Protector
Genre; Hurt/Comfort
Word Count; 3.0k
Warnings; Anxiety, panic attack, canon-typical violence.
Pairings; Baron Helmut Zemo (FatWS) x Civilian!Reader [gender neutral as always]
I’ve been rewatching FatWS and have been reminded of my love for Zemo, and I’m a huge fan of the villain x civilian trope soooo…. Zemo x Civilian!Reader. Not that I don’t love reading or writing a badass reader, but I really like the idea of Zemo looking after someone who can’t protect themselves during a fight.
My “Sokovian” pet names (because I couldn’t resist) are German; Schatz (treasure, gender neutral) and Schatzi (little treasure, also gender neutral). I went down a little linguistics rabbit hole and found out that Schazi is like a playful version of Schatz, so hopefully I used it right here.
This one was really fun to write, hope you enjoy!
Masterlist
-
You dropped to the ground with a gasp, hands covering your head, as a series of bullets flew past you. The crack of the gun was deafening. Hidden amidst the maze of shipping containers which littered Madripoor’s docks, you couldn’t see where the shooter was. You scrambled backwards on the asphalt until your shoulders hit something solid, your ears ringing mercilessly. Heart pounding, you tried to control your breathing and focus. You had to leave, but you couldn’t go anywhere until you knew which way was safe.
Or safer. You pressed your lips together, your jaw tight. How the hell you’d gotten separated from Sam, Bucky and Zemo, you didn’t know. You were trying desperately to think like any one of the three of them, how they would work out an escape route or even just stay calm enough to focus.
A scream tore itself from your throat as something exploded to your left. You squeezed your eyes shut in time to feel the blaze of heat on your skin, the tremor of the ground beneath you. You didn’t remember covering your head with your arms. Then, there was another round of gunshots. It was clearly an automatic weapon this time, the sound ricocheting in your head long after it stopped.
You’d only gotten wrapped up in this mess because you’d had the misfortune to be seen with the trio by a member of the Flagsmashers. They had incorrectly assumed you were working with Sam and the others and decided the best course of action was simply to kill your fairly defenceless self. In the heat of the moment, the only certain way to keep yourself safe had been to actually go with them. And since no one knew who could be trusted, you had travelled from Germany to Madripoor, a city you hadn’t even known existed, on a Baron’s private jet, which was an experience you never would have believed you would have. Your count of being shot at had gone from zero to lost-count in a matter of days, and now you were trapped in the middle of a shootout with no training and no idea of how to ensure your survival.
A plume of acrid smoke billowed towards you, stinging your eyes and burning your throat. You coughed without meaning to, rubbing at your eyes in an attempt to see through the tears clouding your vision. The sound of gunfire was getting closer. Your breathing grew heavy, chest starting to heave as a weight seemed to press down on your ribs with the realisation that you might actually not make it out of this situation at all.
Someone cried out, visceral and raw, and the sound cut off abruptly in the space of the next gunshot. Your breath caught in your throat. That was an entire life, ended in a split second just yards away from you. One of many. One of a list you were probably going to join because if you tried to make a run for it, someone was going to shoot you. If you stayed put, someone would eventually find you and most likely shoot you. The only people who could possibly help you were simply gone, if they had even survived this long, and –
“Schatz, we need to leave. Now.”
You gasped and flew backwards, whacking your wrist and the back of your hand against the container you were hiding behind through your flailing. Zemo never hesitated. He followed your backward trajectory as you blindly tried to get away from him, not yet recognising who was in front of you. You only registered it was him once he was crouched over you, grasping your shoulders to pull you up to standing.
You blinked and your hands were on his chest, fingers curled into the fur collar of his coat as you tried to steady yourself. You couldn’t focus properly on what was happening around you. Somehow, in spite of everything, what you noticed was the way the sunlight changed the Baron’s appearance. It caught his eyes and revealed they were actually hazel, not a dark brown, and highlighted streaks of his hair to give them an almost auburn glow. The deafening sounds of violence faded to nothing for a moment as his arm wrapped tight around your waist to keep you close to his side. He immediately broke into a run without giving you time to recover.
“Come, quickly,” Zemo muttered, but his gaze wasn’t on you.
He didn’t raise his voice; he never had in your presence. But his rough tone belied urgency. He was looking around all the time, searching out potential threats and avenues of escape with impeccable accuracy. The Baron moved through the chaos with the rhythm of a man who knew this world like the back of his hand. He set a quick pace, completely steady, utterly in his element. There was too much going on for you to realise that the quiet which had come over your frantic mind was a feeling of safety, or to analyse how it was Zemo of all people who was making you feel safe. To understand that you trusted him implicitly, absolutely, to get you out alive and unharmed.
The two of you had no sooner rounded the corner of the next container when someone bolted out with a gun raised, aiming to kill. The Baron’s reaction was instantaneous. The arm that had been at your waist locked in a bar over your stomach, shoving you back and behind him before you could blink. He followed, the force of his movement enough to drive the air from your lungs when your back collided with the wall of yet another container. He raised his free arm and killed your attacker with a single shot from a weapon you hadn’t even known he was carrying, his precision impeccable. It struck you that the gun was as natural in his hand as a delicate cup of tea.
“Come,” he told you simply, his arm returning to your waist to direct you where he chose.
You went without question, watching him over anything else. He stopped again just a moment later, slipping through a set of open double doors with you. A gleaming Pontiac Firebird waited in the dark on the other side. Zemo manoeuvred you into the passenger seat of the car easily before taking his own place behind the wheel. The engine purred to life and you pressed yourself back as soon as you realised what he was going to do, your hand flying to his wrist where his own held the gear shift.
The Baron tilted his head towards you in question, his expression neutral. You swallowed hard. You were suddenly afraid of sounding silly in front of him.
“It’s a convertible,” you mumbled, not brave enough to meet Zemo’s gaze but equally unwilling to release his wrist. “What if they’re still shooting?”
He shook his head minutely, offering you a small smile. His manner was light enough to convince you to look up at him.
“Sam, James and Sharon will have taken care of the rest by now. It will be alright.”
After a moment of hesitation, you nodded. You didn’t want to contradict him, because this was so clearly his element and he sounded so confident. But your heart was in your throat. As he pulled out onto the dock, Zemo turned his palm upwards and slowly curled his fingers over yours, his knuckles now resting on the gear shift. He didn’t acknowledge the movement, the offer of reassurance, but it was more than enough to make you look down at your hands. And to realise how badly yours was shaking in his steady hold.
It was only when Zemo pulled up in front of the others that you could begin to trust that the fighting was really over, like he had said. He explained away the very nice car with a smirk and a comment about it being supercharged, and ignored the rather pointed looks he received from both Bucky and Sam. You knew the silent commentary was about you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to worry. You were putting all of your efforts into focusing on how Zemo was half-holding your hand, lest your mind ran straight back to how close to death you had just come.
The Baron, possibly the most talented reader of people you had ever met, no doubt knew this. And he allowed it anyway.
You stayed silent on the drive to the airport, only moving at all once you arrived because Zemo lightly tapped your hand to draw your attention to him.
“It is time to leave,” he told you quietly, again ignoring both Sam and Bucky’s silent disapproval as he encouraged you out of the car and onto his private jet. You took your seat onboard without any problems, but that changed as soon as you were in the air. Finally safe for the first time in days, everything that had happened during that time crashed down on you with an almost disorienting weight. You really had almost died. Sam, Bucky and Zemo had each had more close calls than you wanted to count. Other people had died, often at the hands of those who you were relying on to protect you.
You couldn’t say you were afraid of Bucky, but the man in Selby’s bar hadn’t been him. The Winter Soldier had still been just a ghost story to you, something which had been mentioned once or twice on the news a few years back. To see him up close, every bit the cold, emotionless killer he’d been described as, had been terrifying. You still hadn’t recovered from being forced to watch the injuries he had dealt out in the process of playing the role. Then Selby had been shot by a sniper, right in front of you, and the spray of blood which caught your arm had still been warm.
You had been at the wrong end of every single gun in the bar before you even met her, barely escaped with your life in the manhunt for you which had followed, and then that final fight on the docks –
Sam and Bucky continued their heated debate on the other side of the plane, turned away from you lest you were to overhear something sensitive. They hadn’t yet noticed how your vision was tunnelling, or the way your chest heaved under an imaginary pressure which you couldn’t breathe through. When their hissed words faded into white noise, neither one looked up long enough to see the silent tears tracking down your face.
But Zemo clocked and catalogued your every single unspoken cue, seeing the oncoming panic attack before it really even started. He finished his whiskey at the plane’s minibar and casually stepped over to you from where he had been preparing to pour himself a second glass. You hadn’t noticed how violently your hands were shaking or how your nails were digging into the expensive leather arms of your seat, but it became apparent as soon as Zemo gently slid his hands around yours. You looked up sharply, surprised, but stood without question when he indicated that was what he wanted you to do. Your hearing cut back in, sudden enough that your own breaths sounded like thunder.
The Baron was full of an easy, relaxed confidence, watching you steadily and catching you up in his gaze without effort. You stammered, your lips moving even as you failed to produce a single word. Zemo’s hands were warm where he had only recently taken off his gloves, but he didn’t seem to mind that yours were cold and clammy. You again found yourself staring at his eyes. They were dark now, in the relatively low interior lighting of the plane. You couldn’t pick out the golden highlights in his hair either. He lightly smoothed his thumbs over your knuckles, never once glancing away from you. The coat he had yet to remove blocked your view of Sam and Bucky, and you were grateful that you didn’t have to worry about them for a moment.
The longer he just stood quietly with you, patient and understanding without you needing to say a word, the more your thoughts turned to Zemo himself. To how unafraid he was to be seen comforting you, even with Sam and Bucky right behind him. How he hadn’t hesitated to find you at the docks and get you out safely. How he’d used his own body to shield you when the shooter had come out from nowhere.
Then, your tears started falling for a whole different reason. You realised, finally, that he made you feel safe because every time something had happened, he had protected you. Your lip began to tremble to your own horror, and you dropped your head quickly to avoid having to see Zemo’s reaction. Except he wouldn’t allow that.
He slid a finger beneath your chin and rested his thumb against your jaw, gently tilting your head back up until you had to meet his gaze. Your tears continued to well over despite your best efforts, but he wouldn’t let you look away. His expression softened and he tilted his head just a little as he offered you a small smile. The result was something lightly mocking, though he clearly didn’t mean it in any vicious way. He looked like he thought you were cute.
“Schatzi,” he cooed, drawing the pet name out for an unnecessary length of time. “You are safe now, hm? Now is the time to be relieved, not afraid.”
You couldn’t pull yourself together for long enough to even pretend to be insulted, but it didn’t matter because Zemo released you to slide his arms around your shoulders and back, pulling you close to his chest. He was quite content simply to cradle you there, his hand finding its way to the back of your head to stroke over your hair. Your arms curled around his waist in return as you tried to relax into him and let him help you to calm down. Without meaning to, you found yourself focusing on his sharp, expensive cologne.
“The hell do you think you’re doing?”
You flinched violently as Bucky snapped at Zemo, though thankfully you were too hidden in the Baron’s coat for anyone to notice but Zemo himself. He turned you both easily so he could face the supersoldier, keeping your head tucked into his chest.
“They are a civilian James, what did you expect?”
Zemo’s rough voice rumbled pleasantly beneath his ribs when he spoke, and it soothed you more than you would have expected.
There was a pause during which you could practically sense Bucky grinding his teeth. His next words were directed at Sam, accusatory.
“I told you we shouldn’t have brought them-”
“And I told you were couldn’t just leave them to be killed by the Flagsmashers because of us,” Sam interrupted. “I know this isn’t ideal, least of all for them. But we don’t have another choice.”
You personally chose to keep your face hidden against Zemo’s chest when you felt the weight of at least one gaze on the back of your head, possibly two. There was a moment in which nobody spoke. And then –
“Fine. But they stay with us.”
Bucky clearly intended for you to go and sit on what had become his and Sam’s side of the plane. You had no intention of being subjected to their arguing all the way to Latvia, so in an attempt to avoid addressing the situation, you said nothing. You tried to ignore the resulting hot prickle of embarrassment crawling up your back and neck – you were a grown individual after all, and you were standing there hugging a war criminal in favour of having a conversation with a couple of Avengers. But if you spoke to them, you would have to acknowledge that Zemo was in fact doing a very good job of calming you down. And then that you needed both the comfort and reassurance after everything that you had seen.
Sam, being used to counselling people with trauma, might have accepted that and offered you some advice. Bucky, on the other hand… That admittance would just be one more thing he didn’t want to have to deal with. You hadn’t wanted to be involved with this particular illegal mission either, and the last thing you wanted was to make any of their lives more complicated, but here you were.
You became hotter and more uncomfortable as the moment progressed, trying frantically to figure out what you could say to make yourself seem less of a fragile idiot in front of three soldiers. But, once again, Zemo stepped in and saved you from having to say anything at all. His hand was still cradling the back of your head.
“I suppose that answers your question, James.”
It was the same tone of voice he’d used when he’d brought up the notebook he had somehow managed to steal from Bucky, low and soft and meant to provoke. It worked – naturally – and there was a short scuffle during which you inferred that Sam had stepped between Bucky and Zemo (and yourself) before the supersoldier could start anything.
“Bucky, look,” Sam muttered, sounding pained. “If they’d rather be with him, then just let them. We’re on a plane, man, nothing’s gonna happen.”
You considered that with your earlier assessment of Sam – that perhaps he would have simply offered you advice – you had severely underestimated the man. He didn’t want you to seek comfort in Zemo any more than Bucky did, but he was willing to let it slide. You vowed to come up with some sort of reasonable explanation for them when you didn’t feel quite so exhausted.
Having apparently reached some sort of a begrudging understanding, Sam and Bucky started up another quiet argument as Zemo pulled back from you just a little.
“Accompany me to the galley, hm? You can choose your preferred blend of tea.”
You nodded, trying for a smile and pleased that at the very least your tears had stopped.
