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Steve had never seen himself going to prison. For some reason he'd thought that doing the right thing had been some kind of shield he could throw around to protect himself. It's not even that he'd wanted to avoid consequence so much as that he'd never thought through exactly how far the right thing and the law might stray from each other.

None of that really matters, anyway, because the trial is over and Steve is looking at a minimum of two years in minimum security prison. This is his life for the next two years. It puts college on hold and it may stick with him for the rest of his life and he still doesn't think he did a damn thing wrong, but that doesn't make the prospect of being in prison any less daunting. His sentence would have been worse if the judge hadn't had a soft spot for veterans, too. Steve had hated letting his lawyer play that card, but he hadn't had much of a choice.

He's got muscles, at least. As he's going through the intake process, he notices most of the men are smaller than him and a few of them eye him warily. He says nothing to anyone unless he's supposed to, leaving the chatter to a skinny man with a face tattoo and whoever he can manage to pull answers from.

There's a pile of clothes and sheets and toiletries in his arms and as they're led in, the group is split up among the blocks. Steve is in C block, he's told, and his cell mate will be a man named Barnes. It all means nothing to Steve, but he remembers the details, anyway. Everything looks the same in here and he wonders what kind of criminal he'll be sharing a cell with. Enough of the men in here come from unwinnable situations. It's not something Steve would look down his nose at. His neighborhood wasn't exactly a safe suburban haven, either, and he could have easily fallen in with a bad crowd or made the wrong decision and wound up in their shoes. He doesn't let himself forget that. Most of them are minor drug offenders or small time thieves, maybe a few bigger offenders moved here for years of good behavior.

When he finally gets to his cell, the top bunk is made and there are a few personal items strewn about. Steve puts his pile on the bottom bunk and starts to unfold his bedding. He resists the urge to dig through Barnes' things to learn more about him.

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"Consider it done." There's no hesitation there, because it's something he would have given Bucky even without his own nightmares. That's not something he'd ever get upset about when there are people out there doing things on purpose. Being woken up by something someone else can't control doesn't really make the list of things that would bother Steve.

He reaches next to his bed for a book and the little book light he'd been allowed to keep. "Will it keep you up if I'm reading down here? I don't think I'm going back to sleep after that."

And he doesn't have anything to be awake for, anyway. It doesn't matter if he's tired tomorrow, so he might as well not pretend. He's always been able to get by on less sleep, anyway.

The smile he offers Steve at the promise almost resembles more of a grimace, a tight-lipped expression that tucks his lips into his cheeks in a nearly straight line. Appreciated, even though the subject is an uncomfortable and rather vulnerable one. He's not too worried about it, though. Never shied away from talking about something just because the subject touched on tight emotions. You learn to be forthcoming when you lead a lifestyle where every minute with someone could be your last.

He shakes his head even as he rises to his feet.

"Knock yourself out," He murmurs his assent, and ascends to the top bunk using only forward momentum and a roll of his body in a frankly unnecessary display of acrobatic prowess. Such is life, ascending the ladder is a waste of time. The bunk shifts beneath his weight as he settles in again, but fortunately it doesn't squeak like some of the others a few blocks down.

Once he's still and settled, quietness descends the bunks for a long and permeating series of minutes.

Hesitantly, and don't ask him why, he decides to ask in a quiet murmur, "You wanna talk about it?"

The nightmare, he means. Not the book. Obviously.

By the time Bucky speaks up, Steve's read the same sentence five times. He likes the book, but he can't focus on it. If he's honest, watching Bucky's impressive climb up to his bunk had been more distracting than the book is.

It's a kind offer. That's not something Steve takes for granted. He likes to see the best in people, but he's learned to temper his expectations. It's a little touching, if he's honest, but that doesn't change who he is.

"I really don't." He's unhappy enough that Bucky even knows he had a nightmare. It doesn't matter that Bucky admitted to his own nightmares or that he doesn't seem to be judging Steve. Steve doesn't like feeling vulnerable and he doesn't like talking about anything like this. Sometimes he still feels like that skinny kid who used to get picked on. He'd always had to prove himself back then and that hasn't really changed with the added years or muscle.

He closes his book and leans back against the wall, head craning up to look at the bottom of Bucky's bunk. "But thank you, Buck. I mean it."

It's not all that surprising, most people aren't interested in sharing the grim and gritty details of their time overseas, let alone the baggage they brought back with them. Barnes has never been the type to fight tooth and nail against therapy, some men do it out of pride, stubbornness, toxic masculinity, whatever. Not him, he sees the merit in it and he knows they've all got issues to work through.

It's just that nobody's getting good counseling in god damn jail, are they? Anything other than the legal kind is second rate at best. They're dealing with shit, at least they can sort of deal with it together.

Plus, Steve called him Buck, and why dropping one single letter off of an already short nickname makes his heart feel fuzzy, he doesn't know. Either way, he opens up a dialogue with careful, calm words.

"I shot a kid once." He says, voice low and inscrutable. Not a brag, not a cry, just a statement of fact like he's distanced from it. A mile away, and pointing out the color of the sky. "Couldn't have been more than... twelve, maybe thirteen. They recruit young, they... grab kids, put guns in their hands, throw 'em out like nothing. There was this one... They put a vest on him, stuck a detonator in his hand, they sent him our direction... Everybody froze, nobody could take the shot. Didn't even give him a fucking helmet, they didn't give him shoes, I guess they were thinkin'... if he's just gonna... Why would he need 'em, if he's..."

Just going to blow, and take the shoes with him?

"So I did it. It was one of those... hand-release triggers where if you let go, it goes off. I took the shot, he looked at me, he dropped... I dream about that kid sometimes. Sometimes he blows. Sometimes he doesn't, and it turns out I was seeing it wrong, and it wasn't a vest at all, it was just some dumb kid who didn't understand why I did it."

A pause.

"So if I'm kicking up here, wake me up."

The story hurts to hear. Steve almost wants to stop him halfway through because it can't be easy to recount this. None of it's easy and they have to live with the things they did and the orders they carried out. No one else can understand it. It's easy for people to condemn soldiers or raise them up on a pedestal, but the truth is that they're put in the position of having to make awful decisions. There's no winner in Bucky's story. There can't be. Even the men who hadn't shot the kid had still had to watch it all and they'd probably been angry at themselves for not taking the shot. Meanwhile Bucky has to live with being the person who did it.

He'd saved lives, but he doesn't need Steve to tell him that. This isn't some ethics discussion. The lives of the many were saved, but that kid had been no different from them. Younger and less-informed, but he'd been following orders that he'd thought were right and that's just as sad as anything else.

"I'll do that." His voice is soft as he looks up at the bottom of Bucky's bunk. He wishes he could see Bucky now, that he could reach out somehow, because this isn't the sort of place where too many people touch each other, but he thinks right now it would be warranted and this is private enough that no one else would know.

"You always remember the people you couldn't save." But that's all he's planning to offer of his own story. He just can't. It's too much and after the dream, it's so raw. He can still remember the blood on his hands and the ringing in his ears and his panic when he'd found a bloody finger nail in his uniform pocket. Sometimes the bombs were less obvious than a kid in a vest. That didn't stop them from going off.

He gives into the urge a little and reaches up to rest his hand against the bottom of Bucky's bunk gently.

"The nice woman at the VA always says you can't blame yourself for everyone you couldn't save." There's a fond little smile on his face and even if Bucky can't see his face right now, it seeps into his voice.

Laying with his eyes closed, arms folded over his stomach, he doesn't feel the shift. Doesn't pick up Steve's hand on his radar, has no way of knowing it's there. He does, however, appreciate the murmured sentiment. His lips twitch in an absent, sardonic little smile.

"I don't," He says, because the nice woman at the VA is right. He doesn't blame himself for not saving that kid, and he knows if he hadn't taken the shot his whole troop would've been blown to fucking bits - or maybe another guy would've stepped up to do it. He knows this. "But it still happened."

And it is what it is.

And they are who they are.

There's no self-pity in his voice, toneless and factual. He compartmentalizes, he always has, that's how he gets through. It works for him most days, the feelings are a distant and unacknowledged memory. It's just that sleep has a way of letting the walls down long enough for invaders to slip through.

A few quiet moments pass, and he murmurs a soft, "Goodnight, Steve."

"Goodnight, Bucky."

After that, it seems silly not to try to sleep. He can't concentrate on his book and Bucky's sleeping above him and that thought is more comforting than it has a right to be, so he crawls back under the blanket and lets himself drift off to the sound of Bucky's breathing.

This isn't like being in the army. He isn't part of something bigger. He isn't fighting for anything other than himself. It's foreign and new, but he finds some comfort in the familiar, anyway. Maybe that's why so many of the vets stick together here. There are things they don't have to say and on the rare occasions when they do say something, it's met with understanding.

In the morning, he says nothing about the night before, because in the harsh light of their fluorescent day, it still seems dangerous to talk about anything that leaves either of them vulnerable. Most of the men in here are trying to serve out their sentence, but there are still a few troublemakers around who seem to eye Bucky like he's someone worth going after. Steve won't give Alex or any of his people an inch and despite those ground rules Bucky had laid out when they'd first met, Steve would absolutely have Bucky's back if anything came of it.

The longer Steve pay attention, the more he notices that Alex really does seem to have an eye on Bucky more often than he should, but Steve doesn't want to bring it up in front of anyone. Bucky probably already knows and Steve isn't going to assume that Bucky wants anyone else butting into it, but he keeps an eye out, anyway, as a few of them are playing their home-made off-brand scrabble around a plastic table. Steve doesn't want to make it obvious that he's watching Alex, but he isn't the most subtle person on a good day.

As the day wears on and Alex's attentions become more and more apparent, Barnes starts to seem on edge himself. Steve isn't the only one to have noticed; Bucky is a keen observer with a killer eye for detail. The way Alex has been hovering, the way he's been staring Bucky down?

Something's bound to be up. When he plays freight for double points and Sam flips him the bird, it feels like a hollow victory. That's about the time he buys out, sick of the eyes on him, sick of being scrutinized, with every intention of going back to their cell and just reading until Alex gets the stick out of his ass and fucks off.

He scrapes his chair back, murmurs his excuses about being done kicking everyone's asses so easily, and slips from the rec room.

He gets toward the end of the hall when six guys cut off the path to the cell blocks.

A look to the left, the right, the rear, and not a single guard in sight. They've either been paid off or a distraction has been arranged.

Alex leaves the rec room about fifteen seconds after Barnes does, eyes like a stalking predator.

"Oh, hell."

This is only gonna end one of two ways. Bucky beaten half (or all the way) to death in the infirmary, or Bucky beaten part of the way to death in SHU. Either way him versus six guys and Alex ain't gonna be a picnic.

Steve's focus shifts to Bucky when he says he's leaving. He's a little worried about how keyed up Bucky's been getting, but he reminds himself that they're in prison and that there's a time and a place for them to talk about something like that. It sure as hell isn't out in the open like this.

When he sees Alex gone from where he'd been perched all morning, though, Steve taps out on his turn and moves to leave.

Too much of a coincidence for Steve's liking and whatever is going on, he doesn't like it.

Running would call too much attention, so Steve walks at a brisk pace down the hall he knows Bucky would have taken. His legs are long and he catches up to the group just a moment after Alex does.

"Buck, are these guys bothering you?" Subtly really, really isn't his thing. Taking no shit, however, is his entire lifestyle at this point.

He recognizes all the guys, of course he does. It's a small prison, a limited population, and not too many people come and go without at least becoming a familiar face. Three of them are from the white supremacy group, the fact that they're standing up alongside two black guys and a well-built latino man means Alex has probably paid them all very well to get along for as long as it takes to break him in. It means no amount of talking is going to do the trick here, and there's no walking away from this without either something broken or a black mark on his disciplinary record.

And then Steve shows up to make matters ten times worse. He's spotless, he's green, if he gets involved he's going to blow any chance he's got of any good behavior time off his sentence and he's going to make a permanent enemy out of seven people.

Barnes heaves a sigh, doesn't even look back at him when he says, "Nope. All good here. Go back to the room, Steve."

"Yes, go back to the room, Steve," Alex agrees, toneless and crisp, with his fingers lacing along his front and a little bounce to his heels. "There's nothing here for you. James knows what he's in for."

Steve spares a glance at Alex, but then his eyes are moving around, memorizing the faces of everyone here. He's not an idiot and he's not going to be taken by surprise because he can't remember who he's punched in the face recently. There's a quiet moment where he does just that, cataloging the men, even if he only has names for two of them.

He clicks his tongue, eyes back on Alex. "Yeah, I don't think so."

There's a tense line to his back as he stays grounded right where he is. He might seem quiet and mild-mannered, but he knows how to fight to win. He's been doing it since he was a scrappy kid getting ganged up on by bullies twice his size and now that he's built like a tank and he's got years of military training under his belt, he's pretty sure he can take at least three or four of these men easily all by himself.

"This hardly feels like a fair fight, though. I'll give you boys a minute to walk away. No hard feelings."

There's a ripple of obviously incredulous laughter at Steve's bravado, and truth be told even Barnes feels a little skeptical of it. Whether he's cocky or actually that good remains to be seen, but the truth of the matter is he doesn't want to see it. Doesn't want to drag Steve into a mess he can't get out of, doesn't want the guilt that'll come along with being personally responsible for any injuries or black spots on his record.

But he... also doesn't want to get the shit kicked out of him, so maybe he's a little grateful for the backup. Even so, he murmurs a quiet warning, "Steve..."

"One last opportunity, James," Alex says diplomatically, ignoring Steve for the moment in favor of his actual objective. "Save yourself and your new little friend the trouble and just give me what you owe me."

"Think I'll just take the beating, actually," Barnes says tonelessly.

Alex sighs. The boys look at him for direction, and after a hesitant beat he gives them a little go ahead wave. And then shit hits the fan. There's no dancing around it, there's no one at a time like kung-fu movies, there's just two guys lurching forward to grab him at once by the arms, a third swooping in to snatch up a kicking leg only to take a heel to the face from Barnes for his troubles. A fourth is quick to step in and grab it mid-air, supported by three limbs and writhing between them.

A floundering backward thrust gets him cracking Left Arm Guy's nose with the back his skull, a gross crunch that starts bleeding almost immediately and earns him a sudden drop to the ground for his troubles. Krav Maga, bitch.

Four of them are on Bucky, but the other two don't get time to even try. The moment they start advancing on Bucky, Steve is on the two men closest to him. One takes a punch to the side of the head that knocks him to the ground with what Steve is entirely sure is a concussion. The other tries to get Steve from behind after he throws the punch, but Steve's ready for that. He's more flexible than he looks and he pivots easily and kicks the guy square in the chest, shoving him back a few feet.

It gives Steve enough breathing room to move in on the guys who are on Bucky. They guy who'd taken Bucky's heel starts to get back up, so Steve kicks him down again, not too worried about how or where that blow lands. Steve's real target is the guy who'd actually managed to grab Bucky's leg, because he's still standing there without a scratch on him and Steve really needs to fix that. He gets a muscular arm wrapped around the guys neck and pulls him back and away from Bucky. It leaves Bucky with one guy who hasn't been hit and another who's clutching his bleeding nose, while Steve handles the guy he's got in a choke hold and the first one he'd kicked who seems to be coming back for more.

"I tried to warn them, Buck. I think I was fair." He kicks the guy again without losing his choke hold. Only once the kick knocks the other guy back does Steve use his body weight and grip to throw the guy to the ground hard.

Steve's not wrong, as it turns out. With him running interference on the other guys, Bucky himself is more than capable of vaulting back onto his feet and ruthlessly slamming Right Arm Guy's head into the wall beside him. Maybe a little too harsh, all things considered. Head injures are no joke, and it isn't until after that rather sickening thud that he realizes how hard he'd hit. The guy drops to the ground immediately like he's been knocked the fuck out, and nosebleed guy looks on with wide eyes. He raises the hand not clutching his nose in a sort of gesture of surrender, and Barnes stares at him for a long and contemplative second.

Then nods his head in a jerk, and he skitters off wisely.

All that leaves is Alex, who goes unacknowledged in favor of Barnes dipping down to check the pulse of Wall Head Guy. He feels a little bad, frankly, but there's no real pulling punches when you're jumped by six guys in a prison fucking hallway. In the moment, it's just fighting.

The second his hand reaches the guy's neck, though, it's getting swatted away with a fearful, frustrated sort of grumble. Guess he's okay, then.

Maybe not incapacitating Alex was a bad call, though, because a beat later all that can be heard in any direction bellowing down the hall is Alex's voice shouting for the guards.

Bucky sighs, and shoots Steve a sort of irksome, apologetic look. "Whole lotta good that's gonna do you in a minute."

There's a flurry of echoing footsteps as a couple of uniformed guys jog down the hallway, and before they're even close Bucky's lowering himself to his knees, hands behind his head, fingers interlacing at the back of his skull in submissive arrest position. Shoots Steve an expectant look to do the same, otherwise it's stun gun city for both of them.

Steve would like to think that he's proven he can read context clues. He follows Bucky's example with a sigh, knees hitting the linoleum with a gentle thud. This isn't going to look good. Everyone else is clutching their faces or their guts or lying half-unconscious. It looks bad and Steve doesn't regret a second of it.

"It helps me to feel better."

The guards surround them quickly and no one resists. Steve keeps his mouth shut as they start to march them off towards SHU. He knows talking isn't going to help right now and he knows that he was, in fact, in a fight where he only got minor bruising and he handed out at least one concussion, so it doesn't seem unfair that he should be punished for that, even if the prospect of being alone in a room for God-knows-how-long sounds like torture.

Still, he keeps an eye on Bucky as they're being moved until they're separated entirely.

Shit. He just hopes Bucky is okay. A guy like Alex can probably pay off some guards, too, and he knows that they're entirely at the guards' mercy in here.

He settles in on the cot in the small cell to wait. What else can he do in here?

They take him to processing. Take his statement. Turns out that while Alex's influence is great over the inmates, it's lukewarm over the guards. The correctional officers like to feel like they have authority, and while they may be bribed to steer clear of a hallway for a few hours, anything more than that is a challenge to that authority. He isn't shanked, beaten, taunted, or otherwise hassled except for a few eye-rolls and condescending comments. Overall, it's not as bad as it could have been.

Thanks to Steve.

It's a matter of he-said-she-said, Alex's word against Bucky's, and it's only the guy with the nosebleed that keeps them from getting sent to max. He apparently offers enough of a testimony in their favor that SHU and disciplinary records are all they get, though Alex of course walks away without so much as a fucking smudge on his shoes.

Figures.

Twenty or thirty minutes after Steve is settled they march Bucky past his cell, and he gets only a glimpse of Steve through the small window at the top of his door before he's ducked into the room directly next door. They slam it shut behind him, and he gets a nice long look at his surroundings.

A bed. A toilet sink combo. A vent. A floor, four walls with paint scratched off to spell things like 'fuck your mother' and, of course, a few sloppy swastikas that seem like it took the artist a while to master because there are ten or fifteen with backwards lines before they come out right.

It's not his first time in SHU, no, that had been shortly after the events with Rumlow. He knows first hand how long a fucking week is in here.

One week with his own mind in isolation.

"Fuck."

It's one word, but Steve hears the gentle echo through the vent. He hasn't been in here long enough to be going crazy and hearing things quite yet. Bucky's nearby. That's good. Well, he hopes it's good. He'd hate to think he'd made anything worse for Bucky. He just can't handle the idea of walking away and leaving anyone outnumbered like that, especially not someone he'd like to think of as a friend.

He pushes himself up off of the cot and moves to the floor, sitting next to the vent with his back to the wall. If he makes too much noise, the guards will come check on them. Maybe they'll move Steve.

Instead he just sits and listens for a moment, but when he doesn't hear anything else, he bends and ducks his head down towards the vent.

"Bucky?" His voice is just above a whisper. He hopes it won't carry any further than it has to to get to Bucky. Maybe he's next door, just on the other side of this wall. Maybe they can keep each other sane in here.

Mostly, Steve just wants to know if Bucky is okay. He'd been in one piece before, but a lot of things can happen in... however much time it's been. He can't even say.

Quiet as it is, it still startles the absolute shit out of him. The quiet whisper of your own name in an empty room when you're starting to have a mini freak-out about your mental state will make even the best of men jump. It's only been ten fucking minutes, though, and there's no way he's going out of his mind so quick. Eyes flicker toward the source, the vent on the wall, and he moves to drop down beside it.

There's a little grunt that follows the action. Hardass though he may be, getting dropped on your back will leave anyone a bit sore. A beat later, though, and his back's against the wall next to the vent so he can murmur in turn.

"Steve." Obviously, he saw the face in the cell next door and it's not god damn santa clause. "You okay?"

The sound of Bucky's voice fills Steve with relief. He doesn't know why. He'd already heard Bucky, but somehow it doesn't seem real until he hears his name on Bucky's lips. He slouches a little against the wall, relaxing minutely on the cold floor.

"I'm fine." He isn't even lying. All he's got is a few scrapes and bruises and most of them are self-inflicted from hitting the other men himself. He wouldn't mind being able to bandage his scraped up knuckles, but he'll survive. It's easier to be worried about Bucky, who'd been surrounded by guys at one point and had taken a few drops and blows from what Steve could tell. Not to mention whatever else could have happened between then and now.

"Are you? Okay, I mean." He doesn't know what he'll do if Bucky isn't, if Steve hadn't done enough to keep him safe. He has to think Bucky would have done the same for him, regardless of what he'd said when they met. Bucky's a decent person. Steve knows that.

"M'Fine," He says, and though he sounds tired it's the god's honest truth. Completely and totally fine, thanks to Steve's intervention. He's good, but he's no six guys at a time good. He might've gotten in a few lucky shots, but eventually, he'd have been overwhelmed by four or five while the sixth guy whaled him into submission. Hard to say when they'd have stopped, but surely he'd be in the infirmary instead of SHU.

He heaves out a sigh, flickering eyes down to the vent as though it's Steve himself. "You shouldn't have done that. Fucked yourself a little, you know that right?"

Which is an apology, even if the word 'sorry' isn't used. He's not worth the trouble, honestly.

Bucky sure as hell doesn't sound fine, but Steve won't push it for now. It's easier to talk without a wall between them, anyway. Here, he isn't sure who might be able to listen in.

"I know." He gets that. He understands that being locked in here isn't a reward and that they keep track of these things, but he can't let Bucky take a beating just to save his own skin. That's not who Steve is and it's not who he wants to be.

"I'm not great at doing what I'm supposed to do." Which he thinks should be obvious because of where they are. "And If you thought I was just going to walk away, you're crazier than I thought."

The teasing is gentle, but it's there. Steve can't quite help it and he smiles a little at the easy words. Right now, he's okay and Bucky's okay and they can worry about the rest later when it comes.

Despite himself a breathy chuckle escapes his throat, a tired sound that's almost more dry than amused — but it still counts. A little shake to the head, some shifting can be heard from his side of the wall, just himself bringing a knee up to rest his elbow on it. Just his head thumping back softly against the concrete behind him.

"Thank you," He says finally, earnestly. He might not have apologized in so many words, but gratitude he feels the need to share. It means, of course, that Bucky owes him one. That's how these things work, a debt is paid with a debt. If he didn't already like Steve maybe he'd be more frustrated by that fact, but as it stands Steve's earned himself a more or less permanent form of backup. "Though frankly we'll probably both be outta our damn minds by the time Tuesday rolls around again. Hope you're up to date on word games or you've got a vivid imagination and you like your own hand."

Because there's nothing, not a god damn thing to do here. Eat when they provide food. Sleep more than any human really ought to sleep. Think, and masturbate. That's it. That's an entire week of their lives.

"I do have a good imagination." It's meant as a joke, but a moment later he realizes that he's basically just told Bucky he'll be masturbating in here. He'd worry about that crossing a line, but frankly he's already gotten pretty close to masturbating in a room with Bucky and he's pretty sure being in prison is a free pass on that as long as he makes sure Bucky is sleeping first.

"You're welcome, Buck. I wasn't gonna leave you there to God-knows-what by yourself." No, he's already pretty sure he's got a decent read on Bucky and a decent read on Alex, too. If Alex wants to target Steve, too, then let him. It will mean less heat on Bucky and Steve can take care of himself just fine.

"What was he talking about, anyway? What does he think you owe him?"

It does get his eyebrows creeping up — not that he's judging, it's just that now he's imaging Steve in there jerking off, and well, it's all kind of a feedback loop isn't it? Catch him listening out for breathy sounds and soft moans later, for skin on skin and... It's abruptly abundantly clear that his own imagination's not so bad itself. Wellp, that's one way to pass an hour tonight.

Speaking of dicks, though.

He heaves a sigh, audible even through the metal grating that separates them. He'd been hoping to keep his sordid history under wraps, but he supposes having taken a punch for him Steve probably deserves the story.

"Alex was here years before me," He starts, an uncomfortable twist to his lips. Settle in, pal, you're in for some story time. "When I first got here I wasn't... doing so good. He sold me this whole... thing about protection, helping me integrate, taking care of my sister on the outside with a little it of cash in exchange for favors."

Because apparently there was a time when Bucky could be bought. Back before he knew exactly what it was he was in for. Back when he was still green.

"Started out... not so bad. Keeping people off his back, sneaking contraband, whatever, but he's... There was this scrawny tweaker kid that spit in his face once, I'm not even sure what for. Alex has a whole hell of a lot of pride, a reputation, he couldn't let it slide, so one night after lights out he got me and a couple other guys to hold him down. I figured he was just gonna pull some macho shit, threaten him, maybe rough him up a little for the crowd so he could get his power back y'know, but he started... Taking the guy's clothes off like he was gonna... and that was it. I'm- no. I couldn't do it. I knocked him out flat on his ass with his dick still out in front of his crew and a couple witnesses."

And there's the truth of it, probably one of the biggest regrets he has in the last five or so years. Not that he knocked Alex out, but that he let himself get suckered into being a god damn weapon for Pierce in the first place. Let himself be manipulated like that.

"He thinks I owe him the same as that kid did. Thinks I've got some kind of leg up over him in the eyes of the population. He wants me to bend over and- I don't know, lick his shoes or suck him off or something, whatever the hell guys like that are after."

Prisons, man. They're all about smokes and sex. Really return people to their animal urges.

"Jesus." It's like a bucket of ice water dumped on his head. That goes far and beyond anything he could have thought of. And Bucky had told him to walk away like that would be preferable to Steve getting in a fight. It only strengthens Steve's resolve to watch Bucky's back. This goes so far beyond bullying that Steve's not sure what to do other than feel so angry.

His fingers find their way to the grate over the vent. "I'm not going to let that happen."

He speaks with the sort of authority one might expect from a boss or even a politician, making promises to a constituent who's been hurt by some loophole that he has the power to close. It's the conviction of a man who can't see anything less than the best outcome from this and who truly believes that he has the power to make it so.

Steve isn't stupid. He knows that he's a prisoner the same as Bucky. He has very little power, but he can watch Bucky's back and he can make sure Alex can't get the upper hand on either of them. After that fight, he can't imagine Alex will be able to get too many people interested in fighting either of them for a while, at least, and Steve doesn't really care to be intimidating as a rule, but he knows that he can be and if it will keep Bucky safe, he'll use that a little.

"That was a good thing you did for that kid." It's no less than what Steve would have done, but Steve doesn't expect everyone to be quite as reckless as he is.

And he is reckless when he's got a good reason for it. Bucky must know that now, too.