Middle Ground I Bucky barnes & H.Zemo

1

Waking up from a nightmare was no news to Bucky, he was used to it, but that didn't mean he found it pleasant at all. His eyes were now wide open and slowly trying to get accustumed to the darkness of the room: he remembered that the bed was at this right, so he grasped a corner of the matress to get back on his feet. The sheets and the pillow were laying on the cold ground, all creased and sweaty: Bucky had acquired the habit of sleeping on the floor from a while and sadly it didn't seem like he was going to lose it anytime soon. Sam once told him about this conversation he had with Steve: they both agreed that as veterans sleeping on a fluffy bed was way harder than what they thought it would be, and Bucky agreed. He tried, but an uncomfortable sensation of his body being slowly swallowed would deprive him of his sleep every night. However, the black marble wasn't the most convenient place neither: he would maybe get a hour, two at best, of sleep, only to wake up from his usual nightmares all sweaty and with his heart beat pumping as if it was going to burst out of his chest. He rubbed his metal fingers against the back of his neck, feeling the little water drops sliding down his spine: knowing the night was now wasted, he decided to quickly put a t-shirt on his sticky body and quietly walk out of his room. Him, Sam and Zemo had accepted an entire floor of the building they were in as a temporary stay while they were in Madripoor, and as he was letting his glaze wonder over the entire salon he could notice how wealthy Sharon had gotten over the years. He didn't really allow himself to wonder how that happened, he didn't want to admit that the answer could have displeased both him and Sam. The room wasn't completely hidden in the dark: the windows weren't covered by the curtains and the lights of Madripoor's buildings mixed with the whiteness of the full moon highlited the surface of the precious furniture. Bucky was barefoot and as he stepped closer to the window he felt another cold shiver running through his weak body, he tried to ignore it while focusing on the sight in front of him. It was very late, perhaps four or five in the morning, yet the city was still quietly buzzing like a busy hive. It looked like a neon victorian slum, Bucky thought. You could spot some people on the street, almost everyone in Madripoor had a weapon on them when wandering around, you'd be a fool if you did anything less, the neon signs were still on even when the shops or bars that they belonged to had closed already and you could hear motorcycles passing by from time to time. Bucky tried to loosen up as the tension on his shoulder was growing in one of those ways he knew would lead to a panic attack, he closed his fists and tried to take deep breaths just like the therapist adviced him to do in such cases. But the therapist also told him to follow those specific three rules, and he was afraid he had just broken the most important one that day, after pretending to be the Winter Soldier. It was all an act, he knew that, or at least that's what he was desperately trying to tell to his irrational conscience, that was troubling him more than the usual that night. The events of the day were now coming back as waves of anxiety, as long as he was acting and punching his way out he had not find the time to think, but now that everything was quiet, he started to process all the things that happened in just few hours: he broke Zemo out of jail in the morning, then him and Sam proceeded to have an even more stressful flight on that ridicusly expensive jet only to arrive in Madripoor and being forced to put up a sadistic play and then escape with the help of a weirdly i-turned-bad version of Sharon Carter. Yes, it was way too much to handle, definitely too much. He disliked pretending to be the Winter Soldier, but he hated even more the fact that he had to follow orders given by Zemo, that man had a very punchable face, especially when he would test his patience with his salty comebacks. When he heard the command coming out of his mouth he had to comply knowing it served a bigger purpose to the mission, yet he couldn't help but doubt about his own will's strenght, that's why he tried to be as lucid as possible. Bucky was just staring at the lines on the palm of his right hand when he heard muffled footsteps coming from behind: his senses immediately put him on high alert and as he turned back to see Zemo, the feeling of danger didn't abandon his skin. The fact that the man was wearing a deep blue silk pajama didn't help the rage that was boiling in his veins, not only he had escaped from a prison, but he also managed somehow to call his butler to deliver him a bag full of fancy clothes. He didn't deserve to be this comfortable, to have these privileges, especially when he was having trouble with the smallest tasks. Baron my ass Bucky hissed in his mind, looking down the man in silence, waiting for him to say something, the muscles of his arms tense as the cord of a violin.