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from sokovia with love, ch. 9 -

something that you can’t take back

(the masterlist)

ch. summary: Zemo makes it back, and multiple conversations ensue.

warnings: smut, minors dni. confession of feelings, angst, misunderstandings, sex somewhat under the influence, anxiety, a little bit of edging, some minor chest dysphoria, mention of stretch marks, femme pet names used in a sexual context, strategic dirty talk as foreplay, penetrative sex, no stated use of protection, hair pulling, possessiveness, hand jobs (m and afab), biting, marking, bruise play, etc.

general: reader is still afab non-binary/genderqueer and plus size, uses they and she pronouns, otherwise I try to keep everything pretty much neutral. let me know if I can tweak any language to make this a more seamless experience. apologies for any butchered pet names in other languages, let me know if I need to correct those too, and also apologies to healthcare lab techs.

‘rae it’s 3:30 am’ YES BUT I WANTED TO GET THIS UP ON MY BIRTHDAY AND I DIDN’T AND I’VE BEEN WRITING FRANTICALLY EVER SINCE SO GUESS WHAT IT’S GOING UP, I’LL QUEUE IT FOR ALL THE PEOPLE WITH A HEALTHY SLEEP SCHEDULE. ‘rae don’t you have work tomorrow’ WHAT ARE YOU MY MOM

who wants angst and a very long-delayed confession of how everyone actually feels?

thank you to everyone who’s still reading this fic, you’re a saint, I love you. ❤️

You opened your eyes to darkness, again.

You fell out of the office chair, sideways, already anticipating the hail of bullets - but the room was still save for your ragged breathing, your bones singing their complaints under your skin.

You lay on the carpet as the ceiling seemed to spin just slightly over your head, not entirely sure if it was you moving or the world around you. The speed with which you sat up only increased your confusion, but you ignored the nausea springing from your disorientation as best you could, desperately listening to the hallway outside.

No guns. No howling. No fire. No —

Footsteps.

You held your breath, trying to figure out what was real and what was your panicked heart pounding in your ears.

The footsteps were real this time. They were wrong for Oeznik, too fast, too heavy —

You were on your feet, gripping the corner of the desk as you forced yourself to gulp down air, trying to get your mind clear and your nerves under control. Weapons. You needed a weapon.

The footsteps were moving down the hall, towards the door, like they’d come in from the back entrance. You scanned the darkened library for anything - a letter opener, a paperweight with sharp corners, fuck, a stapler - your heart hammering away as it got closer and closer to what you were sure was the door to Oeznik’s room.

You didn’t relax as the footsteps moved steadily past it, perhaps not seeing it in the dark. They were still coming towards the office door, and you were running out of time.

If the door opened out instead of in, you could slam it into their face, but that was off the table. You could just appear in the doorway when they weren’t expecting it and aim a right hook the best you could, but depending on heavily they were armored, that could just mean you died too close to Oeznik to really buy him any time to get away.

Three steps to your door, two, you snatched the glass decanter off the table figuring it would at least get you one well-timed crack over a skull —

And the footsteps passed your door entirely, heading through the living room.

You blinked, surprised — whoever they were, they weren’t clearing rooms as they went. That meant they came in potentially with an agenda other than a search and seizure of Zemo’s assets - that maybe meant they were looking for something in particular.

Agendas, as you’d learned, had a way of giving people tunnel vision. You could work with this. Or at least, it was better than being backed into a corner.

You hesitated for a moment before leaving the decanter on the table, but picked up the empty glass - you could hurl that at a head or crack it over a temple, depending. If they went far enough, you could even possibly grab a knife from the kitchen. That limited you to close range combat to be effective, but it was something.

Making sure your boots were off to keep the noise down, you tiptoed to the door. You opened it a crack, first making sure there was no one behind the lone scout - and found yourself relieved when it really did just seem to be the one.

You watched the figure retreating from you in the limited glow of the streetlamp outside, heading straight for the far end of the house. Once you had a good couple of doorways between you, you followed.

The figure moved without really checking anything, and you kept a good six feet between the pair of you, figuring that was far enough for throwing range if necessary. You squeezed the crystal glass in your hand so hard you were surprised it hadn’t shattered, but you were desperate to keep your hand from shaking.

Once the figure had cleared the living room, you were sizing up the distance between yourself and the kitchen island, wondering if it was worth it to just run ahead of them and grab a knife —

When you saw it walk into Zemo’s doorway, and immediately flick the light on.

You dropped the bourbon glass before you even saw the first flash of purple, the crystal crumbling to pieces at your feet.

Zemo turned on his heel at the noise, and even with his back to the light, you could see his eyes wide under the balaclava.

For a moment, you could only stare, the concept of breathing having slipped your mind entirely. You couldn’t see any dislocated limbs, or wrong-angled mandibles. Everything else from your dream you’d have to investigate in the light to make sure it wasn’t there, but he looked… whole, at least from a distance.

He was alive. He was here.

Zemo stared back, frozen in place, and for just an instant, you wondered if you were dreaming still, if you were now merely projecting what you so desperately wished you were waiting for you—

Until he seized the door and shut it hard behind him.

You could only blink when you, again, found yourself in the dark.

In the span of your breathing, the world stood perfectly still around you, and you wondered if this was somehow another nightmare. But when the darkness refused to abate, and you could hear frantic rummaging behind the closed bedroom door, accompanied by rapid hissed Sokovian, you realized that this was completely - painfully - real.

He had never done this to you before, for all his secrets. You couldn’t imagine him doing it to you now, what could compel him to so literally shut you out —

Unless he knew. He knew about your interference, could summarily assume it was the clumsy fumbling of an amateur, and it had somehow cost him dearly.

You were rooted to the spot for god knows how long, your brain desperately racked for protocol, for action. What were you supposed to do now? What could you possibly say to him to fix any of this?

Or, worse still… what if there was nothing else to do?

What if the only way forward was to talk? To tell him everything, for real this time? Your desperation, your panic, and what caused it all, the feeling you’d been forcing yourself not to name for fear of shattering the one good thing in your grasp.

You swallowed, trying to summon your courage and force away the growing terror twisting around in your stomach. Though your brain refused to offer anything substantial or useful in terms of words, you still found yourself crossing the rest of the space and bringing your hand up to rap on the waiting door.

There was no answer as you heard the clattering move from the bedroom to the bathroom, hearing what sounded like cabinet doors being opened, rifled through, and slammed shut again, canisters and jars and bottles being tossed to the floor as he went. The Sokovian only increased in speed, and you weren’t sure if he was reading ingredients or talking to himself in an endless litany, his words both too fast and too hushed for you to translate at all.

You knocked again, harder, not worrying now if you woke Oeznik up by accident.

The noise stilled, as if Zemo had frozen in place.

You opened your mouth, trying to say so many things at once that the words simply tangled on your tongue and died there. “Bar--“ you cut yourself short, his title not feeling right here. You opened your mouth again, but something about his given name felt… even more presumptive. Especially if he actually was furious with you, which you still hadn’t ascertained. Squeezing your lower lip between your teeth, you begged yourself to just say something. “…Zemo?” you called at last, hoping your voice sounded sturdier than it felt.

“Don’t come in.” His words were hurried, his accent thicker somehow. “Just—“ You heard him drop something, swearing in Sokovian. “Just stay there.”

Your hands flexed in frustration at your sides as you heard the frantic rummaging pick up again. You swallowed against the lump in your throat, trying to keep yourself calm, focused. “Are you hurt? Should I get Oeznik?”

“No,” Zemo said, still speaking too quickly to be normal. “No, don’t get Oeznik, don’t come in. Just stay right where you are.”

“Zeems, talk to me,” you protested, quickly losing the battle of sounding calm and heading quickly towards pleading. This was killing you - why did he shut you out? What would he not want you to see? “Tell me you’re okay, at least. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know!” Zemo called back, sounding frustrated. You heard a soft stream of curses, and the sound of something being emptied hurriedly onto the floor.

“Then tell me what we’re dealing with!” You were desperate to get in there, to be valuable. You leaned against the door, hoping it would just open with a push, but found it stuck fast. “What did they give you? What are your symptoms? Talk to me, maybe we can figure something out.” You tried the doorknob, finding it locked. “Let me help you, please.”

“I already told you, Printsessa,” he said, and there was an edge to his voice. “Just follow directions. Stay right there on the other side of that door until I tell you otherwise.”

“Helmut, fucking talk to me!” You gave up on the thin veneer of calm you’d been clinging to, too anxious now. “Tell me what’s going on! If you don’t want Oeznik and you don’t- don’t want me around,” you pressed on even as your voice threatened to break. “What do you need?”

“I’m looking, damn it!” Zemo shot back, causing you to step back slightly. He’d never raised his voice to you like that. “Just wait there like I told you, for once. Don’t come in here until I know it’s safe.”

It was the way his voice trembled just slightly on the last word that you finally realized: the edge in his speech wasn’t venom, or anger. It was fear.

He was still afraid.

“Zemo, don’t shut me out right now,” you said quickly, your brain finally feeling like it had clicked into place and caught up with the situation. Fear was something you had ages of experience with. It was something you could handle, isolate. It wasn’t anger. “Tell me what happened, okay? Why don’t you think it’s safe?”

You heard Zemo swearing again in Sokovian, more things either falling off or being thrown from the counter. “What do you think happened?! I was caught,” he said, and you could hear the mingling of shame and anger in his voice. “They injected me with… something, I don’t know, and now—“

“I saw,” you called back. “What happened after? What’s it—“

“You saw?” Zemo cut right through your next question, and you heard him drop something again, followed immediately by the swift, stiff footsteps from earlier towards the other side of the door, until it sounded like he was standing right in front of it. “What do you mean you saw? How?”

“I- you had a feed to their security system, remember? Zemo, that’s not important right now.” You said, waving your hand even though he couldn’t see it. “Tell me what it looked like, what you— I don’t know, feel?” Biology was not your strong suit, but information was the only thing you had to work with right now. “Maybe if we can identify symptoms, we can figure out what it is— or at least eliminate what it isn’t, I don’t know.”

“It’s a fucking Hydra experiment, Printsessa,” Zemo cut back, but you were willing to believe it was the stress rather than any genuine meanness. “I doubt we’ll find anything about it in one of your books, no?”

“Look, Hel, either you tell me what’s going on so I try to help from out here, or I’m coming in there,” you said, your patience wearing thin. “We’re wasting time—”

“What do you think I’m doing in here, looking for an aspirin?!”

“Well whatever you’re looking for, you clearly haven’t found it yet!” You rolled your eyes, your hand flying to the doorknob. “Move, I’m coming in, then.”

“Absolutely not!” You heard a thud, and it took you a moment to realize it was Zemo throwing his weight against the door - his back, a shoulder, or what, you couldn’t be sure. “I don’t know if I’m contagious, or if - if it it’s toxic, or—“

“I’m not about to stand out here and wait for you to find out by yourself!” You threw your own weight against the door from the other side, even if you knew you likely couldn’t match his. “The last thing I’m about to do is let you die alone in there from god-knows-what, no matter how much you seem to want to today.” That last part had slipped out before you could catch yourself, but it was honest, at least.

“I’m not trying to die alone, Volchitsa,” Zemo shot back through his side of the door. “I’m trying to keep you from dying.”

“That’s not the priority of this mission!” You threw your shoulder against the door, hearing him grunt softly on the other side.

“Priorities change!” The door moved from him shoving into it to brace it.

“Goddammit, Zemo!” You slammed your fist against the door uselessly. “You swore to me that you’d tell me when things were different! You said we were partners!” You were looking around the room, trying to find something you could potentially use to help you bust the door or the lock or the knob if he wasn’t going to fucking move. “You don’t get to tell me that and then just- just fucking leave me here when it’s convenient for you!” You tried kicking the door next, half out of desperation, half out of the anger you’d been keeping muffled underneath the waves of fear.

“I went alone to protect you,” Zemo’s voice was ragged, though perhaps not merely from straining it. “It’s not about convenience, I’m trying to keep you alive! One of us has to!”

“That’s not your decision, it’s mine.” You blinked hard against threatening tears. “Zemo, let me in right now or so help me god—“

“No,” Zemo said, his voice rough with something you couldn’t see - emotion or a symptom of whatever was in him, you weren’t sure, and it terrified you. “I can’t let you in, draga.”

“Bullshit, Baron.” It was everything you could do not to fall apart where you stood. Your whole body shook, your nails seeking their grip in the flesh of your palms as you turned your back to the door and planted your shoulders against it. “You told me I wasn’t a liability, remember? That we were equals in this?” Hastily, you swiped your forearm against your traitorous leaking eyes. “Or are you a fucking liar after all?”

“I’m not going to be responsible for your death,” Zemo said. “I won’t. And that’s exactly what I’ll be if I open this door.” You heard a soft thud, like his head had fallen back against it. “I put a target on your back when I let you stay with me, don’t you understand? I was selfish, and short-sighted, and… reckless.” He sounded nearly sick on the last word.

“You don’t get to hold me at arm’s length when you’re scared.” Furious, you shook your head even though he couldn’t see. “It’s not fair. If— If I meant half as much to you as you said, you would let me help you.” It was low, and you knew it, but you had never felt so scared in your life.

“It’s an executive decision, Volchitsa. I’m refusing to let anything happen to you.” Zemo said, his voice tired and grave. “I’m taking you off the board. Keeping you safe from my mistakes.”

“Yeah? Well fuck you, I’m not letting that happen.” You fought to keep your breath from heaving, blinking fiercely against your too-warm blurring eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’ll take my chances, Zemo? That I don’t care if that’s a risk?!”

“I DO!”

His shout sent you spinning, pounding with both fists against the door as the last of your reserve and composure gave way to the deluge. “YOU DON’T GET TO DO THIS!” Your voice cracked on the last word. “YOU DON’T GET TO DECIDE THIS FOR ME! YOU CAN’T ORDER ME TO STAY AWAY, TO SHUT ME OUT BECAUSE YOU THINK IT’LL SAVE ME! I REFUSE, YOU HEAR ME?! I-“

The door was wrenched open, and you stumbled forward into his bedroom at the sudden shift in space. The two of you collided, and as he caught you around your waist to hold you up, you seized the fur collar of his coat to keep yourself from falling.

You looked up to see Zemo clutching you, his balaclava off, his hair a sweaty mess. His skin was flushed, nearly feverish, and his eyes were dilated far past their normal range. But there were no bare spots of muscle or bone, no hooks shoved in his skull to keep his eyes open. What little flecks of blood were on his coat didn’t appear to be from any immediate identifiable wound, and they looked dry - or nearly so, anyway.

Your eyes couldn’t stay still, taking in all of him like you were afraid he’d fade away if you blinked. If you woke up.

He really had come back to you.

He was staring at you, though, with a version of his manic intensity that you’d never seen before. His eyes were nearly luminous - the bright thing, instead of the one that had burned.

You realized the fluttering you were feeling in your chest was somehow external, and you snapped out of your trance, taking him in. “…Zee, you’re shaking,” you said in a near-whisper, your fury flooding away from you in an instant.

“Everyone I love dies, my stubborn little know-it-all.” You felt his chest hitch under your hands from a repressed sob. “My wife, my son, my first love — everyone, you hear me? It is inevitable.” He shook his head furiously. “I let them down. I let them all down — they’re all gone, because of me. Because of my decisions.” His gaze dropped to the floor, and you could see him fighting to keep his face from crumpling.

You opened your mouth, but anything you could think to say died on the tip of your tongue as he turned away from you - both because of the shock of this declaration, and the implication that made you feel even more lightheaded.

You couldn’t go there. Not yet. You had to help him first.

“I… Zemo.” You were scrambling, feeling like you were trying to swim to him in a storm. “That’s not…” You bit your lip, pained for him. “…None of that was your fault. Ever.”

“Of course it is!” He looked up so sharply, you had to fight not to step back. “You don’t know, Volchitsa, not like I do — they all met their end because I put them there. One way or another. I got Lukas sent to the front and killed, I put Heike and Carl in danger when I sent them to my father’s to escape the Fall, and I condemned him too in the process. Everyone who has ever meant anything to me, I have gotten them killed. And now you—“ He cut himself off, swallowing like he was trying to choke down a razor blade, and for a moment his face was so pained you had to force yourself not to look away for his sake.

“…I still won’t leave you,” you could only whisper, against the lump in your throat. You shook your head again, trying to get a bit of your resolve back. “I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

Zemo looked at you with a sense of purpose that would have frightened you, if he hadn’t next done what you’d never thought he was capable of:

He fell to his knees in front of you, wrapping his arms tightly around your waist as if you could vanish at any moment.

“I love you,” Zemo’s voice shook as he said it slowly, as if he was afraid to. As if to acknowledge it was a death sentence for both of you. “Do you understand me, draga? I love you. I know that. I’ve known that for—“ He shook his head, his breath escaping him in a frustrated exhale. “Too long. I should’ve told you, ages ago,” he said, gazing up at you with his molten dark eyes. “But I wanted you close, and now— you must listen to me,” he pleaded, his grip somehow tightening in your clothes. “If you don’t leave —” He cut himself off, burying his face in your clothes as his shoulders began to shake. Imperceptibly, at first, but you felt it: the deceptively soft shifting of something that had been threatening to crumble for ages.

You’d realized you’d been wrong, hours ago. You’d never truly known how it felt to be helpless before this exact moment.

It took the feeling of his lips against your waist to realize he was whispering something through the hear-silent sobs that wracked his broad frame - and even then, it took a moment more to translate the Sokovian.

“I couldn’t survive it.” His voice hurt to hear, jagged glass in his throat. “Not again. I’m not strong enough to lose you, too.”

Like he’d cut the last string holding you up, you were brought to your knees.

You knelt in front of him as you collected yourself, trying hard not to join him in his broken state, to marshal the tangle of hopeful-agonizing terrified relief in your brain.

It took all the will in your hands, at last, to reach up and cup his face. He stirred from his misery at the contact, blinking at you in bleary confusion.

“You know I love you.” You wiped his tears away with your thumbs, cradling his face. “For all your brilliance, you have to know by now. The number of times I’ve tried to tell you, Hel, and I was just… scared.” You couldn’t help a small, watery laugh. “I was so scared it wouldn’t be enough to keep you here, when the mission was over. With me. That no matter how hard I loved you, how readily I gave you my entire heart… a life with me could never outweigh the one you lost. It wouldn’t be enough to make you stay.” Your eyes fell to the floor, tears flooding afresh. “And I know that’s selfish. But I’m not… I’m not sorry.” You forced yourself to look up again, determined to look him in the eye as you said it. You owed him that much. “Because you— you’re the closest thing I’ve ever known to a home. And I know now that I would give anything - anything - to keep that. To keep you. I mean it.” You took a soft, shaking breath, trying your best to remember the language that lingered between the two of you like a ghost. “I love you,” you repeated, your Sokovian accent clumsy but clear, and you didn’t miss the way his eyes changed. “I will not let you make this one-sided, Helmut Zemo, where you think you can only keep me here by throwing yourself to the wolves at the door. That can’t be how this works between us.” You stared him down, hoping you looked braver than you felt. “My love means just as much as yours. If you say we’re partners, then I demand to be equal. On all counts.”

Zemo’s eyes held you steadfast, the feverish light from the first night you met burning as though it would consume the both of you from the inside out.

He pressed his forehead to yours, and despite the searing heat of it, the sweat on his brow, you never wanted to move. “You have me, Printsessa,” he rasped. “All of me. I swear it all to you.”

His arms circled your waist again, in a different kind of desperation now, and the kiss he gave you stole what breath you had left. It was somehow resolute and yet needy, his tongue in your mouth and his fingers tangling in your shirt at your back. Like he was scared you would be torn from him if he pulled away too long.

You relished this, the slight roughness to it, the way desire overpowered grace even in someone as careful as him. You would’ve been happy to linger there, to let it go further, but the fear of the last several hours couldn’t be totally dissuaded from whispering in your ear.

You broke away with some effort, searching his eyes as he immediately tried to claim your lips with his again. “Zee, you’re hurt,” you reminded him softly. “We need to patch you up.”

“I’ll be all right, now,” Zemo mumbled, instead moving to kiss the line of your jaw and towards your neck. “I promise, dragam, I’ve had worse.”

“That’s not how this works,” you insisted, your fingers tangling in his hair. You heard him make a noise like a growl in response, his tongue beginning to trace a vein down your neck, before you pulled him backwards and away from you to look him in the eye. “They gave you something, and we don’t know what it is yet. If it was me, you’d insist on taking me downstairs to look me over, right?”

Zemo blinked at you, his eyes flicking between yours and your mouth again, and you couldn’t help but notice his pupils were wider than normal, even for what currently had him… well, preoccupied.

“…’Of course, draga, you’re so right, draga,’” you finally deadpanned in a slightly exaggerated version of his accent, giving up on waiting for him to disagree with you.

You started to get to your feet, tugging at his elbow for him to join you, only for him to immediately stand and support you with his hand on your lower back.

When you were worried you’d been a bit too flip too fast, Zemo chuckled - but it was still a little shaky, a little raw around the edges in a way you couldn’t name. “Well. Look at you, little Professor, taking charge.” He arched an eyebrow, but his eyes still looked dazed, dreamy. “Someone’s getting comfortable with this.”

“The fuck I am,” you said - only realizing too late that it came out too quickly, too raw yourself. You took his arm behind your back gently in both of yours, under the guise of holding on to him, but really making sure he could lean on you if he stumbled or something. You tried to smile, to make it look like you were still kidding around when you felt him watching your face. “You’ve been gone for hours, someone had to fill the power vacuum.”

Zemo blinked, looking at you with a slightly cocked head. “Has… has it been that long?” He glanced from you around the hallway as you headed for the basement door, as if not remembering that there wasn’t a clock in any of the warehouse hallways, nor had there been the entire time you’d been staying in them.

“…Okay, yeah, I’m definitely checking you for a concussion,” you muttered.

You opened the door to the hidden stairs, flicking the light on before hugging his arm a little tighter to descend together.

“I can walk, you know,” Zemo muttered back, still sounding quietly amused. Whether it was the unknown injection, or he genuinely thought your cautiousness was funny, it was hard to tell.

You glanced up at him, about to retort - and nearly choked on your own breath.

Zemo’s bruises were livid under the fluorescent ceiling light, already purpling spectacularly. The spot where he’d been hit with the guard’s gun already looked like it might have a bump forming, and your anxiety immediately started in internally about the possibility of inter-cranial bleeding. It took everything in you not to grab his jaw and demand to check his teeth to see if any had been knocked loose, to make sure he didn’t swallow them.

You were so wrapped up in examining him that you nearly missed a stair, and Zemo had to grab you with his free hand to keep you from falling. “Careful, Volchitsa,” he said, his grip gentle but firm on one of your arms that was wrapped around his. “If I look that bad, I can’t risk you in bruises too.” You looked up to meet his gaze, and he half-winked, half-winced at you. “The implications would have every officer in our radius tripping over themselves to arrest me.”

“I’m sorry,” you said softly, wincing a little. You really had to do a better job developing a poker face, but it was hard when you were with someone who’d had a whole career in espionage.

“Don’t be.” Zemo reached up, running the tips of his fingers over your forehead lovingly as if to smooth your brow. “I still find it refreshing, the honesty of your face.”

“I’ll remind you of that the next time I’m annoyed with you,” you said, hoping your voice didn’t give away how worried you actually were.

As the two of you reached the bottom of the stairs and walked into the basement training space, war room, and (you assumed) infirmary, you felt Zemo take one of your hands from his arm as the motion-activated lights flickered slowly to life. “And I’ll enjoy it even then,” he said, pressing the back of your hand reassuringly to his lips.

If this had been any other time, you would have rolled your eyes at him so obviously trying to placate you - but you resisted, letting your hand linger in his. “Tell me where your first aid supplies are,” you prompted quietly.

“Here.” Zemo led you by the hand to a corner of the all-purpose space you hadn’t needed yet, partitioned by the sorts of sterile-looking folding panels you’d seen in hospital wards. Behind them was a gurney, flanked on one side by cabinets and a sink you realized must have shared plumbing with the shower you two had… made use of, earlier on in your training. On the other, you were mildly impressed to see what looked like a full crash cart and a currently unplugged vitals monitor, as well as an IV stand. This was more than just first aid, this looked like it could be a setup for emergency surgery if necessary.

The notion chilled you the longer you thought about it, images of Oeznik stitching up a bleeding, unconscious Zemo flashing unbidden through your brain. You wondered if it had ever come to that before.

“Shall we play doctor, then?” Zemo joked, his voice low in your ear as it brought you back to the present.

“We’re not playing shit until I get a good look at you,” you said flatly, pulling him towards the gurney. When he merely stood next to it, looking at you with a version of his familiar smirk, you gestured to it. “Up.”

“I didn’t realize my Professor was also experienced in combat medicine.” Zemo folded his arms, looking like he was trying not to laugh. “What a fortunate investment you keep turning out to be.”

“I’m not, but I am experienced in making due on shitty student health insurance,” you quipped back, folding your arms in return. “You’d be surprised how many medical procedures you can manage with a basic toolbox, some duct tape, and some vodka.”

Zemo’s amusement fell away at once, blinking in what appeared to you to be deep concern.

“I’m kidding,” you reassured him. “…Sort of. But now, please, Baron, humor me and get on the damn gurney?”

Zemo took you in, his pupils still threatening to totally swallow the warm brown irises that held them. His expression was the smooth, glass-like surface of a deep lake - you saw nothing stirring, no inkling of what calculations he was making underneath. Even now, having sworn all of himself to you, this level of vulnerability was still something that had to be evaluated first. A potential risk to be vetted.

After a pregnant pause, Zemo still didn’t settle onto the gurney.

What he did do was slowly removed his favorite coat.

He slid it off his shoulders, wincing slightly as he did so - but he held up a gloved hand when you immediately moved to help him. This was something, you realized, he had to do himself.

You curled your fingers into your palms, the closest you could get to sitting on your hands while standing.

With a soft exhale that hinted at a muffled grunt, he shed it entirely, only passing it to you when he couldn’t quite manage casually tossing it to the countertop nearby.

You folded it over your arm, then hugged it to your chest without thinking twice, waiting for his next move. The warmth of it - you could only imagine the sweat, the fear, the blood - could be felt through your shirt.

Zemo noted this - given away only by the tiniest flicker at the corner of his mouth - but said nothing. Instead, his hands went to his holster over his shirt, unbuckling it gingerly. You could see he’d managed to get his weapons back from the Hydra guards, the guns you watched them strip from him now back where they belonged. He pulled it off with his lips flattened into a line, his eyes narrowing just enough for you to notice as he did so. He hesitated, and you could see him debating whether or not to drape it over the metal arm of the gurney.

You stretched your free hand out without thinking, only really occurring to you what you were asking when his dark eyes darted from your hand to your face.

“…I’ll be careful,” you promised him, your voice hushed despite the fact it was only the two of you in the room.

The flicker reappeared at the corner of Zemo’s mouth, and bloomed into something softer than his usual smirk. “I know, Printsessa,” he murmured. “I’m not concerned about that.”

You blinked at the phrasing. “…Are you concerned, Hel?” You shifted subtly where you stood, having to fight the urge to withdraw your hand at the idea.

Zemo must’ve seen your own concern written on your face. “Not with you, dragam.” But even then, the tip of his tongue passed over his lips almost… nervously? Could you be seeing that right?

You stood there, not sure what else to do or say.

This was clearly a decision he had to make himself.

With another soft exhale - something closer now to a sigh - Zemo finally leaned forward to set his holster in your palm.

Your fingers brushed his as you closed your hand around it, and you stifled the slight shiver you felt at the spark of frisson that seemed to travel up your wrist. You balked inwardly - you and Zemo had been more than intimate for a while, now. The two of you had been all over each other since you’d finally stopped circling the possibility in a basement just like this one. So why did this suddenly feel more… raw? Vulnerable, somehow, despite the fact that you weren’t the one having to shed anything?

But then you noticed that Zemo had yet to fully withdraw his own hand. You felt a nervous jolt seize through your stomach, wondering if he was having second thoughts entrusting this to you —

Until you felt his fingertips skim, ever so lightly, over the skin of your palm again. When he met your eyes, you saw something that looked like how you felt mirrored there - somehow shy, as if overwhelmed that the terms of… this, of you two, really had changed.

You realized this might be the closest anyone had been in a long time to seeing Helmut Zemo lay his armor down.

You watched him, unable to look away, and as he held your gaze, his fingers rested fully on your hand. Contact, for contact’s sake.

It was only when you felt yourself inhale at the touch that you realized you’d been holding your breath, just a little.

Your eyes traveled to the last holster belt, the one at his waist where he had started keeping his family sword sheathed since he’d liberated it from Varga’s house. You saw him shift slightly out of the corner of your eye, following your gaze down.

“You don’t have to,” you said immediately, the words tripping over each other as they fell out of your mouth. His coat was one thing, as were his guns. But the sword - he’d just gotten that back. You remembered just how furious he was when he saw Varga had stolen it. It was more than an heirloom, it was a family legacy. You looked at him, shaking your head subconsciously. “I’ll work around it, if I have to. I mean, I might not even need to, depending—”

But Zemo stilled your nervous chatter with another soft stroke of his thumb over your pulse in your wrist. He smiled - something small, more subdued than his usual smirk. But something that reached his eyes nonetheless.

“I told you a long time ago I had placed my faith in you, Schatz,” he said. He nodded to the holster you were already holding. “My only hesitation is…” He trailed off, and you couldn’t be sure if his paucity of words was from whatever Hydra had given him, or something he genuinely couldn’t voice.

You weren’t sure what scared you most.

“…I want you,” he said slowly, trying again. “To be able to run, when you have to.”

You stared at him, coming up blank. “It… it’s just you and me here, Zee,” you said, tilting your head somewhat. “I don’t— do you think we’re compromised?”

Zemo’s eyes flashed to you. “In handing you that,” he said, gesturing at the holster in your hand. “In handing you this,” he said, his other hand resting on the belt at his waist. “I am…” He ran his tongue over his lips again, clearly frustrated with himself. “Implicating you in this, fully, you understand?” His gaze, while still somewhat spacey, was firm. “I’m tying you to me. Selfishly,” he added, somewhat under his breath. “And I don’t want this to be your first instinct when I’m… incapacitated,” he went on. His eyes were locked on yours now, piercing in their intensity even through the haze. “In any other fight, Volchitsa, a real one, I wouldn’t want you to do this. I wouldn’t want you to try to pull me to cover, to fix me or defend me. I would want you to run, without question.” He shook his head, his eyes regaining that manic light you recognized from earlier. “If it comes down to it, I want you to fly. To leave. No hesitation, no second thoughts. And it’s not because I don’t love you,” he went on, his eyes softening as you felt your pain at the thought spread to your face. “I do. You know that, now. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to return to you. It’s how I got here.” He gestured vaguely to the basement as a whole. “I held you in my head and let you lead me here, you understand?”

“Zemo,” you cut in, trying to soothe the anxiety you saw lurking at the bottom of the wide pupils. “Hold on, you’re not making sense. You’re still under… whatever they gave you.” You turned, setting his folded coat and his holster carefully on top of the counter before turning back to him. You set one hand over his heart, feeling it race under your palm and his chest. “We still don’t know what’s in your system. You don’t- we don’t have to worry about any of this, yet. You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

Zemo shook his head, slightly agitated now. “You don’t hear me,” he said, his hands finding your hips as if to anchor himself to them. “It’s more than that.” He rested his forehead against yours again, pulling you flush against his chest. “You know what you are to me.”

You wound your arms around his neck, trying to be gentle lest you graze a wound. “A stubborn know-it-all?” you joked, your voice unsteady even as you said it.

Zemo shook his head, squeezing you so tight you could feel his heart thudding behind bone now. “You reminded me how it feels to want to stay alive,” he murmured, barely loud enough for you to hear. “And that’s the only thing I want for you, now. I want you to stay alive.”

You tried to swallow and only felt an ache, your lungs abruptly empty of air at this admission. Your brain raced, your heart thumping lopsidedly in your own chest as you fought to keep your eyes clear, the fear of never seeing him again from earlier now molten and taking a new shape: a world where one of you would fall, leaving the other even more desperately alone than before. Your arms pulled him down closer to you, forgetting momentarily about whatever injuries lurked under his shirt, until your forehead bumped gently against his yet again. “I was so scared, Helmut,” you whispered. “I don’t… I can’t have you not come back. I couldn’t bear it.” You fought hard to keep your lip from quivering as you felt him hug your ribs now, hugging you back just as hard. “So you have to promise to stay alive for me too. This has to be mutual, just like everything else.” You felt the urge to cry pressing hard against the back of your eyelids, but you shook your head slightly, trying to keep what fragment of composure you’d managed to regain. “…Swear to me,” you said suddenly. “Again. Swear you’ll stay for me.”

Zemo chuckled, but there was a renewed breathlessness to it. “So demanding now, Printsessa. This new power over me has gone right to your head.” But you felt his hand slide up your back, coming to cradling the back of your neck. “I swear this too, on my family’s sword, on the stone of my grave,” he said quietly. “That I will always fight to come home to you. Whatever’s left of me, I will come back, even if I have to crawl on my hands and knees to do it. But in return, you must be willing to go when I ask it of you, my brave little she-wolf,” he added, angling his head to meet your eyes. “I have to have a home to crawl home to, and you carry it with you now.”

You bit your lower lip to keep it from quivering, hesitating. You couldn’t imagine leaving him anywhere, much less under the circumstances that he described - alone, to face a threat without you, even the distraction of you to buy him time. But he had agreed so readily to your demand, and you wanted - you desperately wanted, more than anything, to believe he’d be true to it. “…I swear,” you said at last, nodding slowly. You thought, trying to figure out what exactly you had to swear to him. It didn’t feel like much, in the moment. So you chose the only thing that still mattered to you. “I swear on our home, together,” you whispered. “And a life after this, one we actually want to live — I swear I’ll run when you ask.”

Zemo pressed a gentle kiss to your temple, then your cheek, before burying his face in the crook of your neck. He let out a long sigh of what sounded like both exhaustion and relief, nuzzling his stubbled cheek against the soft skin of your throat. “Thank you, my clever thing”

You reached up, carding your fingers through his hair and letting him linger there for a few moments. You couldn’t remember, honestly, the last time you had felt this at ease. A weight was finally off your shoulders, and your Baron had come back to you safely.

…Well. Mostly safely. “…Now will you please let me check you for a fucking concussion?” you muttered in his ear, reminded why you had actually come down here.

Zemo’s laughter was muffled against your shoulder, his hot breath tickling your skin. “Fine, if you insist.” He pressed one more kiss to your pulse, sending heat flooding to your cheeks. “If it means my Schatzi will rest easier tonight.”

“I’m more worried about you being able to rest at all,” you admitted, letting him pull away from you even as you missed the warmth and the closeness of him.

You watched him remove the sheath at his waist before holding it out to you, meeting your eye as he did so - and you took it without hesitation, holding his gaze as you did so.

When you turned to set it with his other accoutrements, you missed the way he beamed at the sight of you with his family sword in your hands, his eyes traveling over you like he wanted to savor the moment as long as he could.

As you turned back to him, he finally perched on the gurney with a small puff of an impatient sigh. You opened your mouth, about to argue with him — until he pulled at the hem of his shirt, dragging it upwards over his own torso.

You flew to his side, your hands fitting next to his as you tried to be careful and not touch anything sore as you angled it over his shoulders. The pair of you managed it with minimum wincing on his part, but still. It was hard to watch him hurt, now. It was what you had signed up for to some degree when you joined this mission, you had understood that. But love had made his wounds yours.

There were no obviously open wounds waiting for you under the cloth - some nasty looking bruises that would definitely get worse before they got better, and what looked on his ribs to be the imprint of the toe of a boot. You felt a familiar acrid tang in the back of your throat as you circled him, seeing the evidence of punches and kicks to his back and sides: the same one that had slid unbidden into your mouth when you realized how badly Varga had violated your beloved’s grief, and how desperately you wanted to see him pay for it. What you lacked in Zemo’s experience and skill against Hydra goons, you felt in that moment you could make up for in pure rage.

“It’s not so bad.”

Your eyes flickered to Zemo’s face, realizing he was watching you with a tiny, amused smile.

“You’d be livid if this was me,” you pointed out, your own fury slipping away, but still unable to match his humor.

“But it’s not you, and I wasn’t about to let it be,” Zemo soothed, propping his elbow on his knee to rest his chin in his palm. “It’s part of the work, draga. It’s nothing I’m not used to.”

“Okay, but I’m not used to it, and I love you,” you blurted. You didn’t know when you had gotten so free with the statement, inserting it so casually when you’d had to fight to confess it at all before. Zemo seemed to inwardly agree, blinking gat you again as you said it as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself. “So, like,” you went on haltingly. “Even if this is no big deal for you, let me check you over for my peace of mind, at least.”

“I’m not protesting,” Zemo said, reaching for one of your hands and bringing the back of it to his lips. “I’m just saying, you don’t need to fret.”

“Tell me that after we figure out what they injected you with,” you muttered, kissing his knuckles in return before pulling away to open the drawers of the nearby storage. “Because you’re acting way too nonchalant right now.”

“Because I’m with you,” Zemo said lightly, flopping back onto the gurney - and wincing like he’d forgotten his own wounds. “How could I be concerned?”

“Do you really not remember tearing your room apart when you got home and us having a whole yelling match about you not letting me in?” You asked, still opening and closing drawers and cabinet doors impatiently. “Because we definitely did that, and it wasn’t even an hour ago.”

“And then we kissed and made up,” Zemo said, kicking his boots ever so slightly where they hung off the floor. “We were always going to, all is right with the world.”

“Where’s your equipment for a blood test?” you said at last, turning around in exasperation.

Zemo, without looking, pointed to indicate a drawer you had missed at the very end of the counter space.

“Of course,” you mumbled, rolling your eyes at yourself as you hastily opened it.

You gathered the syringe and the other necessary supplies, setting them all on a cart with wheels and pushing it to the gurney’s side. “Arm,” you said softly, holding out your hand to Zemo expectantly.

Zemo stretched out his right arm without hesitation, and you took it gently in your free hand, the other holding the syringe. You’d never drawn blood before. You were a decent Anatomy student, but you had avoided other Biology classes as soon as you reached college, nervous about messing up something critical due to a mistake you didn’t even know you’d made. For a moment, your eyes flickered back towards the staircase, and you wondered if you should go get Oeznik after all.

“The elbow,” Zemo prompted gently. He reached over with his left hand, flicking the skin there a few times with his fingers until a vein was slightly brighter underneath. “Alcohol wipe first. Sterilize the site.”

You looked back to him, hesitant, and Zemo only smiled again, his too-wide pupils still soft as he gazed at you. “If you’re going to stay in our line of work, you have to learn sometime, no?”

You swallowed, willing your nerves back into some sort of order. From there, you followed his careful instructions,, trying not to let his effusive praise whenever you did something right distract you too much. Eventually, you had enough blood to test, carrying the little vial to a machine you’d seen before when you’d gotten your own bloodwork done in the campus clinic. Zemo coached you from the gurney how to load it, and while you waited, he talked you through the finer points of testing him for a concussion. You’d known enough to determine the basics, but between your eyes and his clear, effective instructions, you both concluded he was, indeed, fine - in that regard, at least.

“I told you so,” Zemo said, smirking like a satisfied cat. “I’ve had enough where I think I would know, Printsessa.”

“You’ll forgive me if I took your confidence as a possible symptom, Baron,” you retorted, folding your arms as you stood in front of him - but unable to keep your relief out of your voice. That was one less thing to worry about, at least.

You glanced towards the screen where his blood test results would display, worrying your lip slightly in your teeth.

“We know it’s not a toxin,” Zemo said idly, taking this far more calmly than you were. “It would have manifested more extreme symptoms by now.”

“Unless it’s a very slow-acting one,” you pointed out, your eyes still on the screen.

Zemo snorted. “Does that really seem like Hydra to you? They have me pinned, so they give me something that they can’t watch kill me?”

You shoved down a shudder at the thought. “They didn’t know you were going to escape,” you said, trying to keep your voice as level as his. “Maybe they thought they had time.”

Zemo shook his head. “It would be inefficient at best.”

“I didn’t say they were smart,” you pointed out, your eyes traveling back to his. “They routed all their warehouse security protocols through the same outdated system, after all.”

His eyes sharpened, and he leaned forward somewhat where he sat. “Yes,” he said quietly. “You mentioned that earlier - that you saw me captured, through the backdoor I had into their cameras.” His brow furrowed. “How did you access it?”

You shrugged your shoulders. “I was desperate,” you admitted. “I…” You trailed off, wondering why you felt… embarrassed, almost, to explain what happened.

“You… what?” Zemo gestured for you to elaborate.

“…I was so scared,” you whispered at last. You looked back to Zemo, shaking your head. “I walked out and you were gone, Helmut. You had just… left.” You held up a hand helplessly. “And I didn’t know what to do. I asked Oeznik - I begged him to tell me where you went, to tell me how to help, but all he said was you wanted me to stay.” You wrapped your arms tightly against your chest, desperate for pressure there, feeling like you would fall apart otherwise. “So I fought my way around your security protocols. I lifted your fingerprint for the sensor, I tore your desk apart looking for your password. I know it’s an invasion of privacy, of trust, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do, and I was so… afraid. Afraid it was my fault, that you didn’t take me. That I wasn’t enough after all, in any sense.” You let out a shaking exhale, your long-held secret finally stumbling into the light. “Hel, I would understand… if you wanted to be with your family. That day in the park, Bucky told me—“ You saw Zemo abruptly straighten up in your peripheral vision, but you couldn’t look him in the eye again, not yet. “He told me that was probably going to be what was going to happen. At the end of this.” Your eyes stayed locked on your sock feet on the floor. You didn’t know how wise it was to discuss it with him now, but you couldn’t stop yourself. The words needed to come out. “And I swear,” you shook your head, willing yourself to get through this part. “I was going to understand. I was going to make my peace with it. I couldn’t- I couldn’t be the one to take that from you,” you said, forcing yourself to keep your voice steady. “…But tonight, when I made the system halt and shut the power down,” you looked at him at last. “I didn’t know what happened to you. I didn’t know if you’d made it out, or if I had only made it worse, and…” You shook your head, speech leaving you spinning in the void for a moment. “And I didn’t know how I was ever going to forgive myself,” you managed after a long pause, your voice finally starting to shake.

Zemo was watching you intently, and you could see the barest hint of his usual gravitas returning - and the melancholy, too. “At one point,” he confessed. “James might not have been wrong, Printsessa.” He took a deep breath, and you could see he was fighting to keep reign on whatever was in his veins. “…I spent years, thinking I might as well have died with them,” he said softly, and you felt as though you were listening to a confession. “And when my work was done,” he gestured loosely around the basement. “I would let my body in on the secret that I was was already dead. But you,” he looked back to you, his eyes meeting yours again. “You reminded me there could be a future yet.” He reached up, ghosting his fingers down your cheek. “For Sokovians, for those that survived — and, eventually, for me.” A flicker of his familiar smirk appeared, and your heart lightened - but it couldn’t hold for long, and he nervously traced his lip with his tongue.

“It is… difficult,” he said quietly. “When you have spent so long with your own death in your mind - the shape of it, its immediacy, its certainty - to remember that you’re still alive. That it hasn’t happened yet for anyone but you, that you alone see the funeral shroud over your eyes - hmm.” He cut himself off, looking away for a moment as if he couldn’t bear the weight of your gaze… before finally, releasing a long, softly shuddering breath.

“…But somewhere along the way,” he said, looking back to you again. “You made me want to pull it off. To feel sun on my skin again - really feel it,” he said. “And not just wait for the next night, and the next phase of the mission.” He smiled - and though it was still subdued, and sad, it was real. “My love, you made me want to take my time.” He stared at you like you were something holy. “And now, when all of this is over… I want to take it with you.”

You closed the space between the pair of you without a second thought, stepping between Zemo’s thighs to kiss him with your hands cradling his face. Zemo made a low, contented sound in his throat, pulling you so enthusiastically against his bare chest that you stumbled just a little in the process. You winced when you heard him make a small noise of pain when your hand slid and grazed one of his bruises, and though you briefly pulled away to apologize, Zemo’s hand only moved to cradle the back of your head, pulling you immediately back into said kiss.

When your hands fell to his chest, figuring it to be safer territory, his skin felt positively alight with heat.

“We need to be careful,” you managed, your lips ghosting over his. “I don’t want to make anything worse.”

“We can be careful when we’re dead,” Zemo muttered back in Sokovian, kissing the corner of your mouth messily.

“I’ll remind you of that when it’s my turn to be covered in bruises,” you said, turning your head to chase his lips.

Zemo’s thick fingers carefully caught your jaw. “I will never let that happen,” he said, his voice low even as you moved past his grip to kiss his cheekbone. “No one lays a hand on you and continues to breathe, my love, you hear me?”

“But I like your hands,” you murmured against his stubble, knowing you were being obtuse. You wound your arms around his neck again, trying to keep him from getting too agitated but still wanting to keep him close. “I like a lot of you, to be honest. Much to my surprise and chagrin.”

Zemo let out something between a sigh and an exasperated chuckle, trying to kiss you again before finally settling with nuzzling your cheek. “I’ll remind you of that the next time you get impatient with me.”

“Don’t run off on me again and we won’t have that problem,” you mumbled, playfully nipping at his earlobe.

Zemo pulled back then, forcing you to look him in the eye. “You know I wasn’t,” he said softly. “You know I would never.” His eyes were wide again, searching yours.

You rubbed the end of your nose against his, sighing somewhat. “I do,” you reassured him quietly. You lingered there, grateful to have him right here again, under your hands. To have him back. “But next time, I demand you at least leave me a fucking note.”

Zemo broke into a full belly laugh, and the feeling of him moving against your torso was warm and glorious.

You happened to glance up over his shoulder, kissing the side of his head that hadn’t been whacked by a gun — and froze, seeing something now displayed on the monitor mounted on the back wall.

Your object of affection noticed your new marked tension, then turned to look over his shoulder and follow your gaze. “What, szerelmem?”

“What does that say?” You nodded towards the screen even though he was looking at it too. You were quiet, afraid that if you spoke too loud the shake would come rushing back in to your voice.

Zemo stared at the monitor for a long time, before reluctantly letting go of you to step down from the gurney. Not bothering with his shirt, he ambled across the room towards it - slow enough that you weren’t sure if it was genuine calm, or hesitation on his part as well.

You followed him, your arms folded instinctively across your stomach again as you tried not to hover over his shoulder.

Knowing you wouldn’t understand the readout itself, you instead watched his face: his slow, sweeping eye movements as he read, the slightest push outward of his lower lip as he deciphered the data. The silence couldn’t have been long, but your stomach continued to twist itself into knots for every second he lingered but didn’t speak.

At last, his eyes took in a bar graph in the lower third of the paper, detailing what you could only assume were trace elements to be found in the sample. When he finally scoffed, you nearly jumped at the unexpected sound.

“What?” you asked immediately, fearing the worst.

“Fucking amateurs,” Zemo muttered in Sokovian. He glanced to you, pointing with an elegant finger towards two bars in particular. “You see these, draga?”

You half-nodded, half-shrugged. “…I sucked at chemistry, Baron, you’re going to have to explain.”

“Historian,” Zemo mocked playfully as he nudged you in the ribs, before moving you slightly in front of him so you could see the screen better. “This one is used to agitate the limbic system, produce exaggerated experiences of the desired emotions with the right stimuli - fear, paranoia, doubt, I’d imagine,” he said, like this was all perfectly ordinary. “And this one,” he pointed to the second. “Is a cocktail meant to create physical disorientation, exacerbate external sensation, and generally induce a baseless, constant discomfort under the desired circumstances. But outside of those…” he rolled his eyes. “This is just an overeager copycat of the ‘truth serums’ from the Second World War.”

“…Those didn’t work,” you remembered, looking to him with your brow furrowed. “Pretty famously, I think.”

Zemo made a non-committal noise and performed the international hand wiggle for ‘sort of.’ “It made the targets loosely honest through a lack of inhibition, like anyone would be under a regular general anesthesia. But the point is,” he said, his arm looping around your waist. “It wears off over time, like everything else.”

You processed this, before feeling your shoulders drop with relief. “So you’re fine,” you said softly, leaning heavily against his side at the revelation as you still stared at the screen. “You’re okay.”

Zemo made another non-committal noise, and when you turned in concern, he’d moved so his eyes were level with yours. You realized just how close your faces were, his lips barely an inch away. “It hasn’t worn off… quite yet,” he murmured, his eyes dropping to your lips and back again. “And under… different circumstances for stimuli,” his arm around your waist pulled you so you were flush against his side. “The experience might not be entirely terrible.”

You stared at him, your eyes flicking to his clever wolfish ones and down to his familiar sly smile. “…Are you telling me you want to experiment with a Hydra injection, Hel?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

Zemo leaned forward, moving to kiss you - but paused, finding his lips pressed against the index finger you held up against them.

“Then give me one good reason why I should reward you,” you said coolly. “For that bullshit disappearing act you pulled on me.”

He blinked with the slightest touch of hurt surprise, the coy expression immediately dropping away as he opened his mouth to protest, to remind you —

Until you tilted your head just enough for him to notice, willing him to catch on.

Zemo slowly tilted his head in subconscious mimicry, his expression intrigued. “…Do you propose to punish me then, Volchitsa?”

Keeping your eyes locked on his, you stepped forward, invading his space - then pushed him backwards onto the other side of the examination gurney, your hand on his chest to hold him down.

When he hissed slightly, wincing, you went to lift your hand immediately to apologize - but his broad palm closed around your wrist, holding it there. “Are you still angry at me, my love?” he asked with faux innocence, his eyes glittering like a raven sighting something shiny and new. His grip loosened around your wrist, and he tilted his head again, as if eager to see what you’d do with it now.

Your hand moved slowly, finally coming to hover one of his bruises, hesitant - but when Zemo gave you the smallest dip of his chin, you put some of your weight on it, pressing down. “I might be,” you said, keeping your tone flat and aloof.

Zemo groaned slightly between grit teeth, but it was different than his previous sounds of pain. “I couldn’t tell,” he quipped nonetheless, his eyes darting to yours. You recognized the gleam there, the challenge unspoken.

“Didn’t you used to head Sokovian intelligence?” you shot back. You hopped up onto the gurney yourself, shooing him backwards with a wave of your hand. Zemo more than happily complied, making room for you to join him.

You purposefully crowded him so his back was flat against the soft padding, supporting yourself over him on your palms but making a point to keep space between you. “You’ve been sniffing at me since you got home, you know that?” You were making it a point to sound bored, almost annoyed. “Your tongue in my mouth, your nose against my throat — is that why you came back?” You leaned forward as if to kiss him, but stopped just short of his lips again.

Zemo seemed immune to your dig, however, his eyes taking in the light through your hair like it was stars. “I missed you,” he murmured. “I felt it like an ache. I wanted my good girl,” his eyes moved to yours, and the giddy wideness of his pupils caught you by surprise. “To tell them I’d always come back to you.”

“You think you deserve a warm welcome,” you said softly, determined not to break character. “After you took off without a word? Even a hint?”

You moved so you were straddling his thighs, still fully dressed yourself, and ran your fingernails lightly up and down the trail of coarse dark hair that led into the waist of his trousers. Zemo moaned softly, trying to arch his back, to stretch his hips towards your hand, but you refused to alter your movements.

“I would make you beg, Baron,” you said, watching him writhe underneath your torturously slow hand. “But I doubt you know the meaning of the word.”

“Would you like that?” Zemo countered immediately, fighting a gasp as your fingers inched closer to the growing bulge between the pair of you but refused to make contact. “Would you like me to plead for you, Printsessa? To apologize for my neglect?” His eyes caught yours, clever again. “In how many languages?”

You dug your nails into one of his hips, watching him hiss and squirm. “Go fuck yourself,” you barely managed, your cheeks suddenly searing at the thought. Damn him, he was good.

“But you’re right there,” he half-laughed, half-groaned, trying to roll his hips again towards where you stubbornly remained still. “Why can’t you fuck me, and tell me how awful I was to abandon you while you do?”

“Because I don’t think you’ve earned it.”

Zemo actually paused, sitting up just slightly to look at you as you blinked at your own words. The two of you, for a moment, sat frozen in mutual surprise.

“…The audacity of you, you upstart,” Zemo said, in a tone that was somehow both surprised and impressed. He propped himself up on an elbow. “You’re going to sit here and say to my face - my bruised face, may I add,” he said, gesturing to his own wounded countenance. “That my successful return against all odds hasn’t earned me the privilege to fuck my little know-it-all speechless?”

Your face felt like it was on fire, hearing him put it like that. You sat there scrambling, wondering if you’d just talked yourself into a corner —

Until you noticed Zemo’s cock, already hard under his clothes, twitch ever so slightly.

Your eyes met his again, and you doubled down. “Yeah, actually.”

Zemo was clearly suppressing a laugh, and gestured disbelievingly for you to continue.

“I mean, is it really that impressive,” you said slowly, setting both hands on his stomach and leaning forward. “If you literally led a division of a national espionage organization?” You fixed him with a pointed stare. “And were you really just expecting me to let you act like you were entitled to fuck me for managing the bare minimum, no less?”

The confident smirk was replaced by further surprise, Zemo’s eyebrows arching impressively as he gave you a further once-over. “I leave for — what, five, six hours, and my partner decides their cunt’s too good for me?” He tossed his head so his rogue curl was out of his eyes. “You expect me to use my hand like some novice, Volchitsa, while you watch?”

“It was twelve.” Your response was a little too quick, too raw to be playful. You winced at your own honesty, your eyes falling to the plain cotton sheets on the thin mattress. “…You were gone for twelve.”

You could see Zemo freeze out of the corner of your eye, and you cursed yourself for killing the mood. You looked up, taking a breath to apologize —

And found him already looking at you, holding up a hand. “It’s all right,” he said, his voice softer now. Genuine. “It’s fine, dragam. You can be angry with me.” His smile was gentle, even a little melancholy, and you knew he didn’t just mean in the moment, when the two of you were teasing.

You swallowed your apology, taking a moment to recalibrate. “…I thought you were gone. Really gone, Zemo.”

“I’m right here,” Zemo murmured, his free hand reaching to trace his fingertips down your neck. “I’m all yours.”

You felt your eyes slide closed, your head falling back to expose your throat further. “I thought I was a casualty to decision-making. A secondary concern.”

“No, Schatzi, never.” Zemo pushed himself upright, his hands squeezing your shoulders before sliding down your sides. “The only acceptable loss was mine, I swear to you.”

“Acceptable to whom?” Your eyes snapped open, and you fixed him in the dead center of your coldest stare. “You’d really disregard my wishes so easily, Baron?”

Zemo stopped where his hands were hovering at the hem of your shirt, his expression carefully even - but under the influence of the injection, you could see the calculations taking place behind his eyes.

As you watched him realize he’d just talked himself into a verbal snare, you felt a bolt of heat go straight to your clit.

You sucked on your teeth, trying to keep your own smug smile in check. “If you’re so willing to make my goals in this work - our work - second to your own,,” you went on, watching him turn this over. “Then no, I don’t think you deserve to fuck me regardless of the mission’s success.”

Zemo watched you like a hawk, his tongue running over his teeth under his lip as he considered his next move. “…Then it seems we’ve reached an impasse,” he said at last, shifting slightly - his trousers looking far too tight now to be comfortable. “Because I’m not about to let anyone else fuck what’s mine.”

“Now who’s audacious?” you asked, trying not to shift yourself as the heat insistently lingered at the core of you.

“You say I haven’t earned fucking you into my mattress? Making you come on my cock until you break? Fine,” Zemo said, his face stubbornly neutral as he said all of this. “I can live with that. Any task you set to me, I’ll happily undertake in pursuit of your approval. But you’re just going to have to live with not getting fucked, Printsessa,” he leaned forward, his nose an inch from yours. “Because I don’t share. It simply isn’t done. Especially not,” he said, his fingers ghosting lovingly towards the neckline of your shirt. “Something so rare.”

“Because you’re royalty? Is that it?” You grabbed his wrist, leaning forward so he fell back against the padding and pinning it above his head. “You think I care?”

“Because I’m a jealous, territorial man,” Zemo growled, frantic now with your hips hovering so tantalizingly close to his. “And I refuse to see something so singular spoiled by lesser hands.”

You moved his wrist to trap his other one beneath it, and he let you, his hands clenching in anticipation. With your free hand, you reached between the two of you, freeing his cock at last. It was heavy in your hand, already leaking, and Zemo threw his head back in frustrated want as you spread the fluid over his thick shaft.

“Okay,” you said, trying to keep your voice relatively dispassionate even as you felt him throbbing slightly in your hand. You stroked slowly, watching his hips rise to meet your fist for what little contact it was worth. “So currently, it stands that you owe me an apology—“

“I’m sorry,” Zemo moaned immediately, his eyes closed as he let out a frustrated exhale through his teeth. “On my life, I’m sorry, draga, I’ll never—“

“Not done,” you said, your hand going still.

Zemo growled again, trying to fuck himself into your fist for a moment to no avail. At last he went still again, panting slightly.

“But you also think you’re the only one good enough to fuck me, even though I don’t think you’ve earned it,” you said, talking this through.

“And I’m right.” Zemo bit out under his breath.

You shrugged, lazily stroking him again and watching him sigh in almost painful relief. “And even though you’d subsume my own agenda with our work to yours,” you went on, your thumb slowly laving at his slit. “As in, making sure you make it out alive — you also say I’m inescapably yours.”

“Mine,” Zemo echoed, like a call-and-response prayer. His eyes, now thoroughly feverish, found yours as you stroked him quicker. His hips jerked gracelessly towards your hand, his hair going slightly wild with sweat and movement as he angled his head to look at you. “Just mine, Printsessa.” He swallowed thickly. “S-swear to me.”

You had to fight not to pause, to keep your movements steady even as this unexpected entreaty threw you. “Tell me what to promise, Hel,” you prompted, your eyes never breaking contact with his.

Zemo was panting still under your hand, even though his gaze was locked on your face. “Swear you belong to me — your heart belongs to me,” he breathed, his eyes regaining that fervor you had first seen that night in Riga. “And even— even if you have to run, to get away — you’ll be where I run to.” You felt his cock flex in your hand. “That you’ll wait for me.”

You closed the distance between the two of you, kissing him hard. Zemo kissed you back even as you continued stroking him, his thigh shaking just slightly against the knuckles of your hand.

“Enough of this,” he hissed, freeing his wrists from your grip. They went immediately to your shirt, pulling hard enough to rip the fabric significantly. “I’ll buy you another one,” he mumbled immediately in rushed Sokovian, his hands skimming over your compression top and falling to your trousers in turn.

You were more than happy to assist him even as you continued to kiss the flushed skin over his noble cheekbones, across the broad plane of his chest, climbing out of your pants as he pulled them hastily off you. Naked from the waist down, you straddled his hips fully, your face hot again as you felt yourself folds dripping now that they were exposed.

Zemo groaned deep in his throat, his fingers immediately swiping the slick there to your clit. “Mein Gott, you feel like fire,” he whispered, sitting up to support you with an arm against your back. Your nails immediately sunk into the bare skin of his shoulders, biting your lip as you moved against his impatient fingers without question. “You feel like life under my hands, Schatzi, you know that?” He turned, pressing desperate kisses down your jaw to the junction of your neck, where he sucked so hard you could feel his teeth against your pulse. He let you go when you gasped, his fingers roughly circling still. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, his breath hot against your cheek.

You would’ve been embarrassed at how easily you came apart for him if you weren’t gasping slightly, shoving your hips against the rough pads of his fingertips as your nerve endings flooded with sparks. You were still clenching around nothing when Zemo shifted his hips under yours, angling until he could press himself against your entrance. “Please let me, Volchitsa,” he murmured, his tongue against the bruise he’d already left on your neck.

You moved without a word, sliding down slowly as you took him in and stretched to accommodate him. You felt his cock spasm slightly against your walls, and you let out a long, shaking exhale at the pleasurable ache, the heat having spread from your cheeks and your core to engulf you entirely.

Zemo buried his face in your shoulder, and you felt his teeth graze where your collar bone would be. “My good girl,” he mumbled, sounding dazed already. “So warm and wet for me, so sweet, even when they’d curse my name.”

Your hand tangled in his hair, and you pulled abruptly backwards, forcing Zemo back down against the mattress.

While he winced slightly, his hands flew to your thighs, his fingers pressing into them so tightly you were sure there would be bruises later.

Keeping your eyes on his, you slowly, achingly slowly, rocked your hips forward, biting your lip hard against the resulting friction.

Zemo moaned, his hands moving to your hips now to pull you forward against him. “More,” he demanded, desperate.

You pulled his hair slightly to watch him growl, taking your sweet time as you began to ride him. You wanted to relish this - to savor what you thought had been lost, to bask in the relief of having him here, with you, alive. You would chase your own release as long as it took, you weren’t giving him up a second before you had to.

His large palms were scaldingly warm, tapered fingers insistent as they drove themselves into your flesh, but you realized after a while he was no longer pulling you. He was simply holding on as you moved at your own fluid pace, his thumbs rubbing circles into your hips lovingly as he rocked his own up into yours, meeting you halfway. You watched his eyes flutter as you bore down a little faster, a bit harder, his hands moving from your hips reverently up your stomach.

They stopped just short of your compression top, instead lovingly stroking the skin of your shoulders around the straps, and you let go of his hair. When he looked up with a pout, as if wondering where your grip had gone, he instead looked on as you hastily pulled the garment up and over to free your chest.

Zemo sat up again, causing you to gasp at the movement as he did so, his hands cupping your breasts as lightly as gossamer. He kissed them each where they spilled out of his palms, and your hands came to rest at the back of his neck as he squeezed and stroked them, enchanted by the skin and the marks like lightning he found there.

Your hips continued to roll together, one of your hands dipping between the pair of you to stroke at your neglected clit. Zemo pressed another hasty kiss to each of your breasts before he shoved your hand aside, his fingers again circling your bud with urgency. You shivered under his touch, your displaced hand instead now moving to cup his balls in your palm, taken by the weight of them in your hand.

Zemo inhaled sharply through his teeth when you squeezed ever so lightly, his fingers pressing harder onto your clit in the same way he got you off in his office what felt like ages ago. You shivered, unable to help clenching around him at the memory, and he gasped as he felt the heat of you dripping against his hand.

Feverishly close, you rested your forehead against his, wondering if he could feel your heart thrumming against his sternum. “I swear,” you murmured, your words slightly slurred as the two of you continued at your near-frantic pace. “I swear I’m yours.” You pressed a messy, clumsy kiss to his open, panting mouth. “I’ll wait for you, Hel. Always.”

The relief in his eyes, the way he drove up into you all the harder, was what finally undid you. Your hands clutched as his shoulders as your nerve endings set themselves ablaze, shoving your mouth against his clavicle so the litany of his name had something to muffle it. As you broke around him, his palm squeezed the back of your neck, and he held you as close as he could manage as he followed you over the edge. You couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, as he was speaking too fast and jumping between too many tongues for you to follow, but the feeling of him fucking his orgasm further inside you needed no translation. Zemo peppered your face with adoring kisses when you finally sat up from his shoulder, and you could catch snippets of the pet names he rained down upon you.

“My stubborn little love, my Printsessa,” he murmured, at last landing back in your mutual tongue. “I’ll never let you go, I swear to you, you’ll never face the world alone again.”

When the two of you at last stilled, panting and sweaty and scattered, Zemo was the one that pulled you back against the gurney with him. He held you against his chest as you curled against him, still lightly, apologetically passing your hand over his bruises even as you tried to catch your breath.

“…Don’t you ever do that again,” you managed at last, your voice somewhat strained by the way you’d muffled your own cries. “Not without me.”

Zemo pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “Not in a million years,” he murmured, clutching you to him. “Not without you.”

Neither of you would remember who finally suggested you make your way back to his room, or who tucked the clean white duvet around the other.

In the morning, all you would remember was the frantic thudding of your hearts as you made your respective oaths, with bruises and bite marks to illustrate them.

(if you read this far, I definitely love you <3 thanks for sticking with me!)

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