Hecate
Bucky finds a letter tucked into the pocket of his jeans that wasn’t there yesterday. Written in careful, curling script, it says, Come when the moon is full. Bring only what you cannot leave behind.
The thing is, he doesn’t mean to go. Not really. He just walks, one night, past the edge of where the road should end, and doesn’t stop.
*
Bucky wakes alone in a forest clearing soaked in silver light. The sky is velvet-dark, stars low enough to touch. Trees grow from black stone, their leaves iridescent with impossible colour. Silver moss glows underfoot. Lanterns hang from branches, drifting slightly even when the air is still. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Somewhere in the distance, a dog howls.
He doesn’t remember walking here. But the quiet is soft. And something about the night air feels enchanted. Not quite threatening. Not entirely safe. Just ancient.
Crows hop along the branches above. A three-headed hound slinks by, trailing sparks with each padded step. It barely glances at him. Everything here seems to accept him. As if he’s meant to be here.
Time here doesn’t seem to move. Or maybe it sways. The woods shift around him. Nights stretch. Dreams fold over waking. Faery-touched riddles whispered by unseen mouths. Bucky walks in moonlight and magic, feels his memories fray, stitched with silver thread.
*
A woman steps from the mist. Her gown ripples like ink dropped in water. Her hair spills like smoke. There are keys at her belt, and a torch that never wavers in her hand. She watches him with curiosity. A goddess of crossroads. Of choices. Of secrets unspoken.
Bucky asks “Where is this place?”
“This place has many names,” Hecate says, voice as layered as fog. She steps closer, eyes like moons in eclipse. “But I’ve taken a shine to it. I collect wanderers. Especially ones who don’t know they’re lost.”
She lifts a hand, brushes a fingertip along the gleam of his left arm. “You’re not like the others. You’ve been remade, more than once. There’s power in that. And something ancient inside you still burns, like a fire that refuses to go out.”
*
She takes him to her cottage beneath a hanging moon. It has a crooked chimney. Flickering candles. Herb bundles drying from the rafters. It smells like something old: lavender, smoke, iron. The door opens without a sound. He steps over the threshold.
*
Hecate teaches him to read the stars backwards. To listen to ghosts through the roots of trees. She paints symbols in moon-milk on his palms and says, “These are protection, not promise.”
He learns to light candles with a whisper. He learns what not to say in the woods.
Sometimes he wakes in a sweat, gasping from dreams of violet fire. Her voice is in his mind, soothing: You are more than what was taken from you.
Sometimes she watches him too closely, black eyes glinting, her fingers stilling on a page, and he feels seen in a way that makes his skin prickle. He’s not sure if she wants to help him. Or keep him.
*
Zemo doesn’t usually dream. Too much history behind his eyelids. Too many ghosts. But, tonight, he does. He stands beneath a silver moon that doesn’t move. The sky is ink-washed velvet, deep and endless. The air is thick with lavender and lightning. He’s in a forest, but it feels more like the memory of a forest. Every tree, more shadow than bark. Every path spiralling into mist.
Bucky is gone. Zemo calls for him through the trees. Nothing answers but the rustle of unseen wings. Then he sees a glow. A flicker ahead, like candlelight behind a veil.
He steps forward. There, at the meeting of three paths, stands a woman cloaked in shadow and flame. Her hair is midnight smoke, her eyes sharp as polished obsidian. In one hand, she holds a key. In the other, a torch. At her feet, three hounds stir, eyes glowing gold. Hecate. Goddess of dark places, ghosts and sorcery.
Zemo stops. Bows his head, just enough. “You’ve taken him.”
She smiles. Not cruel, not kind. “He wandered,” she says, voice like wind over ancient stones. “Your beloved is drawn to the places between. He tastes of old magic and sorrow, and I like curious things.”
Zemo doesn’t flinch. “Return him to me.”
“Why should I?” she asks, tilting her head. “He’s not unhappy. He walks freely through my twilight realm, all silver eyes and silence. He leaves small offerings in the roots of trees. He whispers to the hounds, and they adore him. He sings when he thinks no one hears.”
Zemo clenches his jaw. “Because I’ll walk every path. I’ll speak every name. I’ll burn every offering to light his way home.”
Hecate considers this. “Would he not choose to stay, if he knew he could?”
Zemo’s answer is quiet. Steady. “He might. Let’s ask him.”
*
The days blur. Or are they nights?
Hecate appears to Bucky when he’s in the garden, in the woods, stepping from shadows or fog, offering him a fig, a secret, a kiss. Her lips are stained with dark berries and dark desires. Her voice coils into his ears like silk.
“You were walking the edge of forgetting,” she whispers one night, her fingers brushing his arm where metal meets skin. “So I plucked you from the brink. A kindness.” She strokes his cheek. “And you are very beautiful.”
Bucky doesn’t deny it. Not the flattery, he barely hears that, but that something was slipping away. He is on the edge of forgetting. There is a memory of someone. There is an ache, unnamed, behind his ribs.
Whenever he tries to chase it, Hecate distracts him. She conjures laughter from crows and lets her hounds curl warm and heavy in his lap. She dances barefoot through the forest with him, a trail of lanterns and perfume in her wake. She kisses him, and it’s like breathing in smoke and poetry.
And Bucky, soft-eyed and unsleeping, doesn’t stop her. How can he?
But sometimes, when the torchlight hits him just so, he seems far away. He forgets the rhythm of the realm and stares at the horizon, brow furrowed. Hecate touches his jaw. “Who is he?” she murmurs.
Bucky only shakes his head. “I don’t know. But when I dream, I think he’s looking for me.”
*
Zemo steps through the veil like it means nothing. Moving confidently through the shifting dark, dressed in a tailored coat and disdain, sword at his hip like an afterthought. His boots don’t echo on the stone, but his presence shakes the trees.
Zemo has never seen a realm like this. Doesn’t trust it. Doesn’t care. Because Bucky is here, and that is all that matters.
He walks through the moor, past the three-headed hound that stares but does not stop him, straight into Hecate’s garden, and through it, to her cottage.
Inside, Bucky is stirring a cauldron and looking very domestic in a slightly scorched tunic. Over which is a deep blue cloak stitched with starlight. His hair is loose, his face open and calm.
Zemo stares. “You’ve joined a coven?”
Hecate watches them both from a throne made of bones and vines. “You crossed my threshold,” she says, all honey and warning.
Zemo only smiles. “You stole from me.”
Bucky looks between them, lifts both hands. “Okay, okay, let’s not hex anybody.”
“I didn’t steal,” Hecate purrs, standing to walk toward Bucky. “I invited. And he stayed.” Her hand slips around his waist. He doesn’t move away.
Zemo’s voice is low. Steady. “Did he remember that he could leave?”
That hangs in the air.
Bucky turns to look at him, truly look, and it’s like a storm breaks behind his eyes. Recognition flares. Longing. Home. Bucky breaks into a smile, slow, stunned, real. “You came.”
“Of course,” Zemo replies. “Did you think a little witchcraft would stop me?”
Hecate watches, with a sadness she doesn’t explain. There’s reverence in her voice as she murmurs, “He walked through veils of time and shadow for you.”
Zemo doesn’t bow. Doesn’t gloat. He simply takes Bucky’s hand and says, “Ready to come home?”
And Bucky, grounded by the weight of his arm and the weight of his heart, nods once and leans into Zemo, head heavy against his shoulder. “You really think I’d get stuck here forever?”
Zemo hums. “No. But I thought you might forget how to leave.”
Bucky lifts his head and looks him in the eye. “I’d never forget you.”
Zemo pulls him closer. “Good. Because I rather like being remembered.”
The hounds stretch and sigh. The key gleams. And just like that, the cottage dissolves around them. The woods part. The lanterns dim. And the two of them walk into the dawn together.
*
They return somewhere quiet. Not a battlefield, not a myth-drenched realm, but a hillside just outside the city, where the stars are fewer, but no less bright for it. The earth is soft. The sky is ink. The air smells like dust and green things. There’s the hush of grass moving in the wind, and city lights blink in the distance.
Zemo stands a few steps away, looking out across the darkened land like he’s making sure it’s still here. Like he’s checking that Bucky is still here too. His coat is half-unbuttoned. His hair is windblown. He looks utterly exhausted. And vibrantly alive.
Bucky doesn’t say anything. He just walks over, reaches for him, and pulls him in. It’s not a dramatic kiss, no lightning, no orchestras. Just a press of lips that says I choose this. Always.
Zemo exhales against his mouth like he’s been holding his breath for centuries.
When they part, Bucky murmurs, “Let’s go home.”
And Zemo, soft-eyed and smirking faintly, replies, “I thought you'd never ask.”
*
Later, in the quiet of their room, moonlight pooling on the sheets like spilled milk, Bucky traces lazy symbols on Zemo’s chest. “She wasn’t cruel,” he murmurs. “She just understood things no one else does.”
Zemo brushes his fingers through Bucky’s hair. “You’ve always belonged a little to the in-between.”
Bucky smiles. “Lucky you found me, then.”
Zemo kisses his temple. “I always will.”
*
Days pass. Maybe a week. They fall into their rhythm again. Quiet mornings, easy banter, shared silences that speak volumes. Zemo makes eggs that Bucky pretends to like. Bucky sharpens knives that Zemo pretends not to notice.
One afternoon, Bucky’s looking for something in his jacket pocket, keys maybe, when his fingers brush something unexpected. He frowns, draws it out. It’s a flower. Deep violet, nearly black. Petals soft as breath, still dewy despite the heat. No sign of wilting. No scent. Just that strange, impossible presence.
Bucky goes still. He turns it slowly between his fingers. The stem is warm. The petals whisper against his thumb. And just for a heartbeat, he feels it, feels her. Watching. Waiting. Calling. It would be so easy. Just a step. Just a slip. Her dogs would be waiting. The lanterns. The velvet dark.
He stares at it for a long time. Then he sets it gently in a drawer. Tucks it under an old scarf. Walks out into the kitchen.
Zemo’s at the table, reading the paper, wearing that ridiculous robe with the embroidered cuffs. He glances up. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
Bucky leans down. Kisses him on the cheek. “Yeah,” he says. “I did.”
*
The light is golden through the windows, softened by time and gauze curtains. Somewhere, someone is playing a string instrument, not near enough to intrude, just enough to stitch the morning with a sense of story.
Bucky sits on the edge of the bed. He moves without urgency. The drawer slides open with a gentle creak. Inside: a scattering of small, personal things. A watch that doesn’t work but was once important. A pressed leaf from a city they both loved. And, nestled in a folded piece of velvet, the flower.
It hasn’t changed. Not in all these years. Still dark-petalled, with an iridescence that doesn’t belong in the world of mortals. Still impossibly alive. Still impossibly still.
Bucky picks it up. Turns it between his fingers. He doesn’t sigh. Just smiles. Like you would at an old story you know the ending of. He brushes the petals once, slowly. Then folds it back into the velvet and closes the drawer.
Outside, the garden is all late roses and tangled herbs. Zemo is there, in a linen shirt, sleeves rolled up, trimming something with exaggerated delicacy.
Bucky walks out barefoot, into the sun. He leans on the doorframe for a moment, watching. Zemo looks up and grins. “Took you long enough.”
“Had something to look at,” Bucky says, and walks across the warm flagstones, into the morning, and toward him.
***