Hera
I wasn’t going to do this. No. Not really. I wanted to keep each dimensional encounter intact, discrete. No overlap. But Hera is calling to me, and she is a vengeful, jealous goddess. So, we are back at the start. This is the dimension where Zeus took Bucky. After Zeus took Bucky.
***
The wedding is incredible. Ornate, excessive, mythic. Draped silks, peacocks fanned in every direction, golden goblets, ambrosia on tap. Zemo, dressed like a fallen prince, looking regal, restrained, wary. Hera beside him, radiant and terrible.
The preacher clears their throat: "If any here object to this union, speak now or…"
The doors explode open. Not metaphorically. Actually explode. In strides Bucky, wind at his back, hair wild, shirt torn open like he sprinted straight from battle. He’s panting slightly, furious, and also holding a bouquet of crushed wildflowers he picked on the way.
There are gasps. Everyone stares.
Zemo turns, eyes wide, but not surprised. Hera, imperious and calm, raises a brow. The room stills.
Bucky growls, “I object.”
***
Last Month.
The symposium is held in a marbled hall nestled high above the city, hidden by enchantments and patronage. Candles float in the air like stars. The air smells of old parchment and older wine. Scholars, poets, philosophers (immortals in mortal skin) gather to speak words that echo in realms beyond hearing.
Zemo stands at the edge of the room, holding a crystal glass in one elegant hand. He is listening to a discussion on tragic love in Attic verse, his expression unreadable but intent. He’s dressed simply in tailored charcoal grey, his shirt open at the throat, but he draws attention the way a blade catches the light.
Hera notices him instantly. Not because he tries to be noticed, but because he doesn’t. He holds himself like a man carved from restraint and precision, everything in place, except the grief in his eyes. That exquisite grief. That spine of steel.
She doesn’t need to ask who he is. She knows. Knows he is the one who sits at Bucky Barnes’ side. Knows that Zeus, in one of his rare fits of sincerity, had claimed that beautiful captain for himself.
So Hera chooses Zemo. Not out of affection. Not yet. Out of fury. Out of pride. Out of the deep, cold satisfaction of symmetry. She walks past the other guests, trailing the scent of myrrh and roses, and the space around her seems to bend, hush, bow. She approaches Zemo without hesitation, without explanation.
He turns toward her, startled, but only for a second. She lifts a hand. “You are coming with me,” she says, in a voice that has never been denied.
And Zemo, who once orchestrated the fall of superheroes, recognises power when it speaks. He doesn’t resist. Doesn’t protest. He simply nods and follows.
*
In her realm, time blooms sideways. The sky shifts colour with her mood. Her palace gleams with opulence older than empire. She seduces him slowly, as a queen might conquer a worthy enemy, with elegance and strategy. She lays offerings of fine poetry, sharp conversation, rare books. She clothes him in silks that whisper against his skin. She walks with him through hanging gardens where the trees bend to listen.
Zemo, ever composed, is not easily won. But he is curious. And Hera is very, very beguiling.
Their affair becomes a thing of legend. And when she decides, one starlit night, that she will marry him, oh, it is not love that drives her. It is triumph.
Let Zeus see what she has taken. Let all of Olympus bear witness. She sends out gilded invitations. The wedding will be a masterpiece of glory and spite.
*
In Hera’s realm, everything is sumptuous. The wine is dark and perfumed. The halls are hushed with luxury, draped in velvet and memory. Servants are shadows, never seen. Time spills like honey, slow and thick. Zemo’s rooms are vast, opulent, but not ostentatious. He would not abide vulgarity. Hera knows this. She tailors her world to him, like silk to skin. Philosophy. Strategy. History. She knows how to bait the hook with intellect, how to lay a thesis before him and then challenge it, lifting her glass with a crooked, knowing smile when he rises to the debate.
He tries to keep his distance, of course. He is polite, measured, always in control. He never lets himself want easily. Never lets himself be wanted without consequence. But Hera doesn’t flatter. She doesn’t pursue. She knows.
She leaves rare books on his table, open to dog-eared pages. She orders the musicians to play Schubert when he passes by the west garden. She takes his arm not because she needs it, but because she wants him to feel her warmth, her presence, her choice.
When she finally undresses for him, it is ceremony. It is worship. The robe slides off her shoulders like water. She stands tall before him, regal, timeless, undeniable. A goddess offering him the honour of witnessing her. And he, gods help him, wants to.
When he yields to her, it is not surrender. It is choice. His kiss is careful. Then hungry. Then something deeper. They fall into her bed with the grace of matching swords. She bites his shoulder and he gasps her name like a secret. He pins her hands and she laughs like thunder. No fumbling. No rush. Just two tacticians discovering the art of each other’s undoing.
*
Hera does not mention Zeus or Bucky. She doesn’t need to. When she looks at Zemo, it is as if nothing and no one else exists. The past is unimportant. The future is hers to shape.
Zemo resists like a man used to resisting. Used to holding himself in check, in place, in silence. But here, in her realm, the ground itself is treacherous. Too warm. Too soft. Too yielding. The air tastes like figs and rosewater. Every breeze sighs against his skin. Every mirror flatters. Even the bath-steam spirals into his bones. She doesn’t seduce him with words. She doesn’t need to. She simply is.
She stands at the window in the mornings, draped in nothing but dawn, and reads aloud from old Iliads and forgotten tragedies. She lays beside him in the evening, her fingers combing through his hair as if she has done it for centuries. As if they were fated. As if this - the soft linens, the twilight skin, the shared stillness - is what the stars had in mind when they first began to burn.
Zemo doesn’t realise, at first, how deeply he’s gone. It creeps up on him like dusk. Slowly, imperceptibly, until he is surrounded. He begins to look forward to the way her laugh curls at the end, the way she always steals the last olive from his plate. He listens for the sound of her bare feet in the halls. He starts quoting her in conversation, not realising until after how often her words now live in his mouth.
He spars with her in the training court beneath the olive trees, the two of them circling each other like flame and flint. When she knocks him down, she kisses him as if it were inevitable. When he pins her, she grins like war incarnate. He cannot help himself. He is falling hard.
And she, goddess that she is, catches him with a lover’s grace and a conqueror’s certainty.
In the quiet hours, when he thinks she sleeps, he watches her. Studies the lines of her profile, the softness of her mouth, the stillness of her chest rising and falling beside his.
One evening, she traces the curve of his jaw with the back of her hand. “You’re mine,” she says, not as a command, but as a truth. Like a law of physics.
And Zemo, who once tore empires apart with nothing but cunning and grief, nods like a boy in the arms of his first crush and says, “Yes. I am.”
*
She finds herself watching him sleep. Not in the way of a goddess amused by mortal fragility, but in a way she doesn’t quite understand. There’s a line between curiosity and reverence, and Hera, unknowingly, crosses it when she leans in and touches a strand of hair fallen across his brow. He murmurs her name in his sleep. Not my lady, not your majesty, not even my goddess. Just Hera. As if she is not the queen of Olympus, but someone he wants beside him. Someone real.
Later that night, she doesn’t touch him like a goddess taking what’s hers. She touches him like a woman learning something new. Her fingers explore slowly, as though trying to memorise every scar, every freckle, every muscle, every breath. And Zemo, sharp-eyed and attuned to nuance as always, notices. Responds not with fire, but with warmth.
He lifts her hand and kisses her palm, tenderly. “You don’t have to claim me,” he says, voice rough. “I am already here.”
Her brows knit slightly. She is used to men fighting for her favour, begging for her gaze, not offering themselves so willingly. Not meeting her as an equal. Not without arrogance or worship, but with understanding. With invitation.
She lowers herself to him, straddling his waist, but the pace is different tonight. Slower. Deliberate. She lets him guide her. He teaches her that not every touch has to be about triumph, not every gasp a victory. He teaches her how to linger.
Zemo whispers things against her skin. Not sweet little nothings, but honest ones. Little truths about pleasure and presence, about what feels good and what feels real. How hands can speak as clearly as mouths, how silence can be holy. How human bodies can give and receive so much pleasure.
“There is a reason mortals liken sex to the divine,” he murmurs against her neck. “Because in this, in this, we transcend ourselves. And you, even you can be worshipped this way.”
She stares at him. Not with disbelief. But with awe.
When they come together, it is no longer a clash of thunder or the grind of conquest. It is something else entirely. Something close. Soft. Her mouth finds his shoulder. His fingers tangle in her hair. They move like waves folding into each other.
Afterward, she lies against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. The sound is slower now. She likes that. She tells him so. And Zemo, who once thought love a battlefield too costly to walk again, turns his face to her hair and exhales. His hands rest on her hips, not to claim her, but to keep her close.
“You are learning how mortals bond,” he says softly.
“I am,” she replies, with the trace of a smile. Her hand finds his, and she twines their fingers together.
*
The morning of the wedding arrives dressed in gold. The air is soft, perfumed with something sweet and ancient, like honeysuckle and sunlight. The kind of scent that has lingered in temples since the world was young. The curtains stir gently in the breeze, revealing a sky so blue it looks conjured.
Hera wakes first. She always does. She lies propped on one elbow, watching Zemo sleep beside her. He is bare beneath the sheet, one arm folded under his head, his mouth slightly parted in the loose softness of deep rest. There is no armour on him here. No strategy in his brow. Just skin and breath and something unguarded. Something hers.
For a long time, she doesn’t move. She memorises him instead. Then, as if summoned by her gaze, his eyes open. He sees her watching. Smiles, faint and still half-asleep. “You're staring, Hera.”
“I’m studying,” she says. “There’s a difference.”
“Oh?” He stretches, just a little. “And what are you learning?”
“That I was right to choose you.”
Zemo turns to face her fully, raising a hand to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. “And yet, I still don’t know if I chose you, or simply never had a chance.”
Hera leans in, presses her lips to his. Soft, lingering, threaded with something like fondness. “I don’t need you to be helpless,” she murmurs. “I only need you to be mine.”
He hums, amused. “A mortal, claimed by a goddess. It has a ring to it.”
“It will,” she says, already rising from the bed. The sheet slips from her, revealing the pale curve of her back as she moves toward the open balcony. “The ceremony will be magnificent.”
“I expect no less,” Zemo says, watching her from the bed, chin resting in his palm. “Though I can’t help but wonder. Do I get a say in the guest list?”
She gives him a look over her shoulder. One part arch, two parts dangerous. “You do not.”
He smirks. “Then I shall simply be grateful to attend at all.”
“Not just attend,” she replies, softer now. “You’re the reason it happens.”
Zemo sits up. Stretches again, slow and feline. “Then allow me one selfish request before I am paraded like a sacrificial lamb.”
“Anything.”
“Come back to bed.”
She pauses. Then, with a smile, she crosses the room in three unhurried steps, slips beneath the sheets again, and lets his arms gather her in.
For a little while longer, they lie there. Entwined. Quiet. Human and divine. The queen and her chosen. Neither of them speaking the names of past lovers. They exist only in this moment. Warm, unhurried, and golden.
The morning wears on. Soon there will be robes of white and gold. Trumpets and incense. Vows shouted to the sky. But for now, there is just the rustle of sheets, the soft exhale of breath, the weight of one hand resting on the curve of a hip.
A quiet before thunder. A calm before love remembers how to fight.
*
The wedding is the stuff of legend. No expense is spared, no detail left to chance. Hera demands perfection. And perfection answers. The air hums with sacred incense. Garlands of jasmine and pomegranate hang heavy over the altar, and golden goblets catch the afternoon light like captured suns. Music floats through the marble columns, played by an orchestra of sirens and satyrs, soft and sultry.
Columns of ivory rise like frozen lightning bolts into the sky, each wrapped in garlands of blood-red roses and gold-dipped laurel. The clouds above have been swept aside by divine will. Leaving the heavens an uninterrupted canvas of cobalt, vast and uncaring. The scent of ambrosia hangs thick in the air, mingling with incense.
Gods and immortals fill the amphitheatre. They sit in lazy splendour, draped in impossible silks and jewels, watching the proceedings with indulgent smiles and narrowed eyes. The whispers flutter like birds: She took a mortal? No, not just any mortal, Zemo. Helmut Zemo. The Baron. The Soldier. The one who made gods bleed by proxy. The one who disassembled legends with words and wounds.
Zemo stands beside Hera, draped in a deep violet cloak and black trousers, straight-backed and bare-chested. No armour, but still dangerous. His hair is swept back, eyes sharp beneath half-lowered lashes. He is handsome in a way that seems dangerous and looks every inch the mortal consort of a queen: elegant, composed, and utterly unreadable. He has played roles before. He plays this one now.
Hera, resplendent in white and gold, her crown gleaming like the edge of a blade, watches the crowd with satisfaction. A thousand divine eyes are turned their way. Zeus is pointedly absent. Her revenge is already underway.
The preacher clears their throat, voice echoing through the divine hall. “If any here object to this union, speak now or forever…”
The doors explode open. Light spills in like a spotlight from Olympus itself. The wind howls dramatically, scattering petals and knocking over one of the decorative vases. A dryad shrieks. A cyclops drops their wine.
And there he is. James Buchanan Barnes, the mortal who defied the gods. Shirt half-torn, bruised from some divine skirmish, curls wild around his face, a sword slung over one shoulder, and a handful of crushed wildflowers clenched in one hand. He’s breathing hard. Staring at Zemo like he’s the only thing keeping him standing.
“I object,” Bucky growls, low and guttural.
The silence is a living thing. Hera raises one perfect brow. “You’re late,” she says coolly.
“I had to fight my way out of a goddamned labyrinth,” Bucky snaps. “And three harpies.”
Zemo exhales slowly, as if he's been holding his breath since the ceremony began. His lips twitch into something dangerously close to a smile. He looks at Hera. She’s radiant. Furious. Divine. But he is mortal. And his heart, his maddening, stubborn, human heart, knows exactly where it belongs.
“Well,” he murmurs, voice like silk sliding over steel. “Hello, my James.” He exhales a slow, amused breath. “I was going to send you an invitation.”
Bucky strides forward, tossing the wildflowers to the floor like a gauntlet. Zemo steps down from the altar, unfastening the single golden clasp at his shoulder. The regal purple robe slips from his frame like water. Zemo glances again at Hera, and his tone is politely apologetic, almost amused. “May I borrow the bouquet?” he asks mildly, reaching down to pluck the crushed flowers from the floor.
Hera gives a short, elegant nod, like a queen dismissing a knight from her service.
Zemo turns to Bucky, and walks straight into his arms. They don’t kiss. Not yet. They just lean into each other, breath mingling. And the heat between them could start wars.
Zemo murmurs, “I thought you’d never get here.”
“I came as fast as I could,” Bucky whispers back, touching Zemo’s face like it’s the only sacred thing in the room.
Zemo unclasps the heavy ceremonial chain from around his neck. Holds it for a moment. Then offers it to Hera with a nod of gratitude and regret. “Thank you,” he says softly. “for everything.”
And then, to Bucky, with just a tiny smirk, he murmurs “You owe me a honeymoon.”
Bucky leans in. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
They turn, side by side, and walk back the way Bucky came. Together. Not hurrying. Not looking back. Gods be damned.
Behind them, Hera watches with narrowed eyes and a thousand unspoken vows. But she does not stop them.
She smiles beatifically over at the crowd, her guests, and gestures to the men leaving, as if she has orchestrated the whole thing. “Behold. Mortal love.”
And the crowd goes wild.
***