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It’s been a long time since anybody has cared enough to ask, but if anyone asked Bucky again, he would tell them that he didn’t have the nightmares any more. It would even technically be true, he thinks, because he doesn’t have those nightmares any more. It has been a long time since he relived the worst of Hydra night after night, but sometimes, he thinks that those dreams were easier to take.
The dreams that Bucky has now are much harder to define. Bucky likes being able to define things; life is easier when it’s in black and white. Hydra is bad and the Avengers are good. My life was bad and now it is good. I was kept prisoner and it was bad, and now I am free and. For a long time now, his dreams have started to seem as if they are painted in shades of grey.
Occasionally it's Steve in his dreams, only a Steve who's with Hydra, Bucky at his side. But those aren't the most disturbing ones. There’s a recurring dream with Zemo. Of course there’s a recurring one with Zemo, and the big, obvious problem is that Bucky knows he’s probably causing himself to have it. Every night as he lays down to go to sleep, his last thought is that he really fucking hopes he doesn’t dream about Zemo again, and every night, like a contrary motherfucker - which is what his mind is - his brain immediately conjures it up again.
Night after night, he dreams of being back with Hydra, but now he’s back with Hydra at Zemo’s hand. It’s not the Zemo he knows, of course; for all of Zemo’s complications Bucky can’t actually imagine him ever being a part of Hydra. The Zemo in his dreams is someone harder and darker. In his dreams Bucky sleeps on the floor like a dog at the foot of that Zemo’s bed, and when Bucky wakes up on the floor of his living room in his real life, he’s always hard as a rock. He shamefully tries to jerk off in the shower to get rid of his erection, and hates himself for it.
The worst part, however, is when he wakes up in the middle of the night from one of those dreams to a message from Zemo. Something else that he hates: he hates that Zemo regularly texts him now and he knows that Zemo is well aware that he hates it. It annoys him that Zemo even has a burner phone, regardless of the fact he was the one who provided it. (The metal detectors on the Raft aren’t good enough to differentiate the vibranium of Bucky’s arm, and so they just wave him through every time, apparently ignorant of the fact he usually has at least a gun and a knife on him when he’s out there.) He knows that Zemo is playing with him, because it’s what Zemo does. Bucky has been Zemo’s entertainment from the boredom of a prison cell for years now, give or take a Blip, and the fact he knows that doesn’t mean there’s a goddamn thing he can bring himself to do about it.
When he wakes tonight he’s sweaty, worked up from the dream. He wakes in silence, as he always does, sitting bolt upright with a quiet gasp for air. It’s a skill that he learned decades ago in another life, when he was sleeping in close quarters with the rest of the Howling Commandos and yet haunted enough by his few days tortured under Zola’s hand that he couldn’t find any rest. After the hell he got from the guys when he woke them up after a nightmare a couple of times, Bucky somehow forced himself to come out of a nightmare in silence. He’s always been good at adapting to his surroundings. It’s half the problem.
The dream tonight was the same as the rest; a Zemo dressed all in black, whispering commands in Bucky’s ear that he longed to follow. There’s something dangerous about how badly he wants to please Zemo in these dreams, and the fact that the feeling always follows him into his waking life. Because he can imagine it now, he thinks, closing his eyes as his right hand sneaks traitorously south to slip under his waistband and grasp hold of his cock.
The Zemo in Bucky’s dreams doesn’t remind him of any other Hydra handler that he can remember. He is still recognisably Zemo. He still has that same smirk when Bucky does something that particularly pleases him, but in his dreams, Bucky doesn’t feel any shame about the urge to make him proud. Even awake, he can think critically enough to know that the two of them would make a fearsome combination with Hydra. Zemo, he thinks, knows how to take care of his possessions.
He jerks his cock, already hard, trying to pretend that he is somewhere else, thinking of anything other than this.
He kills for Zemo, in his dreams. Zemo is a firm handler but fair; he never punishes Bucky because Bucky never strays from his instruction. It’s always been the most cruel twist of what Hydra did: they made Bucky want to be there, and it’s why now, in the dead of the night, he feels conflicted even when his most logical brain tells him that what they did was wrong. Hydra is bad. You are good, remember? Steve said it so it’s true.
Maybe this is a healthy way to deal with his conflicted feelings, he thinks. Zemo isn’t really Hydra, so it’s okay to roll his wrist over and arch his hips off the floor, bucking pointlessly into his own hand in some pale imitation of the sex he used to enjoy. It’s okay to think of dropping a dead body at Zemo’s feet, the corpse’s neck broken by Bucky’s own hand, and to enjoy the pleased look on Zemo’s face when Bucky hails Hydra for him. Because none of this is real.
His phone beeps.
He should ignore it, he thinks; he’s obviously got his hands full and he’s almost at the point where his mind will let go of the dream and just focus on the feel of a pending orgasm. (That’s a frustrating after effect of Hydra. He can’t come. They trained and programmed him out of it; something about storing up his testosterone for fighting. He’s never told anybody. He can’t imagine ever telling anybody. He just jerks himself until he gets bored or his mind clears enough to move on to something else. He imagines that if he ever told Sam, Sam would say it was why he was in such a bad mood all the time.)
He rolls his thumb over the head of his cock and for a moment it feels so good that he thinks he might be able to ignore the phone. But as soon as he thinks that, the urgent need to check it - which he knows is more to do with the feelings he has for dream-Zemo than anything to do with the real thing - takes over his brain and he sits up with a growl, reaching for the phone.
It’s Zemo, of course. Bucky has four different phones. The only two people with the number for the one he keeps on the armchair while he’s asleep are Zemo and Steve, and of those two, Zemo’s the only one who actually contacts him. Bucky hasn’t featured in Steve’s life in a long time and he wishes he didn’t feature in Zemo’s, so he’s not really sure why he sleeps with that phone in particular. The thought makes him scowl as he opens the message. It’s quiet tonight.
Zemo does this from time to time, start inane conversations that seem pointless on the surface and it drives Bucky insane. It’s a manipulation, probably, but Bucky isn’t smart enough to figure out how. He replies you’re a hundred feet under the ocean, wonders how the hell Zemo even gets reception there, puts the phone aside and lies back down with a loud huff.
Of course, there’s a reply immediately. It’s what the Zemo in his dream would do, too, because one thing he knows from those dreams is that Zemo cares for him. In the very specific way that Hydra ever cared for him, of course; the same way Karpov cared for him, as a beautiful and deadly weapon. But it’s love nonetheless. This time, Bucky doesn’t bother thinking about it for too long before he picks the phone up again. Can’t sleep? Nightmares?
It occurs to Bucky to wonder how the hell Zemo’s even aware that he has nightmares in the first place, but then again, Zemo has always known all of Bucky’s secrets. He’d had one in Madripoor when he’d tried to get a couple of hours sleep after the party at Sharon’s place, a vicious, violent one that he’d been completely unsurprised to experience after the bullshit Zemo had made him do. There’s a chance that Zemo learned about it then. It’s infinitely more likely that Zemo doesn’t know what he’s talking about and is just setting a trap for Bucky to give him leverage. He hates the way their relationship is like the worst kind of intimate dance like this; he feels like a puppet on Zemo’s strings.
Of course, being Zemo’s puppet in his dreams feels good, but his life is not what it is in the dreams and this Zemo is not that Zemo. Belatedly, he realises that he should prefer this Zemo, given the whole ‘not actually Hydra or keeping me prisoner against my will’ factor in it all. He ignores the message. He may not be able to manipulate Zemo in return, but he knows full well that seeing his message as Read will grate on Zemo’s ego, and a small shot feels gratifying. His hand drifts back toward his cock, but with a sense of something close to disinterest. Masturbating to his own dreams is one thing, masturbating to getting a petty stab in toward Zemo feels, somehow, even more fucked up. He lets his fingers graze over his still-hard cock through the thin fabric of his sweatpants. He thinks about the way the American Hydra agents would do that to him to see how long he could keep his attention on a mission while they were teasing his dick.
(A very, very long time was the answer. They always took bets on it. He was fairly sure they all assumed he couldn’t understand them. He always privately counted himself as winning if they got bored, as they always did, before he let himself be distracted.)
Not five minutes pass before the phone chimes again. He continues stroking the barest of fingertips across his cock as he reaches for the phone and sighs in irritation. Are they about me?
Once again, there is no way that Zemo could have any idea about the truth, but it’s how Zemo always works. Bucky has had that one figured out for a while now; Zemo mostly only acts like he knows everything, but in doing so he usually finds out whatever it is he’s talking about. There’s nothing Bucky can really reply without incriminating himself, so instead he shoots back Don’t flatter yourself and puts the phone down again. He knows, of course, that he should just switch the phone off and try to get a couple more hours of broken sleep. He shouldn’t engage with Zemo at all, but then again, there’s a laundry list of shouldn’ts that exist when it comes to Bucky with Zemo so he figures it would be hypocritical to start drawing a line now.
Shall I take that as a yes? Zemo writes back.
Annoyed, Bucky immediately hits the button to call him. It’s childish and he knows it; the security cameras in the cells on the Raft are both audio and video so even if he’s tucked under the covers to text, he won’t be able to answer. It’s a petty attempt to put Zemo in his place and remind him that he’s in prison, and Bucky is… whatever Bucky is.
Of course, Zemo answers almost instantly. “James. It’s good to hear from you.”
“How the hell are you answering the phone?” Bucky shoots back, instantly belligerent. Zemo has this unique effect on him: he can boil Bucky’s blood in about five seconds. He sits up, and scowls when his hand automatically returns to his cock. In the dead of the night it’s hard to differentiate between the dream, between a beloved handler he’d do anything to please, and the genuine real terrorist and felon on the other end of the phone who drives him crazy.
Bucky can practically hear the smirk in Zemo’s voice when he replies. “The night staff and I have an understanding. Why are you calling?”
There’s no surprise there. Of course Zemo has some of the Raft staff on some kind of payroll. The guy’s rich enough that he could probably buy the whole prison. It’s irritating, like so many other things about him. Bucky isn’t the biggest fan of Zemo being in there in the first place; when he thinks about it for too long he gets deeply uncomfortable about his relative freedom just because Zemo happened to kill the wrong people and Bucky has an inbuilt alibi. But for as much as he isn’t a big fan of Zemo’s incarceration, the one thing that could make it bearable would be if he was actually treating it seriously. It was the same in Germany; when Bucky had first contacted Zemo he’d got the constant sense that Zemo was only in there because he hadn’t yet got around to breaking out. “Forget it,” Bucky says, a bite in his tone.
There’s a pause. “So you were dreaming of me.”
Bucky scowls again. He’s not a good liar. He’s never, in fact, been a good liar. It was how he ended up getting constant hell from his mother when she asked about how many girls he was stepping out with and he tried to keep the answer in the singular. And so instead of answering, he says, “I only dream about Hydra.”
It’s not untrue, after all.
Before Zemo can say anything, Bucky continues, “Why are you awake?” It’s too conversational; it’s exactly what Zemo wants. He falls into this trap with Zemo over and over. He keeps him at a distance and he bites and snarls at him, and then as soon as he’s not paying attention, he starts to talk to him like some kind of equal. Like they’re two old buddies, just calling to have a middle of the night chat.
“You can’t imagine what being here does to your circadian rhythm,” Zemo says, and for once what he says has the ring of truth. “I haven’t seen the sky since Sokovia.”
It’s a pointed reminder, like everything that Zemo says. The man hasn’t said something innocent in the entire time that Bucky has known him. Everything is layered; everything with an agenda. This time, Bucky assumes, he is wanting Bucky to remember that he was the one to do this to him. He was the one to hand him over to the Wakandans. Bucky hates the reminder, because it brings with it the reminder of just how conflicted he was about letting them take him. He didn’t really have a choice. Bucky doesn’t often have a choice in things that happen in his life, but that one he resented more than most. He doesn’t apologise. He doesn’t say anything at all.
“Tell me, James,” Zemo starts, and the way he says it makes Bucky want to crush the phone in his hand. “What do you dream of when you dream of me?”
As if Bucky hadn’t made the comment about only dreaming about Hydra at all. He scowls again, but he slips back down to lay on his back. He can feel the compulsion to tell him pulling at his brain. His goddamn brain, always so mixed up, and even more so when he’s lying here in the place that he always dreams of Zemo as his handler. He’s been programmed to not be able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy, he reminds himself; this isn’t his fault. If his brain is tricking itself into thinking that Zemo is his handler, then there’s not a lot he’s going to be able to do to stop it. “You’re Hydra,” he says, the words spilling out of him. It feels like bloodletting, it feels like a relief, it feels like bringing a dead mouse back to his master and dropping it on his feet. He doesn’t need to add the next detail. You’re my handler sits heavy in the distance between them as viscerally as if he’d said it aloud.
“Do you think about that?” Zemo says, an odd note in his voice. “The way I said your words, like they did.”
Bucky does think about it, even as his skin both wrinkles and lights up at the way Zemo calls them his words. But he doesn’t exactly want to tell Zemo that. He scowls, and in his mind, his answer is no, and fuck off. Out loud, instead, he says, “Yeah.”
He wants to hit himself in the face for it.
He doesn’t need to be able to see Zemo to know exactly how he’s reacting to that. Zemo will be smirking, that particular knowing smirk he seems to have when it comes to Bucky. There has not been anyone in over seventy years able to get under Bucky’s skin quite so quickly. Steve could, back when they were teenagers; the two of them would bicker like brothers and it would always evolve into some kind of actual fight to calm them both down. He can’t exactly do that with Zemo, and Zemo doesn’t feel at all like his brother. He closes his eyes and thinks of the Zemo in his dreams, all in black, petting his hair as he tells him he’s done a good job. Bucky can practically feel his hair long again, brushing against his neck as Zemo cards his hand through it. He can’t help himself; he moves his hand back inside his pants again, grasping his cock once more.
“I have never been someone who seeks power over others,” Zemo says, as if musing on the philosophies of Machiavelli, and Bucky almost laughs out loud. Everything Zemo ever does is a power play, most often specifically about having power over Bucky, and the idea that he avoids seeking that out is obviously insane. He wonders if it would be weird to tell Zemo to shut the hell up so he can concentrate on bringing up the mental image of the dream again, and simultaneously wonders what the hell is wrong with him.
Well, he knows that’s a long list, but what the hell’s wrong with him in this specific instance is still something he’d like to know. He strokes at his cock, slow, drawing a deep breath and not replying to Zemo, who he’s pretty sure is just talking to hear the sound of his own voice. The guy takes narcissism to a new level.
“I didn’t relish having that power over you,” Zemo continues. It’s a stupid statement. Not only did Zemo very specifically activate Bucky so Bucky would tell him all the information he needed to know, he then ordered Bucky to protect him. And protect him Bucky did, slaughtering an entire room of guards and fighting Sam and Steve before getting himself out of there. And that was even without considering their recent history, where Zemo had literally orchestrated a situation in which he had power over Bucky. Hell, he’d even tried to use the words on him again the first time they saw each other in person in Germany. He’s about to say something when Zemo continues, “But tell me more about the dream.”
“Go to hell,” Bucky says, swiping his thumb over the head of his cock again. He has callouses on his hands from decades ago, before the serum, his hands already war-roughened from carrying a rifle. The tough skin feels good over the slit of his cock, and he swallows hard. He wonders if Zemo will tell him well done, Soldier. He knows that he knows the phrase in Russian, though he’d never let himself think too long on why exactly Zemo had decided to learn that. (Another manipulation, without a doubt.)
There’s a small laugh on the other end of the line that only serves to make Bucky more irritated. “Am I your handler in these dreams? Do you slaughter enemies at my command?”
There’s no point in Bucky answering that; Zemo obviously knows that he does. He thinks about it again, unable to help himself. Blood on his hands as he comes home to him; blood soaking his hair, making it cling together in ugly clumps. He’s never dreamed about it but he thinks now of Zemo cleaning him, detached and practical. Wiping blood from metal, combing it out of his hair. Annoyed at the state that Bucky had returned to him in, maybe. He pushes up into his hand as he pumps his cock. Zemo wouldn’t punish him for that, but he wouldn’t be pleased, either.
Karpov was similar; he was detached and Bucky had loved him all the more for it. He knew that any affection or praise was hard earned and well deserved; it only made it hit him all the harder. Karpov had been the one to orchestrate the program with the other Winter Soldiers and Bucky still remembered just how jealous he had been. He’d hated the thought that Karpov would see them as better, more functional than Bucky. He had a feeling he hadn’t meant as much to Karpov as the way Karpov loomed so large in his own head, but then again, meaning less to people than they meant to him was something that seemed to be a hell of a theme in Bucky’s long life.
It didn’t seem like that in his dreams, not with Zemo. He was prized, he was good, he was the perfect weapon.
“You must have been magnificent to behold,” Zemo says, his voice a little quiet. He sounds sincere, and of course, it automatically makes Bucky suspicious. He doesn’t reply. “What they did to you, James, was monstrous, but… tremendously impressive.”
Something thick and complicated chokes Bucky by the throat. He can feel the stab of arousal at the praise. It’s stupid and he knows it’s stupid: Zemo is, if anything, complimenting Hydra in some strange, professionally impressed way. It’s nothing at all to do with Bucky himself. But hell, it feels like he’s done something right. It feels like he’s pleased him, and that’s enough for him. He doesn’t reply, but his hand on his cock does start to move a little faster. He has to work to keep from grunting or gasping out loud. He’s good at this, always has been, and for some reason, with Zemo on the other end of the line it feels markedly less fucked up than his shame jerks in the shower.
He knows logically that it’s actually much worse, but for now he’s going to let himself have it.
“We had heard of you in Sokovia, you know,” Zemo continues. Bucky isn’t sure why exactly Zemo has decided this is going to be best as a one sided conversation, but he’s glad for it. He doesn’t need to reply, just grit his teeth and think of the praise of a handler as he strokes his own cock. He lifts his hips from the ground again, chasing his own hand’s friction. Zemo continues, “I didn’t believe in you; I thought you a ghost story. If I had, I would have hunted you down.”
That, Bucky doesn’t doubt. Zemo’s made his feelings about enhanced individuals clear enough. He knows without even thinking about it that Zemo would have set his single-minded determination to finding and destroying the Winter Soldier.
“The damage you could have done at my command,” Zemo says, quietly, almost reverently, and that comment gives Bucky pause.
So Zemo has thought about it as well. Bucky just stops, his eyes wide, biting down on his lower lip to keep from crying out. His grip becomes rougher. He wonders, irrationally, whether his dream could be real; he wonders if there is a world out there like it. He’s heard Hydra scientists talk about the multiverse before. He isn’t sure if he feels sorry for a world where he and Zemo are like that, or jealous. He hates himself for thinking that he could be jealous. Finally, out loud, he manages to say, “I’m not at your command.” As if that’s a rational thing to point out.
“No,” Zemo says. He sounds amused. “You’re not.”
“So there’s no point in thinking about it.” Bucky imagines Zemo’s hand stroking him like his own hand is, and wonders if he actually sounds disappointed or whether that is only in his imagination.
“No. Just in dreaming about it.”
God, Bucky thinks, as he strokes his cock with a harder grip, he really does hate Zemo.
After a short silence, Zemo says, “Are you touching yourself?” and if it wasn’t for the fact the thing had cost him fifty bucks, Bucky would throw his phone across the room. He doesn’t think of a reply fast enough, and in his silence, he knows that Zemo knows. He closes his eyes and tries not to groan as Zemo says, “That makes me very happy.”
Of course it does, because once again, everything Zemo says, does or thinks is a manipulation, and Bucky has once more taken the keys to his head and hurled them in Zemo’s direction so someone, anyone, can actually take control. Bucky doesn’t say anything; he stays stubbornly silent.
“Do I do that in your dreams, too?” Zemo asks.
“No,” Bucky spits back, because that, at least, is a question with a clear answer he doesn’t mind giving. No, he never touches him, because the better handlers never did. And Zemo, he knows, would be the best. He hates how deeply he knows that. He wonders if Zemo’s comment will fuel different dreams now; the idea that Zemo would have hunted Hydra down to steal him for himself. It makes him feel wanted, precious, in a way that he hasn’t felt since Soviet Hydra lost him and he bites down on his lip again. He doesn’t slow the rhythm on his cock. He can feel the usual buildup of tension; he can feel what would be an orgasm pooling in his gut, his lower back, his toes curling helplessly against his wooden floor.
“But you’d still come for me.”
There’s a barb in it that comes close to choking out a truth that Bucky has been avoiding; the hideous confirmation in Madripoor that Zemo knows the worst of what Hydra did to him. But the problem isn’t that at all: the problem is that Bucky’s mind goes wildly in the opposite direction. He can feel the sparks of old programming firing in the back of his mind. The Wakandans didn’t do anything about the deeply buried barbs that only Bucky knew about; they could only reroute his mind around the trigger words. The urge to please his handler is still there, as close to the surface as ever, and between the dreams and this conversation he’s more confused than he’s ever been.
He knows that he’s breathing hard enough that Zemo will hear it too; he knows that Zemo will know exactly how close he is. He imagines that Zemo knows, too, that close is all he can get.
But he can hear the smirk in Zemo’s voice as he says, “Well?”
And at the implied command Bucky comes; hard, gritting his teeth with nearly enough pressure to break them as he spills over his own sweatpants, his belly. He breathes hard through the orgasm, glad that Zemo is silent and simultaneously absolutely repulsed that he’s probably silent because he’s listening for evidence of exactly what has just happened.
There’s relief in the release, of course, and Bucky closes his eyes, feeling the sweet sensation float through his body. He can feel some of his irritation start to ebb. It isn’t the same feeling as when the Zemo in his dreams cards his hair back from his face and tells him he’s done a good job, but he knows, too, that he should consider it to be something better.
“Is that why you called?” Zemo asked, and the amusement in his voice is unmistakeable.
Without any further comment, Bucky disconnects the call, considers crushing the phone in his hand, remembers the price tag and puts it back on the chair. He lays back and just feels the odd stillness in his body, as if the ever-present tension has finally loosened just a notch or two. He gets up after a few seconds and pads through to the bathroom, avoiding his reflection as he wipes himself down, getting his breathing back under control.
When he sleeps again he knows he’ll dream of this; the Hydra-hardened Zemo of his dreams somehow conflating with whatever the hell’s just happened with the real version. There’s a sense of unreality to all of this, and he wonders how bad he’ll feel when he remembers it in the morning. He runs his hand through his too-short hair, lets out a deep breath, and goes back through to his usual spot on the floor.
He switches the television on; the white noise of the sports channel used to ward off the nightmares, and he wonders if it will work for these dreams too.
As he’s closing his eyes the phone beeps and he considers his actions for about ten seconds before he reaches for it. Well done. Tomorrow night?
With a scowl, Bucky sets the phone down without replying, closes his eyes, and lays down again. On the television, he lets the sound of the commentator praising the team that’s just scored a goal wash over him. “They’ve done well,” the man says, and Bucky groans, covering his ears as if that will stop his imagination from rocketing to a Sokovian accent butchering Russian praise. He wonders if he’ll still dream if he punches himself in the temple hard enough to knock himself unconscious.
Eventually, he reaches for the phone, simply replies, Fuck off, and puts it down again. It’s black and white, after all: this is patently insane, and he is supposed to be getting better.
This time, when the phone beeps again, Bucky manages to count to fifteen before he looks. Sweet dreams. Fifty dollars be damned, he thinks, and tightens his metal fist to crush the phone, flipping onto his front and burying his face into the cushion he uses for a pillow.
On balance, he thinks, he might prefer the nightmares.