Chapter Text
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“He is just as real as you are, James... and requires our help.”
Gently, and with such confident familiarity Bucky felt a pang of envy instead of something more relevant like anger, Zemo removed the mask from the soldier’s face. Quite happy to push his luck as always, the baron caressed the soldier’s cheek with a gloved hand. Bucky must have made a noise of some kind, because the asshole glanced back at him. An infuriating smirk flashed on his lips. The bottom one was still split and bloody from the fight.
Bucky scowled. Not bothering to wipe his knife on the Hydra operative at his feet after all, he sheathed the weapon and strode up to the baron, easily navigating the trail of corpses.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The soldier’s achingly familiar blood-shot eyes darted back and forth between his two rescuers. Bucky glared at the baron, who had the good sense to stop playing mind games and set about freeing the soldier from his metal bindings with a firm ‘hold still’ and two accurate gunshots.
The soldier remained seated afterwards, both hands free but the rest of him still firmly locked up tight by Hydra conditioning. When Zemo caught Bucky’s eyes once more, the amusement was wiped clean off his face.
“What should we do now, James?”
Bucky, who was trying to get rid of the Hydra gore on his metal arm, muttered a curse of two. Zemo never asked for his input, just did what the hell he wanted, all consequences be damned.
For starters, get your hands off him, he almost said when Zemo cupped the soldier’s face again to brush his gloved thumb across a rosy cheek, but they were on borrowed time. He dislodged another suspicious bit from between two Vibranium plates.
“We get him out,” he snapped. “And no, you’re not going to activate another version of me.”
Zemo dropped his hand and stepped aside, gesturing at the silent soldier with a flourish. “Will you do the honor, then? After all, you are even more intimate with the process than I am.”
If Zemo had ever known when to shut up, he’d long since forgotten. Not for the first time, Bucky fantasized about slamming the other man into the nearest wall and… address that habit.
“One day, Zemo, I will punch you so hard you will regret getting shield headaches.”
Zemo shrugged, but Bucky could see the familiar glint in those brown eyes that betrayed just how much the baron got off on being threatened within an inch of his life.
“How should we proceed, James?”
“I’ll do it.” He didn’t want to, but the universe had become a fucked-up place, and apparently he was being given a second chance to help himself. Zemo was right, again: Bucky was intimately familiar with the process. Only he knew what kind of handling was required, with Hydra’s hooks planted deep inside his head. And they really had to hurry: the couple dozen goons they’d killed on their way in would be replaced all too soon, and the pocket dimension they’d stepped in to access this universe might vanish before that.
Activating the soldier was the quickest way to get the three of them out of here.
“I’ll do it,” he repeated, more firmly.
And then he let the familiar, horrible words fall from his lips.
*
Back in their own universe with an extra winter soldier in tow, Zemo booked them into the most lavish hotel room baronial money could buy - which was not very lavish at all in a backwater village in Siberia. Bucky went through his routine of checking the tiny room for listening devices and booby traps, but the only things he could find fault with were the dull sage green wallpaper peeling off the walls, the window that threatened to open on the next gust of cold wind… and the sleeping arrangements.
There was only one bed, and calling it a double would be extremely generous.
Zemo didn’t seem to mind the rustic décor. He strutted towards the bathroom to change, and probably use all the hot water while he was at it. Bucky told the soldier to sit on the only chair in the room - a fragile-looking wooden thing that appeared to be a lot older than either of them and creaked ominously under the soldier’s weight - and sank down on the floor. With a sigh, he rubbed a hand over his face. This whole arrangement he had with Zemo wasn’t simple to start with…
… and it just got a lot more complicated.
The searching look in the soldier’s eyes - his eyes - reminded him of his new responsibilities. Feeling a little awkward, he hurried to gather a few items. “You must be thirsty and hungry,” he stated as nicely as he could, fully aware that a question wouldn’t yield the necessary information. “Here… drink this. And eat.”
The soldier did as he was told. Bucky couldn’t help the pang of protectiveness that shot through him while he watched over a younger, alternate version of himself. He’d love to contact Shuri for help, but that ship had sailed the day he’d freed Zemo from the Raft to have better chances to burn Hydra down to the ground. A runaway super soldier with an expired pardon and a runaway Raft prisoner couldn’t simply walk into Wakanda as they would into a bar, not even with an alternate version of Bucky in need of the princess’s mind-blowing skills and advanced technology.
Zemo stepped out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, clad in the midnight blue bathrobe that seemed to follow him everywhere, naked feet padding on the used floor.
A man who’d only been out of jail - the last time - for about two months and loved to lounge in bed reading intel between fights had no right to be so fit. That damn bathrobe revealed enough for Bucky to be reminded of the baron’s shapely calves and muscled forearms. It also gave him the usual eyeful of half of Zemo’s chest.
And today, of the wound still bleeding sluggishly under his left collarbone.
Bucky replied to Zemo’s inquisitive eyebrow signal with a glare. Despite the yearning to patch Zemo up as soon as they were safe enough to do so, Bucky had trained himself to wait for the baron to ask for help. It felt less embarrassing then, to enjoy himself. To indulge in that part of him that was still the soldier longing to take care of his handler.
The soldier had no such restraint. The moment Zemo asked the million-dollar question, his counterpart sprang from the bed and practically fell over himself in his eagerness to tend to the baron’s wounds.
“Do not wait up, James,” Zemo purred, and fucking winked at him before disappearing into the bathroom for the second time that night, the soldier trailing after him like an eager puppy.
Bucky paced the room while the soldier, who might be confused about a lot of things but not about how to act right now, opened the first aid kit and got to work. His hands wouldn’t shake in anger when he pierced Zemo’s skin with a needle and closed the gash under the baron's collarbone. Zemo gave instructions in a pleasant rasping voice, and the soldier never stopped to ask for permission, despite Bucky being technically his handler.
But it made sense. First and foremost, the soldier wanted to please his handler, and since Bucky wanted Zemo’s wounds situation addressed but held back for the sake of pride, it was up to the soldier to find instructions in his handler’s silence and act on that desire. A very obvious desire, it seemed. But then, if Bucky was an open book for Zemo, he couldn’t be that much harder to read for another version of himself.
He could feel a headache coming while Zemo praised the soldier for his neat stitch work.
“Thank you, Sir,” the soldier replied sweetly.
Bucky did his best to drown in his glass of water. Of course, the soldier would feel pride in a situation that stripped Bucky of it. He was fully programmed for that very purpose. His handler breathed life into him with every order he gave, and Zemo’s cleverly-worded suggestions amounted to the same. Really, it was for the best that Zemo was so firm with him. Without the clear structure of hierarchy, the soldier would feel useless, entirely blind to the freedom that had been granted to him.
Bucky could remember only too well how it felt, to be without orders or a handler to protect and please. To be made to feel worthless, several degrees of appreciation below that of a human weapon, or even the equivalent of a backup handgun. To picture himself as the last stray bullet of a weapon fired in complete darkness, where the only target he could find was a terrifying nothingness within himself.
The soldier was lost, without the light of a handler to grant him purpose.
How could Bucky blame Zemo for giving the soldier what he needed when Bucky failed to do the right thing? It was fitting in a twisted way for the baron to get a second shot at this too. And for all Bucky knew, the soldier might be following Zemo’s lead like it was second nature because the baron was easier to serve. Bucky couldn’t blame him either. He found himself looking at the asshole all too often for direction, and he didn’t have the soldier’s excuse of being freshly brainwashed.
Perhaps the activation words didn’t work if the one using them was too scarred by the rusty remnants of their own activation words.
Hit by a fresh wave of too many feelings, anger chief among them, Bucky set the cracked glass down despite the urge to throw it at the wall. A glance towards the bathroom revealed Zemo sat on the edge of a cracked bathtub with his head tilted back. The single lightbulb in the bathroom flickered out, and for a moment, the only light getting inside was from the door ajar. Zemo didn’t startle. The soldier didn’t stop working, his metal hand cradling the vulnerable arch of the baron’s neck while he embroidered pale skin with dark thread, adding temporary freckles a few inches above a dusky nipple peeking out from the extreme V collar of Zemo’s loosened bathrobe.
Bucky quickly averted his gaze, but not before Zemo caught him. The baron's eyes seemed to glow with amusement as the lightbulb shone back to life.
Biting off a snarl, Bucky shouldered off his bloodied jacket and dragged the useless dresser in front of the door, adding an improvised second lock to it. Zemo emerged from the bathroom a few moments later with a neat row of stitches under one collarbone and a smug smile tugging at his lips.
Bucky looked away to find the soldier’s eyes locked on him, the familiar brow furrowed in confusion.
“You may speak up, Soldat,” Zemo said before Bucky could. “Your handler also encourages it.”
Bucky exhaled slowly, trying to let go of his anger - the surface emotion of his inner turmoil - and berating himself for not making some things clearer earlier. “Speak whenever you want, Soldat. You can say anything that is on your mind at any time.”
The soldier hesitated a moment longer. “You look… a lot like me, kurator,” he offered at last.
Bucky choked on his own spit at being addressed thus. Maybe his first hypothesis was right after all, and the soldier simply looked up to Zemo because it was what Bucky did - deep down below several layers of grumpiness and denial. Zemo was a man with a plan, and Bucky preferred the directness of action. Besides, he’d been trained to follow orders before Hydra got their hands on him.
And more importantly perhaps, Zemo was his last handler, which was a connection in his brain Shuri could only sever on a surface level. Perhaps this was a scar the soldier could sense. A tangible wound to Bucky's authority.
“We’re merely two-” Bucky bit off the rest. Being so direct so fact would only confuse his counterpart.
Zemo agreed.
“May I explain some things to him, James?”
Bucky scowled, but he already knew the answer he was going to give. The simple truth was that the baron was good with words, and wielded them with a cleverness worthy of his admiration. He was more eloquent than him, any version of him, by far, and he was… nice enough. If Bucky trusted the baron at his back during a fight, he had to trust him with another him outside of one.
“Be careful, all right?”
Zemo’s earnest expression reassured him, and so did the first few words that came out of his mouth. Bucky checked over his weapons while Zemo told a story in the grey zone between lies and truths, desperate for something to do with his hands while those blue eyes kept switching between Zemo and his kurator. When he was done, he took the quickest shower possible, pleased to discover there was some hot water left.
He was in a slightly better mood when he returned from the bathroom, clad in a pair of grey sweat pants and a threadbare shirt, but that didn’t last.
Zemo was now sitting in the fragile chair. The soldier was kneeling at his feet - and the baron was fucking petting him.
“If you've wanted a matching shiner to your right eye all this time, you only had to ask.”
Zemo tsked. “James, you are going to confuse him further. It is hardly my fault that he tries to mirror your behavior towards me. After all, does he not take his cues from his handler?”
The Vibranium arm whirred as Bucky struggled not to punch the wall. “You motherfucker-”
“James, such language is not-”
“You.” In two steps, Bucky was in Zemo’s face, quite tempted to haul the baron to his feet and slam him against the wall. If the soldier hadn’t looked so much at peace before Bucky started throwing a fit, that was definitely what would have happened. “Not another word.”
“There is no need to be upset, James,” Zemo said at once, completely ignoring him - and to Bucky’s shock, he raised his free hand to pat his thigh. “I treat you both exactly the same.”
“What the-” Bucky batted that wandering hand away more gently than he wanted, for the soldier was watching the interaction closely with clear concern. “This is not-”
“The soldier navigates the mixed signals you send him to the best of his ability, and does what you yourself want to do.”
“Well, there’s a misunderstanding going on because I don’t want to be fucking petted!”
“But you want more from me than you let on.”
Bucky pressed a finger to the fresh stitches and wriggled it a little, briefly, pinning Zemo to the chair via his wound. “I fucking do not.”
Zemo’s smile reached his eyes, the amusement there layered with challenges.
“Then tell me this, James: why is he responding so strongly to me, when you are his handler? As much as he enjoys following my lead, he is eager to please you first and foremost.” He arched a brow, definitely mocking now. “Should I ask him? Soldat, please tell your kurator why you enjoy my touch.”
Bucky panicked, not even sure what was going to come out of his counterpart’s mouth but fully aware that he wouldn’t like it. “Don’t say anything,” he ordered, and only felt a little bad when the soldier snapped his mouth shut.
Zemo, the fool, kept smiling. The smile lost its provocative edge when he looked down at the soldier.
“Treat yourself to a shower, Soldat. I am sure your kurator has some clean clothes for you to wear afterwards.”
Bucky did not, in fact, have an extra change of clothes. Unlike some people, he didn't pack half his wardrobe to travel the world killing people. He glared at his fellow Hydra hunter when the soldier disappeared in the bathroom to shower, and he was still glaring when his counterpart returned. The soldier had put on a pair of Zemo’s indulgent silk pajama bottoms and a matching purple shirt that was much too small for him.
Zemo directed the soldier to lie down on the bed to rest. Bucky ought to have done that in the first place, but apparently glaring at the baron - who was busy dragging their only chair close to the bed - was all he could do right now.
He knew why he was so intent on glaring, of course. Why he struggled not to think right now. Zemo’s insinuations earlier were pounding on his mind like so many fists on a rickety door, demanding entry, understanding. He feared what would happen should he decide to parse the mess of his thoughts for meaning.
“You should get some rest, James.”
Bucky went through their luggage instead, selecting clothes from Zemo’s and rations from both their sets of bags to give to the soldier. Zemo didn’t argue with him and sat down on the chair to chat some more. The soldier soaked up the baron’s attention like he was starved for that accented voice talking to him, for that callused hand caressing his hair. He glanced at Bucky every so often to make sure he was allowed to answer Zemo’s questions, which Bucky found both comforting and disturbing.
After a while, Bucky even stopped glaring. Zemo was… very nice, actually. It wasn’t like he was mean to Bucky, but he sure tried to sass him half to death. The soldier, though? He didn’t try to provoke him once.
What he did instead was take liberties, and not the kind that warranted a punch to the face. As much as the sight of Zemo brushing the soldier’s hand or tucking a strand of hair behind one ear twisted Bucky’s gut, he knew better than to stop the baron. The constant touching sure wasn’t appropriate normal behavior, but this whole situation was a far cry from normal. The soldier would be longing for touch, and deserved the gentlest kind.
Bucky’s hands spasmed on the zipper of his bag.
This knot in his gut wasn’t embarrassment, he realized. The reason he tried to tune out the pleased sounds the soldier and Zemo were making but also kept track of their every interaction didn’t stem from anger either.
It was jealousy.
And there was longing and desire overlaying the jealousy, embarrassing in its familiarity. The hunger he couldn’t deny anymore only got worse as he watched the soldier lean into Zemo’s touch more and more. The soldier had been made to be attuned to his handler, and despite Bucky not saying a word, he'd clearly picked up enough signs that his handler was attracted to Zemo and wanted more from him. He must read encouragement in Bucky’s silence yet again. And unlike Bucky, he didn’t have a big enough sense of self or the shield of pride to fight off such desire, let alone the complex history that bound him to Zemo.
Unless it was a lot simpler, and Zemo was simply that skilled at wrapping all versions of him around his little finger?
The soldier caught his eyes with a sad and pleading, punish-me-if-I’m-misbehaving expression, and Bucky immediately felt like an asshole. He let go of the zipper he’d bent out of shape and joined the soldier in bed. When he spoke, he tried to sound like he didn’t want to bend other things out of shape.
Like he didn’t want to bend Zemo over the back of the chair the baron sat on.
Like he didn’t want those callused hands in his hair, on his face, everywhere, with an embarrassing degree of despair.
“Time to sleep,” he said in the most neutral tone he could manage. “Zemo, behave.”
“Of course, James.”
The baron hopped on the mattress with eager grace. Of course, the asshole only had manners when he wanted to, and completely ignored the few inches Bucky had left at the extreme left of the mattress to claim the spot in the even more limited space between two versions of the same messed-up soldier. There was a twinkle of mirth in his eyes, and too few pieces of clothing for Bucky’s peace of mind.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Bucky grumbled, yanking at the dark blue striped sheets and arranging them to cover the soldier and no one else.
Zemo didn’t protest and just settled on his back. With a scowl, Bucky turned off the light, pulling back the shadows over Zemo’s pleased expression. In the sudden darkness, he could almost hear the sound Zemo made tilting his head to one side over that of the wind rattling the window.
“Why, James, I am merely watching over the both of you.”
That exact combination of words triggered about half of Bucky’s palette of emotions, making a mess of the inside of his heart like Zemo’s words were brushes doing some redecoration, and quite forcefully at that. He couldn’t deal with this: the proximity, the want, the frustration, the jealousy… Not now, with Zemo so close the three of them fit like puzzle pieces. And certainly not with that expensive cologne wafting up to his nostrils whenever Zemo shifted a little, seeking a more comfortable position in the cradle of that bed stuffed full of supersoldiers.
Bucky fully expected to spend the night awake considering his life’s choices, but he fell asleep within the hour to the sound of two other heartbeats slowing down and falling into synch.
When he woke up, the first thing he noticed was that his arm was wrapped around Zemo’s chest – a proprietary touch that brought their bodies closer together. Zemo still lay mostly on his back, but Bucky had ended up with his face pressed into the baron’s freckled armpit, of all places. And he was nuzzling it like a fucking animal, rubbing his face into it, chasing the overwhelming scent of his skin and sweat caught in the little hair there.
The baron’s left hand was playing with his hair idly, his touch light yet firm enough to suggest a direct connection to his cock. Bucky was harder than he’d ever been. Aching.
Zemo’s other hand was in the soldier’s hair.
The soldier was a lot less shy about his own pleasure. Bucky didn’t need to see his counterpart to know that - he could feel the bed move just fine. And then the scent of arousal hit him like a freight train. Bucky was intimately familiar with the scent of his own pre when he was close, and the soldier certainly was right now, leaking profusely while Zemo petted him the exact same way he was petting Bucky right now.
Bucky stopped the automatic rolling of his hips in the nick of time. The fact that he could smell Zemo’s arousal too, taste the tang of it on the back of his tongue layering that of the soldier’s, and his own, didn’t make it easy, but he summoned what was left of his pride and scrambled to a sitting position. He flicked the lights on with a snarl.
“Are you really going to deny him some comfort?” was the first thing out of Zemo’s mouth.
And the only thing that could stop the string of curses and insults about to roll off of Bucky’s tongue. Breathing harshly, pulling at the sheets now rumpled at the foot of the bed to cover the bulge in his sweat pants, Bucky glared at Zemo’s smug face. The baron seemed perfectly content like this, half sitting against the wooden headboard with a super soldier seeking friction against his thigh. He really wasn’t doing much besides playing with the soldier’s long strands. His hand never ventured towards a crotch, not even his own, and Bucky could smell the damp spot on the front of his bathrobe.
A blush dusted the bridge of the soldier’s nose as their eyes met over Zemo’s chest. Bucky felt his own face heat up at once, like something beyond genetics connected them.
Zemo.
The baron’s sharp eyes flitted back and forth between the two soldiers in his bed, his pupils so dilated they threatened to swallow those rings of brown speckled with gold.
For a horrible moment, Bucky wondered if his own arousal was the reason the soldier behaved this way. There was no way his counterpart couldn’t smell his desire. More importantly, he’d been taught to recognize his handler’s arousal and act accordingly - and it was obvious, in this case, that Zemo was the trigger. Just like the baron had been earlier, bleeding from the wound below his collarbone.
“You have no right…” Bucky gasped. To make either of us feel this way.
“Oh, James.” Zemo’s look verged on pity, but mostly, challenging. “Soldat merely has no walls to take down when offered to do what he wants. Why would I ever refuse any version of you who desires me, hmm?”
It was too bad this room was on the ground floor rather than, let’s say, the fifth, because now would be a good moment to practice self-defenestration. Live in pain, rather than embarrassment. Because Zemo’s eyes were drifting down, taking in the proof of Bucky’s not-so-secret arousal. He must have felt his erect cock against his leg earlier, but to Bucky’s all-encompassing shame, everyone in the room could now see the tip peeking out of his sweat pants and leaking all over the waistband.
Zemo licked his lips.
Feeling like he’d just had a stroke, Bucky shoved his cock back into his pants with a trembling hand and hurled himself off the bed. Within seconds, he was in the bathroom, the door at his back, his heart pounding like it meant to explode out of his chest in fireworks of gore and confessions. He heard a commotion on the other side of the locked door, and Zemo’s voice reassuring the soldier that everything was fine, that his kurator only needed a little time to calm down, which he did better on his own. The last part sounded like a lie, but the soldier wouldn’t be able to tell.
“Fuck,” Bucky gritted between his teeth.
Why was he still hard? He could feel the ghost of Zemo’s fingers running through his hair, and he wanted them back, right now.
“I will go talk to him, Soldat. I apologize for leaving you hanging like this.”
The soldier let out a pained noise that Bucky, in his highly embarrassed state, interpreted as needy.
“Sir, you do not owe me anything.”
“Even if I did not, Soldat, you do owe yourself pleasure.”
Bucky bit his lip bloody hearing this and sank to the floor, his flesh and blood hand pressed to his mouth. He could hear Zemo moving closer on the other side, and he knew, he just did, that Zemo was looking right at him through the door, the words he’d just spoken aimed at them both.
Feeling pleasure zing up his spine out of the blue, Bucky glanced down at his lap to see his metal hand cupping his erection through his pants. With a muffled curse, he squeezed hard. But the pain didn’t make it go away. Because Zemo was still talking, voice getting closer and clearer.
“James, there is no reason for you to fight this. I am not your enemy.”
“Fuck off.”
Zemo, of course, completely ignored him. “Your desire for me is only natural, James.”
Bucky’s cock throbbed. The balls on this baron. He dropped his flesh and blood hand into his lap, and dug all five metal fingers into his leg, well away from his erection. “It really isn’t, Zemo.”
With his enhanced hearing, it was all too easy to follow Zemo’s motions. He pictured the baron crouching down to lean into the door, lips brushing against the patina of the wood.
“James.”
Bucky really shouldn’t answer. What he should do was get into the shower and fracture the tiles some more while the coldest water in Siberia pounded down on his feverish body. He felt like if he took just one step to the side - opened the door, literal and metaphorical - he would fall and keep falling.
Would it really be so bad? At least this time, the fall would be enjoyable.
“What,” he whispered at last.
Zemo moved a little, and Bucky imagined his right hand coming up to press against the door, about the height at which Bucky’s head was. “James, Soldat is not you submitting to me, only to his desire.”
My desires, Bucky thought, but it occurred to him that it may be unfair. The soldier could have desires of his own. Bucky remembered how it used to be for him - how it was for the soldier now. Some of his handlers had made fun of him for this. A couple had tortured him for voicing them after ordering him to do so.
What if the soldier truly hadn’t yet been made to suppress what few desires he could have? Bucky and Zemo might have rescued him just in time for his behavior towards Zemo to be a mix of his own desires and Bucky’s. Unless Zemo was just that irresistible? There was no way to tell how that Venn Diagram looked, at least in the short term, but Bucky found comfort in the sudden certainty that the soldier’s behavior wasn't explained by conditioning alone.
There was no reason to stop him then – or stop himself, a voice that sounded a lot like Zemo’s amended at the back of his head. After all, it wasn’t like the asshole could take advantage, or even wanted to these days, except in small, trivial ways. He probably couldn’t help himself, after a lifetime of charming and/or killing his way through everything.
Slowly, Bucky climbed back to his feet. When he yanked the door open, he caught the soldier’s eyes over Zemo’s shoulder. His counterpart was sitting cross-legged on the bed, but the obvious tension in his body made it clear that he wanted very much to be standing. Possibly at parade rest. He was still hard, and made no effort to hide it.
Bucky remembered to breathe. It was just a little surreal to stand there debating what to do, and knowing exactly what he wanted for once in his goddamn life.
Turning all of his attention towards Zemo, he secured the baron’s chin in a tight grip.
“If you do anything he doesn’t want, I’m going to toss you through the window,” he warned, mimicking the baron’s pleasant tone.
The baron didn’t protest the manhandling. He never did. “I would never do anything either of you does not want,” he promised in a sultry voice.
He could have made it sound more believable by adding ‘in the bedroom’, but Bucky appreciated the effort. Unless it was a lot simpler, and his walls were coming down hard.
And now, there was nothing left to do but take what was on offer.