Chapter 12
XII
Being an enhanced human also meant having enhanced dreams, so detailed and vivid as to pass for reality.
When he had been a tortured prisoner, existing at the whims of his handlers, recognising what was and wasn’t real hadn’t felt all that important; he’d only cared about what would hurt him less. Back then, dreaming of his sweet sisters and his beautiful mother, and of Steve, and all the others he’d left behind — even when he almost couldn’t remember their names anymore — had meant at least a few minutes of respite from the horror.
Nowadays, he rarely dreamt of his sisters. For too long after his mind had been freed, there hadn’t been any respite to be found in his sleep, no solace nor happier memories. It had gradually gotten better with time, as his life had started to fill with new connections, new experiences and desires, and actual plans for the future.
For the last week, though, he seemed to have reverted back to when he’d sleep on a mattress on the ground. He had nothing but nightmares each fucking time he closed his eyes: the war, Steve, Hydra, the Howling Commandos, Siberia, Steve again.
This time, it had started with a relatively innocent memory of his time with Steve in Wakanda, in the months following the civil war with the other heroes — Steve’s old friends, who he’d abandoned to keep Bucky safe.
Hiding in Wakanda had meant going through two years of readjusting, of relearning things that Bucky came to understand — through Steve’s often crestfallen expressions — he was already supposed to know. And it never seemed like enough. He collected scraps of information about who he’d been, listened avidly to all the anecdotes Steve told, building an image of what “Bucky Barnes” had been like, and hoping that if he made it detailed enough, he would one day be able to manufacture a decent copy of it.
Two years, during which Steve had supported him staunchly, incessantly, helping drown the constant noise in Bucky’s head, defending him from everything and against everyone — including against his own best interests. Without ever asking for anything in return, except his company.
(Bucky had never wanted for the civil war to happen. If he had known, somehow, that his presence would bring such a divide between Steve and his friends, one that would later put the survival of half the universe at risk —)
In the dream, Steve was unhurriedly washing his hair, moving the fingers on his scalp in a relaxing pattern, pressing down without much pressure, as if Bucky was a wild animal he didn’t want to spook.
It had taken a few minutes, but after a while he’d become less tense under Steve’s ministrations, allowing his eyes to close slowly, even though he’d kept his other senses alert. But when he opened them some moments later and looked at himself in the mirror, he was struck by a disgusted shame: he was a ragged half-man who’d forgotten how to execute even the most basic personal functions, depending on someone else to take care of him.
He closed his eyes again, clenching his fists.
Steve, I don’t deserve this. Please, just let me go.
That was what he’d said. He remembered that was what he’d said. But now he felt his lips move, and all he managed to murmur was: “Steve…”
It would have to do, he thought, as the colors around him mutated suddenly and he found himself in a different dream.
The warmth of Wakanda was gone. In its place, the sharp coldness of the Alps surrounded him; the only warm thing he could still feel was the bleeding wound that seemed to be devouring his chest like fire.
Steve was fussing over him, once more. Uselessly: there was no way he’d be able to survive a shot like this. Lying on the blindingly white snow of the memory, his consciousness recalled that when he’d been there, certain of his imminent death, he’d felt an anger towards Steve as fierce as it was unjustified. Over what, though, he wasn’t sure now.
He hadn’t discovered how he had managed to survive that shot until much later.
The other side of the bed was once again cold when he woke up, and he was, once again, gulping for breath and drenched with sweat.
He wished to be at the sea, swimming till his hands wrinkled from the water. During one of their first days in Italy, Zemo had brought him to Ostia, a coastal area of Rome so vast it was almost considered a city of its own, where the few Romans who didn’t own a house by the sea went to spend their holidays.
Although according to Zemo it was nothing compared to the South of Italy, Bucky had loved it: even though it was spring when they had gone, the water had still been warm and transparent, if a bit too crowded, and in the late afternoon when the worst of the canicule had started to ease they had visited the area’s archeological site. Walking through the millennia-old ruins he’d felt small and unsubstantial, as though all the things that ate at him everyday had suddenly become insignificant in the great scheme of things.
It was almost midday. His stomach was rumbling — he hadn’t eaten much last night, after all. It felt like Steve’s attempt to kiss him and the subsequent awkward dinner had happened much earlier than just the evening before.
He would have liked to avoid Steve, just for a few hours more. He figured Steve would probably catch on, but Bucky was very good at avoiding people when he wanted to, and Steve was rather easy to avoid.
He was terribly hungry, though, and he hoped a cup of coffee would wake him up enough to let him forget the nightmares.
So naturally, when he entered the kitchen, Steve was there.
“Steve,” he said, stopping near the door.
Steve turned from the fridge, his smile too bright to be real. “Buck. You just woke up?” He seemed uncomfortable, but, then again, Bucky probably did too, he thought as he nodded.
“So I saw you found Zemo.” At Bucky’s raised eyebrow, Steve continued, “Ran into him upstairs.”
Well, that didn’t sound like a recipe for disaster at all.
“Oh. Yeah, I did,” he said shortly.
“And?”
“He’s okay, nothing happened. He’d just gone for a walk.” He wasn’t sure that was what Steve had wanted to know.
“That’s— good." Even saying that much seemed to cost him, his mouth tightening up at the corners. “I'm sorry I fell asleep before you came back. I guess age’s finally catching up with me.”
“It’s alright. Everything was fine," Bucky said. Had Steve not been there in the house, he would still have handled it alone, after all.
Had Steve not been there, there wouldn’t have been an issue in the first place.
“Okay. Good,” Steve repeated, his gaze on the table.
Yeah, the conversation was strained, at best.
He had to do this.
Steve hadn’t spurned him when he’d found out Bucky had killed dozens of people — some of them, innocents. Could this really be worse than that?
Even if it was, it didn’t matter.
He had to stop being greedy, and be content with what he had, which was a new, weird sort of family, or at least, a strange assortment of friends. If today Steve decided not to be part of it, of his life, anymore — well. Bucky would have to fucking deal with it.
This was his fault, after all. He’d deluded himself it would somehow be a good idea to lie to his best friend, someone who’d put everything on the line for him in the past, and in doing so he’d managed to hurt Zemo.
He had to make things right. He was done with this farce; he was going to do better.
He searched for words, for the right words, for the words that could uncomplicate this whole matter, even though he suspected that they didn’t exist. He cleared his throat, opened his mouth.
That was when the phone rang.
“Sam. You got news?”
“Yeah, give me a sec, I’ll turn on the camera.” Bucky heard the sounds of Sam fumbling with his phone. “You alright?”
“As well as can be expected,” Bucky said noncommittally. “Steve’s here too.”
“You’re a ray of sunshine as usual, Buck. Hey, Steve, how are you doing?” Sam asked as he finally appeared on screen, waving at Steve, who’d come to Bucky’s side.
“Hey, Sam. I’m fine, thanks. So you got something?”
“Yeah, or rather, Wakanda got something. I was contacted by Shuri half an hour ago,” Sam said.
Bucky put the phone on the counter and crossed his arms. “Bad news?”
“Mostly good news actually, although I’ll agree that’s pretty unusual for us.”
“Wonderful. What did she say?” Steve asked.
Sam hesitated for a moment. “Right, okay — Shuri said you’re cleared for this, so I guess yeah, you’re also involved.”
“He got himself involved, to be precise, even if I’d asked him not to,” Bucky was keen to point out. Steve had the gall to look smug.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less from Steve, honestly. Look, guys, I’d love to stay and chat, but I actually have somewhere to be later, so let’s—”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been as busy as you are as Captain America, you know?” Steve quipped.
“That’s cause I’m terribly charismatic and more beloved by the public than you ever were,” Sam deadpanned.
“That’s a lie and you know it,” Bucky said, deciding to make a joke out of it, rather than thinking about the elevated number of racist attacks Sam still received every day just because of who he was and what he represented.
“Alright, alright, makin’ fun of me and my busy schedule, I get it. Now can we begin?”
“Hey, look at us, the old team’s back together again,” Steve said, smiling.
It was a moment before Sam snorted. “So it seems, huh? We got the prodigal son back.” The words came out a little forced. “Alright, let’s do this. Buck, can you get Zemo in here?”
Bucky felt Steve twitch beside him. When he looked at him, all traces of mirth had dissolved from his expression. His spine was straight as an arrow, his shoulders tense.
“Sure,” Bucky said cautiously, glancing back to Sam,“I’ll be right b—”
“Samuel, good morning.” Zemo’s pleased voice came from behind as he joined them at Bucky’s shoulder. “Are you already preparing for the gala?”
Bucky hadn’t even known Sam was supposed to go to any gala, but now that he looked, he noticed he was wearing a black tuxedo. “There’s a gala and you didn’t think to invite us?” he asked gamely.
“Yep, sorry not sorry. America’s polite society doesn’t react as well to Zemo’s presence as they do in some other parts of the world. Also, man, I swear to God, if you call me Samuel one more time I am so calling Ayo on your ass.” Both Bucky and Zemo smirked. That threat had long become an empty one. “And Buck, I didn’t even think twice about burdening you with an invite, I know too many people in one place raise your hackles.”
Bucky shrugged. “Crowds obstruct line of sight and get in the way.”
“Exactly, whatever you say. Now can we talk business?”
Bucky wanted to be wrong, but he knew Steve’s strategic side and his paranoid one too well not to guess what Steve’s distrustful expression meant. His face pinched around the mouth like it did when he was trying not to say something he really wanted to say: he was probably thinking of making Zemo leave the room while Sam relayed the intel.
If that was the case, Bucky thought, he had something else coming. It was time for him to really understand Zemo was part of this team. Steve hadn’t seen Sam and Zemo work together yet: this would drive it home. This was good. Maybe it would help them, help him do what he needed to.
“So, the bad news is new-old Hydra had been trafficking vibranium from a few Wakandan double-crossers who organized the shippings throughout most of Europe, when Hydra’s people found out Steve was alive in Germany, and followed him,” Sam started to explain. “They’ve got ties with the local mafia here in the region, and some bases of their own too, but, and this is the good news, it seems someone knew about the smuggling and told Shuri. My first guess was the informant was a repentant among the Wakandan infiltrators, but that is apparently not the case. Anyway, the spies are now in prison and awaiting judgment.”
“Fuck. I thought they were newbies? This doesn’t seem like an amateur organization's work,” Bucky said.
“And the files inside the folders? What were they?” Zemo asked.
“Requests for equipment, mostly. Some names we’d already heard about, a couple of the old ones. I’ll send you all the profiles, Wakandan spies included.”
“What were they using the vibranium for? Were they building something? Some kind of weapon?” Steve ventured.
“Wakanda is still going through all the projects we found, so we don’t know much yet, but don’t worry, they’ll handle it.” Bucky saw Steve bristle at the prospect of having to just stand down and wait. “They’re already sending someone to bring the vibranium back,” Sam continued.
“Someone trusted, I hope,” Zero said.
“Yeah, Okoye should be with them. Also, uh…”
“Spit it out, Sam,” Bucky said.
“There were also plans to take back the Winter Soldier. I don’t think they were theirs though, maybe they were prepared by someone higher in the chain of command, when they found out about you being in Italy.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me,” Bucky sighed. “What do we know about the informant instead? Is their profile also included in the ones you’ll be sending us?”
“Shuri just said they got the information from someone she could trust,” Sam said.
“And who is that?” Bucky asked.
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Shouldn’t we take it cum grano salis then?” Zemo asked.
“We can trust Wakanda,” Steve argued.
“Not all of it, it would seem.” There was a trickle of chilliness in Zemo’s deceivingly courteous reply — someone who didn’t know him might not have noticed. “Why would the queen not tell you, Sam?”
“Maybe they’ve got some kind of Wakandan code, I dunno. Maybe Shuri wants to protect the person who tipped ‘em off. I got no idea, that kid’s so smart she scares me sometimes, I guess she must have her reasons.”
“So this is it? End of the mission?” Steve’s shoulders sagged a bit.
“It does feel a little anticlimactic.” Bucky didn’t miss the look Steve threw at Zemo, even though the Sokovian had just agreed with him. Zemo, for his part, Bucky was beginning to notice, seemed… tense.
“Well, it’s not like we have to worry we’re gonna run out of Hydra fuckers to track down too soon,” Sam said.
“Seems like it, unfortunately,” Steve said gravely.
“And on that uplifting note, I think I will leave you, so I can finish preparing. Do you guys know when you’ll be coming back to the U.S.?”
Bucky tried and failed to meet Zemo’s gaze. “We aren’t sure yet, but soon.”
“Missing us already, Samuel?” Zemo asked in a syrupy-sweet tone.
“What I miss is the opportunity to strangle you, man. Which I will proceed to do as soon as I see you again in person,” Sam said, but the threat was ruined by the smile playing at the corners of his lips.
They had said goodbye and Sam had disconnected.
By now, Steve looked like he had bitten into a particularly sour lemon, but neither that nor the thought of what Bucky still had to tell him as soon as they were in private again were able to spoil his mood. In fact, he was feeling the small high that came from a concluded mission, even if it was just one chapter of the enormous tome that was Hydra-related problems. Sometimes he’d thought that elated, rewarding sensation might be a remnant from his conditioning — but endorphins were endorphins, and endorphins were good for him, at least according to Sam, so he tried to just enjoy it when it happened.
“Fuck, I’m starving,” he announced. “We got something quick to eat?”
“I bought bufala and ham. We could make piadine,” Zemo said.
“Mh. I want mine warmed up,” Bucky said.
“Of course you do.” Zero looked at him with a condescending, amused smile, before opening the fridge and starting taking the ingredients they needed out. “You warm it up at your leisure then, and I will cut the mozzarella.”
Bucky went to the stove and found a pan large enough while Steve trailed after him and Zemo sat at the kitchen table with a plate and his bufala.
“You want it warm too, Stevie? ‘S real good,” he asked over his shoulder, as he turned on the cooker and started heating up the first flatbread.
“Sure,” Steve said, and Bucky heard him finally sit down too.
He started to prepare the ham, and he noticed it was strangely relaxing to do something with his hands, just a series of manual tasks that didn’t require too much thinking. Maybe he should start helping Zemo with the cooking more often.
“Shall we eat in the salon?” Zemo asked after a minute, interrupting what had almost started to feel like a companionable silence. God, even if he’d overslept he still felt tired to his bones.
“Nah. Here is fine.” He liked Zemo’s kitchen. It was small enough, and cozy, while most of the rooms in all of Zemo’s houses were grandiose and too classy and sophisticated.
And Zemo loved to cook, even before they came to Italy. Bucky had actually been taken aback by the way Zemo took the reins of any kitchen, kitchenette or improvised fire they had available during the first missions with him and Sam. It had been Zemo who’d reintroduced him to the concept of food being more than just fuel for the body, something that could also feel good, something to savor and take pleasure in, especially if the act of eating was shared with someone else.
“As you wish, solnishko,” Zemo said from behind him, as Bucky moved the plate to start preparing another wrap and the delicious smell of the ham reached his nostrils.
Bucky huffed and quirked a smile, though he knew Zemo couldn’t see it.
It had started as a joke, the whole petnaming thing. They’d been together for a few months, and they’d still been their own units of dysfunctional mess that formed an even bigger, more dangerous dysfunctional mess together, when they’d seen this stupid, corny commercial on tv and they’d started acting as if they’d been a normal, horribly mushy couple. And of course, it had degenerated into some kind of challenge.
However, when Zemo had called him ‘my sunshine’ in Russian, in a clear attempt to destabilize him, he hadn’t expected Bucky to bring out his old Brooklyn lines from the forties. His surprised and then delighted expression had managed to make Bucky laugh harder than he could remember laughing for a while. Since then, it had stuck, and just became a thing they did. Sam hated it.
“No salad for you, right, doll?” he asked, playing along, as he flipped the piadina on its other side with a fork.
A moment passed before Zemo’s stilted-sounding answer came. “Precisely. Thank you.”
“Alright. Are you done with the cheese?” he asked after putting down the fork, and turned.
Hell, he’d almost forgotten Steve was also there, he’d been so quiet. He really needed to drink a coffee or three.
And then he noticed it. They were both looking at him weirdly, expectantly. Steve had gone pale, a spark of suspicion crossing his face. Like —
Once again in a few days, he had to stop and repeat in his mind what he’d just said out loud. And when he understood and felt like he’d been punched, and as the world seemed to narrow down around him, he wondered at how, even after all this time, he still wasn’t able to predict Zemo’s moves; at how he remained as much of a mystery to him as the first time Bucky had encountered him in Siberia.
He’d never called Steve doll, or any other pet name, back in Brooklyn, although he had used it with the various girls he’d gone out with before. He supposed he hadn’t wanted to get used to it and risk saying them in public, so he had always simply called him Stevie, or pal, or asshole.
Bucky could see the realization dawning on Steve’s face in slow motion. Something in him turned to frost. It was metallic and it tasted ugly. It was like waking up thinking it would be a good day, and then realize you’d been sleeping in the eye of a hurricane.
He couldn’t believe he’d fallen for practically the same trick again, exactly like the puppet Steve had feared him to be in Zemo’s hands. Twice, Zemo had initiated it, but he’d made it so that it’d be Bucky himself to give something away, however unconsciously.
Steve’s head fell forward, his breathing coming in hard gusts. Bucky’s stomach sank into his heels, raw dread taking its place.
“You’re…” Steve began. For a moment it seemed that was going to be all he said, but then he went on, fixing his gaze on Bucky, his words like a death sentence. “You’re with him, aren’t you? The person you’re seeing— it’s him. That’s why you are staying here, that’s why your room’s so empty. It isn’t your room.”
Bucky’s entrails twisted into a full-on knot. His hands were shaking minutely. He thought he used to be able to read Steve’s face. Not anymore.
“Yes,” he said quietly but clearly, his heart racing.
Steve worked his jaw. After a moment, he stood up slowly and without a word marched out of the room. Bucky heard him mount upstairs and wondered if he’d gone to gather his few things to leave.
He tore his gaze away from the empty door, but couldn’t bring himself to look immediately at Zemo. If he did, he might do something he would regret.
“Why?” The wrecked word sounded odd to his ears, like he was hearing it from a long, long way away.
When Zemo answered his voice was factual, dry, and that was what made Bucky snap his gaze to him in rage — but he was wearing a small, wistful kind of smile, and his eyes betrayed some kind of emotion Bucky wasn’t able to decipher. It might have been remorse, or something else.
“I decided to help you make the choice,” Zemo said, as a burning smell started to fill the kitchen.