Chapter Text
As a little note, I didn't want to spend to much time on language descriptors, but if it is a memory/flashback, assume that Bucky and Zemo are speaking in Russian. :)
The worst part about the whole ‘Winter Soldier’ thing, despite what people think, isn’t actually the memories of murder themselves. Horrible though they are, Bucky’s aware he was a killer before the serum, so he hates that he killed for Hydra after it, but the kills themselves aren’t as bad as the true worst part of having been the Winter Soldier.
No, it’s the lost time that’s the worst part. Those chunks about his own life that he doesn’t know yet. Because, while the memories he knows are often awful, the fact that there is missing time, that there are more unknown memories is worse.
It’s the mystery of them. The uncertainty. That there are chunks of time waiting. Lurking. Ready to assault him and drag him into some unknown version of himself. Force him to see himself and not himself doing things he’d never thought he’d do. To obey people he never thought he’d obey. To go against what he thought he’d stood for when he signed up in WWII.
The fact that he doesn’t know if the gaps in his timeline are down to times in cryo or that those particular memories just haven’t returned yet sometimes keeps him up at night. It’s disquieting. It’s horrifying. It haunts him.
Often Bucky feels fragmented. Chunks of his life float in and out of focus. There are dreams that are memories and memories that are nightmares. Then there are the questions.
Endless questions about things that don’t add up. And, often, he doesn’t know how to ask them until something blindsides him. Only when something surprising flashes through his brain can he begin to really ask ‘what was that?’ and start to untangle the web of his own hidden past. His fragmented mind is always playing catch-up. It’s exhausting and terrifying in equal measure.
Because he never knows what he’s going to come across or when. Some of it isn’t even that bad. No, some of the memories are somewhat benign. Sitting on a hillside of a mountain somewhere (Eastern Europe he thinks), watching the sunrise. Riding a horse through a forest (a skill he hadn’t realized he had). Sharpening knives in dingy apartments (lots of that). Sitting on balconies of apartments he can’t describe in cities he doesn’t recognize drinking cups of coffee (oddly serene given his work for Hydra). Staring up at the night sky on the rooftop of…somewhere with the presence of… someone… beside him. He never figures out who.
Dr Raynor finds that one interesting and tries to get him to focus on the memory more than once. To pull up something pleasant and calm from his time as the Winter Soldier. She thinks it will help him. To come to terms with the idea that he is the Winter Soldier by seeing that not everything in that controlled time was awful. But the calm rooftop memory and whoever it was with him are too hazy and hard for him to focus on. He just feels… inexplicably calm and content when he tries to pull the memory up. Sometimes he tries to live through it properly. Force his brain to see himself going up to the roof and get an idea of who he’s with, but it doesn’t work and, eventually he gives up on locating either the building or the person. But, at the end of the day, no amount of more or less benign memories can lessen the fact that Bucky’s endlessly afraid of memory might be triggered next.
Even worse at times is the anticipation of when the memory might strike. They don’t always come when he’s asleep or meditating to attempt to process one. No, sometimes they sneak up on him in the middle of the day. Careen into him while he’s trying to go about this day. Smash into him while he’s on a job (if he’s lucky), in the grocery store (not great but not the worst), or mid-conversation (this one is highly unfortunate and contributes to why he’s ‘antisocial’). So he knows they can come at any time.
He also knows that some of them are half memory half fabrication, distortions using his fears or anxiety as fuel, and it can take weeks with Dr Raynor to parcel out the threads of reality (if he manages at all). That’s why he’s so blindsided and thrown off by a fragment that slams into him in Madripoor. The timing is almost as unexpected as the fragment itself.
Bucky isn’t in a good mood even before a Winter Soldier memory decided to slam into his brain. Things had not gone well at Selby’s bar. Not in the slightest. Pretending to be the Winter Soldier again had put him on edge. Then Zemo decided to do his little ‘offer’ of trading him for intel, being far too free with the touching than Bucky cared for. And, of course, then Selby had been shot and they’d been blamed. Which seemed a bit unfair, given she was clearly taken out by a sniper rifle, but they weren’t exactly waiting around to explain themselves. So Sam, Bucky, and Zemo had bolted out into the streets. To make matters even worse, in the gunfire, they’d scattered.
Scattered in a way that, really, professionals like them shouldn’t. Really, all three of them are military men, so they should know better. But, at the same time, they aren’t used to working together. None of them are, so they book it in different directions when the gun fire goes off. When Sam and Zemo dive in different directions, Bucky takes off after the baron. Mostly because Bucky views Zemo as his responsibility. Given that he busted the man out of prison. Besides, Ayo (and the Wakandans in general) would kill him if he lets Zemo get away. He needs to keep track of him at least until the man can be helpful enough to justify the risk Bucky’s taken by busting the man out of the Berlin prison in the first place.
It doesn’t take long to catch up to Zemo, not for Bucky. He isn’t sure where Sam has gotten off to, but the baron’s taken a pretty good route to cover. But, they’re still being shot at and Bucky is definitely one to play it safe, so he grabs an armful of that long jacket and practically drags the baron down several side streets and into an alleyway before allowing them to stop.
“I can assure you, James, I am perfectly capable of fleeing gunfire on my own,” Zemo says, attempting to tug his coat from Bucky’s grip, but Bucky is having none of it.
“Shut up,” Bucky says, placing a hand in the center of Zemo’s chest and shoving him back into the wall.
Because he wants to listen. Wants to hear if they’re actually in the clear and can, therefore, look for Sam, or if they need to hang tight because thugs are nearby, or, worse, need to get back on the move because there is more gunfire.
And oddly it’s this, this nothing really action of pushing the baron back into the wall that sets something off in Bucky’s mind. There’s a flash of a moment, a memory, that hits Bucky so hard his knees almost give way.
Because he has an image, quite suddenly, of a much younger Zemo. One with sharper features - more chiseled jawline, sharper cheekbones, cutting chin covered in stubble - what he looked like before middle age had begun to soften his face. This Zemo is a man in his twenties at most, young and rugged and messy rather than coiffed around the edges. But it's not just the youth that has Bucky's heart racking up.
No, it isn’t the youth that is shocking. It's that, in this memory, they’re panting as they are now, but it’s certainly not from running for cover. Because Zemo is also whispering in Bucky’s ear (filthy and indecent things) with his legs fastened tightly around Bucky’s torso, a hand fisted in Bucky’s hair. Bucky is pushing him into a wall, grinding their hard cocks against each other through their clothes with his metal hand grabbing a handful of Zemo’s ass and the fingers of his right hand forcing their way up under the baron’s shirt. Younger Zemo is moaning into his ear, encouraging Bucky to move against him in Russian.
Just as fast, Bucky is thrust back into the present. Holding Zemo against the wall, standing so close they’re practically sharing breath. Startled by the proximity, Bucky drops his hand from Zemo’s chest and steps away so quickly he accidentally kicks something, sending it skittering across the alley.
He isn’t entirely sure what his face looks like but it must be doing something beyond his default grumpy face because Zemo head tilts at him, eyes suspicious.
“What is it? Did you hear something?” the baron asks quietly. Ready to flee or fight as needed. But Bucky isn’t thinking about that. He should be, but he isn’t. He’s thinking about the ghost of young Zemo’s breath against his ear as he sighed ‘more’ in Russian.
“Nothing,” Bucky says, swallowing thickly. Looking away in a panic, because that ‘memory’ can’t be right.
That weird flash of something can’t possibly be an actual memory. It just can’t. But, equally, it can’t be a fantasy of imagination. Because he’s never thought of Zemo like that.
He shakes his head. It must just be a weird trick of his mind because he’s been pondering on the baron lately and the adrenaline of the last few days and and … Well, the thought process sounds faulty even in his own mind, but he doesn’t have time to think about it too much right now. Those goons are still out there and he needs to get Zemo out of here and find Sam before they all get caught for a murder they didn’t commit.
“Then shall we get out of here and find Sam?” Zemo asks, seeming to know exactly what Bucky is thinking, which is disconcerting in another sort of way.
“Yeah,” Bucky says, straightening his jacket, as if that can erase the strange flash from his mind.
They find Sam with Sharon, which is a surprise, but, in this case a welcome one. Because Sharon, despite the mess they made of her past, is willing to help them out. Willing to put them up for a few nights. Willing to ask around to find out who’s making the super-serum. Willing to give them both clothes and gear. She’s not exactly pleasant about it all, but she’s willing.
Bucky finds himself watching Zemo throughout the night. Is a tad perplexed by the look the baron tosses his way when he smirks and says ‘trouble’ in response to Sharon’s request that they see what they can find that night at her party. He’s even more surprised by the affronted and pained look that Zemo pulls when Sharon had suggested that Bucky used to be the baron’s ‘pet psychopath’. Maybe Bucky would have noticed these things even without that weird…abberition, but he doesn’t think so.
If he hadn’t had that flash of..whatever that was, Bucky would be focused on Zemo’s stance. On his where his hands were. If there were weapons nearby. But now, with the image of a younger Zemo’s face floating in his mind, Bucky finds himself drawn to the baron’s features. Watching his expression with more interest and, really, confusion.
The more time that passes from the flash of something (that Bucky is distinctly not allowing himself to believe is a memory) the more Bucky feels like he’s been missing something important since he’s met Zemo.
Because, now that he thinks about it, he realizes how much he hadn’t thought of the details surrounding their initial meeting before. That there were questions that had never been asked of Zemo. At least, not by Bucky. Thoughts lines that had never been followed and now that they were coming up, Bucky can’t easily dismiss them.
Questions like: how did Zemo pretend to be Bucky so well when he framed the Winter Soldier for the bombing? How did he even get the idea to find the red notebook with the trigger words in the first place? How did he get the Winter Soldier files?
Once the questions occur to Bucky he finds himself fixating on them. It’s distracting, wondering these things, and part of him isn’t sure why it hasn’t occurred to him before. Though realistically, he’d spent a lot of time fleeing for his safety, then his sanity, and tried to focus on other, more distant, memories with Dr Raynor. So, in a way, it isn’t entirely surprising that Bucky hasn’t thought on the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of Baron Zemo before, but now he can’t stop.
So he’s distracted and watches the baron as he dances in Sharon’s party. He blames this for why he doesn’t react fast enough when Zemo pulls out a gun and shoots the doctor.
Normally Bucky would be faster. Perhaps not always fast enough to get across the room and tackle the baron before he let the shot off, but certainly Bucky would have expected he’d tackle an enemy with a gun in such a confined space. Just on reflex and training if nothing else. And yet it is Sharon and Sam who slam into Zemo, pinning him against the wall and wresting the gun from him. Bucky just…watched. Oddly detached.
His urge to intervene is almost non-existent, which really doesn’t feel right at all. Because he’s been trained, even before he was the Winter Soldier, to take out enemy combatants and he should have some visceral reaction to Zemo shooting someone. He even finds himself relieved and impressed when the baron fights off the bounty hunters who have them all pinned by the shipping containers. Zemo kills them without remorse and something niggles at the back of Bucky’s brain but it isn’t his conscience or any type of admonishment.
No, there is almost a … familiarity. Which is disquieting because, well, nothing about Zemo should be familiar in any way. After all, the baron has never indicated any familiarity between them. And yet, where their eyes meet for a moment after Zemo has shot another bounty hunter, there is a moment of…. Bucky isn’t sure what. But he has the distinct feeling that the baron is looking for something in his reaction. But whatever it is eludes him. And yet, Bucky can’t help but ponder on all these oddities as they fly to Latvia, as he watches the baron sleep.
When they land, things don’t exactly get better. True, it's nice that there is a comfy safe house waiting for them already. How it's already beautiful and set up when Zemo has been in prison for years is beyond him, but it is and he isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
But everyone is tired and a bit snippy. Zemo wants to relax a bit before they try to hunt down the Flag Smashers. Sam wants to get on it right away. Bucky just wants some peace and quiet to sort out his own mind. But, really, that is too much to ask. Because he’s been an idiot. He’s busted the baron out of jail without giving the Wakandans a heads up, so the call really shouldn’t be a surprise.
“Hello,” Bucky says, answering the phone with a glare at the baron’s retreating back. The man has lost the argument with Sam to wait a day or two before investigating, but he’s managed to get enough time for a ‘proper’ shower and dinner before trying to call some contacts.
“What were you thinking, helping Baron Zemo escape prison?” Ayo asks without any attempt at niceties.
Bucky cringes, walking out of the living room to take the call in the room Sam claimed as his for the duration of their time in Latvia. Zemo has claimed the other and Bucky, stating a need to ‘keep an eye on things’ and ‘distrust of Zemo’ is going to stay on the couch.
“It’s complicated, Ayo,” he says, closing the door gently.
“I can’t see how that is true. What were you thinking, White Wolf? Did you think we would not notice the escape of the Kingkiller?” Ayo’s voice is sharp and full of admonishment and Bucky can’t help but feel abashed at her anger.
Because, sure, his plan required getting Zemo out asap, which meant keeping Sam in the dark, but it has been a few days, so, really, Bucky should have given Ayo a call.
“I need him,” Bucky says, voice tight and frustrated. “Someone is making more super-soldier serum. Sam and I think Hydra has something to do with it. No one knows Hydra better than Zemo. So far Zemo’s actually helped with a lead.”
More or less that is true, because they wouldn’t have gotten nearly as far in Madripoor, or to Madripoor at all if it hadn’t been for the baron. Though Bucky thinks it's best to leave out that Zemo had killed a doctor, that the Powerbroker had put a price on their heads, and that there had been the death of several bystanders (if one can consider bounty hunters bystanders). It wouldn’t help his cause.
“Zemo can help us continue our search. He has connections. Connections Sam and I can use in order to find this Flag Smasher group before this gets too out of control.”
“‘Too out of control?’ It’s Baron Zemo. He’s out of prison, how is it not already out of control?” Ayo asks. “He should not be out of prison. He belongs behind bars.”
“I need him, Ayo. I wouldn’t have helped him escape if I didn’t have to. I have it under control,” he lies, because the small pile of dead bodies highly suggests that Bucky does not, in fact, have this under control.
There is silence at the other end of the line as Ayo contemplates this. Finally, she says, “He is a dangerous man and a smart one too. Are you certain you can contain him?”
“I won’t let him escape. I promise, Ayo. I’ll keep an eye on him. Won’t let him out of my sight. When he’s served his purpose I’ll make sure he’s put back in prison.”
“You think it is that simple?” Ayo asks. “You think you can just take him out and put him back in whenever he is useful to you?”
“Come on, Ayo. It’s super-soldier serum, I can’t just let it get out into the world. You know that I can’t.”
Ayo rants in Wakandan, so quickly that Bucky only picks up about half the insults. But insults they are. To his intelligence. To his scheming. To his foolishness. He grimaces but doesn't object, because she isn’t exactly wrong.
“We have resources too, White Wolf. We could find these Flag Smashers too.”
“Not fast enough,” Bucky says, because he needs this solved yesterday. He needs to stop more super-serum from getting out. He needs to see this through. “Besides, you know if Wakanda became involved it would likely become an international incident. Sam isn’t going in as Captain America, most people have forgotten who I am, and Zemo is…Zemo.”
“So you are handling this like a small strike team, is that it?” she asks, and there is something in her question that gives him pause. There is something testing in the way she asks it. She is searching for something in his reply, but he isn’t entirely sure what it is. And he could really do without all the uncertainty that seems to be thrown his way this week. He has the urge to call Dr Raynor, which is annoying because he hates admitting how helpful she actually is.
“Yes,” he says slowly, thinking of Zemo and Sam. They don’t exactly work as a team, but if they can manage to pull together, this might actually work.
Ayo lets out a huff but concedes to not have Zemo tossed in prison right away. She gives his plan a month. A month maximum to get everything sorted out with Zemo’s help. After that, the Wakandans will come for the baron, whether or not the Flag Smashers have been contained.
They talk a bit longer. Ayo scolds him some more. There are a few vague (and one not so vague) threats about what will happen if Bucky doesn’t turn Zemo back over in a month or after the deal with the Flag Smashers, whichever happens first. It’s exhausting but, all in all, better than Bucky had expected.
Really, he should have given Ayo a heads up as soon as they’d busted Zemo out of prison. As soon as they were in the air to Madripoor and it would have been tricky to track them down. It was the least he owed her, but he’d been so wrapped up in the possibilities of Madripoor and then his strange questions surrounding Zemo that he’d rather forgotten about it.
“Ayo says ‘hi’,” Bucky says, tossing the phone on the table and dropping into a chair when he goes back into the living room.
Sam gives him an amused look, offering Bucky a beer that he feels he desperately needs. “She’s pissed you busted him out of prison, isn’t she?”
Bucky sighs, popping off the bottle top and takes a swig of beer. It tastes nice, but doesn’t really do much for him. Which is a shame, because he could really do with a kick of something right about now. “That’s a slight understatement.”
“Is she bringing some of the Dora Milaje to come get him?” Sam looks a bit anxious by the prospect because it's not exactly something they want to deal with.
Sam wasn’t happy about busting the baron out of prison in the first place, but, now that Zemo is out, he doesn’t want to give up the only solid access to leads they have. After all, for all of Bucky’s skills, he doesn’t speak Latvian and getting around may be a bit of an issue without the baron, who both knows the town and the language. True, some of the folk speak passable Russian, but having a Latvian speaking tour guide will make them appear more inconspicuous.
Bucky frowns and rubs at the back of his neck, pulling a face. “No. I bought us a month. We can have him for a month before the Dora will come for him.”
“That’s…surprising,” Sam says slowly. Because he knows how much the Wakandans hate Zemo. Ayo in particular.
“Yeah, well,” Bucky chugs the rest of his beer, not wanting to think too much about what Ayo had said she’d do to Bucky personally if Zemo manages to escape him. She has a mind to be rather descriptive when the mood strikes her. He frowns then eyes Sam. “Sam, where did you get the files about the Winter Soldier?”
Sam looks at him in confusion because, in all the years since the breakup of the Avengers, they’ve never talked about this. It certainly feels like a non sequitur. He raises a brow, but Bucky doesn’t feel like explaining his questions. Definitely not when they were inspired by that strange flash of a younger Zemo’s legs wrapped around him as he pushed him against a wall.
“We got them from Nat.”
“And she got them from the Shield and Hydra files that were released after the whole … helicarrier incident?” Bucky hates bringing up the ‘incidents’ of his past with Sam. None of those early meetings were pleasant and, for the most part, they try to avoid talking about them.
Sam frowns. “No, not as far as I'm aware. There were only hard copies of the Winter Soldier stuff. Seems Hydra was pretty paranoid about him… you… the Winter Soldier. Nat had to dig through some of her old contacts and pull in some favors to get those files.”
So how, Bucky wonders, did Zemo even know about the Winter Soldier project? And well enough to both know about the red notebook and the trigger words' existence to use them? How did he get access to the information if it wasn’t in the info dump that Nat and Steve had done? Where did the baron get such information if Nat, a former Soviet spy, had to pull in favors to get her hands on paper copies of the data?
Sam’s answer does nothing but make Bucky wonder all the more. Because Zemo might have been good at getting intel, but if the files had been hard for the Black Widow to get a hold of, then how did Zemo manage it? It’s not sitting right with him.
“So the Winter Soldier information wasn’t released with the rest of it?” Bucky asks again, because he really needs to be certain about this point. Feels that it really, really matters to be clear on this. Because, if that is the case, then Bucky really wants to know more about how Zemo got his hands on the information.
“No. Not that Steve and I went through all the encrypted stuff, but I know Nat did and she didn’t find anything directly mentioning the Winter Soldier. It's one of the reasons it was so hard to track you down back then. Why?” There is confusion on Sam’s face. Likely both about the questions themselves and the timing of them.
Bucky picks at the label of the beer, peeling it back in a nervous habit he’d hoped becoming ‘super’ would have taken out of him. He doesn’t like talking about anything to do with the time Zemo framed him. With the mess that resulted from it. Intellectually, Bucky knew that it wasn’t his fault, but it still stirs guilt deep in his gut. The Avengers fell apart because of him. Because Steve chose him over Stark. Over the team. Even if Bucky wasn’t guilty of the original crime, he still was a massively contributing factor to the disastrous mess that ensued after it.
He tries to focus away from his guilt and the question on hand, which is Zemo in his Zemoness. “I once asked T’Challa why he was so ready to believe I killed his father. The photos were a bit blurry and it seemed like mistaken identity should have been considered a possibility before he decided I was the culprit.”
“The photo was grainy but he looked a lot like you. Like a lot like you,” Sam says. And the man isn’t wrong. Bucky has seen the images. Zemo had done very well with his disguise.
“I know, but that’s strange though, isn’t it? Zemo looked like me. How the hell did Zemo even know what I looked like? Sure, the files had my old service photo and one post-surgery but that was just my face. How did he know what I dressed like on a mission? And T’Challa said he was convinced because he compared the footage to stuff from… well, news coverage from that time on the bridge.” Bucky rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. It took him longer than he cared to admit to fully remember ‘the time on the bridge’. “Anyways, T’Challa and the Wakandans were convinced because of how Zemo fought like me.”
Sam frowns at this. “Steve always said no one fights quite like you.”
“Exactly. If no one fights like me, then how did he?” Bucky asks, looking toward the bathroom door where Zemo had disappeared to take a preposterously long shower. Though, Bucky supposes it isn’t exactly surprising given that Zemo can enjoy himself here much more than he ever would be able to in prison. Bucky has plenty of memories of confinement, fewer of being able to take a luxurious shower. So he can’t exactly fault the man on his priorities.
“What exactly is it that you are saying, Bucky?”
“I don’t know,” Bucky says, but a suspicion has been growing in his mind. One that he’s been nervous to articulate because he doesn’t like the idea of it at all. Doesn’t like it not only because of the implications of when they’d met when Zemo was getting his revenge, but also because of that flash of a memory. “I think… I think Zemo might have met the Winter Soldier before he triggered me.”
“You don’t know?” Sam’s surprise is frustrating but understandable given how very little Bucky is willing to talk about the issues with his memories and past.
All that Sam really knows is that Bucky has more memories than he did a year ago and that Dr Raynor has been helping him with them. But Sam doesn’t know how little of his own past Bucky knows. How those fragments come in as splinters rather than fully realized scenes. How some of them feel tactile and visceral. How others feel like a mirage. How others feel as though they are happening to someone else. And others still feel as though he’s re-living them in the moment.
He doesn’t understand Bucky’s anxiety about his own memory, so the question is blunt and Bucky struggles not to wince at it. And, to his own annoyance, he realizes that he needs to be a little more transparent about the whole thing.
“No, I don’t. Look, Sam, it's not like all those details got magically transplanted back into my brain. Some stuff I remember, some of it… I don't know. It comes back in chunks. It helps to talk about it. To try to focus on it. That’s where Dr Raynor helps. But it never occurred to me that I might have met Zemo before he pretended to be a therapist and, honestly, I haven't thought much about that time since Steve asked. I remember Zemo asking about the Siberian place, about the other Winter Soldiers, but not much else of that conversation. Nevermind if I’d met him before that fiasco. He never gave any indication that we had met previously.” If anything, Zemo had made it feel as though they were complete strangers.
In Berlin, before Bucky had busted him out, Zemo had even said that it ‘wasn’t personal’. That he’d used Bucky as a tool for revenge, but made it sound like it was a matter of practicality. An impersonal decision made out of convenience and (in Zemo’s mind) necessity. The idea of them having met before that would throw a different light on everything Zemo has done. On every conversation.
“Do you… do you want to ask him?” Sam asks hesitantly. Because Bucky has been quiet for too long after dumping something pretty heavy on the other man.
It would be a distraction, to delve more into the mystery that is Baron Zemo. Their current mission deserves their focus. Bucky should be thinking about the Flag Smashers. About the super-soldier serum. He shouldn’t be obsessing over this possible memory of the baron. But there was something undeniably familiar in Zemo’s fighting style. Something strange in a few of the looks the baron has thrown at him in Madripoor. Something tantalizing in the memory of a younger Zemo speaking Russian to him. And Bucky’s not sure he can really let it go.
But what Bucky says is, “No.” Because he doesn't want to ask Zemo about this directly.
He doesn’t want to talk to Zemo about a possible past. Because, part of what keeps Bucky sane about that mess in the past is that Zemo said it wasn’t personal, and Bucky needs to believe that. Needs to believe that Zemo felt okay with using him in that way because they were strangers.
At least for now, he decides to leave it alone. If there are memories, he decides it might be best to let them lie. If there are memories, he can process them with Dr Raynor after all this is over. Once the baron is safely behind bars again, unable to do anything to harm Bucky. Except maybe in memories of a forgotten past.
But Bucky’s opinion on the matter doesn’t deter Sam. The man, after all, has none of Bucky's reservations about poking at Bucky’s memories of Zemo that Bucky has himself. Which Sam shouldn’t, because there is no way that Bucky is going to explain to Sam the flash of an image he had in the alley. So Sam has absolutely no idea what he might actually be unearthing.
It's the next day, while Bucky’s showering, that Sam starts in on Zemo. It should probably annoy Bucky more than it does that Sam is doing that behind his back, but really, part of him is too curious to get out of the shower and make a thing of it. Besides, he wants the honesty that can only happen because the others think they’re unobserved.
Bucky and Steve never tell people quite how good their hearing is because it just makes them uncomfortable. Generally speaking, they aren’t trying to eavesdrop, it just happens by accident more often than not. But, right now, Bucky is straining to hear the conversation over the rush of water.
“Bucky seems to think the two of you have some sort of connection,” Sam says in a faux casual voice that Bucky is pretty sure fools no one ever. Sam is nothing if not an earnest man, but it doesn’t make him very good at feigning nonchalance.
“Does he?” Zemo asks and it's the tone that convinces Bucky that yes, they’ve met before. That there is something in the past, some interaction between the baron and the Winter Soldier. Something that Bucky can’t remember. Something that Zemo is hiding.
“That’s what he said back at the prison. He seemed to think you’d be more willing to help if he asked. Without me. Says you don’t like Avengers.”
“I’m suspicious of any group that puts themselves above all others and, one can say, I have good reason to dislike them.” The baron’s voice is cutting and cold.
Zemo isn’t wrong. He might be wrong about what exactly he did, but there was certainly a good reason the baron hated the Avengers. The destruction of Sokovia. The falling of his position of power - both in the army and a baron with a legitimate place of standing. The death of his son, his wife, his father, all his extended family. Likely most of his friends. Blaming the Avengers made sense, even if the baron had taken it much, much too far.
“And Bucky? Is he right? Do you have a connection with him?”
The question is met with silence. It stretches for so long that for a moment Bucky thinks Zemo’s abandoned the conversation. When he speaks again it is slow and measured. “Yes, I suppose we do.”
“And why is that?”
“James said it, so I suppose you’ll have to ask him.”
“But you feel it too?”
Zemo sighs. It’s tired and a bit annoyed. “What is it you really want to know, Sam?”
“Did you meet him before? Before you impersonated a therapist and triggered him, I mean. Because I'm wondering how you knew about the trigger words and the Winter Soldier in the first place.”
“No one’s bothered to ask me that before. Well, perhaps one man.” Bucky can almost hear the smirk in Zemo’s voice on that. And Bucky can’t help but wonder who that man was. Somehow, Bucky is pretty sure, whoever he was, he’s dead now.
“People were more preoccupied with the messes you made. Steve and I were on the run. Buck was getting his sanity back. So it didn’t seem to be the most pressing concern at the time, but I'm asking now.”
Zemo doesn’t ask why. He just gives a little chuckle that Bucky can barely hear. “You forget where I'm from, Sam. Or more likely, you’re an American, and you just don’t think much about it.”
“What do you mean?” Sam asks and Bucky can hear the man bristling at the implication of his ignorance.
“Sam, Sokoiva was once part of the USSR. For many years, Hydra and the Soviets shared the Winter Soldier project. I’m not only a former Sokovian intelligence officer but royalty. As such, my clearance to secrets of the state was significant.”
“Oh,” Sam says, because there is a logic there. An intelligence officer with enough clearance might have access to specialized files and secrets of the state but Bucky isn’t buying it.
He can feel that Zemo is lying. Bucky isn't entirely sure how he knows, but he knows. The baron is lying. He’s hiding something and Bucky is somewhat uncertain if this is a thread he wants to follow or not. And yet, with that tantalizing flash of a memory, pulling the thread feels somewhat inevitable.