Chapter Text
Zemo is a free man.
With an asterisk, perhaps, but he is an intelligent man, and freedom cannot be far off if he is clever and enterprising. Both of which he is. Cleverer and more enterprising than the people holding his leash, certainly. And he is patient. All he has to do is wait. He’ll pay attention, he’ll play along. And then he’ll strike. And then he’ll be free. It is inevitable. He is already free; it is only a matter of time.
He’s currently playing along in a nightclub, trying to dig up information on an arms dealer. An arms dealer. Threatening in its own right, to be sure, but in a world where people themselves can be weapons, a man trafficking guns no longer feels like the sort of thing Zemo should be working on.
Still. He knows how to charm. This mission will not take long. And either they will give Zemo the opportunities he needs, or he will make his own opportunities.
He looks over the nightclub, the blue lights interspersed with white flashes and multi-colored laser-lines of light, the writhing bodies on the dance floor. The women showing too much skin, the men trying to appear fashionable. No one would expect to find a baron here, he thinks, amused.
“Zemo.”
The voice is familiar, and he turns, a charming smile at the ready.
Her fist connects with his nose, breaking the bone, and he falls back as some of his teammates step in to confront her. He holds up his hand to stop them and tries to still his hand’s trembling “An old friend,” he quickly explains.
He turns to the bar and gestures for napkins; some are quickly brought to him, along with a glass of water.
He carefully cleans his nose as best he can. It isn’t his first broken nose. He doubts it will be the last. No, it isn’t the broken nose, or the violence, that has shaken him.
She leans against the bar. With the crush of people, she’s closer than is polite. Closer than it appears she wants. “I told you it isn’t over.”
“I am attempting to atone, Miss Carter.”
She doesn’t correct him, and he wonders if she is still an agent. He’d heard she’d been reinstated, but then, perhaps, she’s undercover here, just as he is.
Her eyes are shrewd, cold. If she’s shaken by what just happened, it doesn’t show. “I’m going to make some calls,” she says shortly. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he lies, because he suspects he knows who she’s calling. Samuel or James, who will in turn tell her they last saw him in custody. In which he no longer appears to be. One more call, and the Dora Milaje will arrive. With her on her phone, he gestures to his team. The mission is no longer feasible in its current circumstances, and Zemo escapes while they perform a distraction.
His skin still feels like he’s been shocked by electricity, as if his skin has come alive for the first time, feeling air and hot and cold for the first time no matter how many times he has felt such things before. He hopes it doesn’t mean what he thinks it means.
It means what he thinks it means, what he fears. His nose is almost healed, and he still thinks about her. Unbidden. Glimpses of her face in a dream, ghosts of her voice in a nearby room, the memory of his skin coming alive when cold air touches the back of his neck.
Soulmates are terrible things. There’s no way to know when they’ll be found. Discovered, he should say. Some have words on their skin. Others see the world differently upon meeting. Some people are together for years before they say a phrase of significance. Finding a soulmate brings with it great highs. Physical contact is said to aid healing, though that may be the psychology of it all. There is a bond that is described as almost psychic. The songs and poems describe soulmates as a missing puzzle piece found, something that fills an empty space you never noticed. Which seems rather stupid to Zemo – how do you not notice a hole in your puzzle?
But now that he’s here, back in his cell for the time being, it occurs to him that he has certainly missed something.
He’d loved his wife. He still does. Heike had been wonderful. Sweet. Caring. Patient. A wonderful woman and mother. He could return home, having committed atrocities in service to his country, and she would soothe his troubled soul with her gentleness.
He had always known that loving her was a choice. It hadn’t been a passionate affair; he is not easily a passionate man. They had fallen in love like a spring breeze in winter, so subtle and soft that by the time they’d noticed their feelings had grown to balmy summer, the ensuing wedding was a given.
Soulmates are not matters of choice. This supposed – no, evident - bond of his is proof of that. They would not have chosen each other. If not for his team, he suspects she would have killed him there and then.
But her touch had made his skin feel alive.
He’s been punched enough to know that isn’t a normal reaction.
The splint comes off his nose, and he studies himself in the mirror when it occurs to him – she hasn’t contacted him. He imagines she has the resources. But she has resisted. His own self-control has been aided by prison. What aided her?
Discreet questions are asked. Enough to find out that no one has inquired after him.
He wants to admire her self-control. He’s mostly offended she doesn’t think he’s worth tracking down. Does she not know who he is? But of course she does.
Is it possible she simply doesn’t care? No. No, that can’t be.
Days pass. His mind wheels. He ponders her motivations, her psychological ins and outs. But he knows too little to put together a full picture. Does she mean to kill him? Is she waiting? Is she digging up everything she can on him?
He digs up everything he can on her. Not so discreetly, though he hadn’t meant to be particularly subtle. Just subtle enough to make it evident he is hiding his actions. Not that he finds much. More about her more famous relative than her. She seems to have very little online presence at all. But the research accomplishes its goal. He is called into the office and invited to sit, asked what he’s up to.
“It appears she is my soulmate,” he says, not entirely faking his discomfort. “There is a drive. It is difficult to explain. Perhaps… Perhaps you could arrange something. Not a meeting, necessarily, but a way for us to communicate? I admit to some curiosity about her.”
After that, things are out of his hands. He knows that he must accept that he can’t control everything. But there is a yearning, a pull.
And a growing sense of offense as weeks trickle by. Why will she not respond? He is a baron, former elite soldier. She is a lowly art thief, a former government agent. They are not so different, for all her inferiority.
Finally, his cell is visited. A folder with a single sheet of paper inside. Nondescript. Devoid of personality. A date. A time. A location.
He can do more with less.
And now, he thinks, to find out if Sharon Carter will kill him.
Soulmates tend not to murder one another. The problem with finding your missing piece is that losing it is said to cause excruciating pain. The people who survive the experience are said to be forever changed, as if their soul has died with their partner. Zemo has never known anyone to survive for long.
The question is how much she abhors him. Will she decide it is worth dying to kill him?
He may die, he thinks. She may hate him enough to do it.
On the other hand, he isn’t afraid of death, and he may be able to take her down with him. Acceptable.
Washington Square Park. He’s heard of it but never been. Always been curious, of course.
He spots her at one of the chess tables and approaches. One of his handlers is nearby. As if one would be enough. But he’ll behave himself for now. A soulmate is not a reason to escape prison.
He stops before the table. She looks up, her blonde hair tumbling down in curls. She wears a loose T-shirt beneath a leather jacket. As if she could not hide enough weapons in those, she also has one of those oversized monstrosities with her that masquerades as a purse.
“May I?” His voice is polite, almost gratifying. Cultured. She is not inclined to like him. Or perhaps the soulmark has worked its magic, and she will have forgiven him for putting in motion the events that so drastically changed her living situation.
She looks at him as if his very face is composed of vomit. Murder is still on the table, then. The soulmark truly is a curse with no benefit. “Sure,” she says. She doesn’t try to imbue her tone with charm, as he had. Or even civility.
He takes the seat nonetheless, his eyes on the chessboard between them. He was never a fan of Barnes’ intense stare. For Zemo’s own ends, he prefers to remove the pressure, the weight, of his observations. It helps lull people into feeling comfortable with him. To that end, he studies the board for a moment, avoiding staring her down despite how much as he’s tempted to watch her. “However did you know I like chess?” His voice is faintly teasing; anyone aware of his actions to destroy the Avengers would understand his appreciation of the game.
“Is that what this is?”
He ignores that. He knows she can be deadly. He understands that she must be shrewd, and intelligent, and perhaps even cold, to survive in Madripoor. Knowing that, understanding that, he decides that the childish attempt to get under his skin isn’t her best work. Even now, as he sets up the pieces, he can feel her eyes watching him, noting every movement. Her gaze is intent enough he wonders if she’s trying to see the atoms at the back of his head. “I mean you no harm.”
“I haven’t decided if I feel the same way.”
He raises his eyes and meet hers directly. Brown, he thinks. He hadn’t taken much notice before. She’d been someone to watch, someone to anticipate. But she was not part of his plan, not really, and certainly not one of his goals. She’d been collateral damage. At the time, he hadn’t cared; she’d been loyal to Rogers, and that had been enough not to care about her fate. Even now, all he truly wants is to have her out of his head, to be rid of this soulmark. With those options being impossible, he hopes that feeding this sense of yearning will satisfy him enough that he can be free for however long he can be. “I appreciate your honesty. And I apologize. I am aware you blame me for your hardships. Had I known events would play out this way, I would have taken more care.”
“Bullshit.” Done setting up, he holds out his hand to her to indicate she should go first. She does so, opening with the standard pawn to E4. A deceptively bland move. Judging by how she’s watching him, she is testing him.
He feels the need to impress her. He doesn’t want to. Likely the soulmark at work, forcing him to want to preen like a peacock. And yet, even under control of his own faculties, he would never have any intention to lose to her. She had allied herself with Rogers; she is beneath him. He will not lose to her.
“I was nothing to you then, just like the other people you killed. All in your pursuit to destroy the Avengers.”
“I did not think,” moving his pawn forward to block hers, “that you thought so fondly of the Avengers. ‘Superheroes are a joke,’ was it?”
“That doesn’t mean they deserved death.”
“I didn’t kill them,” he reminds her. It will take more than this to irritate him. He had lost his family. The Avengers had lost marketing deals.
“No, you just killed people around them. Because you were so focused on the Avengers that you didn’t care to see anyone else. To the fathers of the children you killed, you’re worse than the Avengers ever were.” She moves her pawn. The King’s Gambit. Designed to give him a better chance to win. Does she not know chess as well as he thought? Is she taking pity on him? Or is there something else she’s playing at?
“No collateral damage exists in Madripoor?” There’s an edge to his voice. Almost a taunt. Because perhaps, just perhaps, she was right. Killing those Wakandans certainly hadn’t worked out for him. It wasn’t as if anyone complained much about the others who had died. He moves his piece. Unlike her, he has no mercy.
She watches him for a moment. “If you’re in Madripoor, you accept the chance of death. Not if you’re a Wakandan student in an exchange program.” She moves her piece. Again, her movement is blasé. It’s a move that doesn’t impress. It makes him wonder once again how well she knows this game.
He inclines his head. “You have never killed by accident, I take it.” He moves.
She moves, too. He’s already countered by the time she says, “Bombs are messy and uncontrollable. You could have done more with a window and a rifle.” She moves.
He takes the lead and presses his advantage. “I have regrets.” He counters her twice, takes her bishop, before he says, “I, too, do not like having a soulmate.”
Her eyes narrow. Her hand is unsteady as it reaches for her rook. “It’s not that I don’t like having a soulmate. I mind that it’s you.”
He watches her. They’ve attracted something of a crowd with their speed, but neither of them looks away from the board or each other. Zemo notes his keeper over her shoulder, though. “That’s fair,” he says, though he doesn’t agree. A cage with one cellmate is the same as a cage with another. Six more moves, and he sees what he didn’t before. The tide has turned, and she’s laid the board with traps. All her previous moves have lured him in, lulled him into complacency. He’d been so busy wondering if she even knew how to play that he underestimated her. Foolish.
They talk less and play more. He doesn’t underestimate her again. She can see several moves into the future, that is certain, but so can he.
His victory is narrow, but it is undeniable. He smiles at her. Few in prison will play chess with him, and especially not so well. There’s a sense of satisfaction to it, almost exhilaration.“Again?”
She shakes her head and stands. She picks up the oversized purse, and he hopes she isn’t going to pull out a weapon. She doesn’t seem like the sort, but he’d already nearly underestimated her before.
Instead, she hands him a small package, nicely wrapped.
“I don’t intend to pursue this,” she says carefully. “This thing between us. I’ll fight it. I want you to fight it, too.”
He nods. He, too, intends to fight it. He’s curious about her, certainly, but such things can be overcome. Now that he has a better understanding of her, and yet was still able to best her, it will be easier. “A gift may be the wrong message to send.”
At her shrug, he unwraps it, his fingers treating even the wrapping paper with respect. He can see his guard tense as Zemo reveals the white gift box inside. “You put effort into wrapping this. I appreciate it.”
“The people at the shop do it for free.”
Hm. Was she being flippant? It’s difficult to tell. He lifts the box’s lid and freezes.
“I thought it might help,” she says awkwardly. “With us not being an us.”
He looks at the photo of him, his wife, and his child. He picks up the frame as if it and the photo are precious. And they are. He remembers this day. One of his too-rare times home. They’d hiked. He’d had to carry Carl for most of the walk. It had been hot and sweaty and he hadn’t appreciated it enough, thinking at the time he’d have a million more such moments. But at least, in this photo, when there had been enough of a breeze for him to feel his sweat cool, he appeared as happy as he should have been. Heike and Carl, too. Frozen in a moment of happiness.
“Thank you,” he says, the syllables careful. Other than that, he keeps his lips tight together lest they tremble and give away his emotions.
When he looks up, she’s gone.
When he returns to the Raft, they scan the frame and find the multiple small pockets of liquid nitrogen she’d placed there. Thinking he must have been working with his soulmate to plan his escape, his privileges are revoked.
He’d underestimated her. Yet again, she’d lulled him into complacency. He’d been so distracted by the photo he’d never glanced at the frame.
At least they let him keep the photo.
It’s months before he’s sent on missions again, months more before he spots her. A gala this time. A masquerade. All the men in masks with tuxedos. All the ladies with masks and gowns.
He hates to think it, but she looks stunning. A white dress with a wide, flared skirt that will allow her to fight if need be, cut so that her breasts distract from the knives tucked at various points. And also distract from her face, which might be recognized if she’s separated from her mask.
He explains himself into the comms. With how she’d ruined the other mission, he’s quickly told to get out, but he pretends he doesn’t hear and approaches her, catching her hand as she sets an empty champagne flute on a passing tray. There it is again, the hum of electricity coming from their touch. That pleasant feeling, that song of joy, is almost enough to make him want to be near her more.
He whisks her onto the dance floor, and he falls into step as easily as any member of the nobility. He’s pleased to see that she quickly follows suit.
“What the fuck,” she says, her voice low enough no one else can overhear.
“Is that any way to great your soulmate?” he asks.
“Asshole.”
He twirls her, then holds her in his arms as the dance dictates. Knowing it will likely piss her off, he returns, “Beloved.”
Her jaw clenches, and her neck moves as if she’s swallowing bile.
He grins in victory. “I did not appreciate the stunt you pulled, though I admired the technique.”
“If I’d known they’d let you out so soon,” twirl, twirl, back to him, “I’d have used napalm.”
“Bombs are so messy, though.” Again, he enjoys the flush of anger in her neck. No one enjoys having their words thrown back to them, but he’ll be sure to do it. Specifically to upset her.
“Did they let you keep the photo?”
“Yes. I’ve been meaning to ask – how did you get it?”
She twirls silently. Back in his arms, she changes the subject. “Your team here?”
“Yes. Yours?”
Silence again.
“Do not tell me you are working alone.”
“I can handle yourself.”
“So say all before they fail to handle themselves.”
“It isn’t any of your business what I do.”
“It is if you are killed. I understand losing a soulmate can be inconvenient for the survivor.”
“Don’t worry,” she says with an endearing head tilt with a charming smile. She really does have a sweet face. Almost cherubic. It is quite the shame she looks so angry for most of the time they are together. Not that he cares what she looks like. “I’d never let you outlive me for long.”
He almost grins. He’d be a fool if he hadn’t also considered what his death would do to her. But other than some of their opposing morals, not wanting to be controlled in any way by the soulmark, and her little move at their last meeting, he has no real motive to kill her. If he can spare James Barnes, he can spare his soulmate. “You looked into me.”
She looks at him, acknowledging that they’ve returned to the subject of his family photo with barely a glance of her eyes. “You looked into me, too.”
“I was in prison.”
“You’d have found a way.”
He accepts the compliment with a small bow. Wanting to minimize the chance she might ruin the mission, he takes her hand and leads her into a side room, then another and another, looking for a place for them to be alone. Ostensibly, at least. He feels her grip tighten in his hand and looks back to reassure her. “I mean you no harm.”
“Could you harm me?” she asks curiously.
He could, he thinks, and there’s something savage to it. He’d led EKO Scorpion, Sokovia’s elite covert killing squad. He could do more than harm her.
If he had the inclination.
“I wouldn’t dream of doing you harm,” he tells her, his tone polite.
Her eyes narrow.
Despite himself, he grins and leads her out a side door. A path winds through a courtyard. He drops her hand, and they each check their surroundings for people who may be watching. He almost warns her to remember that the cameras will be watching, too, but if she hasn’t thought of it, it isn’t his job to remind her. “We would be wise to come to an understanding.”
She watches him closely. They have only the faint lights of the windows here, and half her features are in darkness. “Agreed. Minimization.”
He gives a simple nod. “Neither of us wishes to be controlled by this. The best step to prevent that is to avoid a psychic connection.” Such connections, an understanding of the each other, a sense of their thoughts and emotions, are praised by many soulmates. The connections are credited with the depth and strength of their relationships, and also why the survivor had such difficulty moving on after. He will not let that happen to him.
She nods. She, too, seems to be aware of the cons. “No sex.”
He keeps his features polite, though what he wants to do is ask if she’s gone mad. Despite the soulmark, he still loves his wife. And this woman, soulmate or not, is a stranger who cannot compete with Heike. “Of course not.” He studies her. “Let us leave our families out of it. As grateful as I am for the photograph.”
She looks away. Shame, perhaps? “Fair.” She takes a breath. “Do they let you have a phone?”
“If you are suggesting an exchange, I can remember a phone number, though I don’t think it’s wise.”
“Emergencies only. Situations like this. To warn the other away.”
She wouldn’t back down because he told her to leave, he thinks, amused. “Perhaps that can wait until I have a phone, then,” suspecting it would only be a temptation otherwise.
She grasps his hand, and again, he feels that warm hum of electricity between them, and he understands. That feeling is like a gateway drug. And for her to realize that means she’s thought of his touch when he isn’t present, just as he’s thought of hers. They’re already in danger of deepening their connection.
“I can get a phone. The first who warns the other gets to stay.”
She looks at him, almost as if she’s going to say something, then turns away to watch a security guard. If they weren’t soulmates, and if he didn’t loathe being her soulmate, he would throw the guard off by taking her in his arms. “We distance ourselves,” she says when the guard has passed. “We aren’t soulmates. We aren’t friends. The only thing keeping me from killing you and leaving pieces of you scattered in the garden is the fact my shoes might get dirty.”
“I don’t respect you enough to consider you an enemy,” he says, knowing it will get under her skin. “So we are not that, either.”
There’s enough light to see her jaw clenching, and his eyes dance as he keeps his features impassive.
“It is a good note,” he commends her, thinking the compliment will anger her even more and delighting in the way her lips narrow. “Were one of us to die, it would be quite inconvenient for the other.”
“Yes,” she agrees, her tone sardonic. “No murdering the other.”
“No dying without the other’s permission.”
“You have mine,” she says, a little too quickly.
He grins at her and waves a hand toward the door. “If you give me your phone number, I will contact you if I think of anything else.”
She frowns, clearly wondering what might possibly occur to him later, and he turns to the side as he hears the chatter over his comm.
“Trust me,” he says, painfully sincere, moving closer to her. She backs up in response. “I do not want to be under anyone’s control but my own.”
“Ironic, given what you did to Bucky.”
No one is ever going to stop bringing that up. “I’m doing my best to atone.”
She hears the metallic click and looks down to where her wrist is now handcuffed to a railing. She’ll find it’s a rather sturdy one. He’d noticed it on their way outside.
She looks at him in surprise, and he grins. “I’m not atoning for this, no,” he says. He can’t help but feel a little smug. “And you are right, of course. I do not need your phone number. As you say, we are not friends.” He pulls away, then pauses as he tugs at his sleeves. “You realize you are in a blind spot. No cameras to see you. You may yell, if you like, though that may compromise your mission. Provided anyone is near enough to hear you.”
“Fucking asshole.”
He grins at her, allowing himself some enjoyment. “Beloved.”
He continues on his way. People like him, he thinks, are why it is unwise to work alone.