Chapter Text
There were not many things Sam really regretted in his life, but the longer his most recent stay with Bucky and Zemo lasted, the bigger his regret grew for one certain thing. Over the last months he had watched the originally tentative relationship of his two friends grow into a seemingly deep love and genuine connection between the two so different souls. It had been him, who had given both of them the final push they had probably needed to admit their interest in each other and go from nemesis to frenemies to a tumble in the hay that finally turned into a partnership that had seemed to be something surprisingly beautiful to Sam - right up until he had accepted their invitation to stay with them at one of Zemo’s several, beautiful vacation homes in Europe.
The first week had been calm and Sam had enjoyed the relaxing time with the two of them. Zemo had artfully cooked traditional Sokovian dishes for dinner for them all while Bucky had surprised Sam by being an actual more-than-just-decent breakfast cook. The afternoons were spent with sightseeing, the evenings with good drinks and even better conversations on the balcony overlooking the city.
In the second week, Sam had started to see some signs, even if he hadn’t really connected the dots yet. There had been looks, sometimes, when Bucky was apparently not happy with something Zemo said. There had been touches, sometimes, that Zemo had tried (unsuccessfully) to avoid. There had been Zemo’s soft spoken voice, silenced by Bucky’s louder, more forceful grumbling. In hindsight, Sam should have seen the signs earlier and he would probably never quite forgive himself for being blinded by his friendship so much that he didn’t even recognize those early warnings. That the smaller man of the couple had had to endure this treatment from his partner right under Sam’s eyes.
At the time, he had just laughed it off, excused Bucky’s occasional anger or outbursts as a simple continuation of their previous love/hate relationship they had cultivated between them long before they had become a couple, back when Bucky had broken Zemo out of prison and the two had been forced to work together to achieve their common goal while being weary of each other’s presence. Of course deep down Sam had always known it wasn’t healthy to talk to your partner like that, to be harsh like that, to talk down to someone like that, to put your hands on them like that, yet he had closed his eyes because he hadn’t wanted to see the truth, to admit to himself what would have to be the end of his friendship with Bucky as well.
And still he had started to look a little closer and it wasn’t until then that he began to see the bruises on Zemo. Sure, there always seemed to be a viable explanation - a rough sparring session, a bad nightmare, accidentally walking into a chair - but Sam wasn’t convinced. It was the evasiveness in Zemo’s eyes whenever he answered that made Sam want to ask even more. And one day, when Zemo sported a slight limp in the morning when he made his way to the breakfast table, Sam decided that he had to investigate further, no matter what the outcome would be.
That same day, while Bucky had been out on his daily run, he had cornered the Sokovian, asked about the bruises, why he seemed to be hurt so often, and tried to impress with knowing eyes that Zemo wasn’t alone, that Sam would be on his side no matter what. He had told him as much, offered an open ear to whatever it was Zemo wanted to talk about, assured him he would always believe him, that Zemo could come to him even if Bucky was Sam’s friend. Because Sam wanted to be there for the man who probably had no one else in his corner, if it came down to it.
But Zemo had stoically kept up with his stories of how he got the bruises, assured Sam with a brittle smile on his lips that he was fine, there was nothing he needed protection from.
Thank you, Samuel, I really appreciate your offer but I assure you, I am perfectly okay. Please just let it go, there is nothing to worry about!
The conversation had left a bad taste in Sam’s mouth. Yet it wasn’t until that evening, until he accidentally (not so accidentally if he was being truthful, because Sam had quietly sneaked down the floor to Bucky and Zemo’s shared bedroom to eavesdrop on their conversation) overheard them talking about the situation at hand, heard Zemo tell Bucky about his conversation with Sam, about his endless inquiries, about the insinuations Sam had made, how he had offered to protect him if Zemo needed protection from anyone. What had followed Zemo’s admission to Bucky had made the blood freeze in Sam’s veins.
“Guess I’ll just have to be more careful about where I leave marks on you from now on out, doll, don’t I?”, Bucky had chuckled and even through the closed door Sam had heard the malice in those words.
“You know, if you weren’t just always begging for me to bruise you up, we wouldn’t be in this dilemma right now.” There was a darkness to his tone that reminded Sam far too much of the Winter Soldier.
There had been no real answer from Zemo, only a gasp. A whimper. “P-please, James…”
A slapping sound. “You are mine , doll, nothing will change that!”
The frantic sound of bodies colliding, heavy breathing, Zemo’s voice shaking with something. Fear? “I will just tell him I fell, whatever I have to, James!”
Heavy breathing, sounds of kissing.
“Mh, doll, why don’t you kneel and show me why I keep up with all the trouble you seem to be causing me with my friend, again?”
At that, Sam had stumbled back from the door and hurried away, back down the corridor to his room, unable to listen any longer, unable to listen to what sounded a whole lot like his friend making his partner give him a blowjob.
It was then that all the little details, the collected bits of information, fell together into one grand image and Sam felt sick to the stomach when he realized what he had tried to deny all those days and weeks, when he realized what he had closed his eyes against, what he had allowed to grow and continue right under his nose: Bucky was abusing Zemo. Physical, verbal and sexual abuse. There was no way around it, there was no other explanation for all the signs he had seen, for all the little implications. His friend was an abuser and Sam had been an enabler for far too long. This had to stop.
So Sam started investigating, listening carefully on conversations that weren’t meant for his ears, watching more closely, to pick up on even the smallest signs. He knew, if Bucky really was abusing Zemo, if Bucky really was the bad guy, he wouldn’t just let Zemo go. Gods, Sam had met too many abusive assholes in his lifetime, had worked with too many survivors of horrible relationships, to know how those perpetrators operated, how they thought they owned their chosen victim.
That’s how he knew, he couldn’t just rush in without a plan. He needed to collect evidence against his friend, as much as it pained him to do so. However, standing by and just letting Zemo be collateral damage to Bucky’s dark side, Sam couldn’t let that happen. Not even the Sokovian criminal deserved that. When he thought about it, it even made some sort of sense, in a sad kind of way, how the brainwashed assassin, that had been abused and used for most part of his life, would become an abuser himself, the second he held power over someone else. And yeah, maybe that was just Sam’s head trying to make up excuses for his friend (even though there were none for this sort of behaviour, ever), but Bucky probably didn’t even know any better, probably didn’t even know how to lead an equal, healthy relationship. But Zemo had become a valid member of their little team over the last years, had proven himself, had earned his parole, and after everything that the baron had been through in his love life (what with is wife and only son being killed), he certainly didn’t deserve to end up in an abusive relationship with a fucking supersoldier, with no physical means to defend himself against . Not to mention the bitter irony of that scenario, that the man who hated the whole concept of enhanced humans would find abuse at the hand of one.
Sam reserved himself to collection clues, to not rush into anything, because that would only make it worse for Zemo.
The next days and weeks were silent, Sam only observing happy and sappy scenes between the couple, but he stayed suspicious. He knew enough of abusers to know that their danger lied in the fact they weren’t exclusively horrible. No, Sam knew the cycle after all, abuse followed by love bombing and inevitably followed by yet again more abuse.
And sadly he knew the dynamic Zemo and Bucky had had before they had gotten together. Sam couldn’t help but feel guilty for bringing them together. He had known, after all, what an explosive mix the two of them could present. He had just thought that they had both long left those days behind. Days when Zemo would provoke and manipulate and push Bucky’s buttons on purpose and the days when Bucky would get frustrated and fed up with the criminal until using brute force to shut him up. But those bruises Sam had seen by accident around Zemo’s neck some weeks ago, they looked exactly like Bucky’s left hand, as if he had used his metal arm to restrain and choke and hurt the other man. A man he supposedly loved. Sam couldn’t and wouldn’t stand for this.
It was an inconspicuous evening, everything had been calm on the couple’s front for the last couple of days and Sam’s stay was slowly coming to an end. As much as he liked getting away from the noise and stress of being on duty, he would have to fly back to America at the end of the week. And while part of him tried to tell himself that he had surely only imagined the bad sign between the couple, deep down the bad feeling kept nagging, even if there had been no further incidents lately.
They had come home from an evening out, eating nice food in a small restaurant in some tiny street downtown. It was late already, they had shared a fun evening, laughing a lot and reminiscing in old times and glorious battles. Back at home, the couple had quickly retired to their shared bedroom and Sam had done the same.
It had been a gut feeling, compelling him to sneak down the corridor once more and take up position in front of the couple’s bedroom door. He had felt horrible to invade their privacy once more and half feared that Bucky’s superhearing surely would notice his silent steps coming closer and closer, but now that he was staying here in the dark, listening in on the conversation that wasn’t meant for his ears made the blood freeze once more in his veins. What he heard was disgusting and Sam was so disappointed in his friend and in his own sense of people, because if someone would have told him months ago that Bucky was able to utter things like that to the man he proclaimed to love, he would have laughed right in their face. Now, though, he couldn’t deny what he was hearing.
The voices were slightly muffled by the door separating them, yet Sam could understand parts of it well enough.
“ Look at you, the oh so high and mighty Baron Zemo, at the mercy of a supersoldier … isn’t fate a funny thing, little baron? That after all the work you did to destroy them, in the end you always end up begging for my mercy?”
Bucky’s voice sounded malicious and Sam could only imagine how scared Zemo had to be in that moment, how hopeless he must feel. He didn’t understand the Baron’s reply, it was too silent, but what he could overhear over the next minutes was the sound of slapping, of pitiful pleading, of painful crying.
“ Look at you, sucking like a champ. Want some of this supersoldier dick to split you open, Baron?”
Sam felt sick to his stomach when he heard Bucky speak again. Then, he could hear Zemo’s pitiful whimpering.
“ No, p-please, please j-just u-use my m-mouth, please…”
Slap.
“ You’re not the one calling the shots here. Get on the bed, hands and knees.”
Bucky’s voice didn’t seem to brook room for argument and Zemo seemed to think the same, because he could hear careful shuffling on the bed.
Then more whimpering, crying, and pleading from the smaller man.
“ P-please, there is l-lube in the nightstand…”
Sam was frozen. Shocked. His heart beat so loudly in his chest he was sure Bucky’s enhanced hearing had to be able to hear it through the wall. He couldn’t believe what was going on in the other room, what he was apparently witnessing right now. How corrupted Bucky’s mind apparently still truly was that he would do this to the man he claimed to love.
Sam felt bile rising up his throat. Despite knowing the obvious, despite knowing what was about to happen inside the room, behind that godforsaken door, he simply was unable to move.
“ What would Sam say if he could see you now, Baron, think he would be disgusted by you? Maybe next time I’ll get him here, pretty sure he would like to peg you down a notch or two as well, slap you around good for all the times you just grate his nerves in the field… He would probably laugh his ass off, seeing the oh so mighty Baron being reduced to this.”
Suddenly, the life flooded back in Sam’s veins.
That was the last straw. He was startled out of his stupor and sprung into action. Sam would not stand by silently while his person was used as an accomplice in another man’s vile ploy to suppress his lover.
Without taking the time to think, he just moved on his own, no longer being able to tolerate the thought of Zemo - defenseless, hurting, human Zemo, being subjugated to this vile treatment by Bucky. He hurried back downstairs to get his gun out of the safe. That didn’t even take thirty seconds, before he was back, right in front of the door behind which he could still hear the muffled commotion. He didn’t even bother trying the door handle - surely Bucky would have locked it as a precaution - and just kicked with all his might to rip the lock out of its socket. Wood splintering, the door burst open. He realized he had clicked the safety off of the gun and it almost automatically found its target once inside the room, immediately trained on a wide-eyed Bucky who hurried to pull his dick out of Zemo.
“Step away. No quick moves.” Sam ordered with a calmness he didn’t feel. The whole room was coming down on him, yet he was hyperfocused on the supersoldier he aimed his weapon on.
“What the… Sam, calm down, what’s going on?”, Bucky hurriedly covered his lover’s exposed body with a blanket - or was he just trying to cover up the bruises and evidence of abuse he had left there? Sam had seen the fresh bruises and red welts on Zemo’s pale skin.
“I said, step the fuck way from him. Now.”
Bucky raised his arms in surrender. “Alright, jeez, let us just put on some clothes and we can all explain the situ- Aaah!”
The deafening sound of a bullet being fired in close confinement interrupted Bucky’s speech and hallowed in the room. Next to Bucky’s painful breathing, Zemo squeaked in a high pitched note. The Baron instinctively pressed his hand against the bleeding wound in Bucky’s leg and cursed in Sokovian under his breath.
“What the fuck man, you shot me?!” Bucky still had the audacity to sound accusing.
Sam was out of patience now. He was too tired for this.
“And I will again. Step the fuck away or I will empty this whole magazine into you and I might not aim for your leg next time, because I’m half inclined to make sure you can never force yourself on someone else ever again, you fucking piece of shit. So get over here, on your knees, hands interlocked behind your head right the fuck now.”
It took a couple more seconds of Bucky just staring at him, mouth slack, eyes wide open - as if only now he understood the situation he had been caught in. As if only now he realized the seriousness of the situation. He slowly raised his hands. “Alright Sam, I’m getting up now. This is all just a misunderstanding.”
Stark naked - erection long gone - Bucky stood up from his position on the bed and slowly walked over to the spot indicated by Sam, blood gushing out of the open gunshot wound in his left thigh, but the Winter Soldier would have never been caught squirming at a little flesh wound and neither did Bucky.
Sam’s gun was constantly trained at the lower mid-section of Bucky’s body. Logically, all of them knew that Sam could never take Bucky in a fight, gun or not, if the enhanced soldier didn’t allow him to, yet Sam didn’t care at all about the potential risk to his own person. All he wanted in this moment was to get his friend away from the other man.
When he had slowly knelt down, Bucky half turned back around, to hash a look at Zemo who had since regained his posture as well and was looking for his robe to put some clothes on. “Helms? You okay, doll?”
Sam had half a mind to just shoot his dick off right then and there for good measure.
Before Zemo could react to the question addressed to him, Sam snarled: “ Don’t. Fucking talk to him. Eyes on me, soldier.”
It was Zemo who spoke next, now clad in one of his morning robes, he had a serious expression on his face and his hands purposefully in front of himself, as if to calm Sam down, like one would a rabid animal.
“Samuel, please, there is no need for violence. I can understand what this must look like, but I can assure you, I am perfectly fine. Nothing James has done was against my explicit wishes. Why don’t you let us get dressed, I’ll make some tea and I guess then we can try and explain to you in what I’m sure will be a rather scarring conversation for all of us.”
The words only slowly registered in Sam’s brain. He knew abuse survivors would defend their perpetrators if they had to, the human psyche sometimes was funny like that. Yet Zemo looked serious, unhurt, well almost.
“I’m not letting him out of my sight.”, was all that Sam was able to respond. His brain was working overtime, trying to process what had happened in the last couple of minutes and trying to find a way out, a way to resolve this.
“I could… go and get some of those enhanced handcuffs, if you wish. James can put them on during our conversation. Would that make you more comfortable, Sam?”
It somehow felt strange how collected Zemo appeared, how calm his voice sounded and how unaffected he seemed by this whole happening. Bucky was looking a little confused, but Zemo was the epitome of calmness. It was moments like this that Sam was reminded the smaller man had not been leader of the Scorpions for nothing.
“Okay.”, Sam said slowly, agreeing that the cuffs would probably be a good idea to put on before their talk.
“Are you okay to get them, Zemo? I’m not letting this asshole alone in here.”
“Sure, I’ll get them. But please don’t shoot James while I’m gone, hm? I am quite fond of him still.”
Sam felt strange how suddenly Zemo seemed to be the one in control of this situation. How it was rather Sam who needed guidance and comfort instead of the Sokovian.
“Helms, come on, are the cuffs really necessary? Just tell him this isn’t what he thinks…”, Bucky sounded almost whining and Sam slit his eyes once more, taking fresh aim of Bucky’s only barely covered private part. Before he could reply though, Zemo spoke:
“Hush, darling, I will take them off again when Samuel is satisfied that you are not taking advantage of me, promise.”
And with that he was out of the room, leaving Sam and Bucky in dead silence, staring at each other, while Zemo went off to the tactical room to get the cuffs.