Chapter Text
The first thing Zemo notices upon release is not freedom. It’s noise.
The second is how poorly it’s curated.
Cars move too fast. People speak too loudly. Even the air feels careless, as though it has forgotten how to hold itself properly. He stands just outside the facility transfer point, hands folded behind his back, posture intact out of habit more than intention.
They didn’t cuff him, which is either due to trust or arrogance. He hasn’t decided which irritates him more.
A vehicle pulls up—plain, unmarked, deliberately forgettable. The door opens, and Bucky steps out first.
Zemo studies him the way one studies a blade that has already cut once. Familiar shape. Different weight now. Less hollow, perhaps. That is inconvenient.
“You look well,” Zemo says, because it costs him nothing.
Bucky doesn’t smile. “You’re alive.”
“A low bar, but I appreciate the optimism.”
From the passenger side, another door shuts harder than necessary.
Sam appears like a verdict. Arms crossed. Expression already exhausted. “This is a bad idea,” he says immediately.
“Yes,” Zemo agrees pleasantly. “It is often the bad ideas that are followed with the greatest enthusiasm.”
Bucky ignores both of them and gestures once. “Get in.” Not a request. Not quite an order. Something in between that assumes compliance.
Zemo gets in anyway.
The vehicle is quiet in the wrong ways. Not peaceful—restrained. As if even conversation has been told to sit properly and behave.
Zemo sits in the back, centred, composed. He does not slouch. He doesn’t look out of the window for too long. Attention is leverage; he does not waste it.
Bucky drives.
Sam watches him in the rearview mirror like he expects a trick. He won’t find one. Zemo has no interest in theatrics without purpose.
Still, he feels the weight of their vigilance pressing in.
“So,” Sam says after several minutes. “You’re just… out now.”
“Paroled,” Zemo corrects gently. “A distinction I am sure you will appreciate when filling out your paperwork.”
Sam scoffs. “Yeah, I’m thrilled.”
Bucky finally speaks. “You’re staying with us.”
That earns a pause.
Zemo turns his head slightly. “I beg your pardon?”
“With us,” Bucky repeats. Flat. Final. “You’re not staying alone. Not happening.”
Sam immediately turns. “Hold on, nobody said—”
Bucky’s gaze flicks to him. “I’ve already decided.”
Zemo considers this. He could object. He could argue jurisdiction, dignity, principle. He could make it difficult.
Instead, he says, “How thoughtful.”
Sam groans. “That is not what this is.”
Zemo leans back slightly, studying the two of them like an arrangement that hasn’t admitted its own instability.
“No,” he agrees softly. “It rarely is.”
The apartment—if it can be called that—is functional in the way military decisions are functional. Clean lines. Minimal comfort. Too much restraint, too little softness.
Zemo steps inside and immediately notices what is missing. Not weapons. Warmth.
Bucky drops a bag by the door. “You’re not touching anything classified.”
“I would be disappointed if I were allowed to.”
Sam points at him. “You’re not allowed to leave without one of us.”
Zemo tilts his head slightly. “A chaperone arrangement. Fascinating. I was unaware I had regressed into adolescence.”
Bucky ignores the jab. “Food’s in the fridge. Don’t get clever.”
“That,” Zemo says, “is an impossibly broad instruction.”
Sam mutters, “You’re impossible.”
Zemo inclines his head. “I have been called worse. Usually by people who later required my assistance.”
That earns him a glare.
Good. Predictable reactions are stable ground.
Bucky looks at him for a longer moment than necessary. Not assessing threat level. Not scanning for danger.
Something else.
“You good?” Bucky asks.
The question lands oddly. Not because it’s intrusive, but because it’s simple.
Zemo answers carefully. “I am intact.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
A pause.
Zemo feels the instinct to deflect rise—polished, practiced, elegant. He has spent years surviving on distance.
But there is nowhere to go in a room like this. Not really.
“I have been in worse accommodations,” he says finally.
Sam snorts. “That’s your bar?”
“It has served me well.”
Bucky exhales once, like he’s making a decision that annoys him. “Sit down,” he says.
Zemo blinks once. “Excuse me?”
“Sit,” Bucky repeats, and there’s something almost dangerous in how calm it is.
Sam watches, equally confused.
Zemo, against all better judgment, sits. This isn’t compliance out of fear. Just curiosity.
Bucky disappears into the kitchen.
Sam stays standing. Arms still crossed. Still skeptical. Still there.
Zemo observes this dynamic carefully. A soldier, a strategist, and something else in James Barnes that refuses to stay fully armoured.
Moments later, Bucky returns with a glass of water. He places it on the table in front of Zemo.
That’s all. No ceremony. No explanation.
Zemo stares at it. “…Water,” he says.
Bucky nods. “Yeah.”
Sam rubs his forehead. “We’re really doing this.”
Zemo looks up. “Doing what, exactly?”
Bucky hesitates, then: “You don’t get treated like a thing here.”
Zemo studies him for a long moment. “And what do I get treated as?”
Bucky answers without hesitation. “A person.”
Silence follows. Uncomfortable and unfamiliar
Zemo picks up the glass. His grip is steady, controlled—as it always is—but something in the act feels… observed differently now. Not as utility. Not as manipulation. Not as a threat preparing to move. Just movement.
He takes a sip.
Sam sighs heavily. “I need better life choices.”
Bucky ignores him.
Zemo sets the glass down precisely. “I am beginning to understand,” he says quietly, “why this arrangement was considered necessary.”
Bucky raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
Zemo meets his gaze. “Yes,” he says. “It is inefficient.” Then, softer—almost imperceptible, even to himself: “But not unpleasant.”
For the first time since Zemo’s release, Bucky looks faintly unsure what to do with that answer.
Sam notices, and he absolutely hates it.
Zemo, for his part, simply sits in the middle of their unresolved chaos and allows himself one very dangerous thought:
This is not captivity. It is… attention.
And attention, when given without cruelty, is something he has not yet decided how to survive.