Chapter 2
II
“I don’t know why I didn’t just kill you in Sokovia and be done with it.”
“You do know.”
It had been their third mission together, not counting the Flag Smashers one. Zemo didn’t say anything else as he put the silenced pistol safely back in the holster. Bucky debated whether to ask him to continue the thought, but decided against it as he too put his weapons away.
“This is serious, Zemo. You shouldn’t have killed him. Sam was clear: we don’t kill unless we absolutely have to.”
“He was getting away on a boat with a hostage. It was the most efficient way to save the operation.”
He knew that, of course. Whatever happens, the operation comes first. Hydra had impressed that on him thoroughly.
“What is it that troubles you so, James? Is it the act of killing, or rather the fact that you see the need for it? Or perhaps, it’s the way you still—”
“Shut up. We could have reached them. We could— fuck, do you want to go back to always being locked in the Raft? To stay in a solitary cell for the rest of your life? Cause that’s what's goin’ to happen if you keep this shit up. This stunt would be enough for that if Ayo heard about it, and I’m sure Sam wouldn’t be all that more forgiving either.”
“So are you going to report me or not, James?”
“Bucky!”
With a blinding smile, Steve stood up to move towards him, but something in Bucky’s expression seemed to convince him to stop in his tracks. Steve’s arms, which had been outstretched as if to embrace him, lowered to his sides.
The world had stopped making sense. Steve couldn’t be there, and he couldn’t look like that — vibrant and healthy and not a day older than when Bucky last saw him. He must be dreaming this, Bucky realized. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Dream-Steve’s enthusiasm seemed to fade away.
“Bucky? You alright? It’s—”
He shook his head, mechanically. “It can’t be you. You’re — dead, or retired somewhere in the countryside and extremely old, I saw you—”
“Buck, it’s me, I swear. I’m here. I came back.” Steve approached again, and this time he didn’t stop — bridging the gap between them and touching Bucky’s jaw with a warm hand. His fingertips slowly brushed along his cheek, and the smile from before reappeared as he looked Bucky in the eye. “See? I came back.”
“How?”, Bucky asked in a rough voice. He couldn’t think. Could barely hear past the blood pounding in his ears. Could it really be Steve? Had he come back for—
“It's complicated. I’m not sure about the details either, to be honest. I only decided to do this a few weeks ago, and so I tried to remember what Bruce had told me, but he wasn’t exactly clear on— wait, you said that I should be old?”
Bucky only nodded, speechless.
“Well, that’s… confusing, to say the least,” Steve said. His brow had furrowed in such a familiar expression that Bucky thought he’d been thrown back to eighty years earlier. “I don’t remember being old at all. So that means… Hell, I was almost sure I wouldn’t mess it up. But I can’t just go back and try again, I ain’t screwin’ up more alternate universes, or timelines, or whatever it is. 'T was probably lucky that I didn’t…”
Steve continued to talk, but Bucky wasn’t listening anymore.
Steve was back. Steve was back, and he was staying, at least for now. He felt dizzy and overwhelmed, although at the same time a treacherous spark of hope was beginning to grow in his chest, similar to an incipient fire, and he was unable to keep it at bay. Despite his residual incredulity, a slow smile began to pull at his lips.
“Did you just swear?” he gruffly teased, interrupting his friend’s tirade. “Also, you’ve got your accent back.”
“Tell me about it,” Steve snorted. “It only took a couple of months living there to pick it up again. Peggy wouldn’t let me hear the end of it.”
It wasn’t that funny, but Bucky laughed out loud as he drank Steve in. On closer inspection, he became aware of small changes in his appearance: he had slightly thinning, greying hair, and slight wrinkles had appeared in the corners of his eyes, which only made his smile look warmer. His eyes, however, were as clear and honest as they had always been.
“Yeah, I remember your ma was the only one who spoke decent English”, he said after a minute. “So, how’s old Brooklyn?”
“Well, it’s… certainly different from how it is today. Call me nostalgic, but I think I prefer it as it was in the forties. You could actually see the stars then, for one thing.”
Steve wasn’t touching him anymore and had taken a step back, but he stayed close to him, and it was as if they weren’t in the light, spacious kitchen or in Italy at all anymore, but in their own peculiar little bubble of shared memories, as they both remembered the cold nights in Brooklyn before the war. The cool breeze coming in through the marble-rimmed windows now that the sun had begun to set and the evening was approaching only made the reminiscence more vivid.
Caught in the moment as he was, he almost didn’t hear the front door opening and closing. It wasn’t quite past sunset, so Zemo must have left the park earlier than usual. Bucky turned to the kitchen door to instinctively greet him and then froze.
Zemo was home.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“Steve,” he said quickly, turning again towards his friend and trying to keep a calm, reasonable tone, “Steve, listen, do not—”
But his warning was too late. There was a blur of blue and white, and Bucky only just registered what was happening as the shield was flung through the air. His Vibranium arm darted out impossibly fast and barely managed to catch it before it could collide with Zemo’s head.
There was an instant of silence that lasted an eternity. Only the parrots outside, which had long since migrated from Africa and taken residence in the Italian capital, could be heard. Bucky envied them for a second, wishing he too could fly away from this soon-to-be disastrous conversation. It was Zemo who broke the silence, because of fucking course.
“Well, this is certainly unexpected,” Zemo said with blatantly feigned calmness, still staring at the shield held in front of him that could have seriously injured, if not killed him. “I must say, it’s a pleasure to see you too, Captain Rogers.”
“You.”
With or without the shield, Steve looked ready to pounce on Zemo and murder him in cold blood at any moment. Hoping he wouldn’t notice the maneuver, Bucky lowered the shield as he took a careful step to the left to hide Zemo behind him, in case his old friend actually acted on that instinct.
“Stevie,” he said quietly, trying to diffuse the situation and spreading his arms in the universal gesture for ‘wait a minute and calm down, let’s talk about this.’
The stand-off suddenly reminded him of the first time Zemo and Walker had met in Riga, when he’d been caught in the middle — torn between his guilt over breaking Zemo out of prison and his desire to avoid giving in to the new (fake) Captain America. It was a comparison he didn’t like at all. And this time, Sam wasn’t even here to pacify everyone and soothe the collective mood. Bucky was on his own.
It was only then that Steve seemed to remember Bucky was still there, and he pinned him with a look so different from the one he had reserved for him just a minute before that he felt like the wind had been knocked out of him for a second. The contrast was jarring. Steve’s expression was cold and assessing, in the way he’d regard a potential enemy.
“Buck. What the hell is he doing here?” he demanded in a low, strained voice, barely keeping the suspicion out of his tone.
“Look, it’s—”
“And why are you protecting him right now?” Steve interrupted, raising his voice, having picked up on his defensive stance.
Bucky could feel the weight of Zemo’s gaze on his back. He briefly closed his eyes and took a moment to regret not having accompanied Sam on his mission in Canada.