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The corridors smelled of mildew and rusted iron, stripped walls sweating faint dampness. The Hydra insignia had long since been scraped away, but Zemo still saw the outline in the plaster, ghost-shapes that clung no matter how many years passed.
James moved ahead of him, weapon raised, knife already tucked at the small of his back. His boots barely made sound on the concrete. Zemo tracked the line of his shoulders, the taut readiness in every shift of muscle. Efficiency had become its own intimacy between them
The comm in Zemo’s ear hissed with Yelena’s voice, sharp with amusement. “East wing clear.” Walker’s reply followed, grating, too loud. The others were out there, sweeping their share of the ruin. Zemo tuned them out again, their chatter only background noise. The rhythm he trusted was here, the one he had built with James.
“Left,” Zemo murmured as they reached the junction.
James didn’t glance back, but his chin dipped in acknowledgement. He took the angle low, knife ready just in case, although there hadn’t been any signs of life so far. Zemo covered the opposite side with his pistol, his body aligned to James without thought. The sweep came up clean as expected.
“Empty.” James slid the knife away and kept moving.
They didn’t speak often on missions. There was no need. Still, Zemo found himself watching the line of James’ jaw when the light flickered overhead, sharp planes cut against shadow. Or the beginning shimmers of gray along his temples, more obvious when his hair was tied back. Married over a year now, yet Zemo still had the urge to catalogue these small details as if they could be lost.
Soon enough, they came to a sealed door. Heavy, reinforced, faint Hydra script stenciled along the rust. Zemo brushed gloved fingers over it. “This one.”
James leaned beside him, scanning the frame. “Charges?”
“No need.” Zemo crouched, withdrawing the small tool kit he carried in his jacket. The lock gave with an old mechanical click.
The smell hit first— dust and chemical residue, air untouched for decades. Zemo straightened slowly, lifting his light. The chamber stretched low-ceilinged, crates stacked along the walls, papers scattered where mold hadn’t eaten them through. A glass case sat broken in the corner, a lump of something pale and stone-like inside.
James stayed near the doorway, keeping cover, eyes sharp. “What is it?”
Zemo moved forward, picking up one of the scattered journals. Hydra’s hand was all over it— clipped German, clinical phrasing, arrogance disguised as science. He skimmed quickly. Studies of an artifact recovered from the chitauri invasion. Responsive to thought, the papers said. Temporary transference, they called it—Time travel, by all accounts— twelve hours, before the device recalled the traveler. Attempts at alteration had proven fruitless. History resisted, immutable, no matter how thorough the attempts at manipulation.
He turned a page, lips tightening faintly. mental fixation determines destination. The phrasing was Hydra’s, but the meaning was plain enough. If the journal was to be believed, someone could use the artifact to travel to any point in history, simply by thinking about it.
“Anything?” James’ voice was even, pitched low for his ear alone.
“Junk science,” Zemo lied smoothly, tucking the page flat again. No reason to alarm him. He set the journal aside and crouched at the case. The object itself was unremarkable, fist-sized, dull against the glass. His reflection bent faintly across it, fractured by the crack in its housing.
“Careful,” James said.
The word should have been his. Still, Zemo glanced back, and something in him eased at the sight of James standing steady in the doorway, watching him with the patience of a man who had learned trust the hard way.
Zemo turned back.
He didn’t mean to touch it, but his glove brushed the edge of the stone as he leaned closer. The air shifted all at once. A drag, sharp and hollow, seized through his chest. The ground seemed to slip from him. His chest cinched as though the room itself had narrowed to a single point, then split apart without sound.
His vision lurched. Dust dissolved into haze. The reek of rot and damp concrete was suddenly gone, replaced by warmth so thick it clung to the tongue— smoke, liquor, the press of too many bodies in too small a space without adequate ventilation.
He steadied himself against a table’s edge, knuckles white on the scarred wood. A glass rattled at the touch, liquid sloshing dark amber.
For a moment he couldn’t hear his own breath. Then the sound returned all at once, sharp and too loud. Music— tinny horns layered over with laughter— the rise and fall of rowdy voices.
A flash of movement in polished glass caught his attention. His reflection stared back from an old silvered mirror behind the bar. He was no longer wearing his field jacket or the dark shirt beneath it.
No, now, inexplicably, he found himself clothed in a charcoal suit, lapels slightly worn but pressed neat, a pale shirt buttoned at the throat. The cut was dated, but no one here would notice. Hydra’s notes—integration into environment— rose unbidden in his mind.
He flexed his left hand, relieved at the familiar weight of the ring there, gold glinting under the thin lights emanating from ornate sconces. He tugged the sleeve of his shirt lower, more reflexive than anything.
The room tilted with noise and smoke, but he found his bearings slowly, his eyes adjusting to the blur of khaki uniforms and flushed faces.
And then—
His breath caught sharp. Because there, at the far end of the bar, laughing, head tipped back so his grin flashed wide, was James. No, not James. At least, not the man he’d just been clearing a hydra base with. This version of him had his hair slicked neat and cut short. His shoulders were loose under army green, his eyes bright with mirth, body loose with the vigor of a man untouched— unscarred— by loss.
Vibrant in a way Zemo had never seen his James.
The sight hit him harder than the drag through time had. He had read the journal. He understood instinctively what had happened, but reading was not the same as standing here with the taste of smoke on his tongue and the sound of a juke box scratching brass into the air. Not the same as looking across the room and seeing his— seeing James. But as he had been, before Hydra had gotten their claws into him.
Twelve hours. That was what the literature had suggested. No more. No less. He would be returned once the artifact released him. Until then, history would hold. Untouchable and immutable.
He straightened slowly, careful not to draw attention. The suit had been conjured into being with him, pressed into shape as if it had always been his. Enough to let him pass. But his pockets were light, and he knew what he would find if he checked— the weight of currency that no one here would recognize, decades too young and worthless.
He wet his lips, mind already racing. A bar was a dangerous place to arrive penniless. Orders shouted, coins exchanged, glasses lined like soldiers along the counter. He could not approach Bucky with empty hands. Not without drawing questions.
Zemo’s gaze slid over the room, cataloguing vulnerabilities. A wallet hung loose on the bar, notes half-spilled. A jacket draped over a chair with a handkerchief slipping free. A stack of chips abandoned at a card table, their owners too far gone in drink to notice.
Options, though he needed only one.
He passed the bar without pause, letting his hand brush the wood as though steadying himself. When it lifted again, a single folded bill had vanished into his palm. Seed money. Enough to sit at a table without question, enough to let skill turn into spectacle.
Petty theft had never been his trade. But tonight, if he wished to remain unnoticed, if he wished to sit close to Bucky Barnes without attracting the wrong kind of attention, he would need to adapt.
He had twelve hours, after all, and he would not waste them.
—
The card table drew him as surely as the smoke. Four men hunched over it, uniforms creased and caps askew, their laughter thick with drink. The deck was soft-edged, corners bent from too many hands, the pile of coins and bills in the middle meager. But for Zemo, it was more than enough.
He stepped close, hands tucked behind his back, as though waiting for someone. A soldier looked up, bleary-eyed. “You joinin’?”
Zemo inclined his head, tone mild. “If you don’t mind.”
A chair scraped out, offered without thought. He sat, smoothing his jacket as he did, the picture of calm civility.
The first few hands he let slip, folding early, feigning caution. It allowed him to read them, each tell catalogued with ruthless efficiency. The man to his left touched his lip when he lied. Another tapped the heel of his boot under the table when his hand was strong. Patterns revealed themselves quickly. Cards did not interest him, but people always did.
By the fifth round, his rhythm shifted. A careful raise here, a confident call there. His winnings grew, small at first, then steady. By the sixth, his pile easily overshadowed the others, and the laughter at the table had soured into irritation.
Zemo’s mouth twitched faintly as he slid another pot toward himself. He didn’t even need to count cards, although he did, anyway. Numbers lined up in neat procession in his head, every discard and draw tallied, every probability calculated against the weaknesses of the men across from him.
The pile in front of him swelled, bills crisp against his palm, coins clinking together like punctuation. A minor spectacle, yes, although he never gloated. Not even as his victories drew curious attention from the onlooking crowd.
And indeed, when he glanced toward the bar, he found Bucky watching as well.
His grin had dimmed into something sharper, curiosity lit behind it. Elbow propped on the counter, drink dangling loose in his hand, gaze fixed on the stranger who had cleaned out a table full of soldiers in less than an hour.
Zemo let the corner of his mouth tilt into a small, secretive smile. Acknowledgment, maybe, or invitation.
The pile of winnings sat neatly stacked before him when be turned back to the table a moment later, bills folded crisp, coins shining dull under the light. One of the men swore under his breath, another shoved his chair back too hard, scraping wood against wood. He threw his cards down with the kind of curse that might spark a fight, if Zemo chose to press harder.
The game was over, but it was enough. He had currency now, and more importantly, the attention of the man at the bar.
“Gentlemen,” he said softly, inclining his head in a gesture of polite dismissal.
He gathered his winnings with a careful hand, tucking them into his jacket with practiced ease, before rising to his feet. He smoothed his jacket as he did so, straightening his cuffs with the aristocratic nonchalance of someone who had expected no other outcome.
The floor shifted faintly under his feet as he stepped away from the table. He knew it was not the ground but himself—his balance had not yet settled in this era. He had fought the disorientation into stillness at the table, but now, rising, the air pressed thick and unfamiliar again. Smoke, sweat, liquor. It wasn’t home, wasn’t Hydra’s ruins, wasn’t anything he could claim.
The jukebox needle hissed, brass horns bending sharp in his ear. He resisted the urge to close his eyes against it. He could not afford to falter here.
When he looked again, Bucky was still watching him.
Closer now, Zemo could take in the details he’d missed from afar— the smoothness of his jawline, the vitality in his frame, the way his uniform sat loose on him as if he’d grown used to its weight without yet feeling its cost. So different from his James. And yet, when Bucky tilted his head, eyes bright with intrigue, Zemo saw it. The same spark, hidden beneath the decades of ice and grief in the man he had married.
He moved, step by step through the press of the crowd, threading toward the bar. By the time he finally reached it, Bucky had turned on his stool, grin tugging back into place.
“Drinks on you, stranger?”
The grin was easy, but the edge behind it was not. A man testing waters, testing how far he could push without consequence.
Zemo leaned an elbow on the bar, unhurried, and drew a bill from his pocket. Already softened from other hands, but good enough here. He laid it flat against the counter with two fingers. “If you’re thirsty,” he said, voice low, “then yes.”
Bucky’s brows lifted. “That was quick.”
Zemo tipped his head, faint smile curving. “I prefer efficiency.”
The bartender snatched the note, set down two glasses without question. Cheap whiskey sloshed amber into glass, the bite of it sharp on the air. Zemo let one rest untouched at his elbow.
Bucky lifted his, knocked back a swallow, then sucked a breath through his teeth at the burn. “Not bad.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and smirked. “So what do I call you, efficient stranger?”
Zemo studied him a moment too long. His laugh lines were fresh, unmarred. His posture loose, shoulders still unburdened. He forced his gaze down to the drink. “Niklas,” he said finally, giving the first name that fit easily in his mouth. Continental, but not too sharp to raise suspicion.
“Bucky.” The hand came out, easy, palm warm when Zemo accepted it.
The grip lingered. Perhaps longer than either expected.
Zemo released first, slow enough to mark it as choice. “A pleasure.”
Bucky laughed, leaning back on the stool, eyes still flicking over him with unabashed interest. “You cleaned those boys out fast. Haven’t seen luck that steady in a while.”
“Not luck,” Zemo replied softly.
Bucky grinned at that. Crooked and pleased. “Then what is it?”
“Observation.” His mouth tilted faintly. “Most men tell on themselves.”
Bucky’s gaze sharpened at that, curiosity piqued. “You any good at reading me, Niklas?”
Zemo let the pause breathe, long enough to taste the smoke in the air. Long enough that an expectant spark flared in Bucky’s eyes . “I admit that I have been— ” he let their eyes meet, direct, almost challenging, “watching,” he finally murmured.
Bucky’s grin faltered into something narrower, then. Intrigued, despite himself. “Yeah? And what do you see?”
“Too much,” Zemo said, and the words caught somewhere between truth and warning.
Bucky huffed a laugh, shaking his head as he tipped back the rest of his drink. “You’re a bold one.”
Zemo watched him set the empty glass down with a soft click. The past was immutable. He knew that. But still, his chest felt tight with the weight of it.
Bucky signaled for another round with a flick of his fingers. The bartender eyed him, then Zemo, before pouring again.
“You don’t look like a soldier,” Bucky said after a moment, turning his head just enough to look at him from the corner of his eye. His words had the loose roll of a man with liquor in his blood, but his gaze was sharp.
“I am not. At least— not anymore.” Zemo admitted. He lifted his glass, let the rim linger against his lips before tasting. Bitter, thin, the kind of whiskey that scraped the throat more than soothed. “But I know how to hold my own in a game.”
Bucky chuckled at that. “Clearly.” He leaned on one elbow, body angling closer, not enough to touch but enough that Zemo felt the warmth radiating from him. “So if you’re not a soldier, what do you do, Niklas? Besides watch people and take their money.”
Zemo let his gaze trace the curl of hair at Bucky’s temple, the smoothness of skin untouched by decades of pain and cold. “I travel,” he said at last. “I observe.” His mouth curved. “I drink.”
“Hell, you sound like me.”
They clinked glasses, the gesture casual, uncalculated. Zemo swallowed again, slower this time, letting the heat of it spread through his chest. He hadn’t felt the sharp edge of alcohol in years. With James, it was more about ritual, taste, memory. Not intoxication. But here… here the bite curled into his blood, just enough to make the edges blur.
Bucky’s laugh carried over the din as another story spilled out of him—about barracks poker, about a lieutenant who couldn’t bluff to save his life. He spoke with his hands, fingers brushing the rim of his glass, tracing arcs in the smoky air. Zemo listened, genuinely listened, not because the tale itself mattered, but because of the cadence, the ease. This was Bucky as he had never known him. Loose, unguarded, voice warmed by drink and youth.
The night stretched on like that. Their pile of glasses grew. Neither of them sloppy, but the alcohol had softened them both, uncoiled the restraint that lived in muscle and tone.
“See,” Bucky said at one point, leaning in until his shoulder almost brushed Zemo’s, “you talk like a man who doesn’t have to fight for anything. Not for money, not for a drink, not for—” He cut himself off, smirking crookedly. “You don’t. Do you?”
Zemo tilted his head, meeting his eyes without flinching. “I fight for what matters.”
“And what’s that?”
Zemo’s mouth tightened faintly. The ring on his finger pressed into his skin where his thumb had started to worry absently at it. He could have lied. Instead, he let the words fall soft, heavier than he meant them.
“Someone I love.”
Bucky blinked, thrown for half a second. Then his smirk returned, more intrigued than before. “Lucky them.”
Zemo didn’t answer. His gaze lingered instead on the flush at Bucky’s cheekbones, the brightness in his eyes, the way his laugh caught in his throat before spilling loose.
He wanted to memorize this version—tipsy, talkative, alive.
It was a sight his James would never give him.
His James had given him other gifts of course — steadiness, gravity, the kind of intimacy that anchored more than it sparked. No, this was simply different. A glimpse into a past version he had never been meant to touch. A gift he would take for what it was, nothing more.
Bucky leaned closer, their shoulders brushing, whether by chance or intent neither of them said. He swirled his drink in his glass, grin fading to something more sober. “Must be nice,” he muttered. “Having someone waiting on you.”
Zemo tilted his head, but before he could speak, Bucky went on, voice lower now, slurred around the very edges. “I just got orders. Shipping out tomorrow. Italy. Place called Azzano.”
The name struck sharp, even through the fog of alcohol. Zemo knew it at once — knew the reports, the consequences. The battle that would break him, the first step on his path into Hydra’s maw.
His chest tightened, but he smoothed the reaction into stillness.
“Dangerous,” Zemo murmured.
Bucky shrugged, though the motion was too loose to disguise the truth. “All of it’s dangerous. This one’s supposed to be a push. Big show.” He tipped his glass, drained it, set it down with a muted clink. “Can’t say I’m looking forward to it. Might be easier if I had someone that I loved to fight for, though.”
Zemo’s fingers curled against his own glass. The urge to warn, to plead, pressed hard at his throat. He swallowed it back. History could not be bent. He could only listen.
“So you didn’t leave someone behind?” he asked, voice even, careful.
Bucky huffed a laugh, softer than the ones before. “Nah. No one waiting on me. Steve— my pal since we were kids— he’s all I got.”
The name caught sharp in Zemo’s mind, though Bucky said it like nothing at all. To Zemo, it was a reminder, though, that even legends were once ordinary boys, spoken of in cramped bars with fondness instead of awe.
“Well, him and my family, Bucky continued, without missing a beat. “My ma and sister worry enough for ten wives. The rest’s just—” He gestured vaguely with his hand. “Girls come and go.”
Zemo let the words settle. Relief touched with sorrow — relief, because he knew, in his own time, how much James had carried, how many lives weighed on him. Sorrow, because this boy in front of him believed himself untethered, when in truth the world was already waiting to chain him.
“And you?” Bucky asked, tilting his head, gaze sharpening on the golden glint of his ring. “Seems to me like you’ve got someone waiting for you.”
“Ah.” Zemo said, looking down at the simple gold band. “Yes.”
Bucky’s mouth curled. “Lucky them.”
“My— spouse,” Zemo said softly. He almost left it there, but the silence pressed, so he added, “She is—” He caught himself on the pronoun, hesitated, but let it stand. Safer, here. “She is remarkable.”
Something in Bucky’s expression shifted — curiosity, maybe envy, though not unkind. He knocked his knuckles against Zemo’s glass. “To remarkable women.”
Zemo lifted his own in answer. “To them.”
The clink rang small in the smoky air, swallowed quickly by the jukebox’s scratch and the swell of voices around them.
And still, Bucky lingered close, eyes bright with something more than drink.
It wasn’t sloppy. His posture had softened, yes, his grin had loosened, but his gaze—steady, sharp—never wavered. There was intent in it, even if he couldn’t have named it.
“You’ve got a way about you,” Bucky said finally, voice pitched low. “Don’t know if I like it.”
Zemo’s mouth curved. “And yet you continue to humor me.”
That drew a short laugh, more exhale than sound. “Maybe I like trouble.”
Zemo lifted his glass again, let the cheap whiskey burn through the quiet that followed. Bucky’s knee brushed his under the bar, not accident, not necessity. Zemo could feel the warmth of him there, a tether he had no right to grasp.
“You’re not like anyone I’ve met,” Bucky admitted, softer now. His eyes flicked down, then up again, searching Zemo’s face. “Something about you…” He shook his head, frustrated by the lack of language. “Feels like I should know you.”
The words twisted tight in Zemo’s chest. He set his glass down carefully, fingers lingering on the rim. “Perhaps you do.”
Bucky blinked, thrown. Then his mouth tugged into a crooked grin. “That supposed to be mysterious?”
“It is supposed to be honest.”
Bucky leaned in, closer than before, close enough that Zemo could see the faint freckling at his nose, the softness youth hadn’t yet burned away. The tension between them had thickened, as palpable as the smoke overhead.
“You ever think about it?” Bucky asked suddenly, his tone caught between bravado and something more fragile. “Men, I mean.” His eyes darted away, then back again. “Don’t know why I’m asking you. Maybe it’s the whiskey. Maybe it’s you.”
Zemo’s heart clenched. He let the silence hold for a breath before he answered. “Yes. I have thought of it.” His voice was calm, but lower, intimate. “Often.”
Bucky’s jaw worked once, then eased. His shoulders loosened, his grin bending sharp again— relief tangled with something more daring. He looked at Zemo from the corner of his eye, almost sly, as he said, “Hoped you’d say that.”
His knee pressed firmer against Zemo’s, the weight of it more proposition than accident now.
Zemo drew in a slow breath. He could have leaned into it, could have closed the distance. But instead, he let the moment suspend, savoring it like the final note of a song before silence.
Because he knew what history demanded.
And because his James was waiting.
Bucky’s knee pressed firm against his under the bar, and neither of them moved to break the contact.
“You don’t spook easy,” Bucky said, gaze steady.
“Should I?” Zemo let the question hang between them, a faint tilt to his mouth.
That grin returned, sharper now, the kind that carried challenge. “Most fellas would’ve bolted by now. Or thrown a punch.”
“I am not most.”
“No,” Bucky agreed, leaning in. The distance between them was a breath, the noise of the bar falling thin around the pull of it. “You’re not.”
Zemo could feel the whiskey warming his blood, loosening the iron grip he kept on himself. Twelve hours. That was all. Nothing here would remain. There were no consequences here, because this had happened. Of course, even half-drunk, he knew memory was its own kind of consequence. And yet—
He eased back, just enough to draw in breath, then slid a few bills onto the counter with practiced grace. “Come,” he said softly. “The crowd is dull.”
Bucky blinked, then laughed low. “You’re trouble.”
“Yes.” Zemo stood, waiting. “Will you follow?”
For a heartbeat, Bucky only studied him. Then he slid off the stool, shoulders loose, grin curling again. “Yeah. I’ll follow.”
The smoke and clatter of the bar pressed close around them, but the air between them had shifted. Zemo moved first, weaving through the crowd with easy calm, the weight of currency in his pocket more than enough to buy what they needed. Bucky’s presence trailed close, steady at his back, like gravity itself had bent to keep him near.
At the counter, Zemo leaned in to the barkeep, voice pitched low. A folded note passed across the scarred wood, discreet. A key slid back in answer.
Bucky arched a brow but said nothing as Zemo turned, tucking it neatly into his jacket.
The narrow stairs creaked under their boots as they climbed. Paint peeled along the banister, the wallpaper sagging with damp, but Bucky didn’t seem to care. His grin lingered, faint but constant, as though each step higher sharpened whatever unspoken current had begun downstairs.
The room itself was small, worn. There was an iron bedstead, a crooked mirror, a single chair. The air smelled faintly of soap and dust, a reprieve from the sweat and smoke below.
Bucky stepped inside first, hands shoved into his pockets, turning once to take it in. “Not bad,” he said, half-amused. “Better than barracks.”
Zemo closed the door behind them with a soft click. The sound seemed louder than it should have.
For a moment neither spoke. The distance between them thinned until it was a line taut as wire, ready to snap. Bucky’s eyes flicked from Zemo’s face to his mouth, then back again, unashamed.
“You ever do this before?” he asked quietly. The grin was still there, but it had softened into something more cautious, more curious.
Zemo let his breath ease out. “Once or twice.” His tone was even, but his pulse betrayed him.
Bucky took a step closer. “Thought so.”
The space between them was nothing now, just enough for the faint brush of warmth, the sharp tang of whiskey on Bucky’s breath. Zemo could feel the tilt of inevitability in it, the kind of moment that carried its own momentum.
Bucky leaned in first. Not careless, but careful, as though even tipsy he knew the risk of it. His mouth caught Zemo’s with the hesitance of a man testing waters he’d thought forbidden.
Zemo let him.
The kiss was warm, unpolished, spit-slick. It carried the spark of youth, the looseness of drink, the quiet hunger of someone who had wanted without language for that want. Zemo’s hand lifted before he could stop himself, fingers brushing Bucky’s jaw, anchoring the contact. For a moment, he allowed the fiction— that this was his James, younger, freer, unburdened. For a moment, it almost held.
But the longer the kiss lingered, the more it frayed. The taste of him was wrong, the rhythm unfamiliar. This was not the man who steadied him with silence in the dark, who shared the weight of memory across a kitchen table, who carried scars that Zemo had mapped with patient hands. This was a boy on the edge of a war he did not yet understand.
The realization struck sharp, and He broke the kiss gently, hand still cradling Bucky’s jaw, his forehead pressing against the younger man’s for a moment before he pulled away. His voice was raw when it came. “I— Bucky. I cannot.”
Bucky’s eyes opened slowly, confusion first, then something harder— disappointment, bruised but contained. “Oh,” he muttered, stepping back half a pace, hand scraping through his hair. His shoulders squared, the bravado returning like armor. “You don’t have to explain.”
Zemo did anyway. “It is not you. It is—” He cut himself off, swallowing hard. “It would be betrayal.”
That landed. Bucky’s mouth tugged, wry and sad. “Guess you really do got someone waiting, huh.”
Zemo nodded once. “Yes.”
The silence that followed was heavy, but not hostile. Bucky scrubbed a hand through his hair again, laugh short and bitter. “Hell. You paid for the room. Be a waste to leave it empty.” He gestured to the bed, crooked grin faltering into something more open, more tired. “Stay. Don’t have to… y’know. Just— company?”
Zemo’s chest tightened, the sudden ache there sharp. Loneliness bled through the words, thinly masked. Steve wasn’t here, the army was noise, and here stood a man on the brink of a war he wouldn’t return from.
“Of course,” Zemo murmured.
He set his jacket neatly over the chair, before crossing to the narrow bed. Bucky had already sprawled across it, boots off, uniform shirt undone at the throat. He shifted to make space, one arm— the left. Human and whole— propped behind his head.
Zemo settled beside him, not stiff, but not careless either, his back pressed to the headboard. The mattress dipped between them, their bodies close enough that the warmth of Bucky’s shoulder radiated against his own.
“You uh— haven’t said much about her,” Bucky said, finally, eyes sliding sidelong.
“No.” Zemo’s hand rested against the quilt, fingers idly tracing the frayed stitching. “I prefer to keep her safe in silence.”
Bucky snorted softly. “Safe? In silence?”
“Yes.” Zemo turned his head, met his gaze. “There are things too precious to name in rooms like this.”
For once, Bucky didn’t argue. “You’re a strange man, Niklas.”
Zemo allowed the ghost of a smile. “So I’ve been told.”
Bucky’s hand moved, then, slow, until his fingers brushed against Zemo’s shirtfront. The touch was light, exploratory, but it carried heat all the same. “Can’t figure you out. Don’t know if I want to.”
“You should not,” Zemo said, though he didn’t move away when Bucky leaned closer, the spark between them flaring again, despite Zemo’s careful attempt at restraint.
Zemo let him, helpless not to. Their mouths found each other again, this kiss slower, more certain, teeth grazing faintly, lips parting just enough for breath to mingle. Zemo’s hand lifted, cupping the back of Bucky’s neck, thumb pressed against warm skin.
It would have been so easy to let it spiral. To give in, to let history excuse it, to pretend this was not betrayal but some strange echo of devotion.
But no— still, he could not.
He broke the kiss with care, pressing his mouth briefly to Bucky’s temple before easing back.
Bucky breathed out, heavy. “You keep pulling away.”
Zemo’s hand lingered at his nape, unwilling to lose the contact entirely. “And yet I cannot stop returning.”
Bucky gave him a crooked grin at that, softened by something almost tender. “Guess I’ll take what I can get.”
Loneliness threaded through the words, unspoken but palpable. Zemo felt it in the way Bucky leaned into his touch, in the quiet hunger beneath his grin. This was not a man used to being held without demand.
So Zemo held him. Not as a lover, not exactly. But he gave what he could, his thumb stroking once along the line of Bucky’s jaw. Their mouths found each other again and again in the dim light of that room.
When at last Bucky drew back, his forehead rested against Zemo’s, eyes half-closed. “Don’t go yet.”
“I won’t,” Zemo murmured.
Bucky eased down beside him, shoulders pressed close. The room was quiet but for the tick of pipes in the walls and the faint hum of voices from below. For the first time that night, the noise felt far away.
“Steve would laugh if he saw me like this,” Bucky said suddenly, voice rough with tired amusement.
Zemo turned his head slightly. “Like this?”
“Chasing some stranger upstairs.” A crooked grin tugged at his mouth. “He’d give me hell for it.”
Zemo let himself smile faintly. “And yet you did.”
“Yeah,” Bucky admitted, softer now. “Guess I wanted to.” He shifted, facing Zemo fully. “Truth is… been a long time since I’ve wanted much of anything.”
The words carried more to them than drink alone could excuse. Zemo let the silence hold, inviting more.
Bucky sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Army keeps you busy. Too busy. You don’t stop and think, you just— do what they tell you. And if you do stop, you realize how damn lonely it is.” He huffed out a laugh. “Never thought I’d say that. Always had Steve. Always had someone. Now—” He shook his head. “Now it feels like everyone’s going, and I’m… I don’t know. Waiting my turn.”
Zemo’s chest tightened. Because he knew what was waiting for him at Azzano, knew the shape of that future. But here was the boy version, voicing it in words he’d never heard before.
“You are afraid,” Zemo said gently.
Bucky scoffed, but without much heat. “Who isn’t? I’d be a fool not to be. Only difference is— we’re not supposed to say it out loud.” He tipped his head, meeting Zemo’s gaze with a wry twist of his mouth. “Guess the whiskey helps.”
Zemo’s hand lifted, brushing lightly against his shoulder, thumb smoothing along the seam of the uniform. Not a caress, not quite, but grounding. “You should not be ashamed of fear. It is human.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Not as easy as you think.”
They fell into quiet again, close enough that the warmth between them spoke more than words. Bucky shifted at last, laying back so his head rested against Zemo’s shoulder. It was uncalculated, instinctive, as though the comfort was something he’d been missing too long to resist.
Zemo tilted his chin down, lips brushing the crown of Bucky’s hair before he caught himself. Still, he didn’t move away.
“You talk strange,” Bucky murmured, drowsy now. “Not like the guys I know. Not like anyone I know.”
“Perhaps that is why you followed me.”
Bucky’s laugh was low, tired, but genuine. “Yeah. Maybe.”
His hand found Zemo’s then, casual, half-asleep, fingers curling loosely around his.
Zemo let it hold.
At some point, Bucky’s breathing eased, his body going heavy against Zemo’s shoulder. His fingers still curled loosely around Zemo’s, even as sleep overtook him.
Zemo lay awake beside him, watching the thin curtains shift with the draft, drifting but never allowing himself to join him in sleep. These moments felt too precious to lose even one.
And then— He could feel it, the pull in his chest, the faint pressure that told him his time was dwindling. The artifact would take him soon. He would not be here when Bucky woke.
And he could not allow that.
“Bucky,” he said softly, shaking his shoulder with careful fingers.
Blue eyes blinked open, bleary, then cleared. “Niklas?” His voice was rough with sleep.
“I must go.” Zemo’s voice was quiet, steady, though inside his gut twisted. “But I did not want to vanish without a word.”
Bucky pushed himself up on one elbow, hair mussed, uniform rumpled. “Go? Now? Where the hell are you—”
Zemo reached, brushing his hand against the side of his face, stilling the questions. The touch was fleeting, reverent. “Listen to me.”
Bucky frowned, confusion written across him.
“There are dark days ahead,” Zemo said. The words felt heavy, dangerous, but he let them fall anyway. “Many of them. You will face things that should break you. And yet—” He hesitated, thumb ghosting across Bucky’s cheek before retreating. “You will endure. Because there is more for you. A life waiting, even if you cannot see it now. A future where you are more than a soldier.”
Bucky’s breath caught, his brows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
Zemo smiled faintly, sadness etched deep at the corners of his mouth. “Only this. You are stronger than you think.”
For a moment, Bucky simply stared at him, as if trying to pin him down, unravel the puzzle. But then the crooked grin returned, softened by sleep. “You talk like a fortune teller.”
“Perhaps.” Zemo rose, smoothing his jacket, hiding the tremor in his hands. “Remember it, Bucky. That is all I ask.”
The pressure built in his chest then, the telltale pull beginning. He felt it in the way the air grew heavy, in the way the floor seemed to sway.
Bucky reached for him, hand catching his sleeve. “Wait—”
Zemo’s hand closed briefly over his, steadying the grip, then easing it away with care. “I must.”
He leaned down, pressed his mouth one final time against Bucky’s— fleeting, intimate, the kind of kiss meant to linger long after absence. Then he drew back.
“Goodbye, miláčik.”
And before Bucky could rise, before more questions could break loose, Zemo turned. He crossed the room with steady steps, opened the door, and let the light of the hallway swallow him.
The pull came once he was beyond the threshold. The air bent around him, invisible fingers hooking sharp through his chest. The wallpaper blurred, the boards under his boots fell away—
—and he was standing in dust and shadow again, hand still resting against cold stone. The artifact sat dull and inert before him.
“Zemo.” James’ voice cracked sharp in his ear, exactly where it had been, not a breath of time lost. “You with me?”
Zemo exhaled once, steadying. His pulse still thundered, his lips still burned with the memory of whiskey and youth, but the world had righted itself.
“Yes,” he said, his voice low but even. “With you.”
And James, his James, was there in the doorway, knife ready, eyes cutting toward him with that fierce, steady focus Zemo had come to know so well.
The same eyes. Different man. The only one who mattered.
Zemo straightened, brushing dust from his gloves as though nothing had happened.
He had twelve hours worth of memory buried in his chest.
And not a second had passed.
James was still there, knife steady in his hand, eyes sharp under the shadow of his hair. But when Zemo turned fully toward him, something in his expression faltered. Concern cut through the focus.
“What happened?” he asked. The words were clipped, but his gaze lingered on Zemo’s face, searching.
Zemo opened his mouth, closed it again. He had intended silence — to lock the memory inside, to keep it untouchable. But James’ eyes held him, as they always did, and he found himself speaking.
“The artifact.” His voice was quiet, rough. “It pulled me. Back.”
James lowered the knife, the set of his shoulders tensing, though his gaze didn’t waver. “Back where?”
Zemo hesitated. He could have lied. But he had no wish to. Not here. Not with him.
“To you,” he said finally. “A long time ago. Before the war carved its path through you.”
James blinked, the smallest twitch of disbelief. “Me?”
Zemo nodded once. “In uniform. In a bar. I— somewhere in Europe. I never asked. But you were leaving for Azzano.” His throat tightened. “You did not go alone. I was with you. For one night.”
The silence that followed his words was heavy, nearly suffocating. And then James exhaled slowly, his knife lowering completely. His face had gone still in the way it sometimes did when a memory rose unbidden, when fragments rearranged themselves into coherence.
“…I remember,” he said at last.
Zemo’s breath caught.
James’ eyes had gone distant, not unfocused, but inward. “You called yourself—”he paused, frowning, before his face cleared again a moment later. “Niklas. That’s what you told me. I remember the cards, the whiskey, the room upstairs. You said things… things that didn’t make sense then. I thought you were half-crazy.” His mouth tugged faintly, the ghost of a smile. “But I held onto it. All through Azzano, through—” He broke off, jaw working. “Even when I couldn’t remember your face anymore, I remembered what you said. That I’d make it. That there was something waiting.”
Zemo’s chest ached. He reached without thought, gloved hand brushing James’ flesh arm, grounding himself in the solidity of the man before him. “You did,” he whispered. “You found your way back.”
James looked at him then, fully, the sharp steadiness in his gaze tempered by something softer, older. “It was you.”
“Yes.”
The quiet stretched, heavy with revelation and memory. Then James’ hand rose, covering Zemo’s where it rested on his arm. Not the grasp of the boy he had been, not the tentative reach of the man in the hotel bed — but the sure, deliberate touch of the husband he had become.
“I should’ve known,” James murmured. “Even then.”
Zemo’s mouth curved, faint, weary. “Perhaps you did.”
And in that ruined Hydra corridor, with dust thick in the air and years layered heavy between them, Zemo felt the strange circle close. The past returning, not as a wound, but as a thread that had always bound them, waiting to be remembered.