"...ne moy mal'chik! Pozhaluysta!"
Sam's body gives a small jerk as he re-enters the conscious realm.
With the wet dream still fresh in his memory he barely has time to curl his lips in disgust, squeeze his eyelids together to rid himself off the image of Zemo kneeling before him, and think: what the HELL is wrong with me?!before a bloodcurdling scream fills his ears and he jumps up, ready to deal with whatever threat has entered the bedroom.
The dim moonlight reveals nothing except Zemo's figure on the bed, twisting and turning, so Sam hits the switch on the wall behind him, engulfing the small room in the bright lights of the halogen bulbs mounted across the ceiling.
The Sokovian is laying on his side on the bed with his back arched as though high-voltage jolts are coursing through his body, fingers clutching the white satin sheets beneath him, his face twisted in a tortured grimace.
"Nein, nein! Bitte!"
"Hey, HEY!" Sam shouts at him, "…wake up!"
But Zemo doesn't respond, just keeps on squirming and writhing and hurling a combination of Russian and German words at whomever or whatever is haunting his dream.
With a few steps Sam closes the distance between them and grabs onto one of Zemo's upper arms, shaking it roughly.
"Wake the HELL UP!"
Zemo's eyes springs open, enlarged pupils floating around in utter bewilderment for just a split second, scanning the room and Sam's face without any sign of recognition before letting out a startled whimper and jerking so violently away from Sam's touch that he tumbles off the bed on the opposite side of him, hitting the floorboards with a loud and echoing bang!
From somewhere behind the bed and out of sight, Sam can hear Zemo letting out a groan which gives him hope that the fall might have helped to snap him out off his panicked state and that the drama is over, but then he spots Zemo's face emerging slowly from beyond the cover of the mattress; mouth gasping for air, his eyes huge and alarmed, staring right at Sam like an animal trapped for a spilt second before he lunges into the corner where he ends up in a crouching position, his back pressed up against the nightstand there.
Sam is about to say something, to try and calm Zemo down when the bedroom's doors spring open behind him.
Bucky is standing in the doorway wearing a what-in-da-fuck-look on his face, looking to Sam first getting a hell-if-I-know shrug in return then over at Zemo panting uncontrollably in the corner before rolling his eyes and his features twists into an annoyed expression instead, upper-lip curled and eyes slightly narrowed.
"What the HELLare you doing, Zemo?!" Bucky barks at the trembling man, "It's fuckin' three a.m.!"
Hearing his name, Zemo gasps once, eyes still wide with shock and confusion then a spark of realization flickers on inside them.
He wipes his forehead with the sleeve of his robe then lowers his head, trying to collect himself and get his breath back under control.
"Apologies…I-I…" he stutters and closes his eyes for a moment, his lips forming a thin line, "…I don't know what came over me."
With legs still trembling dangerously beneath his weight, he manages to lift himself up off the floor and stand up straight.
Looking down the length of his body, Zemo quickly adjusts the dark-blue robe that has fallen open during his tumble off the bed and revealed half of his chest.
He sniffs once then looks up at Bucky and Sam, meeting their inquiring gaze and trying his best to look dignified.
"It won't happen again."
"It better not!" Bucky growls, "I'm sick of your shit as it is. Don't add any extra - you got it!?"
Zemo blinks then nods his head once.
Looking to his partner, Sam shakes his head at him and his total lack off empathy but if Bucky is in any way marked by his condemnation he does not show it, just stares back at Sam all confident like.
What, huh? What? his blue eyes relays before he turns around and exits the bedroom, slamming the doors shut behind him.
Sam lets his eyes wander back to Zemo whose gaze is now fixed on the floor, his usual arrogant demeanor gone, looking more broken then he ever did stoic.
All Sam really wants to do is forget about the whole incident and go back to sleep, leave Zemo to straighten his own shit out, but given the extreme reaction the Sokovian had to his nightmare, the ruckus it caused plus the fact that Zemo right this instant is looking like an abandoned puppy that has been kicked for the first time, it just feels wrong to Sam to not at least try to address what happened even if that means he has to chat up a murderer, capable of shooting a man point blank in the chest and then go about his day like it's no big deal.
"What happened?" Sam doesn't want to push Zemo away so he's careful not to make his voice sound too empathic. The baron does not strike him as the kind of person who would take well to that.
Zemo blinks a couple of times before slowly lowering himself down to sit on the edge of the bed with his back to Sam, commencing a long and painful silence.
"Ultron happened…" Zemo finally states just as Sam thinks he's not going to answer him at all.
He is staring out the window again and Sam can hear the soul-crushing agony in his voice as he reminisces about his past,
"…Novi Grad, and then…the Avengers."
Zemo lets out a small loathsome snort before continuing.
"After that, the world burned bright and then collapsed, innocent lives turned to dust, my father, my wife…*my son*…and I…"
He looks back over his shoulder with something dark and dangerous flashing in his eyes, "…was never the same."
"Zemo…" Sam says as softly as he can without sounding condescending. He knows that the subject of his deceased relatives is as dangerous as it gets with Zemo, but Sam can't back down now.
That would to Zemo (at least) probably come off as though Sam, an Avenger, was accepting part of the blame in his family's demise (a blame that shouldn't have been put on the team in the first place) and that he wants to shut the conversation down to avoid further loss of face.
"The Avengers did what they thought was the right thing to do. Your family was…"
"Collateral damage? Spilled milk? Is that what you were going to call it?" Zemo's voice is calm yet there is definitely a hardness to it - maybe even anger.
Sam goes quiet for a while considering his approach carefully then proceeds to walk around the bed before coming to a halt next to Zemo.
"I was going to call them victims, Zemo…victims of a war that Ultron started. Sometimes there is no real choice to be ma…"
Zemo turns his head and stares up at him with glossy eyes burning, conveying a searing hatred that gives Sam pause.
"Spoken like a true Avenger, Sam…how not to take responsibility for anything!"
Zemo sniffs, then breaks eye-contact as the tears in his eyes threatens to spill,
"All you ever do is destroy and then leave as the dust settles behind you. Then you get a medal and a fancy parade, letting the rest of the world know what brave men and women you are, what good you do those poor war torn countries you lay waste to, how grateful we should all be that you graced us with your presence."
Sam rubs his temple and exhales loudly. He really is too tired to get into this kind of argument with Zemo but then…he did initiate it by asking into Zemo's hurt state of mind when he should have known it would probably end up with Zemo blaming and resenting him no matter what he did or said.
It just seems to late to abandon it all now almost as if he's running away from an uncomfortable truth or something and because he did engage Zemo first, Sam decides he's going to try to follow their conversation through to the end, hoping to salvage at least some of the wreckage that is Zemo's broken mind.
Zemo's eyes follows Sam as he sits down on the bed next to him, close but not close enough for it to be weird.
"Listen…the Avengers are not a perfect group of people – no way near in fact, and we never claimed we were. We make mistakes just like everyone else. What happened in Sokovia was the result of Ultron first and secondly the Avengers not being perfect, but you've got to realize, Zemo, that we have a duty to save lives, to keep the planet save…"
"For the greater good…oh, I see." Zemo's voice is cold and dripping with venom and sarcasm as he interrupts him, "Kill some, save others. Please tell me, Sam: how does the Avengers decide who dies and who doesn't? A game of Uno, perhaps? Or at the roll of a dice?"
"I know you hurt, Zemo, and for that I am sorry – I really am…"
Hesitantly, Sam places a hand on Zemo's tense shoulder which to his surprise the Sokovian lets him do without hardly even flinching,
"…but you have to ask yourself: what good will all that vengeance you're consumed with ever do you - even if you manage to get your revenge on the people you think wronged you? How many more men and women with dead family members, just like yourself, are you willing to create in the process? How many children should loose their mothers and fathers because you let your hatred cloud your judgement?"
"I…it's different. My vision and what I have done to implement it in the past..."
Zemo's eyes flickers towards the window again, "…is verydifferent."
"Is it, though?" Sam's knits his brows together in a skeptical looking mien, "Come on, Zemo…you're doing what you think is right - and people are killed as a consequence. That is exactly what the Avengers did at Novi Grad only they did save countless lives while doing it…"
Sam halts and thinks hard for a second about his next sentence.
It is rough and potentially a point of no return as far as their argument and maybe even the civility between them goes but he feels that Zemo should at least hear it and think about it.
"How many lives have you saved?"
At that Zemo whips his head towards Sam and sends him a hostile stare then tilts his head towards Sam's hand resting on his shoulder, telling him wordlessly to remove it which Sam then does quickly.
"I'm not a hypocrite! I never claimed that I was good…and the lives I have taken were hardly innocent ones." Zemo's voice is cold, "Means to an end - just as I am to you and Barnes."
"Zemo…"
Sam can feel the anger of Zemo's warped worldview and twisted ideology welling up inside him. People like him is everything he has spend his life fighting against, murderers and fanatics who always seem to find a way to justify their crimes, excusing themselves with the world being broken or just different than they prefer it to be when really it is mostly about their own frail ego rather than an actual desire to change anything for the betterment of other people.
"…if only you could hear yourself…"
"So you're saying you're not just using me to get to Karli? Phew…what a relief."
Sam closes his eyes and exhales loudly once again, deciding that he's had enough.
This conversation is going nowhere – nowhere good that is.
Zemo might with time, resources and a whole lot of patience be redeemable to a certain extent, but right now none of those things are at his disposal and especially time is a luxury Sam knows they do not have.
Karli Morgenthau must be stopped before she expands her army further and the threat of the super soldiers goes rampant. And they need all hands on deck – including Zemo's - for whatever is coming next.
"First off, don't act like you don't have a share in this! You do! And second of all: I'm going back to bed as are you, but before we do, Zemo, I need you to tell me whether or not we can trust you to help us find Karli! If not, we'll make arrangements to fly your ass back to Germany in the morning…is that what you want!?"
Zemo snorts bitterly and leans closer to Sam's face, his eyes now narrowed in resentful slits.
"Don't insult me, Wilson. You need me! You are…" and of course he does that fuckin' head tilt thing that makes Sam want to punch him right in his face, "...desperate, aren't you? And letting it show, tsk, tsk."
A flush of heat makes Sam's face prickle.
Zemo and his arrogant, provocative attitude is just begging for an ass-whuppin', and right now Sam wants to indulge him so damn bad, only when he sizes Zemo up he sees not a physical match in any way, shape or form, just a slim and hollow-eyed man that he outweighs by a good twenty pounds or so; a man that probably wouldn't last more than ten seconds if they ever got down to fighting for real.
Zemo might have been a soldier once, but being locked up for years has clearly taken a toll on his body, left him drained off much of the muscle mass and robustness that usually comes with a job like that and it just wouldn't be right or even remotely fair to fight him – even if he deserves to be set straight with a smack across the face.
So instead, Sam does the only thing he can think off doing in that moment which is to go there - a place of threats and what ifs; a place he hates and despises and feels is deeply beneath him but where Zemo and his provocations right this moment is forcing him to go in lieu of a more hard-hitting argument.
So he leans in and places his face inches away from Zemo's, relaying to the Sokovian that he will not be the one backing down from this particular staring contest.
"We may be desperate, Zemo, but maybe you should be too! You're a wanted man on several continents and what exactly is to stop us from dropping you off on the worst one? One where a German maximum security cell will feel like pure heaven in comparison?"
"So sinister…what an ill-fitting look on you, Sam."
Zemo smirks, relaying a self-assuredness that once again makes Sam want to smack him, "I'm invaluable – and you know it."
"You're only invaluable if you provide us with something we need and can't get elsewhere - that is how that works! You went along with this mission, knowing full well what we wanted from the very beginning. Don't fuck us over or there will be consequences, you hear?"
He scans the Sokovian's eyes for any sign of understanding only to find steadfast defiance instead and it makes him snap:
"TELL ME YOU UNDERSTAND THAT, ZEMO!"
The raised voice makes Zemo blink once then bow his head in an apparent display of defeat, looking down at the very narrow space on the bed that separates their thighs from each others.
"Oh, I understand…" He says softly but there is a weird deceptive ring to his words that makes Sam's brows knit together in slight confusion, "…perhaps better than you think."
Then he looks up again, mischievous amber eyes meeting Sam's for less than a second, and before Sam can get a chance to suspect what it is his prisoner is about to do, Zemo leans in quickly and presses his lips against his.