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Bucky was shaking by the time he finally stood. He could’ve stood up earlier, but the movement would’ve been rushed, full of emotion, exactly what Zemo wanted. Instead, he sat there, bearing it, letting the smell of the tea swirl all around him. There was nothing he could do to stop it, a lovely thought that triggered so many wonderful memories, so he sat and waited. He tried to do some of the breathing exercises that his therapist taught him, but he hated her, and hated taking her advice. He was pretty sure he had a panic attack, sitting catatonic while memories and emotions overwhelmed him, but he held so still that no one noticed. Finally, exhausted, he stood. His hands shook at his sides, his legs were unstable as he walked over to Sam, and he moved completely on autopilot as he knelt, clasped his hands behind his back, and dropped his head towards his chest.
For a while, all he could hear was a faint ringing. The ringing turned into buzzing, the buzzing turned into static, and the static turned into voices. He recognized Sam's first, concerned but trying to hide it.
“Should we call someone?” He asked. It felt like such a Sam thing to ask that he nearly laughed. He felt hysterical and volatile at the same time.
“Who exactly would we call? The police? The government?” Zemo’s voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard, like teeth grinding together, like electricity coursing through his skull. He flinched at the sound, despite his best efforts to keep it together.
“I just-. You’re sure we just sit here?” Sam sounded so defeated, so stressed. Bucky didn’t blame him, he’d be in pieces if their roles were reversed.
“Look.”
Look at him was implied, and Bucky shifted uncomfortably at the realization.
“See? He’s coming out of it. What did I tell you?”
“He’s been kneeling for ten minutes, a little movement could be sore knees.” Sam argued. He made a lot of jokes about Bucky’s knees, mostly about them going bad with age. The fact that he could even remember that was a good sign, he really was coming out of it.
“Get rid of him before I do.” Bucky growled. If he was slightly more coherent, he would’ve been startled by his own tone. He was mostly just proud of himself for managing speech at all. There was talking, then yelling, and then Sam stood up, which he hated, but he sat back down moments later.
“He’s gone, it’s okay.” He soothed, using what Bucky always called his “therapist voice” now. He’d always hated that voice, but in that moment, he’d never heard anything so comforting. He managed a deep yet shaky breath, nodding to let Sam know he understood what was being said.
“What do you need, Buck? How can I help?” Sam asked. He’d sat back exactly where he’d been before he stood, legs slightly apart to accommodate the man kneeling in front of him.
“Touch me.” Bucky whispered, shutting his eyes. He’d yet to lift his head, so he wasn’t sure if Sam could see his eyes or not. For a moment, he wasn’t sure if Sam had heard him either, he’d spoken pretty softly, but then Sam shifted forward, hesitated, and placed a hand on his shoulder. It was gentle, but the pressure was firm.
“Like that?” He asked. Bucky nodded, relaxing a little under the touch. His handler had always run her fingers through his hair when he knelt like this, and it was fucking heaven when she scratched lightly at his scalp, but it was probably for the best that Sam wasn’t doing that. He didn’t want to slip, not now, not after he’d spent the last hour fighting hard to stay with it.
“There you go, relax.” Sam encouraged, and he realized he’d let his arms drop, unclasped his hands and shifted forward some. His shoulders ached, but it wouldn’t hurt for long. The serum cleared up sore muscles quickly, unless he’d really messed something up. Bucky straightened a bit, not looking at Sam quite yet, and tilted his head from side to side slowly, stretching.
“Feeling better?” Sam asked, the hand on his shoulder retreating and instead being offered to help him up.
“No, feel like shit.” He took it, managing not to stumble as his numb legs took his weight. How long was he down there?
“Sounds about right. What was that?” Sam asked, looking him over. Bucky was at a loss for words. The smell of the tea wasn’t affecting him right now, perhaps he was used to it, but he took the kettle and poured it out anyway. The cup Zemo had been drinking from met a similar fate shortly after. He rinsed both vessels for good measure, but the wafting scent wasn’t making his head spin anymore.
“Was it the tea?” Sam sounded almost skeptical, surely wondering how something so small could cause a reaction like that.
“Just the smell of it…” Bucky shivered without meaning to. He watched gratefully as Sam cracked a window, encouraging the rest of the scent to leave.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Sam asked, sitting back down on the couch, looking at the table where the teapot had rested.
“He did it on purpose, he’s read the book, I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.” Bucky cursed himself for not noticing sooner. The champagne was probably intended to have the same effect, but he’d broken himself of that trigger ages ago. Sam was quiet, and probably had no idea what the fuck he was talking about, but that was okay. Bucky held still again, urging his body to remain under his control. Finally, he crossed the room and sat beside Sam on the couch. It was closer than he usually sat, but he needed the support right now.
“They used that tea in some of my conditioning, not the fun parts either. I mean, none of it was fun, but some of it was way less fun than other parts.” Bucky sighed, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “They had a lot of success with it, so I’m sure it was noted in my-. In the book.” He tried not to think of it as his book, but clearly he hadn’t quite managed that. Sam nodded beside him, he couldn’t see it, but could feel the movement.
“Should we kill him?”
Bucky laughed, a sharp sound, only to glance up at Sam and see that he was completely serious.
“I want to, I really do, but we need him.” Another sigh, he sighed a lot in the aftermath of these freak-outs. “I’m okay, really. I just need a minute.”
“Well I’d offer you tea, but that seems like a bad idea.” Sam was half joking and half thinking aloud, he knew. He often made himself tea when he was trying to calm back down. The heat grounded him and the smell calmed him, but he made chamomile tea and not whatever the hell Zemo had found.
“Yeah, probably for the best.” He said, lifting his head and leaning back against the couch instead. Sam was looking at him, he’d probably been looking at him the whole time. They both started speaking again at the same time, and Sam motioned for him to go first.
“What did he say, while I was down?” Bucky asked. “I heard you two talking but I only caught the end.”
“He said you would stand back up eventually, and we just had to wait it out. He’s an asshole, Bucky. I kept asking if he was sure, and he kept saying yes. Should I have done something different, touched you sooner? Would that have been okay?” Sam asked, turning towards him.
“You did fine, Sam. I-. I wouldn’t have hurt you, but I might’ve hurt someone else, had they touched me.” Bucky explained.
“I wasn’t worried about you hurting me, Buck, I was worried I’d make it worse.” Sam sighed, long and frustrated, probably with himself.
“I don’t know if anything would’ve helped or not. I couldn’t hear you, not until I started moving. If you touched me, I didn’t feel it.”
Sam shook his head, indicating he hadn’t.
“She used to stroke my hair, but I’m not sure if that would’ve helped or just sent me down deeper.” Bucky looked at Sam hopelessly and found him nodding.
“Who?” He asked, sounding as casual as if he’d asked what the weather was like today. Maybe he hadn’t thought about it, just said it.
“My handler. One of them, at least. I had a lot over the years.” Bucky paused, studying him. “I’m not sure how much they told you about that, about me, and Hydra.”
“Well, I know they gave you a metal arm, obviously.”
That made him smile, at least a little.
“I know they hurt you; badly, but I don’t know any details. I know you were brainwashed, they used words to make sure you stayed that way, and Shuri made sure the words don’t work anymore. I know your memory isn’t the best, and I know you didn’t deserve any of it, but that’s all.” Sam explained.
“Right…” It was up to him how much Sam knew, then. That wasn’t a choice he got to make often, most people had read about him, probably knew more than he did about his time with Hydra. “There was a person who said the words, a handler. They were the only ones allowed to give me missions, and I only took orders from them, unless they told me otherwise. There had to be a hierarchy, a safety pin to keep low level guards from messing up the programming. The handler was that pin.” He took a breath, not to calm himself as much as to buy him time to decide what to say. “They also… They did maintenance. Gave me food, fixed my arm, took me to and from my cell, that sort of stuff. They worked directly with me when Hydra was trying out new commands, new ideas, new tortures.” It was getting to him now, at least a little. He tried not to think about his past, not when it popped up all around him at the slightest reminder, even chasing him into his dreams. Bucky tried to steal back every second he could between flashbacks. Sam placed a cautious hand on his back, right between his shoulder blades. When he didn’t react, that hand started drifting over his shoulders, rubbing circles slowly. It was soothing.
“One of them trained me to do what I just did with you. If I was confused, scared, didn’t understand what I was supposed to be doing, was given an order I couldn’t comply with, anything like that, I was to approach her, kneel, clasp my hands, and look at the floor. She would sort out whatever it was that made me do that, then she’d let me stay down there until I was ready to stand back up. Most of the time.” He could remember a number of times when she didn’t let him stay down. He remembered being hit, maybe by her, maybe not. He remembered water drenching him, hands dragging him up, then throwing him back to the floor. Sam’s hand pressed into his back hard, almost painful, drawing him back to the present.
“You okay?” He asked, resuming the comforting backrub from before. Bucky nodded. He wasn’t, but he nodded.
“Sometimes she stroked my hair while I was kneeling, if I’d been particularly compliant recently. No one touched me like that, gently… No one but her. She’s the only one I’ve ever missed.” He knew it was kind of fucked up to miss the person who’d tortured you, but outside of Sam rubbing his back literally right now, Bucky hadn’t been touched so softly since she died. He missed that sort of contact, craved it.
“What happened to her?” Sam asked, as if sensing his thoughts.
“They shot her, clean through the head.” He’d watched her body crumple to the ground. She’d fallen in a heap, which had bothered him. It was so unlike her, she was always collected and refined. She would never lay in such an undignified position, even dead. He’d moved her, laid her on her back, fixed her hair even though it was soaked with blood, folded her hands over her stomach, swollen as it was. They’d let him do it, even though he knew they’d toss her in a body bag the second they took him away. He had to fix it.
“Why?” The idea of them killing her seemed to bother Sam, like he hadn’t realized they killed their own agents until now.
“She was pregnant. It was a big deal, but I’m not sure why.” He paused, then clarified. “It wasn’t with me, she never-.” He paused. Bucky really didn’t want to get into all that, not with Sam. “I’m not sure who the father was. Maybe that’s what made it a big deal.”
Sam nodded, blinking hard and seeming to come back to himself. He slid an arm around Bucky, pulling him into his side. It was the most contact he’d had since his final hug with Steve. It was nice.
“Did you get confused, then?” Sam asked, and it took him a minute to figure out what he meant. He was wondering why Bucky knelt in front of him, right. That’s what they’d been talking about.
“No, I-. I wanted to throw the pot of tea, but I knew Zemo wanted me to lash out. It was the only other thing I could think to do, once I could move.”
Sam squeezed him lightly. He let his head drop onto Sam’s shoulder, shifting to get more comfortable there. He wanted to stay like this forever.
“I’m sorry, Bucky.” Sam sounded like he wanted to say more.
“Thanks.” Bucky wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault.
“Thanks for trusting me. I know you don’t like to talk about it.” Sam gave him a little squeeze, pulling him just that much closer.
“Thanks for not reading my file.” He whispered. He hadn’t meant to whisper, but he found himself overcome with emotion when he thought about that. Sam had actively avoided that information, had made the decision not to know it, not unless Bucky wanted him to.
“Yeah, well, it didn’t seem right. Damn thing was massive, too. You’d be hard pressed to get anyone to read all of that.”
That made him laugh, just for a moment. Decades worth of information, how detailed was it?
“Zemo would, if he hasn’t already.” Bucky sighed.
“Don’t worry about him, we’ll deal with him when we can.” Sam assured him. “You can say something if he’s triggering you, you know. I can try to help.”
He nodded. He wasn’t sure how much good it would do, he’d never been able to stop a flashback once he felt it coming on, but he nodded.
“Thanks, Sam.” Maybe he’d try anyway, if only to make Sam feel better. Maybe they’d get lucky and it would help.
“Anytime.”