Philotes
The sun was high but gentle, casting an amber warmth across a tucked-away courtyard that smelled like figs and thyme. There was a mosaic floor underfoot, slightly cracked, lovingly worn, depicting lions curled beside doves, peace in unexpected company. A breeze stirred the linen shade overhead, and the slow, melodic trill of a lyre played somewhere nearby.
Bucky was lounging barefoot on a wide marble bench, nursing a glass of something cold and golden, condensation slipping down the side. He’d pushed his sleeves up. There was a dusting of flour on his forearm. Someone had handed him a warm pastry not long ago. He was halfway through it, not really tasting the honey. He was too busy watching her.
Philotes leaned with careless grace against a fig tree, smiling in that maddening way of hers. Like she knew all your secrets and found them endearing. Her sandals dangled from one finger. Her dark curls were pinned up, only so they could fall back down again. The air was thick with sun and ripe fruit and something like laughter unspoken.
She quirked a brow, eyes glinting with amusement. “You always this quiet, soldier?”
Bucky shifted slightly, hiding his grin with the rim of his glass. “Only when I’m being watched.”
“Oh, I’ve been watching.” She crossed towards him, each step deliberate. “You carry peace like a burden, you know. But it suits you.”
He looked at her. “You saying I don’t look like a man of war?”
“I’m saying you look like a man who wants to be something else.”
He didn’t deny it. She plucked the rest of the pastry from his hand, took a bite, and hummed in approval. “You cook now?”
“Sometimes. Hel likes breakfast.”
“Helmut would like anything you made with those hands.” She licked a crumb from her lip, eyes flicking to his mouth. “I imagine I would, too.”
Bucky chuckled low in his throat, cheeks faintly pink despite himself. “You always this forward?”
“Only when I’m being tempted.”
Bucky paused, then said softly, “Is that what this is?”
Philotes smiled, slow and shimmering. She reached out, touched the place just above his heart, fingertip to skin. “You tell me, James Buchanan Barnes.”
He didn’t pull away. Somewhere overhead, a dove landed on the fig tree and cooed softly. The lyre music shifted to a minor key, wistful and aching. Bucky didn’t notice the time slipping sideways, the world softening at the edges. He was too focused on the way her fingers trailed down his chest, the lazy heat pooling in his spine, the feel of flirtation blooming like spring between them.
*
They drifted, the two of them, into a quiet kind of ease. Bucky was not used to it, not entirely trusting it, and yet letting it settle over him like warm silk anyway.
Philotes lay sideways now, head propped up on one hand, legs stretched out beside him, lazy and golden in the shade. Her other hand was trailing along the length of his metal arm, fingers light as breath, sketching idle, curious patterns over the cool vibranium. “This is very beautiful,” she murmured.
Bucky glanced down at it, then back at her. “Most people don't say that.”
“Most people are fools.” She leaned in, just slightly, until her hair brushed his bare shoulder. “You carry every piece of yourself like it’s worth something. That’s what makes it beautiful.”
He laughed, low and a little self-conscious, eyes crinkling. “I’ve been called a lot of things. Never that.”
“Well,” she said, pretending to look thoughtful, “you’ve also never been courted by a goddess before.”
“You call this courting?”
Philotes smirked. “What would you call it, soldier?”
He raised his glass, swirled the liquid. “A lazy afternoon with good company, good wine. And maybe something sweet in the oven.”
“Ah,” she said, eyes brightening. “So you do know how to be wooed.”
“I’m learning,” he murmured.
And it was true. With her, he was learning. Learning how to sit still in joy without expecting it to vanish. How to meet flirtation not as a challenge or a joke, but as an invitation to something light, something warm.
She leaned in a little more, fingertips brushing the soft spot beneath his jaw. “Do you always go this quiet when someone flirts with you?”
He shrugged, the smallest grin threatening. “Only when I’m trying not to flirt back.”
Philotes laughed, delighted. It was like the sound of something shaking loose in the heart. Bright, unexpected, full of promise. She sat up, curled her legs beneath her, and cupped his face with both hands “You really are unfairly charming, James Barnes.”
He leaned into her touch just enough to betray how much he was enjoying this. “You’re not so bad yourself, goddess of friendship.”
She kissed his cheek, soft and close to the corner of his mouth. “Call me Lottie.”
“Lottie,” he repeated, tasting it. “Call me Bucky. You always flirt this shamelessly with mortals?”
“Bucky.” She tilted her head, smiling. “Only the ones who make me wish I wasn’t a god,” she said.
And for a moment, everything stilled. Then a gust of jasmine-sweet wind stirred the air, and Bucky became suddenly braver. He reached out and took her hand in his. He brought it to his lips, kissed her fingers with a kind of reverence that had nothing to do with worship and everything to do with wanting.
She exhaled, slow. “I could fall for you, you know.”
“Me too,” he said softly.
And Philotes, who has known the play of desire in all its shades, found herself breathless at the thought.
*
The light through the olive trees had shifted, richer now, syrupy and soft, pooling over the low terrace where Bucky leaned back against a stone bench worn smooth by time and touch. Philotes had made a nest of cushions and sun-warmed linens there, fragrant with pineapple and brandy, and somehow, without either of them noticing, the day had unspooled into this.
She was reclining beside him, her cheek resting in her hand, watching him with the kind of attention that made Bucky feel not just seen, but known. Not as the soldier, not as the Wolf. Just as himself.
He tapped the rim of his cup with a lazy finger. “What is this?” he murmured. “This wine.”
Philotes smiled, slow and sly. “Something from the southern slopes of Helicon. They say the grapes there soak up dreams. Do you like it?”
He swirled the amber liquid thoughtfully. “I think it’s got ideas about me.”
“That’s the point,” she said, eyes glinting. “It’s not what the wine does to you. It’s what it believes you could become.”
He chuckled at that. “You’re dangerous.”
“You’re the one who followed me here,” she said, lifting a single sun-gold grape from the bowl and offering it to him between her fingers.
Bucky didn’t take it with his hand. He leaned in slowly, lips brushing her knuckles first, before his mouth closed over the fruit. The burst of sweetness lingered between them.
Her lashes lowered. “That’s not fair.”
He grinned, licking a drop of juice from the corner of his mouth. “I’m mortal. I have to play dirty.”
Philotes laughed, musical and low, like dusk thickening around candlelight. “And yet, not once have you asked what I want from you.”
Bucky tipped his head toward her, suddenly serious beneath the smile. “Because you haven’t taken anything. You’ve just been here.”
That gave her pause. For a breathless heartbeat, she looked younger than her centuries, vulnerable even. She reached for his hand then, not to seduce or enchant, but simply to hold it. And he let her. Above them, the cicadas stilled. Somewhere, a fig dropped from a tree with a soft thump. The world paused, caught on this golden thread.
“You’re very good at this,” Bucky murmured, thumb brushing her wrist. “The quiet. The closeness.”
“I was born for it,” she whispered. “But it only matters when someone listens.”
He kissed her hand, slow, reverent, utterly without demand. “I’m listening.”
Philotes exhaled softly, and it sounded like the wind through tall grass. The hush between them didn’t ask to be filled; it was full already, brimming with the gentle pressure of skin on skin, of eyes held without fear. She turned his hand over in hers, fingers mapping the faint scars that line his palm like a forgotten script.
“This is where your stories live,” she said. “Right beneath the surface.”
Bucky watched her trace them, a little amused, a little unguarded. “Most people don’t want to read those.”
“I’m not most people.”
“I noticed.”
She leaned forward, and the world leaned with her, caught in the gravitational pull of something that wasn’t quite lust, wasn’t quite love, but had all the warmth of both. She kissed the inside of his wrist, the brush of her lips tender, teasing. A shiver threaded its way up his spine, quick and bright.
“Careful,” he murmured, voice low and fond. “You keep that up, I might get used to it.”
Philotes smiles against his skin. “Then I’ll be careful never to stop.”
His arm slid around her waist then, drawing her close. Not with urgency, but with the certainty of someone who has learned how rare this kind of quiet joy really is. Her body fit against his like the pause between heartbeats. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to.
Above them, the sun dipped lower, painting the stones in molten amber. The wine lay forgotten. The grapes, uneaten. But the feeling. That golden, playful ache of something blooming, was still thick in the air.
He sighed into her shoulder, eyes closed. “One more minute.”
She curled against him. “Take all the minutes you want.”
And they did.
Twilight came soft and slow, as if the day itself were reluctant to leave them. The warm stone beneath their bodies held the last of the sun’s heat, and above them, the first stars blinked lazily into view, faint, like candle flames seen through gauze.
Philotes leaned back on her elbows, bare feet still tangled with Bucky’s. The silk of her tunic had slipped from one shoulder, careless and lovely. She was laughing, low and throaty, as Bucky recounted something Zemo had said at dinner the night before. Something dry and biting and a little too clever.
“He really said that?” she asked, grinning.
“He did,” Bucky said, watching her face rather than the sky. “And he meant it.”
She shook her head, delighted. “What a man.”
“What a menace,” Bucky said, eyes warm.
Philotes turned toward him then, her laughter settling into something softer. “You speak of him with such love.”
Bucky’s smile tilted, wry and fond. “He makes it easy. And hard. You know.”
“I do.”
The silence between them changed, deepened. Grew a pulse of its own.
She reached for his hand again, this time not to trace scars, but simply to hold. Her thumb brushed along his knuckles, slow and reverent. The hush was different now. Not the easy quiet of friends in the sun, but the charged, breathless pause of something about to bloom. A kiss hovering, unspent. A promise shaped like want.
When she kissed him, it was without hesitation. She moved like she always had, with grace, with joy, with a kind of sacred ease. But now there was a kind of hunger behind it. Not the desperate kind. The certain kind. The kind that knows it will be met in kind.
And Bucky, oh, he met her. He cupped her jaw with one hand, the cool metal of his fingers a contrast to the heat blooming in his chest. He kissed her slowly at first, tasting the laughter still on her lips, the wine, the dusk. Then deeper. Then longer.
Her body curved into his, every shift of fabric and breath a subtle symphony. They kissed like they had time. Like the night would stretch on forever. Like nothing had ever felt more natural than this moment, than her legs wrapping around his hips, her fingers in his hair, his mouth at the crook of her neck.
She gasped when he rolled them gently, reverent, never rushed. He kissed a path along her shoulder, the inside of her elbow, the space just below her collarbone. Philotes murmured something in a language older than memory, too quiet to be caught, too beautiful to be translated.
He looked at her, flushed and golden in the deep blue light, and she reached up and cupped his cheek. “Come closer,” she whispered, voice like velvet heat. “I want to feel all the ways mortals fall in love.”
Bucky kissed her again, slower this time. Then again. And again. The stars watched in silence as warmth gave way to heat, and sweetness to surrender. The night swayed gently around them, and the gods looked away, smiling.
*
The night had deepened into stillness, the kind that only comes when even the stars seem to be dreaming. Everything was softness, and the world had narrowed to the space between heartbeats, breath, skin.
They lay in a tangle of limbs and silk and moonlight, skin still humming from where they'd touched, kissed, worshipped. Bucky was on his back, one arm tucked behind his head, the other lazily resting across her waist. Philotes had half-draped herself over him, head on his chest, fingers tracing lazy, thoughtless shapes across his ribs.
Her hair smelled of sun and wine and the faintest trace of sweetgrass. Her body, still warm from the inside out, fit perfectly along his. She made a pleased little sound, something close to a purr, and kissed the hollow just beneath his collarbone.
Bucky huffed a laugh, barely louder than a breath. “What was that for?”
Philotes smiled against his skin. “You were thinking something. I could feel it in your chest.”
“I was thinking,” he murmured, voice rough and slow from contentment, “that I might not be able to go back.”
She lifted her head, just enough to look at him. Her eyes, even in the dark, glinted with curiosity, not surprise. “Back to Helmut?”
He nodded. “To all of it. The weight. The history. This feels,” He paused, searching for the right word. “Suspended. Like I’m breathing in a dream.”
Philotes shifted so they lay nose to nose, her thumb brushing along his jaw. “That’s what I am. The love that asks for nothing but presence. The touch that doesn’t bind, or bury, or burn.”
“And yet you feel so real,” he said softly.
“I am. But I’m not permanent. No god ever is, not in the way you need.”
He looked at her, quiet. “Do I need something permanent?”
She tilted her head, thoughtful. “I think you need something that sees all of you. Even the quiet parts. Even the old scars that don’t ache anymore but still shape the way you walk.”
Bucky blinked. Then smiled, slow and rueful. “And here I was, thinking I was just getting lucky.”
Philotes laughed, a sound like water over polished stone. “Oh, you were. You are. But you’re also being seen, my darling.”
He rolled to his side, leaned in to kiss her again, not with the urgency of before, but with something deeper. Something close to worship. She kissed him back with languid warmth, the kind that seeps into your bones and stays there.
And as the kisses turned to touches once more - slower, sweeter, as if they had all the time in the world - they said nothing. There was no need. Just the brush of a hand over a heartbeat. The sighs shared in darkness. The laughter stifled in kisses. The softness of wanting again. Not because of desire alone, but because love, like this, never asks to end. They moved together like moonlight over silk, like a poem read aloud under the breath, like honey slowly melting on the tongue.
Later, wrapped in each other, Philotes whispered something into the curve of Bucky’s ear. He didn’t need to understand the language. It translated in the warmth of her breath, the way her fingers curled around his own, the stillness that bloomed inside him like peace.
And maybe, just maybe, this dream wouldn’t vanish with the dawn.
*
It was just past nine in the morning, and Zemo was in the kitchen.
The windows were open to the city’s slow, yawning sounds. Distant traffic, a dog barking once, the soft chime of a tram gliding past. The sky was a muted silver, the kind of cloudy light that made the world feel like it had been gently desaturated, like a dream remembered rather than lived.
He was barefoot, in dark linen pants and a soft long-sleeve henley, sleeves pushed up, reading a battered copy of ‘The Garden of the Finzi-Continis’ with one hand while the other stirred something delicate in the pan. The smell of warm cardamom and butter curled through the air.
He didn’t look up when the door opened. Just smiled. “I didn’t expect you back so soon, schatzi,” he said, turning a page. “Coffee?”
Bucky stood in the doorway, a jacket slung over his shoulder, hair mussed by some recent breeze, or, more likely, a goddess’s fingers. His shirt was rumpled, half-buttoned, and there was a faint glint of golden shimmer still clinging to the hollow of his throat, like a memory reluctant to leave. He looked unfairly good for someone who had just returned from a divine affair.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just crossed the room in slow, measured steps. Zemo marked his page, set the book aside. Bucky dropped the jacket onto a chair and stepped into Zemo’s space, gently crowding him, slipping one hand behind his back, the other resting low on his hip.
Zemo tilted his head up, amused and entirely unbothered. “You smell like sex and ambrosia,” he murmured.
“Goddess-approved,” Bucky said with a grin, then kissed him.
It wasn’t a hungry kiss. Just that soft, grounding sort that says, ‘I’m here. I’m home. You are where I choose to be.’
Zemo sighed into it, hands lifting to cup the sides of Bucky’s face, thumbs brushing the edge of stubble. When they parted, just barely, Zemo leaned their foreheads together and smiled. “Coffee’s still warm. And the toast hasn’t burned yet.”
“Perfect,” Bucky murmured, nuzzling him once more. “Don’t suppose you made enough for two?”
“Of course.” Zemo turned in his arms and reached for the second mug without missing a beat.
Bucky sat at the table while Zemo plated their breakfast. He rested his chin in one hand, watching Zemo move with that same casual grace that made diplomats sweat and gods take notice.
And Zemo didn’t ask what had happened. Didn’t need to. He just poured the coffee, slid a plate across the table, and said, “Next time you disappear into divine realms, text me, if you can. I’ll send you with proper wine.”
Bucky chuckled, eyes soft. “Deal.”
They settled into the rhythm of breakfast without speaking much. Not because there was nothing to say, but because silence between them was never awkward, never empty. It had weight, texture. A language all of its own.
Bucky tore a piece of toast in half and passed one to Zemo. Zemo, in turn, nudged the little dish of cardamom-orange marmalade toward him with a flick of his fingers. Their hands brushed.
Outside, the world continued as usual, unaware or unconcerned that one of its oldest gods of flirty affection had been kissing honey down Bucky Barnes’ spine just hours before.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” Zemo asked eventually, in the way one might ask if someone wanted another cup of tea.
Bucky shrugged, but he was smiling into his coffee. “Nah. Not yet.”
Zemo nodded once. That was enough.
There were stories, of course. There always were. Traces of them still shimmered faintly along the curve of Bucky’s throat, glowed gold at the edge of his collarbone if the light caught it right. Zemo didn’t touch them. Not yet. Instead, he reached across the table and plucked a crumb from the corner of Bucky’s mouth with a practiced, affectionate swipe of his thumb. Then, just to make a point of it, licked the crumb off his finger with an exaggerated flourish.
Bucky laughed. “You’re impossible.”
“That’s why you came back.” Zemo leaned back, smug. “Returned to me smelling like starlight and sweat.”
“You like it.”
“I do, unfortunately. The smell of love affairs and gods is clearly my personal weakness.”
They smiled at each other, lazy and slow, before Bucky reached his foot out beneath the table and nudged Zemo’s ankle. Zemo responded by doing the same, and before long, they were locked in some ridiculous, gentle footsie standoff, trying not to grin too widely.
Bucky gave up first, shaking his head, chuckling. “I can’t believe you’re the same man who once dismantled empires.”
Zemo sipped his coffee. “Empires are easy. Loving you is the complicated bit.”
That brought silence again, but one full of warmth, like morning sunlight on bare skin, like the first touch after a long absence.
Bucky looked at him for a long moment. “It’s good to be home.”
Zemo didn’t answer right away. He just reached across the table again, fingertips brushing Bucky’s knuckles. A soft promise. “You always are.”
And somewhere outside, the city stretched and yawned and went about its day. But in the quiet kitchen, with coffee cooling and toast crumbs dotting the plates, the only thing that mattered was this, a peace earned, chosen, and infinitely, exquisitely ordinary.
The plates could’ve waited. Honestly, they usually did. But something about the soft intimacy of a shared morning, the kind where time isn’t measured in minutes but in glances, made even domestic rituals feel like ceremony.
Zemo stood at the sink, sleeves rolled, water warm. Bucky leaned against the counter beside him, drying the plates slowly, being deliberately inefficient. The cloth in his hands was barely moving. His eyes, though, were fixed on Zemo. “You always do this,” Bucky said, voice low and amused.
“Do what?” Zemo didn’t look at him. He was rinsing a coffee cup like it was a goblet from Olympus.
“You make chores look like performance art.”
Zemo glanced sideways with a little smirk. “You’re the one staring like I’m the Louvre.”
Bucky laughed. “Only because you’ve got soap suds on your nose.”
Zemo reached up, but Bucky was faster, pressing in, wiping the foam gently away with his thumb, then letting his fingers linger. Not because he had to. Just because he wanted the touch. Zemo leaned into it.
“You’re terrible at drying,” Zemo murmured.
“I’m distracting you. It’s strategic.”
Zemo hummed, pleased, and turned back to the sink. Bucky made a show of drying the next plate poorly, and placed it upside down on the rack, entirely wrong. Zemo shook his head, but he was smiling “Hopeless.”
“Hot, though.”
Zemo bumped him with a soapy elbow. “That’s subjective.”
Bucky leaned in until their shoulders touched, casual and close, and said against Zemo’s ear, “Tell me it’s not true.”
Zemo tilted his face just enough to meet Bucky’s mouth with his own. No ceremony this time, just quiet certainty. A kiss that tasted like orange marmalade and morning. Not desperate. Not dramatic. Just there. Real.
“Fine,” Zemo whispered, brushing his lips once more over Bucky’s, “you’re very hot. Terrible at dishes. But tragically, still very hot.”
Bucky stole the tea towel and flung it over Zemo’s head. “I win.”
But instead of retaliating, Zemo pulled the towel off, tossed it aside, and caught Bucky by the hips, slow and sure. His hands were damp, a little slippery. His smile wasn’t. It was wicked. “And now,” he said, “you’re stuck with a wet man in a kitchen full of soap.”
Bucky looked dramatically put upon. “What a nightmare.”
“Mmmm.” Zemo kissed him again, deeper this time. “Let’s leave the rest for later.”
They abandoned the dishes, of course. The morning light was too golden, the air too soft, the pull between them too strong to bother with ceramic and cutlery. The coffee had gone cold. The plates would wait.
But kisses? Kisses were impatient.
And two men, warm and barefoot on a tiled kitchen floor, tangled in laughter and affection, knew exactly how to prioritise what mattered most.
***