Chapter Text
Speech in bold and italics is the characters speaking in Russian.
BUCKY
The thing is, none of them ever suspected it was a trap. Not for a moment. So, really, the fact that they’re blindsided shouldn’t be that surprising.
They had thought it was merely an opportunity for a smash and grab. To drop onto a freighter controlled by a Hydra faction, take it over, incapacitate the crew, and steal the dangerous package alluded to in an intercepted dispatch. It sounded typical enough of these new Hydra cells, so none of them are ready when someone sets off a sonic device. Knocking everyone on the deck of the freighter to the ground.
Bucky isn’t sure who’s more startled by being tossed to the ground, Hydra or the ‘good’ guys, but it lays them all out flat. In the distance, he can see Sam struggling to stand and, somehow, Zemo’s already on his feet and punching the absolute shit out of the closest Hydra agent until they drop their gun. And Bucky… well Bucky’s the worst for the wear because, really, sometimes super-hearing sucks. Like when someone sets off a sonic device strong enough to bowl everyone over because his ears are ringing and pain is ripping through his head as if his brain is literally on fire. Focusing enough to even see is hard and his limbs are more than a bit jelly when he tries to stand, stumbling before sinking back to his knees.
His equilibrium is thrown off far more than he’s experienced in years. And, as he stumbles and falls again, the Hydra agents surrounding him know it.
They were counting on it. He knows this because one of them is scrambling with a pack and three others rush to pin him down. They’re getting some contraption out of the bag, yanking his head back by his hair, shoving the device onto him and his vision is obstructed. For a brief moment, there’s just darkness and something unwelcome and familiar coils in his stomach because…there are memories of this. Not quite his, not fully, but the familiararity knocks him further off kilter. It gives them the vital edge and fleeting seconds to start the device.
Then there’s flashing lights, searing pain as electricity rips through his body. It’s so intense he isn’t even sure where it's coming from, but he’s pretty sure it's from more than one place. And then, through the ringing in his ears, he can hear someone shouting in poorly accented, carefully spoken, loud Russian.
It’s not a sentence. They aren’t trying to talk to him. No, he realizes, its words.
Not the trigger words he’s used to but they have a similar pattern, a similar inflection, and he’s struggling to understand them but he can feel them and that scares him.
Bucky tries to stand again but the electricity intensifies and he stumbles, falling to his knees. He lets out a guttural scream because he can feel it.
Not just the flashing and the pain through his limbs and ears but a pressure on his mind. A pressure he knows all too well. The one that says his mind is all too shortly not going to be his own. That a visitor, the visitor, is coming to call.
Ayo had warned him of this. Shuri had warned him of this. T’Challa had warned him of this, but Bucky hadn’t wanted to listen to it. He’d wanted to bury his head in the sand and pretend it wasn’t possible but, clearly, they weren’t the only people who’d known of this possibility. Of this weakness.
The Wakandans had told Bucky that what they had done, what they had spent months doing with him, was breaking the trigger words ability to summon the Winter Soldier. That didn’t mean, however, that the Winter Soldier himself was gone.
It didn’t mean that the Winter Soldier couldn’t come out to play again. It just meant it was incredibly unlikely. It meant that someone would have to use some other method of summoning him than the ten words.
Shuri had thought properly calling him out again was near impossible, which had been good enough for Bucky, though Ayo and T’Challa had been more skeptical of the Winter Soldier’s continual submergence. They all feared someone could bring him out.
“He is not gone,” Ayo had said, frowning at him when Bucky waved her off dismissively (because he was busy being in denial, thank you very much). “He is not just a phantom,” she had insisted. “You cannot ignore him. The Winter Soldier is a personality. He is not just a more obedient version of you.”
They warned Bucky that he might have ‘episodes’ where the Winter Soldier took the driver’s seat of Bucky’s mind. He hadn’t exactly dismissed their concerns, he’d just…hidden from it. And, in his foolishness and shame, he hadn’t told anyone else about the possibility. Bucky hadn’t wanted to hear about the possibility then and now, now he is paying the price for it.
Because, whatever these Hydra jerks are doing, it’s calling to the Winter Soldier and, after being shoved down for so long, the alter is eager to respond to the call. Because, back in the day, when Hydra had started the Winter Soldier program, they hadn’t worked out all the kinks of the mind control and this - pain, searing pain, flashing light, and words, always some series of words - were done to beckon the Winter Soldier into wakefulness and compliance. It worked…to an extent, until the method had been perfected.
And now, now, Bucky can feel it happening. Feel the world pushing down around him. Almost see the outline of the Winter Soldier drift past him in his mind while he falls back, receding deep into his own mind. He swears he can see the bastard grin - teeth sharp but eyes void as the Winter Soldier consciousness passes by him.
It happens slow and somehow all at once. One blink - here, then there - and suddenly, Bucky’s not the one looking out of his own eyes and the Winter Soldier is fully in control. Well, as in control as the Winter Soldier can be. Because the Winter Soldier might be a person, but he isn’t his own person.
So, to the horror of Bucky’s receding consciousness, one of the last things he hears is the Winter Soldier intone, “Ready to comply.”
ZEMO
It’s times like these that Zemo wishes Bucky wasn’t as stringent with his whole ‘not killing people unless there is absolutely no alternative’ thing.
The work it takes to incapacitate these Hydra asshats is more effort than it's worth and, right now, this reluctance to dole out proper levels of violence makes Bucky vulnerable. So vulnerable that Hydra actually gets the jump on him. Well, Hydra gets the jump on all of them, because someone sets off a sonic device and Zemo is suddenly sideways and rolling across the deck of the freighter.
It’s annoying and inconvenient and he’s dropped his sword…somewhere. But Zemo is no meek US agent. Nor is he a weakling Hydra agent. No, he’s Sokovian special forces - leader of EKO Scorpion. So, through the dizziness and wooziness he manages to get to his feet, incapacitating the nearest Hydra agent who manages to, somewhat impressively, stand and get his gun from his holster.
It takes a concentrated effort, and ignoring the stinging pain in his hand because, really, it's not the best idea to punch people who are wearing bullet proof vests, to locate his sword. He has to stop and steady himself a few times, squeezing his eyes shut until his vision is a little less squiggly. When he’s steady enough to really focus and knock the Hydra agent fully unconscious with the hilt of his sword because of the whole complaining of his counterparts whole ‘oh Zemo, don’t kill them, even though they’re scum of the Earth’ thing, Zemo realizes that those few seconds he took to come back to center were a mistake.
A mistake because Sam’s still down for the count and Bucky’s on the ground. Bucky, super-human, fierce, rough around the edges Bucky, is kneeling at the feet of several Hydra agents and it's wrong in so many ways that Zemo doesn’t want to even think about it. They’re actually overpowering him. Holding him down enough to deliver a series of eclectic shocks as one of the men starts half-yelling in Russian.
There’s a moment when the baron’s brain is still struggling to catch-up to the scene and, when it does, sick dread drops like a stone in his stomach. Because those have to be trigger words. That helmet, the shocks, the words - this is an attempt to retrigger the Winter Soldier. It has to be.
“Sam! We need to help James!” He doesn’t really wait to see if Sam is with him. He doesn’t think they have the luxury of time. All Zemo wants is to get to Bucky. To help him. To get those Hydra agents away from him. And, unfortunately for the baron, the rest of the Hydra agents know it.
They’re swarming now. Fucking locusts that they are. And, unlike usual, it's Sam who’s trying to fight with him. To match the rhythm and synchronicity that Zemo and Bucky have when they’re in fights. But it isn’t working, so they need to attempt to cut their own paths through the crowd. Not caring who gets to Bucky first as long as one of them gets to him. Immediately. Now. Preferably five minutes ago.
They are no longer just fighting to defeat their enemy. There’s a desperation in their moves because this is a fight for survival as they move towards Bucky. He makes a few futile attempts to get up but the Hydra bastards are blasting him with so much electricity he can’t get on his feet.
Then there’s the scream. It’s a scream so agonizing that, for a split second, Zemo’s heart stands still. It’s pain. It’s fear. It’s primal and terrifying.
“No!” Sam yells. Throwing two agents back with his wings so hard they fly over the edge of the freighter. They’ll be fine, probably, just a bit drenched and they won’t be coming back to interfere with the fight for a while.
Zemo doesn’t have that sort of restraint, nearly decapitating a Hydra agent with his sword, before taking off the arm of another. He’s done playing nice. Sam and Bucky can bitch to him about the violence later. Oh god, he hopes Bucky can bitch to him about it later.
Sam and Zemo are close now. Close enough that they can see when things shift. The moment of stillness and quiet before they stop shocking Bucky. Before they step back, a bit warily, but still step back. One of them pulls the helmet off Bucky and he stands. He stands but it's wrong because he’s standing stock still and, for all his virtues, Bucky Barnes does not do ‘still’.
One of the Hydra agents moves to stand in front of Bucky and Zemo catches the glint of smugness on his face. Then, to the absolute horror of Sam and Zemo, Bucky speaks. His voice is devoid of emotion as he looks down at the smirking Hydra agent and says, “Ready to comply.”
“Oh god,” Sam says, coming to halt and staring at Bucky’s rigid form. Then, impressively fast for someone who’s had this kind of a shock, he takes a step back and squares up for the impending fight. He doesn’t reach for his gun though, but rather gets out his taser. It packs a hefty punch but Zemo’s not so sure it can take down the Winter Soldier.
Because that’s who they’re dealing with now. This man, for all his visage, is not James Bucky Barnes. No, he’s the Winter Soldier called up again and, if the Hydra agents have half a brain cell, they’re going to order him to kill Sam and Zemo.
Zemo contemplates his options before he whips his sword around into a defensive stance, flicking blood across the deck. While he doesn’t want to hurt James, he isn’t a fool. This is going to get messy if they want to subdue him and Zemo is not going to manage that with simple hand-to-hand combat.
The movement of the sword catches the Winter Soldier’s eye. Zemo assumes this means he’ll be the first threat attacked. The first to be dealt with. Those piercing eyes go from the bloodied blade up to Zemo’s face before looking back at the Hydra agent who has spoken the words. The one who has triggered the Winter Soldier. His new handler.
If Zemo can manage to slip past the Winter Soldier and get to the Hydra agents, he’s killing that one first.
“Soldat. Kill them.” The man looks smug for a grand total of two seconds before the Winter Soldier turns on him and grabs him by the throat with the vibranium hand. “What? No! Soldat stop! Solda- ”
Silence falls as the Winter Soldier crushes the man’s windpipe before dropping his lifeless body to the deck with the disinterest someone tosses a crunched up receipt into the trash.
“Shit!” one of the other agents says, scrambling for his gun, but it's futile. The Winter Soldier is on him in a flash, catching him by arm, twisting until it snaps, and then throwing him overboard.
When the other two Hydra agents try to run, the Winter Soldier is on them in seconds with knives. He moves so fast that Zemo doesn’t even see the blows that kill them. Just a spurt of blood in the air and bodies falling to the deck. It’s breathtaking. And terrifying.
“Jesus christ,” Sam huffs out, staggering back and away from the bloodshed.
The Hydra agents don’t seem that interested in Sam or Zemo anymore. Some of them are trying to make a run for it. Others are (some would say valiantly and some would say delusionally) trying to take on the Winter Soldier, who seems perfectly content to go on a Hydra killing spree.
Sam lets out some colorful curses before turning to Zemo. “We need to go.”
“I’m not leaving him, Sam.” Zemo watches as the Winter Soldier breaks a man’s neck before kicking another in the chest so hard there’s an audible crack before the agent tumbles over the railing of the freighter and disappears.
“Don’t be an idiot, Zemo,” Sam hisses, stepping closer to Zemo as the Winter Soldier, now devoid of Hydra agents, turns back towards them and begins to storm across the deck. “I don’t want to leave him, but we need to seriously regroup before taking him on. He just killed a bunch of people and I know you think you’re good, but you’ve never taken him on like this before.”
While Sam has a point, Zemo has sparred with Bucky, he’s never fought the Winter Soldier, but Zemo isn’t exactly a shrinking violet. He knows what it takes to win. The brutality it can need, and he’s not one to shy away from that when needed. After all, he had just killed three people trying to get to Bucky before he was triggered, but Zemo doesn’t think now is the time to bring that up to Mr Sam ‘I don’t care if they’re Hydra, we’re still bringing them in’ Wilson.
“No,” Zemo says sternly, adjusting his stance and gritting his teeth as the Winter Soldier continues to advance on them.
Zemo doesn’t want this fight, but he’s not leaving Bucky on this freighter. Not like this. And he’ll take the man down if that’s what’s needed to get out of here together.
If he can use his sword to keep the vibranium arm from snagging him, then Zemo thinks maybe, maybe , he can get in close enough to knock the other man out. It will be an insanely difficult task, but, provided he doesn’t let the Winter Soldier get a hold on him, maybe he has a chance. Zemo has, after all, beaten Bucky when they spar…on occasion.
Okay, so maybe only once in a while does he actually manage to best Bucky. But it’s better than Sam, who never wins. And maybe today is Zemo’s lucky day and he can win this first round of fighting, when he normally wins the third…or fourth. Though, if he’s being honest with himself, there are a lot of maybes going through his mind right about now.
Sam swears at Zemo’s stubbornness, tucking away his wings. Likely he’s remembering the time the Winter Soldier ripped an older version of those wings straight off his back. He comes to stand beside Zemo, taking a few deep breaths, hyping himself for the fight of his life. Which they both feel is fast approaching, as the Winter Soldier stalks towards them, eyes deadly.
But the fight never materializes because he slams to a stop about two feet from them, dropping to his knees, gaze going to the deck as he says, “Ready to comply.”
Sam and Zemo both freeze.
“What the fuck?” Sam asks.
Sam doesn’t understand the Russian, but the gesture, the Winter Soldier kneeling before Zemo, is too obvious in intent to be mistaken as anything but subservience.
Zemo feels about as shocked as Sam looks. His heart stops when, after a minute of silence, the Winter Soldier looks up, steel greys meeting his own.
He hadn’t thought much about that look in Bucky’s eyes in ‘Winter Soldier’ mode. In part because, the first time he’d seen this, he hadn’t known Bucky. Hadn’t thought of him as James. Didn’t care for him. Didn’t long to know him more. And now.. now it guts Zemo to look down at this face that, in some ways, is so familiar but he can see, in those flat grey eyes, James isn’t behind them.
“Ready to comply,” the Winter Soldier repeats.
There’s blood on his face and that shouldn’t matter, but there’s blood on his face and Zemo can’t stop staring at it because it feels wrong. Wrong for Bucky’s face to have so much blood on it.
He swallows thickly, voice unsteady. “Stand, Soldat.”
The Winter Soldier stands, eyes still laser focused on Zemo’s own. He steps closer and Zemo has to fight the urge to step back and away because a deeply rooted survival instinct is screaming ‘danger, danger, danger’ in flashing red lights.
“What the fuck?” Sam asks again.
“I think,” Zemo says slowly, discomfort radiating through him, “that for whatever reason the trigger words they used didn’t work properly. He didn’t recognize the speaker as his handler. He seems to…remember me being his handler.”
The words almost choke him on the way out because this is a nightmare. After all the progress he’s made with James. After all the trust they’ve been building to the point where he could almost call James a friend. To have the man under his complete control again, unable to express his own mind, is sickening. It feels like a betrayal of the trust Bucky has shown him in recent months, even though Zemo isn’t the one who has done this. He’s still the one in control. And he hates it.
“Soldat. Recede and let James Buchannan Barnes take control.”
The soldier just stares at him, unmoving, unflinching. The stillness is disquieting. He’d almost prefer it if the soldier attacked him. At least violence with this visage he’d understand. This quiet waiting for orders is something altogether different.
“What did you tell him?” Sam asks, glaring at the baron as if this is his fault, which is really annoying, because it really, really isn’t.
Well, okay, maybe there’s a tinge of guilt kicking through Zemo at the idea that somehow this is still his fault because he’s the last one who triggered the Winter Soldier before…whatever this is. But it’s been years since that incident. He’d been a different man then. They’d all been different men then.
He wipes the blood off his sword for something to do that is not look at a pissed Captain America or a frozen Winter Soldier. “I told him to let James back out.”
“Did you really think that was going to work?”
“No,” Zemo says, already exhausted by this whole situation, “but it would have been foolish not to try. Just in case.”
The Winter Soldier just stares at Zemo, then, when he seems to realize there are no immediate orders forthcoming, he cleans his knives, wiping the blood off on the jacket that Bucky loves but the Winter Soldier just sees as something that can be used to clean blood off weapons, and tucks them away.
“Well, this is a problem,” Zemo says, telling himself that he’ll buy Bucky another jacket, a better jacket, when all this is over. Because watching it be casually used to remove blood is wrong in a way he finds hard to articulate.
“You think?” Sam asks, voice venomous.
Zemo sighs, crossing his arms over his chest. “It isn’t like I did this, Sam. You know I don’t like him like…” he waves a hand to indicate all of Bucky standing at soldier stiff with a vague expression, “this.”
“You did once.”
The statement cuts Zemo to the core, so he ignores it.
“We have to get out of here,” Zemo says instead, looking around at the unconscious (and dead) Hydra agents littered across the deck of the freighter.
Some of them are faintly starting to stir. He doesn’t want to fight them again. Not when he and Sam will also need to protect Bucky because, well sure, he could order the Winter Soldier to fight. He clearly had no issue with that, given he’d already unprompted, killed several agents. But Bucky will be upset for every body he drops as the Winter Soldier when he comes to and, as much as possible, Zemo is going to keep orders to necessities until they can sort this out.
Sam agrees with him. Zemo can see it in his eyes. But Sam also grimaces and Zemo knows why an instant later because, while Sam and Zemo both have many skills, neither of them are a helicopter pilot.
“You better not abuse this,” Sam says, grabbing Zemo’s arm a bit harshly.
He lets go very quickly, though, because the Winter Soldier takes a menacing step forward. He’s glaring daggers at the hand that had been on Zemo’s bicep. It’s clear that the Winter Soldier doesn’t want anyone acting aggressively towards his handler. It makes Zemo cringe, but there’s no way around it.
The Winter Soldier moves like his shadow, hovering just a step behind and to the left, until they get to the helicopter. It’s a bit frustrating because, even though he was happy to follow Zemo, when they get to the helio he just stops and stares. The baron has to tell him to get in. Has to tell him to use the seatbelt. Has to tell him to shut the frikken door. And in these small actions it becomes horrifyingly obvious how dependent the Winter Soldier is on his handler.
“What are we supposed to do?” Sam asks.
“How did you and Steve get him out of it last time?” Zemo asks, casting a glance at the shell that is Bucky piloting the helicopter.
“Hard reset,” Sam says. And Zemo can guess what he means - Bucky had been incapacitated and woken up himself.
Zemo taps his fingers against the hilt of his sword, glad that he’d told the Winter Soldier where he was to fly them before taking off because it means he’s not wearing a headset. It’s as private a conversation as Sam and Zemo can hope for, the Winter Soldier unlikely to hear them over the sounds of the blades of the helicopter as he focuses on flying them safely out of there.
“So he might wake up by himself as James?” Zemo asks doubtfully, because it sounds too good to be true.
“He might. But it’s a bit unlikely. Back in Germany, he didn’t just get knocked out. He smashed his head into the window of a helicopter and nearly drowned. Steve had to give him CPR, so it wasn’t like he just fell asleep and woke up fine,” Sam says with an impressive amount of detachment.
Zemo feels sick because, though he’d wondered how exactly Bucky and Steve had been chummy by the time they arrived in Siberia, he’d never asked. He hadn’t wanted to know and the thought that he’d put James in a situation like that has a mix of guilt and disgust curdling in his stomach.
He’s distracted, mercifully, by Sam’s next question. “Why do you think he didn’t recognize the Hydra agent as his handler?”
“I don’t know.”
It’s disconcerting, to say the least. Not that they both aren’t thankful for it in a way. At the very least, it means that Bucky isn’t in the control of Hydra and both Sam and Zemo survive to live another day. But it's definitely concerning that the Winter Soldier chose his handler. And, on a personal level for Zemo, it's even more concerning he’s been cast in this role.
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Zemo says again, voice a mix of sadness and frustration.
They lapse into silence - anxiety and tension permeating the craft. It doesn’t seem to touch the Winter Soldier. Who just keeps on the business of flying them to the field outside the city where Zemo has a car waiting. He lands without so much as a murmur of acknowledgement. Then the soldier waits and waits until Zemo has to order him out of the helicopter.
When he does, he stands a little too close to Zemo for comfort. Stares a little too intensely at the baron, before his eyes the area, taking in any non-existent threats to their safety in the empty field.
He sits, seemingly somehow larger than Bucky, huge and scowling in the backseat of the car as Zemo brings them to the safehouse. Sam keeps looking back at him, but he doesn’t say anything about the looming form of Bucky until they’re back in the apartment.
“Is that normal?” Sam asks, watching the way that the Winter Soldier crowds near Zemo.
The Winter Soldier has been scanning their surroundings, the extremely quiet streets, the entire way from the car to the safehouse. He’s acting more a bodyguard than what they’d imagined the “asset” to be like. He’s definitely…hovering in a way that neither of them had anticipated. It makes Zemo feel almost claustrophobic, how close the Winter Soldier stands.
Zemo sighs, tiredly. “I don’t know what’s normal. I may have been his last handler before he was deprogrammed but I did only control him for a few minutes.”
“Must have been an impressionable few minutes,” Sam mutters, tossing his goggles, gloves and stun gun onto the table. The Winter Soldier glares at him and, with very little subtlety, places himself between Sam and Zemo.
“Soldat, Sam is a friend.” Zemo reaches out to pat him on the shoulder, but hesitates.
He’d do that to Bucky, to his James, but Bucky would often duck out of the way or raise a brow at the baron’s hand in a way that always amused Zemo. It was almost a game that Zemo played with himself, how many little touches could he get away with before Bucky got annoyed. The Winter Soldier, in contrast, is standing stock still and a wrongness slithers through Zemo. So he drops his hand without touching the other man.
The soldier watches the hand drop to Zemo’s side, before just blatantly staring into his eyes. Then, abruptly, he gives a jerky nod, and, with a hand on his gun, begins a thorough check of the apartment.
Sam watches as the man checks the living room, like a bomb dog looking for explosives, before heading into the other rooms. “What was the last order you gave him? You know, back in Germany.”
Zemo sighs, looking out the window, because he’d rather not think about this. Rather not admit to Sam what he’d done all those years ago. He has grieved his decisions. He’s tried to atone, and, perhaps foolishly, he’d hope to never articulate them fully. If Bucky remembers the words of their interaction all those years ago, he has never said, and Zemo has always enjoyed pretending that Bucky doesn’t remember much of their first interaction.
“I told him to escape the facility and deal with my enemies. And, at the time, everyone was my enemy.”
“You think that’s why he killed those Hydra guys?”
“Yes,” Zemo breathes out so quietly that Sam has to lean forward to hear him.
The baron closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, hating this.
If (no when ) Bucky gets his right mind back he’s going to be furious that Zemo is, yet again, the reason he’s killed people. Sometimes, on particularly rough missions, Sam and Bucky kill people, but it's always a last resort. Only when all other options have been abandoned. Bucky will not be pleased that he killed people because he needed to follow some order Zemo had given nearly about a decade ago.
Zemo has never really thought that Bucky will care for him, not in the way Zemo loves James, but the fact that any hope is obliterated so concretely for something that isn’t even of his making feels an extra layer of devastation as the reality of it stabs through him. After this, Bucky will be wary of Zemo again. More than wary. He will put distance between them. Might leave Zemo on the Raft for years without asking for help on these missions. Will likely just abandon Zemo to his fate on that prison ship (likely more out of discomfort than outright anger at Zemo). Zemo isn’t really ready to face this new reality. But he’d still prefer it to being forced to control James like a puppet.
“You think the Wakandans can sort him out?” Sam asks.
“Without all of those trigger words? I don’t know. They would likely need to replicate the exact scenario to even have a proper attempt at it.” He thinks about this.
Bucky had told him, once, about the time he’d spent with Ayo breaking the trigger words. How they’d gone through each one. Focusing on it to break the connection, the lure of it moving around his consciousness, before moving further down the list. Zemo doesn’t think it would be easy to replicate that again. And, without the full list of the words that did this , he thinks it's possibly rather moot.
“Did you hear any of them? I’ll write down what I heard,” he says, because he isn’t sure how the Winter Soldier will react to hearing them and now is not the time to test it out. “But I don’t think I heard all of them. Did you?”
Sam grimaces, embarrassment clear in his face. “I heard…something. But Russian… Honestly, Zemo, it just sounded like noise to me.”
“Fantastic,” Zemo says in frustration. It’s not Sam’s fault. He knows that, but it certainly won’t make things easier. Besides, the lack of words isn’t the only problem. “I can’t go to Wakanda, Sam.”
They aren’t openly hostile to him anymore, but he’s not about to test how accepting they’re willing to be by going to their territory. The Wakandans, especially the Dora Milaje, are not fast to forgive. They allow him to be useful. They do not allow him free rein to wander as he will.
“That’s fine. I wasn’t going to send him with you anyways. Who knows what you’d get up to.” The ‘with your control over Bucky’ is implied.
The lack of trust is about five steps back from where he and Sam were this morning. The remark hurts, but Zemo chooses to ignore it, because, really, they have bigger problems than Zemo’s ego at the moment.
“I’ll take Bucky,” Sam says, he eyes Zemo contemplatively, then nods, coming to a decision. “I won’t send you back to the Raft until Bucky’s sorted. I don’t want to try and figure out how to pull you out without explaining this. I think it's best if the fewest number of people possible know that he’s…doing this Winter Soldier routine again.”
“Agreed.”
“Right, so I’ll take him to Wakanda and you’ll stay here until I contact you. If you try to run, I’m sure the Dora Milaje will have no problem tracking you down.”
At some point during their discussion the Winter Soldier has come back into the room. He’s been watching them, eyes jumping back and forth as they spoke, saying nothing.
Until now. He scowls. “The asset stays with its handler.”
Zemo frowns and translates to a, now livid, Sam. Whether it's the fact that in Winter Soldier form Bucky doesn’t refer to himself as a person or his lack of willingness to leave Zemo that pisses Sam off, Zemo isn’t entirely sure. Personally, he’s not thrilled with either. Because, while being on the Raft is awful, he’d happily go back there if it means that James was acting normally again.
“Fucking hell. Tell him to come with me.”
Zemo tries then, when Sam’s face reeks of distrust and disbelief of the Winter Soldier’s continued refusal to leave the baron, Zemo orders the Winter Soldier to switch to English.
“Soldier, you need to go with Sam.”
“The asset stays with its handler,” he replies robotically.
“Buc- Soldier,” Sam tries, face scrunching up distastefully on the word, “we need to take you to Wakanda. It’ll help you. They can fix it.”
If anything those steel grey eyes only seem to intensify. “The asset does not answer to you.”
“Damnit. Zemo could you -”
“Soldier, it’s important that you go with him.” He should probably be putting more oomph in the phrasing. Making it more an order than, well, a comment. But he doesn’t really want to order the other man around, so he’s perhaps more suggesting than outright ordering.
The thing that once was Bucky turns to look at him. He scans Zemo from crown to foot then stares somewhere over Zemo’s shoulder at rigid attention. “The asset will stay with its handler. The handler needs protecting.”
“I don’t need -”
A hand shoots out to grab his left arm and he hisses, not realizing he’d been cradling it slightly to his body.
It had been that last Hydra agent on the freighter. They’d gotten in a good hit to his elbow with a crowbar before he’d managed to get out of the way. He’d barely felt it at the time, too focused on getting to Bucky to notice the injury. But now… now that the adrenaline is fading and exhaustion is taking over, it's starting to throb and he’s pretty sure when he struggles out of his jacket later, there will be some pretty heavy bruising.
“The handler is hurt,” the Winter Soldier says, grip loose on Zemo’s elbow, almost cradling it in his vibranium hand. For an absurd moment, Zemo imagines himself as a baby bird with a broken wing and this version of Bucky as a child, distressed by its pain. But, just as suddenly as the image has formed, the baron dismisses it.
“It’s nothing,” Zemo says, pulling gently out of the Winter Soldier’s grip and patting him on the shoulder. Unsure if the gesture is pointless or not. He isn’t sure you can reassure the Winter Soldier, but he may as well try. “I’m fine.”
“The handler is hurt,” he repeats.
Zemo chuckles. “Only a little. Go with Sam, Soldier.”
“The asset will protect its handler.”
“That’s very good of you and I appreciate your diligence,” Zemo says while Sam rolls his eyes. “I think it’s a failsafe to protect the handler when injury has occurred. Given the work they had him doing back then, I can’t blame their precaution,” Zemo says quietly to Sam.
“Well, it's really unhelpful now.” Sam sighs. “Zemo’s not exactly a shrinking violet, man. He’s tough enough for -” Sam looks at Zemo for confirmation.
“A bruise.”
“A fucking bruise,” Sam mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, Bucky, Soldier, whatever. Zemo’s fine. I promise. He doesn’t need you here.”
“He’s right, Soldat. I’ll be fine on my own. You need to go with Sam. You need to go to Wakanda.”
The soldier pulls a face, one of slight confusion and discomfort, looking between Sam and Zemo. His eyes settle on Zemo in the end. “The handler wants to send the asset away?”
“Just for a little while,” Zemo lies, because there is a tone of wariness in the soldier’s voice that seems off.
“The asset is broken?”
“Sure, bud,” Sam says sarcastically, frustration clear. “The asset needs a software update but you'll be good as new soon. So let’s get you to Wakanda to sort it out.”
It’s almost imperceptible. A barely there flicker in the soldier’s eyes, but Zemo sees it and panics. Because he has seen that look before. He knows that look. He’s had that look. He saw in it the mirror for months after the Ultron incident.
On instinct, he throws himself forward, onto the soldier's arm at the same time the man lifts the gun.
“Soldat stop!” he orders, gripping onto that metal arm, and even though the soldier could easily throw him off, thankfully, mercifully, the soldier freezes in place. “You aren’t broken. The asset isn’t broken. The handler won’t send the asset away.”
“The... the asset can stay with the handler?” the soldier asks, lowering his arm slightly, but not enough for Zemo’s comfort. Because his finger is still hovering over the trigger. The safety is still off. There’s a bullet in the chamber. Because Bucky always keeps a bullet in the chamber.
“Yes, yes.” Zemo snags the soldier’s jaw, looking deep into those grey eyes and, in his panic, begins to ramble. “The asset isn’t broken. The asset is good. You’re the best asset. You keep the handler safe. The handler will keep the asset close. I promise. The asset can stay with the handler. I promise, Soldat. Now give me the gun!”
He holds out a shaking hand and almost lets out a pained laugh when, upon seeing the quavering, the soldier takes the round out of the chamber and clicks on the safety before handing Zemo the gun. As if Zemo is the one who’s unsteady.
Not looking at the taller man, Zemo tucks the gun into a jacket pocket and says, “Go shower and put on some clean clothes, Soldat. There’s blood on your face.”
“What the hell was that?” Sam asks when the sound of the shower starts up.
Now Zemo really does let out a broken laugh. The sound shaky up his throat. “He thought I was sending him away because he was defective. Hydra decommissions things that are defective, Sam.”
It takes a moment to click but when it does, Sam looks suitably horrified. “Jesus.” He runs a hand down his face. “Give me the trigger words you remember. I’ll go to Wakanda and see if they can do anything with them. Bucky will stay with you until we get this sorted out.”
“Just like that?” The baron raises a skeptical brow. “You were worried I might use him to do something terrible a few minutes ago.”
“I was…I was wrong.” Sam sighs. “Look, Zemo, I’m freaked out and frustrated, and I lashed out. I’m sorry, okay. I know he’s safe with you now.”
“Oh really?” Zemo scoffs, taking apart all the guns within reach. Partially for something to do but also to just reassure himself there aren’t any easy preloaded guns near the soldier until Zemo’s heart rate has calmed down at the very least.
“You won’t hurt him,” Sam says quietly, but with certainty. He shifts uncomfortably, looking away from Zemo towards the door Bucky has gone through. “I didn’t realize you felt that way about him.”
Zemo freezes, horror and dread that Sam has found him out racing through him. But no, Sam is almost as dense as Bucky in regards to such things.
“What are you talking about?” Zemo asks, not to hear the answer but to sound flippant. Like he’s confused by the implications.
“Sure,” Sam continues as though Zemo is not internally freaking out, “you do your jokey flirty thing but, honestly, I always thought you were having a bit of a laugh. I didn’t think -”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he says, cutting Sam off and shrugging out of his coat and gun holsters and wincing because, the Winter Soldier was right, he really did hurt his arm. He drops his bloodied sword on the kitchen table, as though its clatter will erase the sentiment Sam is talking about.
“Zemo, come on, man. I don't know what you said to him just now but… your voice… No one sounds like that except to someone they -”
“Drop it, Sam. I’ll keep him safe and you can be reassured I won’t abuse my power over him and I’ll try to get James back, but I’m not talking with you about this.”
“Fair enough.”
The sound of the shower stops and they both eye the door apprehensively. Not quite ready to see the man who is and isn’t someone they both care about. (Though perhaps in rather different ways).
“We’ll go to another safe house. This place is too close to the freighter. I don’t want to risk exposure. Not with him…like this.”
“Where will you go?”
“Somewhere hidden,” Zemo says ambiguously, mentally going through the list of properties he still has access to that haven’t been disturbed during his time in prison. “Somewhere safe.”