’t care. Where are we?” Bucky says brusquely.
“I don’t know, man! I only woke up not that long ago,” Peter defends, sitting down next to Bucky.
To be honest, Peter still isn’t feeling the greatest. The adrenaline that had let him get out of the truck is fading, leaving him drained, only with whatever drugs are still in his system.
Bucky is still lying down, so it’s probably fine if Peter lies down too.
He flops onto his back, letting his mask block the rain from his eyes which are falling shut anyways.
Bucky sighs, “Alright, let’s get—”
—
“—going to regret this,” a voice grumbles, the vibrations of the voice soothing and shocking at the same time.
Peter blinks his eyes open. Had he fallen asleep? And here he had been acting like he was better than the snoozing guard.
There’s a warmth by his side, and Peter is tempted to snuggle in closer before he realises just what he’s leaning against.
Bucky shifts, and Peter hurriedly undoes the snuggling before he can embarrass himself too much.
“Are you awake now?” he asks almost warmly. Aw, maybe the Winter Soldier’s heart isn’t that cold afterall. Peter nods.
The man stands abruptly, pushing himself off the tree the two of them had been leaning against. “Let’s go then. It’s been a few hours. Whoever took us has probably realised by now. You passing out didn’t help us."
Nevermind, his heart’s freezing. A block of ice.
Peter takes a moment to find his words. “Well, maybe next time I’ll just leave you to get kidnapped by yourself,” he eventually fumbles out.
Bucky simply grunts and begins walking out into the darkness, leaving Peter forced to follow or get left behind.
Peter hurriedly tries to stand but finds his legs uncoordinated. He trips over his own feet, falling to his hands and knees.
Bucky looks back at the sound of Peter falling.
“I’m fine,” Peter preempts, finding his footing and rushing to catch up.
Bucky’s brow furrows a little, but he turns around and continues walking once more—albiet a little slower.
The world is still spinning a little, but it’s bearable; so Peter will bear it. Bear that his stupid body has decided that everything is ‘over’ now, and he apparently doesn’t need energy anymore.
They still seem to be in the forest, wherever this is. The only change since they had jumped out is that a depressing drizzle has taken the place of what was once a heavy rain.
Bucky doesn’t turn to look back, but begins speaking anyways, “There’s too much cloud cover to navigate off of the stars. The only guide we have is the road.” He pushes past some of the thicker foliage, revealing the muddy gravel road. “Do you remember anything?”
Peter smacks his lips, wracking his thoughts. Other than waking up in the truck, there wasn’t much useful information he could remember.
“I don’t know…” Peter struggles to get the words out. “There was a guard in the truck, and… it’s really fuzzy, man.”
“Did you recognise the guard? Were they wearing anything identifiable?”
Peter wracks his brain.
“Oh! He had a blue… something… on his jacket.”
Bucky curses under his breath. “I know them. It’s the group I was staking out.”
Peter tilts his head in question.
“It doesn’t matter now. We need to get out first.”
Ah yes, they are lost, aren’t they?
“Can’t we just walk the road back?” Peter asks.
“No—the first place they’ll look is the road. We have to stay off of it. And the weather means we can’t navigate using the stars, and the rain is covering up any light pollution we could’ve followed to the city.”
Peter tries to process what Bucky’s just shared. “So… we can’t use the road, but we have to?”
“We’ll follow its general direction, but we need to walk through the brush. The only positive thing about the rain is that they probably won’t be walking the track just yet.”
Bucky examines Peter, and Peter finds himself automatically straightening up his previously slouched posture. “Are you ready to go?” he asks.
“Yes,” Peter says, a little indignant at the implication.
Bucky doesn’t respond and starts walking back into the vegetation. Peter is just glad Bucky keeps a hand on the sticks and leaves for long enough to not whack Peter in the face.
The time stretches on as they walk. Peter’s unsure of how long it’s been since they started walking in earnest. His feet drag through the long grass, each foot feeling heavier the longer they go on. It takes all of Peter’s focus just to keep his gaze forward, keeping his eyes watching Bucky’s back and trusting that the ground will be even enough to let him stumble his way along.
Bucky is wearing a leather jacket, a slick black that the rain simply slides off of. Peter’s vision blurs, and the black seems to get larger and larger, almost engulfing his vision and—oof.
Peter has walked straight into his unfortunate partner and fallen flat on his ass again.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Peter asserts whilst still struggling to stand.
Bucky sighs, not dignifying Peter with a response and simply offering a hand. Peter doesn’t have the energy to reject the offer, conceding without a fight.
Bucky heaves up Peter like he weighs nothing—a stark contrast to how Peter feels at the moment—and swings Peter’s arm onto his shoulders, supporting him as they walk.
“A sign from before—” when had they passed a sign? “—let me figure out where we are.”
Peter hums.
“Come on. We’re almost there.”