Chapter Text
The plan is stupid and crazy. Impressively so, and probably going to get at least two of them thrown back in a cell. The odds veer so sharply in Zemo's favor Sam might as well strip buck naked right now and hand the man his wallet because they are being taken to the cleaners. Nobody in this room should be fooling themselves about that, even if Zemo's the only one enjoying it.
None of that matters, though. It can't, because Bucky's dead fucking set. He'll do it by himself if Sam pulls out of this little spiral and thinking about that is somehow less palatable than any of the other insane shit spilling out of their mouths. Bucky can't be left alone with Zemo. End of file, end of choices. Steve would never forgive him it for it; hell, Sam would never forgive himself. It is what it is. They're going to end up dead or in lockup again, but fine. Screw it.
He's in.
"Nah, fuck that." Abruptly he's not in. He could not be more not in if he gave it years of effort. "We do this, you sure the hell won't be his... be the one giving him the orders." Sam's brain shies away from the word Zemo used himself, but owner rings in his ears loud enough to wake the dead. "Bad enough I'm greenlighting this complete disaster of a plan—"
"Sam—"
"Bucky," Sam interrupts evenly, "this is nonnegotiable. The hardest of lines. You want me not to walk out of here and call whoever I gotta call to pick his ass up?" Bucky nods, expression desperate around the edges: exactly the kind of need Zemo feeds on. Chapter and goddamned verse on what's going to happen if he gets his hand on the tiller. Sam's fists clench of their own volition, and he forces them to relax. "Then we do this part of it my way."
"It will make it harder to keep our cover. Your accent... we will only say you will not have enough time to improve it, and leave the matter there." Zemo's smart enough to read an absolute no when he sees it. Sam has give him that, because he folds without making him fight for it. "Very well. If this is what you wish to do, I would not speak while we are there. Other than to control James, of course."
"Fine." There's a tinge of something heady building up in the back of Sam's brain, a sharp edged anger that should be all Zemo but threatens to spill over everything if he doesn't watch his mouth. "Fine, you can do all the talking at the club, I really don't give a shit. I'm just not gonna let you mess with his head any worse than you already have. You've yanked his strings enough, I'm stepping in if he's not gonna take care of himself." Bucky's breath falters just a beat, a soft whoosh of air Sam can't spend any time parsing or risk losing the upper hand while he's got a firm advantage. Bucky is stubborn enough to follow through with either way, but he's willing to beg. No reason to waste it. "You want Buck to play attack dog for you, I can't stop it. But I'm gonna be the guy holding the leash."
The sick thrill just saying the words sends through him makes his guts ache and his dick start to take an interest in the proceedings. Cursing himself, Sam shifts and focuses back in, breathing carefully and shoving the tension back down through each muscle until he hits his toes. Examining the fucked up part of his psyche that doesn't mind the idea of the disgusting shit he just said and forcing Zemo to relinquish his power play is just going to have to wait.
"What do I need to say to sell it," he says instead.
Zemo's lips curve in a satisfied smile. "Of course. You will need to be taught. His old commands are—"
"Not you." Sam doesn't recognize the rasp in his own voice. Maybe it's cruel to ask, maybe it's trying to give Bucky back even just a little power, but the idea of hearing Zemo give the commands at all turns his stomach. "I'm talking to Bucky, and he’s gonna tell me what I need to say. In fact, if you plan on staying out of prison, you're gonna keep your mouth shut until we get to the club and it's absolutely necessary. New rule I just made up."
"Sam..." Bucky swallows, throat working hard enough Sam can see the muscles there catch and release, and the pit he's digging straight down to hell gets a little deeper.
"I'm backing your play, here. You gonna back mine, or is this a one way street?" Guilt catches at him with sharp claws, digging furrows in his gut while jealously waits its turn just behind. "Unless you'd rather have him—"
"No." Bucky's too loud interruption does all sorts of ugly things to Sam's karma. "I mean.... Yeah. Yeah." He shakes himself, blinking too fast. "Yeah, okay. We can make it work, if that's what you want?"
"What I want..." Sam shakes his head. "It was my idea, man. Better me than him."
"Wonderful." Zemo claps his hands together with cheerful finality. "And now that we are decided on who will... how did you put it, Sam? Keep hold of James' leash?"
"More or less, yeah." Zemo knows this isn't just about restricting his access to Bucky. He wouldn't smile like that if he couldn't see right through Sam's words to the snakes roiling in his gut, wouldn't savor his words and roll them around in his mouth like he's thrilled by the taste, but Sam can't take the time to worry about that now. "Thought I told you to shut up, though. We gonna have a problem with that rule?"
"Of course not," Zemo says soothingly.
Sam's eyes narrow. He's so accommodating now. Way too accommodating to leave it there. "You sure about that? I will fuck you up if you try and screw us over, you hear me? Buck will just have to wait in line until I'm done with you, you better understand that."
"You are in control, as you have said." Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth when Zemo smiles, oil slick pretty and twice as corrosive. "Shall we go?"
Bucky drills him on the unfamiliar Russian commands in the car, breaking them into short meaningless parts until he decides Sam is ready to put together whole words. The hard edged syllables sit like stones on his tongue and leave an ugly aftertaste at the back of his throat, bile mixed with rising excitement. Once they arrive the music’s too loud to make the accent matter much, but they pack the necessary punch.
“Soldat.” They’d run it again and again, until it sat right. The word trips off his tongue easier now, fitting between his teeth and turning his tongue in an odd twist he couldn’t quite master until Bucky had opened his mouth wide to help him see how it was done. It's not natural, but at least he doesn't sound uncertain when he forces the title out.
Zemo’s idea, of course. Sam’s nursing a couple fantasies about knocking the knowing smile he gives Sam after right off his face. The real bitch was it had helped. Sam’s never moved his tongue like that in any word with an o, and he's a little old for that kind of retraining on the fly. Seeing how Bucky did it moved them forward a hell of a lot faster, and after that first success he kept doing it. Holding himself up to Sam for inspection, like that was okay. Like it didn’t pin Sam down and core him open to see how easily the difficult man he knows can flip that switch and let Sam inspect his mouth. Like he was a training tool, not a person.
“Sam. The rest.”
Zemo’s hissed admonition makes shame crackle up and down his spine. He’d lost the thread somewhere in the memory of the exaggerated movements of Bucky’s tongue and all the things that could not make him think about.
He looks right at Bucky and forces the rest of their false command. “Are you ready to comply?” That’s technically all they need to do. Whispers begin, a ripple of hushed speculation following their progress through the room.
Bucky stiffens and something shifts in how he’s holding himself, but doesn't answer like they practiced in the car. He’d tried to say Hydra never needed to give a set answer to their commands, but given all he’s learning right now Sam’s found a whole new wellspring of reasons not to give a good goddamn about what Hydra did or did not want for Bucky. Chances are he’s shaping up to be not much better all on his own, but he’s not them. If they’re going to keep dancing to Zemo’s tune, he needs a way to know he’s still talking to Bucky, not some Soviet relic. All these fucking people they’re pretending to sell him to want the Winter Soldier; Sam wants Bucky, and Sam’s going to rain down hell if he wakes up one day to find they’ve changed places again.
Telling Bucky that made his eyes widen, black pupil swallowing up more of the blue in a way that’s sure to show up in late night jerk off sessions when thinking about nothing at all isn’t going to cut it.
Looking at him now isn’t quite like staring at the blank wall who threw Sam through his cage, but it’s close enough to make his skin itch.
“Stay cool. I got you.” Sam murmurs the words when they brush close enough to keep it private, searching for an obvious crack in Bucky’s new stillness and finding none. Frustration rushes in, ugly and cloying as the thick stench of dogwoods. Screw that. If Sam is going to go along with this, the least Bucky can do is do a little call and response. Without thinking about it, he lifts a hand to rest heavy at the back of Bucky’s neck and squeezes it, shaking him a little. Sotto voce, he adds, “Stupid plan, Buck. I told you this was a stupid plan,” before raising his voice loud enough for their audience to catch it. “Are you ready to comply?”
“Yes.” At least that’s what Bucky told Sam he would say to give them both a quick shorthand for 'how deep down in your own shit are you on this one', but Sam can’t shake the feeling there are just too many of those new tongue-tangling bites of words in what Bucky said to be that simple. He doesn’t know Russian, fine, but he knows the sound of a one word answer and Bucky’s doesn’t sit right.
What exactly to say had Zemo’s suggestion, too, when Bucky had struggled to find anything Hydra might have wanted him to say when blind obedience served their purposes well enough. Too many things Sam finds himself agreeing to are pretty obviously Zemo’s suggestions, laundered back through Bucky. For a man who was supposed to shut the hell up until showtime, Zemo worked his way in through each and every conversational crack all the same.
“Good,” he says, disguising the word as a satisfied grunt. He refuses to look to Zemo for his reaction to their ruse, but the urge is there, seductively telling him it’s only logical. It’s not about approval, it’s that Zemo is better suited to this role if all they want to do is convince people with the least chance of blowing their cover. That’s not the ballgame and it has to be Sam, but he’s not stupid. Zemo would have gotten Bucky to say it right away, and if he’s not concerned about how well they’re fooling everyone Sam can probably ratchet down a degree or two.
People are starting to stare, the weight of their eyes not as impressed as they had been. Hastily, Sam switches back to Russian. “Go. Now.” Teaching Sam a handful of general commands to paper over the gaps had been Zemo’s idea, too, and damned if finding it useful already doesn’t burn away in his gut like taking a coffee cup’s worth of rotgut as a shot.
He doesn’t lower his hand; Bucky doesn’t shake it off. They keep walking, Zemo just ahead, Sam’s fingertips digging into the thick tendon where neck meets shoulder like Bucky’s going to slip out of his grasp if he doesn’t make it literal.
Their act seems to be working, at least. Bucky's presence clears a slim path through the room wherever they go, a damn miracle in a club this packed.
He's grateful for Bucky standing at his shoulder. It would be a hell of a lot better if they could just do this as themselves, by themselves. Pretending at master and personal attack zombie with Zemo rubbernecking just behind is on the more fucked up end of their scale but at the end of the day, it's comforting just keeping Bucky close at hand. Fifty-fifty Zemo's been playing them this whole time and he's about to sell them both off to some rich asshole with a grudge.
It doesn't escape Sam's attention when they hit the bar Zemo positions them both as a convenient wall to his back. The shameless opportunist in question somehow puts his thoughts together and gives Sam a look that would mean what can you do? on a normal goddamn human, but on Zemo probably means a wise general leverages any advantage, Sam. Only a fool wastes his resources. Some pretentious Art of War bullshit like that, maybe with one of those head tilts to follow it up.
Bucky steps on his foot in a clear warning when the bartender offers a drink. Fast as he can, Sam cuts over the answer forming on Zemo's lips. "No." God only knows what 'the usual' means for a guy who calls himself the Smiling Tiger without a gun to his head to force the issue. Sam jerks his chin at Zemo, trying to keep the parish from leaking in and rounding out the vowels. There's no way he can pull any African accent out of his ass without being laughed out of the club, but he can pull off clipped and middle of nowhere. "We're here for business. With Selby."
Zemo turns back to the bar. "A man of few words, the Smiling Tiger."
"Yeah," the bartender says, unconvinced. "Still not getting in to see Selby."
Midway through Zemo's haggling, Sam feels a hand fall heavily on his shoulder. That's the cue they need. Stiffening his spine, he cuts a glance over at Bucky. "Soldat," he says, trying and failing to sound like he wouldn't rather be anywhere else, "attack."
Bucky's yanking the guy back by the throat before Sam can finish the final half of the command, deadly fast. Ordering Bucky to put a beatdown on anyone sits like lead in his gut, even the kind of people who hang out in these places and feel like trying it with the Winter goddamn Soldier, but there's something else there.
Graceful's not the right for it, but he's not a bruiser either. Just... efficient. Ruthlessly, instinctively efficient, even when Sam's seen him fighting all-out and they're not there, not even close. Bodies hit the ground, one by one, and each time a couple more of the takers stagger away or simply stay where Bucky's put them, curling in on themselves like pillbugs. One or two of them turn to the side and vomit.
Sam watches it all, tracking each brutally effective slash of movement from Bucky like there's going to be a test later. Damn, the man can fight. Neon glints off the vibranium arm, painting it stained glass blue, purple, pink, green, gold, over and over and over. Sam reaches down to adjust himself without thinking about it before dropping his hand like it's been burned.
Bucky's fast, is all. Strong. Sam's been putting in his time getting some actual training like he's back in boot now that he's in this life for what might turn out to be good, but Bucky's... he's something else. Usually when Bucky's fighting, so is Sam—or they're fighting each other, and neither one of those options ever gives much time to stand back and admire the technique driving what the serum gave Bucky.
Whatever the hell it is that makes him feel anything but furious Zemo has landed them both in the shit and won't stop shoveling means he takes longer than it should to notice Bucky's not just playing defense with anybody stupid enough to think they can take a legend. Zemo's started throwing all the rubberneckers who wander into spitting distance Bucky's way, too entranced with the ensuing destruction to pretend otherwise when Sam pulls himself back together and watches his partner's six like he's supposed to.
"Zemo!" When Zemo looks his way, Sam jerks his chin in a wordless command to knock off the swinging dick routine and join him, far out of shoving range.
"Apologies." Zemo weaves his way through the thickening crowd around Bucky and shrugs without a single goddamned shred of genuine remorse. "I couldn't help myself."
"Try." It's not maintaining the accent that keeps his tone clipped now. That's all Bucky needs, Zemo running around pretending they're playing some bizarre game of tag team from hell.
"I will make the attempt, but..." He exhales expressively, gesturing towards where Bucky is still taking on the last few assholes drunk or stupid enough to try it. "Impressive, isn't he? Look at him." Zemo leans too close now that he's closed the distance between them, crowding Sam in. He tries not to be crowded, but the urge to back up a few steps when Zemo's shoulder nearly brushes his own is so strong Sam has to lock his knees against it. "Upsetting, to be sure, but..."
"But what?" Sam shoves his clenched fists into his stupid suit's too small pockets, ignoring the way Zemo eyes him and clearly considers saying something about Sam ruining the lines like he had in the car.
"Perhaps graceful, in his own brute way. Lovely, some might say."
Sam would say, and Zemo knows it. His skin feels too tight, prickling with anger and a building tension he's fine labeling the urge to do a little violence of his own and leaving at that. "Outta curiosity, you ever get tired of the sound of your own voice?"
"Well, I spent eight years in near total isolation. If there was a time I might have done so..." He smiles that infuriating, suggestive little smile and lets Sam work out the rest from there.
"Sorry I asked." Zemo falls agreeably silent, apparently happy with all the points he's already scored. Body still warm and solid at Sam's elbow, he seems content to alternate between watching Bucky and watching Sam watch Bucky.
"Soldat," Sam barks once the field is down enough to make the point and it starts to feel like maybe Bucky's starting to get a little too method with their cover, "Enough. To me."
The man Bucky's holding suspended a good two feet above the ground hits the ground knees first with an ugly snap that lands halfway between a dish shattering and the way a too-ripe fruit sounds when it bursts on the kitchen floor. Nobody ever taught the poor guy how to fall, Sam notes with one corner of his mind, too focused on how fast Bucky comes back to heel and reattaches himself to Sam's side to give much of a shit.
He tries not to follow that last line of thought to its logical conclusion. He does, but it's a lost cause.
Sam avoids Zemo's smug look when their display works like a charm. It's all apologies and 'Selby will see you now's with Bucky's propers established. The slim path they'd been granted on the way over to the bar becomes a goddamned parting of the Red Sea.
The dank, poorly lit hallway between them and Selby's seedy backroom make him itch with expectation. The impulse to check in with Bucky and make sure his efforts haven't already gotten to him is so intense the words sit like stones on his tongue, but they can't afford a slip like that. Conrad Mack wouldn't give a fuck if his toy was off his game. Hell, the Winter Soldier wouldn't even have a game to be off.
Bucky's side brushes his as they jostle during the walk and Sam presses back, the only reassurance he can offer with Selby's people stationed all around.
Selby's exactly the kind of sleazy Sam was afraid she'd be. He tunes halfway out of the conversation, grunting in acknowledgement when Zemo offers another apology for his 'silent companion'. How much fun that asshole's having with all of this only makes it worse.
"Perhaps a display? He has been taught so many... interesting tricks, in his years of service." Fuck. Sam's attention sharpens down to the innocent tilt of Zemo's head as he fucks them both over. Goddamit, the plan had been to wait. If Selby asked for a peepshow, they'd work with that, but throwing Bucky right into the deep end wasn't supposed to be on the goddamn agenda. "I am sure Mr. Mack will grant us just one taste, as a gesture of goodwill."
"There is one command James cannot teach you, Sam. It may not be necessary, but if it is... well. Wiser to be prepared, I should think."
"Tell you what: Buck can keep teaching me just fine, and you can keep on staying out of it. I told you, no fucking talking until—"
"He's telling the truth, Sam." The resignation in Bucky's voice feels like failure. "I don't know what'd happen if I said it myself, but I'm not looking to find out tonight."
"As he says." Gracious, understanding condescension drips from his Zemo's words. If he says he understands Sam's pain, that's it. Fuck the plan, he's dead. "And I think it would be equally unwise for you to hear me. If you'd come closer?"
Sam jerks his head up. "You talking to me?"
"Well, I certainly don't think the opposite would—"
"Shut up," Sam sighs and pushes up to lean halfway on the console, wishing Bucky had snapped at Zemo too instead of turning to stone on the seat next to him. He's close enough to Zemo to smell whatever obscenely expensive cologne he splashed on after pulling it out of his emergency cologne stash. On a fucking plane. "Well?" He says, trying not to fidget. "Lay it on me."
Zemo's breath is hot on his ear when he hands him the keys to whatever horrible shit Sam's about to unlock in Bucky's already strained psyche. Sam rubs the skin around it absently the rest of the ride, trying to wipe away the lingering warmth.
"Fine," Sam grits out. "This should convince you he's a good investment." He looks back at Bucky, blank eyed between them, and swallows away the protests rising in his throat. "Soldat." Bucky looks up. "Перо."
Whatever Sam expected, it wasn't this. Bucky freezes in place, fingers starfishing out and mouth dropping wide open. Garbled, humiliating noises spill from his throat without anything to hold them back, echoing off each wall and blocking out any other sound Sam could possibly hear other than his own harsh breathing. Bucky doesn't move at all, not one single tremble or twitch of a muscle, but the fabric between his legs slowly starts to saturate and become subtly darker, catching the light and starting to shine when Sam tilts his head just so.
"Did he just...?" Selby's voice startles Sam out of his careful examination. "Well. That is interesting, isn't it." Her eyes widen and then narrow in quick succession, greed replacing the studied disinterest of negotiation. "Just because you told him to?"
"A useful reward for such a specialized weapon." Zemo apparently has the sense to know if he touches Bucky right now Sam will do something they can't pass off as playing hardball, because he only gestures at Bucky like he's an appliance salesman in a bad commercial. "Compliance is so much sweeter when provided by a willing source, don't you think?"
"I want to try." Selby's mouth starts to move, silently trying to sound out the Russian.
"No." Sam half-shouts his denial. Zemo inhales sharply, and the guards all shift to attention in a way that promises nothing but trouble. "No test drives," Sam tacks on hastily. "Buy him or don't."
Selby shoots him a look that makes him think even if they pull this off, he's going to have to watch his back until they're out of Madripoor. "Fine. Then you make him do it again. I want to appreciate what he'd be able to do for me now that I know he can do it."
Bucky gives him the slightest nod. Sam sighs. Now that he's got the feel for it, перо sits more comfortably on his tongue than it had the first time.
Fittingly, it all goes downhill from there. Sarah calls, the guns come out, and thank Christ Sharon pulls their asses from the fire with Selby and Nagel. Solid woman, that one. Too good by half to be pulled back into this bullshit. Getting her that pardon is priority one once they have Karli and her squad locked down, no matter what insane scheme Zemo's going to come with up to keep this little party going.
He'd changed at Sharon's place, but a shower just wasn't in the cards despite her patience with them. Zemo pulled a hotel room that looks like a million bucks but agreed to rent the penthouse for a couple hours out of his ass so they can clean up before getting back on Karli's trail. Sam has a feeling wanting his precious plane to stay clean of whatever toxic sludge they've been rolling in has more to do with his generosity than anything else, but the shower's big enough for a whole unit to share it and he hasn't needed to get clean this bad since Afghanistan.
Sarah calls three times while he's in a rich man's shower trying to drown himself instead of jerking off to the memory of the precise economy of Bucky fighting, the motherfucking definition of violent efficiency. At the same time he's trying not to heave up what little he's got in his stomach remembering which of them actually pulled the metaphorical trigger tonight. A weapon's inert without a hand to hold it. Risk and threat, context: at the end of the day, the hand holding the gun's where the moral blame rests. Bucky may have a couple lifetimes of experience with violence, but Sam's been kissing cousins with the same for a lifetime of his own. Not the same level, but violence is violence. He's supposed to know better than this.
He's supposed to be better than this.
The cell's screen blinks over and over with a burst of texts from Sarah, buzzing so hard his hand jumps in midair. It'd be so easy to ignore her. A couple of quick swipes, then hit airplane mode and pretend he's not in the active process of setting his life on fire.
Thirty seconds into the call, Sam pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers and wishes he'd gone with airplane mode and embraced the guilt. Wallowing would be better than an honest accounting of his sins, and Sarah doesn't bother holding back.
"Look, it was... honestly, you know what? It was some jacked up shit and you wouldn't believe me if I told you about it, but I'm fine. It was a work thing, okay?" He finally breaks in. Big mistake: Sarah's loud enough now she might as well be on speaker. "No, don't—look. I have to do this, okay? There's—yeah, I fucking hear you, and not just because you're blowing my eardrums out right now, but you aren't hearing me—" Sarah steps up the volume and gets going on the other end about his actual goddamned responsibilities and how fucking bullshit it was to roll up and start throwing his weight around only to ship back out without a goddamned word, Sam, you got the boys' hopes up this time you'd be hanging around and I could kill you for that, forget the boat until he feels like he's drowning under it. "Sarah! Look. You're right. You're right, and I'm sorry. I love you. No, just—I love you. You and the boys. Just... give me some time to finish this out then I'm back, I swear. For good. Yeah. Yeah, no—yeah. I said yeah, Sarah, I get it. I said I'll be back soon as possible, and I will. Yeah. Yeah. Love you too."
Sam stares down at his phone after Sarah's brusque goodbye. Better than just hanging up, but Delacroix is gonna be icy no matter the season next time he sees it.
"Sounds like she's pretty angry with you."
Stifling a yelp, Sam nearly flings his phone at the wall. Fumbling a little with it as it is, he glares at the still figure seated on his bed. "Anybody ever told you polite B&E means you gotta text me before you pick a lock?"
"Zemo gave me the key." A hint of an upturn plays around the edges of Bucky's mouth, bitter but better than nothing. "Gotta be less suspicious, Sam."
"Oh, hilarious. Yeah, that's my problem. Being too suspicious." Flopping down gracelessly next to Bucky feels like pushing some invisible boundary he's too busy to parse, but there's just the one bed and he's not stretching out on the floor, not after the night they've had. "Your room doesn't have a shower or something?" He nods at Bucky's still grungy clothes, focusing on keeping his eyes knee level or below like there's a gun to his head. "You can take mine now, if that's why you're in here. Man, next time just say something earlier. I took my time with it, but I could've stepped on the gas."
"I have one." Bucky's face twists before he goes back to unlined paper blank. "It's not that."
"Okay," Sam pulls the last syllable through his teeth like taffy, trying to figure out what the fuck that's suposed to be about. Maybe after sleep and coffee, he'd stand a chance at it, but now... "You didn't wanna wash off or anything?" Bucky just shrugs, closed down and entirely unhelpful. "All right, man, whatever. You want to marinate in your own funk, what am I gonna do about it?" That gets a reaction out of Bucky, but it's there and gone before Sam can figure out what it means. "Put your boots up on the 'spread if you're sticking around. Zemo's paying, may as well make it cost him a ruined bed."
"I think he can afford it."
"Yeah," Sam sighs. "And then some. I really hate that guy." Bucky's soft exhale of agreement is the last thing either of them say for the next few minutes, pained silence pooling and collecting and spilling over between them. Finally, Sam gives into the inevitable. "I feel like I gotta say something."
"I really wish you wouldn't." Bucky pushes to his feet in the space of a breath, crossing to the probably priceless antique this place is using as a bar cart to put himself a drink. "I was hoping we could pretend it didn't happen."
"Believe me, I feel that," Sam admits with difficulty. If one of them's gonna push this, it's on his shoulders. Doesn't mean he wants to do it. "But it's just... this is pretty fucked up. What just happened? What we did there—what I just did to you..."
"You didn't do anything to me," Bucky insists stubbornly.
"Uh, Buck?" Steeling himself not to turn a glance into something too revealing, Sam nods down at the intersection of Bucky's thighs and the world's biggest formerly-wet spot, so obvious now even the tac pants can't give him good cover. "Kinda did."
"It was for an op." Bucky blinks a little too fast and drains his glass in a quick swallow. Pouring himself another, he addresses the bottle, not Sam. "I gave you permission. I told you to do it."
"And I didn't say no." Sam sits up, frustration speeding up his breathing and turning it choppy. "You gonna look at me, or do I have to have a clusterfuck of a conversation like this with the top of your head?"
There's an edge so raw it bleeds on display in Bucky's face when he looks up. Sam pushes back a shudder and Bucky's spine stiffens in preparation. "Okay, Sam, you wanna talk about this with me? You really want that? Fine. You're right, you could have said no. To everything. All of it. Zemo wanted to be the guy. You put the brakes on that plan, not me. You volunteered to do it yourself. So why'd you do that, Sam?"
"Why'd you let me do it?" Sam's pulse slams against his throat, a frantic thud thud thud that tastes like defeat.
Bucky holds his gaze now and dares him to back down first. "Yeah, that's what I thought." Bucky says when Sam folds and stares down at the silk whorls covering the blanket draped over the bed, fading and repeating and fading again like waves. "You get back to me, I'll get back to you."
"Asshole." Taking a swing right now would be more trouble than catharsis. Doesn't change the itch in his fingers or the way his hand balls up to form a fist. "Go take a goddamn shower, for Chrissakes. Here, your room, I don't give a shit, just take a shower. And put on the pants Sharon gave you after." Feeling like ten kinds of asshole and just as unable to help himself, he gives Bucky's crotch another meaningful look. "Might wanna make it a long one. You smell like a frat house."
Bucky heads into the bathroom without a word. Pissed off and too keyed up to stay in the same room, even with a door between them, Sam heads to the cafe across the way so he can grab some coffee and try to cool down. When they meet back up to follow Zemo back to the plane his stomach is regretting the parting shots of bitter espresso and Bucky won't meet his eyes, but water still beads at the back of his neck, soaking through his collar.