Apollo
The opera is renowned. A once-in-a-generation soprano, her voice like moonlight caught in crystal. People claim it will undo you, make the soul weep.
Zemo remains untouched. He sits beside Bucky in their velvet-lined box, elegant and straight-backed, fingers steepled under his chin. Bucky leans back in his chair, bored, but soothed by music’s lull. His head drops gently, eyes already closed.
Zemo’s gaze shifts. Not to the stage, but to the other figure beside him.
A man, young, but ageless. Beautiful, but unbothered by it. Golden hair twisted into a low knot, clothes simple yet impossibly fine. He watches the performance, lips quirked in the faintest smirk.
Zemo speaks first. “Not a fan of tragic sopranos?”
The man answers, low and amused. “She’s imitating pain. Beautifully. But it’s still imitation.”
And just like that, they’re whispering through the next aria. About beauty. About artifice. About power and loneliness and how truth is so rarely the point of theatre. Their voices twine like smoke in the private dark.
Bucky stirs awake just in time to see the golden stranger rise, offering his hand to Zemo. They speak too softly for him to hear. Then they vanish together, into the darkened hall. Only the faint scent of Zemo’s cologne lingers.
Bucky sits up. He remembers the man sitting on the other side of Zemo, the glow of him. Remembers eyes like burnished sunlight. A god. He feels it, now. Of course it was a god.
And of course he would want Zemo. Well, tough.
*
Bucky storms Apollo’s temple. It isn’t made of marble and flame, no, this version is a gilded library in a sun-drenched colonnade, scrolls scattered with carelessness, lyres hung like trophies.
Zemo lounges on a daybed, barefoot and loose-shirted, wine in one hand and an ancient text in the other. He glances up, spots him, and smiles.
Apollo turns toward the newcomer, divine radiance flickering with curiosity, then confusion.
Because Zemo rises. Sets down the wine. Walks toward Bucky with something softer than obedience in his expression. Apollo’s enchantments fall away from him, like water off skin.
At first, Apollo thinks it’s a trick. Then he sees Bucky, truly sees him, sees the way Zemo looks at him.
Ah. Of course. That’s what broke his spell.
Zemo, ever elegant, steps close to Apollo as he passes by. Leans in. Kisses him once. A perfect, polite farewell. Murmurs throatily, “You’ll forgive me if I leave the opera early.”
Apollo watches them walk away, sunlight glinting in Bucky’s hair, shimmering down his metallic left arm. His pride stings. His heart aches, but only briefly.
There will be other mortals. Other mysteries. Already, someone new is laughing in the colonnade. His gaze follows, intrigued.
Fickle god.
*
The windows are open to the dusk. A breeze, warm and lazily perfumed, stirs the curtains. In the distance, someone is playing opera, an old recording, crackling faintly through a radio, or maybe from a rooftop speaker. The aria drifts through the air like golden thread, winding into the open arms of evening.
Zemo sits on the windowsill, sleeves rolled up, a book resting forgotten in his lap. Bucky leans against the back of the couch, arms folded, watching him with that fond little smirk he saves only for Zemo.
Zemo tilts his head toward the music, faint but unmistakable, and smiles like someone remembering a joke no one else would quite understand. “Still unimpressed with opera,” he murmurs.
Bucky snorts softly, rises and comes over to press a kiss just under Zemo’s ear, just by his perfect mole. “Yeah,” he drawls, lazy and teasing. “I like 40’s music.”
Zemo turns to him, eyes bright, and reaches up to cup Bucky’s jaw. They kiss, slow and familiar. The kind of kiss that says I’m here. You’re here. We came back.
The aria floats on.
***