The Handler

"Let me go

let me be

I am escaping"- 

Muse, The Handler

Sam watched in part confusion and part terror as Bucky shut down in front of him. He was mumbling random words and numbers in Russian as his eyes rolled up into the back of his head.

"Buck! Bucky! Hey, James!" Sam lightly patted his cheeks as the man seized in his plane seat.

"Zemo! What can we do?" He yelled as he scrambled back from the shaking man.

Zemo pulled him back from his shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. "I know something that might help, but I don't know if it'll work. Or if you'll like it."

Sam panicked as Bucky's head snapped to the side and finally yelled. "Fine, do it!"

Zemo pushed him back slightly again before snapping, "sputnik!"

Barnes's entire body went limp, his jaw going slack as he practically melted into the plane seat.

"What the hell did you do?" Sam screeched, hands going to grasp at Zemo's lapels.

The other man swatted his hands away with a scoff. "Samuel, you asked me to help and I did."

Sam grit his teeth and ground out, "I said help, not," he tossed his hands up, "use those damn words! I didn't even know those still worked!" He watched Bucky's slow, even breathing in concern.

"They don't," the Sokovian slowly said. "At least, they aren't supposed to." The man sat down in his seat once again and explained to Sam, "the words are as gone as they can be for him."

"I know that!" Sam snapped, "Bucky had called Steve and..." He was swept away in the memory.

~

"Sam!"

Steve bounced up and down, as excited as a puppy.

"It's Bucky, he's calling," Steve moved things around in their small safe house. "Oh gosh, what if he doesn't like this shirt or-"

Sam felt laughter bubble out of him. "Steve, answer the damn call I'm sure keeping him waiting will piss him off more than your shirt."

The taller man blushed and hit "accept" on the call before dragging Sam over to him to sit on the house.

"Steve, I don't know if he wants to see me-"

The blonde man shushed him as Bucky's weary face appeared on the video call. They weren't allowed to call often, due to being on the run, but every time they did the man looked wearier and wearier. Except for this time.

"Steve," Bucky rasped in his soft, accented tone.

Sam had asked Steve about the man's accent, one too many beers loosening his tongue enough to ask about his old war pal without fear of repercussions. Steve had smiled that young, wistful smile that he always had whenever he talked about Bucky and explained to him that Bucky's parents were immigrants from Romania, something that had given him an extra hard time when he was younger. He smiled whenever he said that he used to tease Bucky for the clipped vowels and soft, drawn-out consonants, but stopped whenever he realized that the taller boy was quite embarrassed about it.

"Bucky's Ma would always drill him in Romanian whenever he got shaky with it," Steve had said with his Brooklyn twang. "She'd puff up and yell at 'em in rapid-fire Romanian so fast that I wouldn't even begin to know what they were talkin' 'bout."

Sam smiled and watched as Steve was immersed in the memory.

"Buck never talked about his heritage much and I know it was from all the mean thing his Ma and them got called but," the man suddenly looked young and small as he bit his lip, "it was always his dream to get more in touch with his heritage when the war ended."

They started searching Romania after that night.

"Steve," Bucky rasped again. "Steve, I'm free."

Sam watched as Steve's lip trembled and tears threatened to spill as he grasped the phone tightly.

Barnes almost looked out of place on his own call. His greasy hair and beard were matted and his eyes were sunken in, but in those eyes were something Sam hadn't seen in a long, long time.

Hope

"Buck, that's," Steve chocked out, "that's so good. I'm so glad that you're-"

"I want to see you," Barnes murmured, his face impassive.

Sam felt like he was intruding on something private and intimate, but also feared that Steve would break down if he left. He made the decision to stay seated on the couch, right next to Steve.

"Bucky," Steve sighed out.

"No, Steve," the man looked mad, but Sam was grateful for any reaction that they were receiving other than that blank stare. "You can't make choices for me, I-I want to see you and I w-wa fuck!" He hissed and rubbed his face on his stumped shoulder, it being covered by a sleek, Wakandan shirt.

To Sam's psychological mind, the stuttering was mildly worrying, but then again, the man probably hasn't said more than mission reports for more than seventy years.

"Bucky," Steve stressed the name, drawing out both syllables.

The dark-haired man shuttered, his eyes flicking downwards as well as his mouth. "I-I thought if I was fixed then you'd want me back."

And oh damn here came the waterworks. There was a reason Sam couldn't watch any sad movie without bawling halfway through.

Steve rubbed his hand down his blotchy, tear-stained face. "Bucky...fixed doesn't mean healed."

Fuck

Sam cringed internally as he saw a tear go down Bucky's face through the poor connection and cringed, even more, when he went to wipe it away with his other arm only to realize that it wasn't there.

"Then what do you want me to do?" Barnes whispered.

Steve glanced at Sam who shrugged, this was out of his league.

"Just...stay there, Buck. We'll see you in a bit alright? How 'bout that jerk?"

Barnes frowned even harder, his jaw working on a sentence that he never quite got out.

"Okay, Steve" Bucky murmured before ending the call.

"Buck!" Steve gasped out as the other man ended the call.

"Steve, it's alright," Sam comforted the crumpled man as he tossed the phone onto the table in anger. "He's healing, the words are gone, he's-"

"He's being an ass!" Steve snapped, holding his hands fisting his short hair. "Why doesn't he understand what we're going through?"

Sam pursed his lips, "Steve, he's been this one person for most of his life, this one person that you don't even know. He's gonna be different now. Hell, you're different now!" He clasped Steve's hands in his own, "you're just going to have to learn the new him. He probably thinks he's 'mission ready' and is just upset that you don't want him by your side."

Steve wiped a tear away from his eye, "but I do want him by my side! He's just-"

"damaged?" Sam finished for him.

Steve nodded sadly and let himself be pulled into a crushing hug. "I know, I know, Steve. But, it'll be all alright. Just wait."

~

"But how are they affecting him now?" Sam stressed, "the Wakadans worked so hard, he worked so hard."

Zemo at least had the human decency to look sad, "I do not know. We might never know, but this," he gestured towards Bucky, "needs to be kept secret. We will be landing in Latvia in a couple of hours and you should rest. You've had a busy day."

Sam glanced at Zemo and then at Bucky before giving him a curt nod.

"Yeah, yeah," Sam mumbled before settling down in the chair across from the sleeping soldier.

I'm so tired

He was standing in the bar with Zemo and the Winter Soldier, watching as Bucky tore apart people with his bare hands as he did nothing but watch. Bucky snarled, a deep animalistic noise as he punched through a person's skull and sneered at the mess. His feet felt as if they were glued to the ground and maybe they were because he couldn't stop Bucky from slaughtering people.

"Slipped back into the Winter Soldier mindset so easily," Zemo commented from beside him.

Sharon mysteriously appeared at his other side, watching as Zemo pushed yet another person into the kill circle. Sam's heart stopped when he realized that person was Riley. He whimpered as his feet betrayed him and stayed firmly planted to the floor.

"Riley!" He pleaded as Bucky rounded onto him.

"He's not Steve or Zemo's pet psychopath anymore," she smiled as Bucky broke Riley's arm clean in half and the younger man let out an agonized scream, "he's yours."

Bucky smiled at him with bloodstained teeth. 

Sam woke up with a gasp, his heart pounding as he took in deep lungfuls of air and closed his eyes.

"Shit," he sighed as he wiped the cold sweat from his brow.

He swallowed down nausea and pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

It's just a dream. A fucked up dream, but a dream.

When he opened his eyes again he was met with cold blue ones boring into his own.

"Shit!" He yelped again, jerking in his seat.

Bucky squinted slightly, confusion evident on his face.

"Sorry, Bucky," Sam sighed, "you scared me s'all."

The man didn't reply, instead, his frown deepened as he tilted his head.

"We're in Latvia," Barnes rasped.

Sam startled slightly, put off. 

"Barnes?" Was he back?

The taller man twitched his head to the side, "w-who is that? Mission?"

Disappointed rang in his ears as his hope was crushed.

"No," he mumbled. "Not a mission."

Zemo came from the cockpit, a smile on his face. "We're about to land. I called ahead, my place is ready."

Bucky's brows furrowed even more as he tilted his head at both men.

Zemo chuckled, his hand ruffling the other's short hair.

"Mission," he explained with a smile and a gesture of his hands.