Begging for so much more (than you could ever give)

Bucky had expected it to be a quiet, mundane day. In all fairness, it had seemed like the beginning of a quiet day, in the middle of a quiet week — as much as the week of someone who led his kind of life could get quiet or mundane. Sam was still busy on a mission in Canada and hadn’t called in a couple of days, not long enough for Bucky to worry over.

The afternoon had been warm and sunny, filled with the promise of summer that was still quite far from coming, so while Bucky had decided to go for a run and then buy something for dinner, Zemo had taken his sketchbook and headed for the park to draw the cherry trees, which were in full bloom. They’d only been there a few weeks, yet a strangely natural, pleasant sense of domesticity had already begun to develop.

Only two months after he had been brought to the Raft, the Sokovian had been visited by Queen Shuri and they’d had a long conversation, the contents of which Zemo had never shared. After that, he’d been allowed to participate in more and more of Sam and Bucky’s missions as part of his penance, and he’d been doing his community service ever since. Naturally, Bucky and the new Captain America hadn’t been too thrilled to work with him again in the beginning, always expecting some kind of betrayal on the field, but with time they’d come to appreciate the man’s resourcefulness and sharp wit, and a reluctant friendship had been born. From there, the mutual respect that had already formed and the lingering tension that existed between Zemo and Bucky had boiled over into something more.

At first it had been difficult, stilted, frustrating — but at the same time, Zemo had done more for him in a few months than Bucky’s psychologist had in two years. He rarely had nightmares about his past anymore, and the dread and guilt and loneliness that had plagued him when he’d just started to make amends, before all the Flag Smashers mess, had almost disappeared. Back then, all the newfound freedom he’d had felt dizzying and unjustified. He had struggled to move on after his deprogramming, and Steve leaving had only exacerbated the feeling that he had no identity of his own.

What was he, if not the Winter Soldier or Captain America’s best friend? His thoughts would sometimes drift dangerously close to a longing to be part of something bigger than himself again — something like Hydra — and they were always followed by a cold wave of self-loathing.

Now, almost three years later, he felt... not good, not okay, but better. Like he had a purpose, a reason to go home to. He had his friend, Sam, and he had Walker, who had proved to be less of an asshole than he’d initially thought. And of course, he knew he could count on Wakanda’s support for the White Wolf. But most importantly, he had Zemo: the only living person who knew exactly what he’d gone through, down to the last grisly detail. And more than that, the only one who saw Bucky, who understood him better than anyone else did, and maybe he should have been worried about that, but by this point, most of the time he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Zemo was… addicting. Zemo was intelligent, and cultured, and funny. He might seem snobbish, what with his expensive fur-collared coat, and his jet, and his butler, for fuck’s sake, but he was very generous with his possessions and his knowledge. Perhaps because he, like Bucky, didn’t have many people left to gift what he had to.

When he did wake up in the middle of the night with the feeling of warm blood on his hands, Zemo would usually make him his favorite tea and read poems to him in his unruffled, slightly accented voice until he fell back to sleep. He held him together when Bucky was sure he would shatter into a billion pieces, unless he dreamt about blue eyes and wheat-blond hair. Those nights, Bucky couldn’t stand to be touched by the Sokovian; instead, he’d go for a predawn run, leaving his lover on the bed without daring to look back at his knowing expression.

There were moments when they still fought. Zemo had a talent for getting under his skin, and he’d never cared to mince his words, especially where his moral convictions were concerned. He was manipulative, and shattered by the death of his family into something that would never be whole again. However, even though Zemo was prone to lashing out the rare times he was actually irritated, even though he relished the chance to drive him crazy, when Bucky finally lifted him by the throat and slammed him against a wall it would usually be followed by an angry kiss, and then Zemo would order him to squeeze a bit harder in Russian, make it hurt a little, soldat.

In the last months, Zemo had been given a bit more liberty by the Wakandans, it was unclear whether as a reward for good behavior or as an encouragement to continue his progress. What mattered was that they’d been able to finally be together in a relaxed setting, at least until Sam needed them again. They’d chosen to spend the time in one of Zemo’s estates in Europe, an ancient fifteenth-century palace in the historic center of Rome, and Zemo had even started teaching him some Italian. All in all, Bucky hadn’t felt this peaceful and happy since... well, since a very long time.

So Bucky had believed this was going to be a quiet, mundane day, which is why, when returning home from the market, he’d allowed his guard to be lowered, enough that he didn’t notice that the old lock on the door had been picked. He balanced the heavy grocery bag in his hands while closing the door and turned. Only then did his trained senses awaken again and he realized something was off.

Someone was in the house. It was not Zemo, because the light jacket he’d been wearing this morning, his favorite one, wasn't back on the coat hanger. Moreover, there was the lack of Zemo’s usual cologne and the fact that he hadn’t greeted him at all when he’d entered. And they surely had heard him enter since he hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary and made no effort to be quiet — stupid, stupid —, so they were probably waiting somewhere, hoping to take him by surprise. He prepared himself for an attack and started to silently walk down the hall.

Who was it and how did they know he’d been staying here? There was a possibility that it was the Wakandans, but they would have simply contacted him before coming. Could it be some affiliate of the Power Broker? While Sharon might have finally been put behind bars, it wasn’t unreasonable to think that someone with as much power — ha! — as her would have allies whose affairs had been ruined by her imprisonment. But coming all the way to Italy for revenge seemed a bit much.
His thoughts turned next to Hydra. They’d recently discovered that a new group of the fuckers had appeared in Germany, born from the ashes of the original organization, and while they were still laying low it wasn’t impossible that they could have come for him, to reclaim their beloved tool.

Let them try.

He clutched the grocery bag tighter, thinking it would make for a good weapon if he could surprise his attacker by throwing it at them, and approached the open kitchen door, readying himself for the fight. His metal hand balled into a fist, he took a breath and made the last steps, entering the room.
The sound of the grocery bag hitting the ground and of eggs and wine bottles breaking was deafening in the silence of the kitchen, but Bucky didn’t hear it.

There, sitting placidly with the rays of the spring sun filtering through the window and shining on the table and on his blond hair, looking as young as when he’d seen him leave with the infinity stones after defeating Thanos, was Steve Rogers.