Peitho and Hedylogos
In a cool marble colonnade overlooking a garden, someone has left a single copy of ‘Lovers’ Rhetoric in the Age of Delphi’ open to a marked page. Zemo reads a line aloud, softly amused.
“That’s not how Lysias meant it,” a voice murmurs behind him.
He turns. A young woman is there, lounging like sunlight. A young man leans in a doorway, close by, arms crossed, grinning like he already knows how the evening will end. He murmurs, “You speak as though you’ve done this before.”
And Zemo replies, "Once or twice. But never with gods."
Zemo reads the passage aloud not to show off, but because it delights him. A dry, knowing smile curling at the edge of his mouth. And when that soft, amused correction comes from behind him, he merely glances over his shoulder, like he’s been expecting them all along.
"Once or twice. But never with gods." An invitation, but also a truth.
He gestures toward the empty bench beside him. “Would you care to join me?”
It’s curiosity. Respect. A shared appreciation for subtlety. The book closes with a gentle tap of his fingers, the signal that there’s no need for artifice here. The real conversation begins only when the performance ends.
Afternoon tea appears. Not brought, just there, as though it always was. Delicate glasses of honeyed wine. Fruits he’s never seen before, yet somehow knows exactly how to eat. The sunlight slants golden through the colonnade, and the hours stretch long and unhurried.
He speaks the way a good violin is played, measured, intuitive, unshowy. Peitho is charmed in a way she hasn’t been in centuries. Hedylogos stops trying to one-up him with witticisms after the second round, realising that Zemo listens more deeply than most and responds with something that makes even him think.
Zemo had read of them, once. Niche divinities, whispered of in dusty corners of old libraries. Not gods of war or sea or sky, but of words, of seduction, of delight. The kind who could unravel nations with a sentence. Or, more devastatingly, make a man feel understood. Peitho, the goddess of persuasion and seduction. Hedylogos, the god of sweet talk and flattery.
And now they’re looking at him like he’s fluent in their native tongue.
*
The sun slips lower over the marble balustrade, staining the garden gold. Zemo sets his glass down with a soft clink, the last of the wine catching the light. Peitho leans back into the curve of the stone bench, one ankle draped over the other, posture relaxed but observant. Hedylogos sits opposite, elbow on the table, chin resting on his hand, watching Zemo with an open, lazy curiosity.
Zemo doesn’t notice the shift. Not at first. The shadows lengthen and the trees rustle in a breeze that smells faintly of rosemary and myrrh. The world hums with something he can’t name.
It's Hedylogos who breaks the silence. “You’re not surprised.”
Zemo arches one brow. “Should I be?”
Peitho smiles, a curve like a secret. “We don’t come for the clever ones often. They’re usually too tangled in their own words to hear ours.”
Hedylogos adds “Most mortals flinch. Or preen. Or try to flatter.”
Zemo tilts his head.
They fall back into conversation. This time less measured, more fluid. They speak of philosophy, but not dryly; of desire, but not crudely; of persuasion, poetry, memory, the weight of silence in a well-crafted sentence. Zemo listens more than he speaks, but when he does speak, it’s like a thread pulled through fine embroidery. Deliberate, anchoring, elegant.
At some point, the sky deepens into twilight. The air grows cooler. The candles light themselves.
Peitho shifts, rising from the bench with the easy grace of someone who’s never known hesitation. “You should rest. It’s been a long day.”
Zemo smiles faintly, still not asking where he is or how he came here. He only says, “Will the conversation continue tomorrow?”
Hedylogos stands as well, a flicker of surprise, genuine, brief. “If you wish it.”
Zemo rises, nods once. “I do.”
He turns toward the room that’s somehow been waiting for him all along, its doors already open to the soft hush of draped linen and warm stone and the faint scent of figs and smoke. Later, long after the stars have risen and the garden has grown quiet, they come to him.
They don’t knock. They don’t announce themselves. Their touch is reverent, not claiming. Their voices low, barely above breath. They don’t demand. They invite.
And Zemo, clever, cautious, controlled, lets go.
Not all at once. But enough. Enough to fall into sensation, to learn the weight of divine affection when it’s gentle, not overwhelming. Enough to kiss Peitho like an answer. To arch beneath Hedylogos’ whispered praise. To speak very little, and yet be fully understood.
Later, lying between them, lulled by warmth and moonlight, Zemo touches the curve of Peitho’s shoulder with the back of his fingers. “Do you always speak so little?”
Peitho, drowsy, hums. “Only when I’m being heard.”
Zemo closes his eyes. The gods beside him breathe, perfectly in time.
*
The days unfold like silk. No sudden tugs, no sharp creases, just the gentle unwinding of time. Zemo wakes in a bed that always seems perfectly attuned to his temperature and preferences, the sunlight always soft through gauzy curtains. There is no schedule, no agenda, only an unhurried awareness that the day will offer what it will, and that it will be enough.
He begins with a walk most mornings. The colonnades are cool underfoot, the stone mosaic floors whispering with echoes of sandals from a thousand years ago. In the garden, the herbs release their fragrance when brushed by passing hands: thyme, marjoram, something mint-adjacent that he can never quite name. A small breeze tangles in the wisteria.
Sometimes, Peitho joins him. She never announces herself. She just falls into step beside him, her voice low and unintrusive. They talk of persuasion, yes, but also of old plays, of strategy, of the power of choosing not to speak. Zemo finds it strangely healing to be with someone who never interrupts.
Other times it’s Hedylogos, radiant in the morning light, bare feet and a knowing grin, offering a cup of some impossible fruit nectar and a new phrase to toy with. “What would you call the space between knowing and believing?” he asks one morning, perched backwards on a marble bench.
Zemo hums, considers. “Temptation,” he finally says. “Or perhaps diplomacy.” Hedylogos laughs with delight, throws an olive pit into the fountain like an offering.
Meals are never at set hours, but they arrive at the precise moment one feels hunger, carried on trays of gold and lapis by silent attendants. There’s no need for small talk at meals. Only the occasional shared smirk at a turn of phrase, a raised glass, a murmured “try this” as one of them nudges a dish closer.
Books find him. Not in stacks or libraries, but tucked on windowsills, laid open on garden tables, appearing on the chaise by the pool. Always something relevant, or beautifully irrelevant. He reads slowly, thoughtfully, and sometimes aloud, just a line or two, only when the silence has ripened enough to deserve it.
The nights are velvet. Quiet laughter, limbs tangled under silk sheets, the murmur of gods in the dark. Their touches are unhurried. Some nights, they don’t touch at all. They just lie close and talk in low, circling voices until sleep claims them. And on those nights, Zemo feels something unmoored within him begin to settle. He does not ask how long he will stay. He does not want to break the spell by naming it.
But he notices, now, how he breathes differently. How he no longer wakes with clenched fists. How the ache in his chest has softened into something wistful, perhaps. Not pain, but the memory of it. A ghost that’s learned to sit quietly in the corner.
One afternoon, in the garden, he leans back in a chaise and watches a pair of butterflies spiral together above the oleander. He sips something chilled and floral and says aloud, to no one in particular, “I never imagined I would be permitted something like this.”
Peitho’s voice, from nearby: “You didn’t need permission.”
And Zemo closes his eyes, lets the breeze touch his face, and believes her.
*
Days unfurl, gold-edged. Zemo strolls their gardens with one hand in his pocket and the other curled loosely around a book. He reads slowly, eyes crinkling when a line pleases him.
He discusses Thucydides over figs. Plays word games with Hedylogos that turn flirtatious halfway through. Tells Peitho about a particular Viennese debate club that nearly descended into a duel over the correct translation of logos. She laughs, low and delighted, and leans in.
When he speaks, they listen. Because he chooses his words not to impress, but to enjoy them. Like fine wine. Like silk. Like a sharpened knife, sheathed at just the right moment.
They eat beneath trailing vines, drink wine that remembers the warmth of ancient summers, talk into the long lavender dusk. No one interrupts. No one commands. And Zemo, civilised to his bones, refined by loss but ruled by no one, finds it all very relaxing.
At night, he lets himself be worshipped. Their mouths find his with a kind of awe. They’ve tasted desire for millennia, but they’ve never had someone so unhurried. So present. So aware of the meaning behind a gesture, the flavour behind a kiss. He doesn't give them submission, or even surrender. He gives them partnership. Invitation. A lesson in the decadent potential of mortal pleasure.
Once, after an hour of leisurely entanglement, he murmurs into Peitho’s shoulder, “Do you still think mortals are crude with language?”
She laughs, breathless. “Not this mortal.”
They lounge afterwards, golden skin on golden skin, limbs draped like laurel leaves, murmuring about epithets and endearments, about which words taste best in which languages. Zemo suggests Turkish for sorrow, German for precision, French for sarcasm. “And for love?” Peitho asks. Zemo considers. “Perhaps the pause before it is spoken. That’s the language I prefer.”
They never ask if he’ll stay. Gods can be greedy, but they are not foolish. They know this is borrowed time. All the more reason to savour it.
And Zemo, who is neither their prisoner nor their supplicant, gives them everything they desire - charm, wit, pleasure, conversation - freely, fully. He is not theirs. But for now, they are his.
*
Zemo lounges beneath the soft sway of vines, a book closed beside him, fingers trailing idly along the rim of his teacup. Peitho is stretched out nearby, and Hedylogos, for once, has gone quiet, watching a bee stagger from blossom to blossom in the garden beyond.
“I’ve always liked that quote,” Zemo says, more to the air than to them. “Emperor Charles V, wasn’t it? ‘I speak Spanish to God, Italian to my mistresses, French to courtiers, and German to my horse’.”
Peitho tilts her head, amused. “So specific. So strategic.”
“Indeed. It sounds casually racist at first, but it’s not really about the people,” says Zemo, slowly, thoughtfully. “It is more about how each language was seen at the time: Spanish was formal and spiritual, Italian romantic and expressive, French refined and diplomatic, and German was considered practical and blunt. It's rather about being multilingual and knowing your audience.”
“I see,” says Peitho. "It was this old emperor’s flex. He was assigning languages to situations like you would choose outfits: Spanish for praying, Italian for flirting, French for schmoozing, and German for yelling at his horse."
“Poor horse,” says Hedylogos, before continuing. “So, he wasn’t being sexist or snobby. Just mapping vibes to languages. Spanish for heaven, Italian for romance, French for diplomacy, and German for getting stuff done."
“So imperial,” Zemo replies with a dry smile. “He had a language for every ambition. But I think if he were alive now, he’d need to add something for algorithms.”
“And for memes,” Hedylogos murmurs.
Zemo chuckles. “Indeed. Perhaps, he’d say: I speak English to the internet, French to my lovers, Mandarin to my business partners, and emojis to my friends.”
They laugh, delighted. “And you, dear Helmut?” Peitho asks, rolling onto her elbows. “What would yours be?”
Zemo leans back, thoughtful again. Their gazes fall on him like sunlight filtered through silk. Warm, weightless, waiting. He enjoys the pause a little longer than necessary. He always does. He smiles. “I think I would say: I speak Sokovian to remember, English to manipulate, German to brood, French to seduce and sabotage, Russian to fight, and emoji to text James.”
Peitho arches a brow. “Really? Even now?”
Zemo’s smile softens. His voice, when it returns, is something nearer to a confession. “No. Not quite.” He pauses. “I speak Sokovian to dream, English to comfort, German to care, French to tease, Italian to cook, and silence to love him.”
Peitho sighs. “Sokovian to dream,” she repeats. “Yes. It’s how you say the things you’ve never stopped hoping for. How you hum old lullabies when your James falls asleep on the couch.”
Hedylogos looks over at her. “I see what you’re doing.” He smiles, then continues “OK. English to comfort. They meet in English, it’s where vulnerability lives now. They say to each other “Are you okay?” “I made you tea.” “You’re safe.””
Peitho nods. Looks at Zemo. Then says “German to care. Hmmm. Direct, gentle, precise. You use it to check James’ wounds and scold him for not resting properly.” She laughs a little warm laugh, and reaches out to touch Zemo’s arm. “I can just imagine you saying to him, very gruffly: “Du bist stur, aber ich bin schlimmer.””
Zemo sits and watches them both through lidded eyes.
Hedylogos goes next. “French to tease,” he says, sitting up. “Light, flirty, irreverent. Little murmurs, compliments, dramatic poetry that you recite whilst James rolls his eyes.”
Peitho says “Italian to cook. You don’t just make meals, you perform them. Wine in one hand, wooden spoon in the other, tossing pasta and looking unfairly handsome in an apron.”
Hedylogos, very softly: “Silence to love him. Because some things don’t need words. The quiet when you are reading side by side. The warmth of a hand squeeze. The silence that says, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’”
The hush that follows isn’t emptiness, it’s reverence. Then Hedylogos leans forward, the cadence of curiosity brushing like a kiss across his question: “And your James? What would his be?”
Zemo looks toward the garden, where the breeze stirs the lemon leaves. He doesn’t answer right away. But he’s smiling. That rare, private smile reserved for thoughts of a man who texts him entirely in grumpy cat stickers, and knows exactly when not to say a word.
“Hmmmmm. My James?” he murmurs. “May I offer: “We speak English to meet in the middle, Sokovian to remember, German to trust, French to tease, Russian to protect, Italian to nourish, and silence to love.” Or is that too too similar?”
Hedylogos considers. “Just right, I think. English to meet in the middle. Yes. The neutral ground. The shared space where you first saw each other clearly. Where apologies were awkward, but real.” He imitates their voices. “You good?” “Yeah. You?”
Peitho smiles, and takes up the mantle. “Sokovian to remember.” She pauses. “Loss, legacy, the ghosts you carry. You offer stories, James listens to them. “Say that one again,” he’ll murmur. “The one about the lake.” And you love that he listens.”
Zemo raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t interrupt.
Hedylogos: “German to trust. Natürlich. For quiet truths and tender jabs. When James replied to you in German for the first time, you forgot how to breathe.”
“Yes,” says Peitho, touching his arm gently. “You know James doesn’t just casually pick up German. He learns it quietly, stubbornly, for you, and when he finally says something like “Ich bin geblieben.” I stayed. I bet you - what’s the word - short circuited.”
Hedylogos grins. “I can just see you trying to brush it off, with your smooth little smirk, saying something cool like "James, your accent needs work", but internally? Full-on swoon. Mask shattered. Heart launched into orbit.”
Zemo stills. Is the room getting warmer?
Peitho looks at him, then says “What’s next? French to tease, I believe. Yes. The language of smirks, double meanings, exaggerated courtship.” She squeezes his arm fondly. “It’s your default, my dear Helmut. And your James pretends to be annoyed.” She pauses. “He’s not.”
Zemo smiles softly.
Hedylogos continues. “Russian to protect. Hmmm. Not as the language of pain, but of defense. Of understanding what needs shielding and offering strength without question. “I’ve got you,” in two syllables.”
Peitho: “Italian again, this time to nourish. Your love of cooking meets James’ hunger for comfort. Flour on your sleeves, wine in your glasses, a home that smells like rosemary and garlic. Sublime.”
Hedylogos: “Silence to love. The truest language. A hand on the back. Shared space. A breath drawn at the same time. No words needed. Just being together.” He sits back. “Even I, God of flattery and sweet talk, recognise this.”
“Your James,” Peitho says again, voice like velvet dusk. “He is adept at speaking without words, isn’t he?”
Zemo considers that. Then, with a lazy, smug breath: “Indeed. He speaks with actions. With steadiness. With a hand on my back in a room full of strangers. With the way he always makes my tea how I like it, even when he’s mad at me. With every kiss he gives like a promise, and every one he takes like a question already answered.”
Hedylogos sighs. “He’s rather annoyingly perfect, isn’t he?”
Zemo shrugs. “He is. Devastatingly so.”
Zemo still has that smile on his lips when Peitho rises, smooth as honey over marble. She crosses the terrace barefoot, trailing her fingers along the back of his shoulder as she passes. “That was beautiful,” she says, not quite looking at him, “but it’s your turn to listen now.”
Hedylogos grins, nudging a fig half-heartedly across his plate. “We’ve never quite agreed on one between us. But we’ve played with the idea.”
Zemo tilts his head. “I’m intrigued.”
Peitho shares a glance with Hedylogos, and for a moment, something old and shimmering passes between them. Like a memory older than language, warm and familiar.
Then, she begins: “I speak Persian to flirt, Sanskrit to beguile, Old Attic to seduce in earnest, Phoenician to promise nothing, and silence to say yes.”
Hedylogos laughs, rolling his eyes fondly. “She always leaves out the best part.”
“Which is?” Zemo asks.
“I speak whispers to strangers, metaphor to friends, poetry to lovers, and with her…” He reaches out, twining a loose curl of Peitho’s hair around his finger, “only glances. They know everything.”
Zemo watches them, momentarily disarmed by the intimacy threaded into their words, the centuries tucked between syllables. He nods, understanding. “You’re fluent in more than just language.”
Peitho smirks. “Of course we are. We are divine.”
Hedylogos leans back lazily, stealing one of Zemo’s grapes. “But you, darling mortal, you’re catching up faster than most.”
A breeze comes from the east, faint at first, carrying the scent of jasmine and ink, sandalwood and sun-warmed parchment. Peitho lifts her head slightly, as if she hears a familiar song in the distance. Hedylogos stills, fingers pausing over the rim of his goblet. Zemo glances between them.
“That,” Peitho murmurs, “is an old language.”
Hedylogos hums low. “Older than us, even.”
Zemo arches a brow. “Is it a god?”
Peitho smiles slowly, like someone savouring a secret. “Not quite. Not yet. But it speaks of love in ways we never did. It has no alphabet, no syntax, only instinct.”
The breeze wraps around Zemo then, not cold, but arresting. It carries no words he knows, but somehow he understands: it’s the language of breath hitching before a kiss. Of fingertips ghosting over skin without quite touching. The hush between eye contact and confession.
Peitho watches him. “It’s a language of the in-between. The kind lovers speak before they even realise they’re in love.”
“And after,” Hedylogos adds, quietly. “When speech would only complicate what’s already known.”
Zemo’s breath catches. For a moment, he doesn’t answer. Then, softly: “I think James speaks this language also.”
Peitho reaches across the space between them, brushing the back of his hand with hers, featherlight, not even a touch. “Of course he does,” she says. “You taught it to each other.”
The breeze passes through, gently, unrushed, as if it knows there will be time.
Zemo stretches out, languid as a cat in the sun’s last warmth, one hand curled around his wine, the other tracing idle lines across the embroidery on the cushion beneath him. “Would you like a story?” he asks, with a lilt of mischief, as though he’s already telling one by merely speaking.
“We’re listening,” Hedylogos says, voice honey-smooth.
Peitho nods, tucking her legs beneath her. “Make it beautiful. Or terrible. Both, if you like.”
Zemo considers that. “I’ll tell you the first time I tried to dance.”
Peitho leans in, delighted already. “Yes.”
“It was a ball,” Zemo begins. “In Vienna. I was fifteen, which is the worst age for anything. My mother insisted I attend. Something about appearance and duty and making an impression. I had new shoes, polished too brightly. I had a cravat so stiff it could have defended my honour better than I could.”
Hedylogos chuckles softly.
“There was a girl. She smiled at me, and I was doomed. She held out her hand, and I took it like it might bite me. I knew the steps. I’d practiced. But the moment the music began, I forgot everything. Except where her hand was. How warm it was. How soft.”
He pauses, sipping the wine, eyes thoughtful. “We danced. Badly. I stepped on her foot. Twice. She laughed. Not cruelly, but kindly. As if she expected I might be awful, and didn’t mind.”
“And did you fall in love?” Peitho asks, a knowing smile playing on her lips.
Zemo shrugs. “Only for an hour. But it was a very good hour.”
“A perfect length for a first love,” Hedylogos murmurs. “Enough to remember fondly, not enough to regret.”
Zemo nods. “Exactly.”
The breeze stirs again, less a wind now and more a memory returning to its source. Peitho sips her drink and tilts her head. “Tell us another.”
Zemo smiles, and something in it is softer now. “Only if you share one in return.”
“Deal,” she says, and settles in. The night stretches long and generous. The stars lean in like eavesdroppers and the wine never runs dry.
Hedylogos is the first to answer Zemo’s challenge. “I once convinced a poet not to kill a king,” he says, voice light but with a thread of gravity just beneath it. “He had the dagger in his sleeve, and the verses written already, for after the deed was done. Some grand, doomed monologue about justice and fire and freedom.”
Zemo raises an eyebrow, intrigued.
“I told him he didn’t need to kill the king,” Hedylogos continues, “only to write well enough that the king feared being forgotten.” He pauses, smiles. “He lived,” Hedylogos says, “and wrote the kind of poems they study centuries later, even if no one remembers his name. The king died in exile. That, too, is a kind of justice.”
Zemo lifts his glass to him. “To words sharper than knives.”
They drink to that.
Peitho runs a fingertip around the rim of her goblet. “Your turn.”
Zemo hums in thought. “A story of sabotage, then. Personal, not political.”
“Go on,” Peitho says, eyes glittering.
“There was a man,” Zemo begins. “Too handsome. Too clever. Too smug. I adored him, obviously.”
Peitho laughs softly. “Obviously.”
“But he was cruel,” Zemo continues. “Beautiful people often are, when they’re still young enough to think the world was made to reflect them. I wanted to wound him, but gently. Elegantly. So I charmed his friends, wore his cologne, told his favourite story better than he did. I let him watch me win the room he used to own.”
“Cruel in return,” Hedylogos notes, but with no judgment.
“Perhaps,” Zemo says, swirling his wine. “But I also forgave him. Eventually. In a letter I never sent.”
Peitho’s voice is quiet. “That’s the truest kind of forgiveness.”
Zemo shrugs, but his gaze has gone distant.
Peitho’s turn. “A mortal once asked me what love really was,” she says. “He had a wife and two children and still didn’t know.” She swirls her glass. “I didn’t tell him.”
“Why not?” Zemo asks.
“Because he needed to find the answer in the shape of a hand he already held,” she says, smiling softly. “And because if I had told him, he would have stopped looking.”
They all sit with that for a moment. Then Hedylogos grins. “I once made two enemies fall in love just by teaching them to argue better.”
Peitho giggles. “You did not.”
“I did! Their insults were so finely crafted, so poetic, they started admiring each other’s vocabulary mid-fight.”
Zemo grins, lazily indulgent. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s divine,” Hedylogos says. “Like all the best ridiculous things.”
Peitho leans back, her eyes half closed, lips still curled with laughter. She taps a fingertip to her lips in thought, then smiles like a secret. “I once gave a queen the idea to fake a fainting spell,” she says. “At the height of a diplomatic summit. A single, well-timed swoon, right when her rival was mid-monologue.”
Zemo chuckles. “And the purpose?”
“She collapsed into the arms of the most undecided ally. He caught her, of course. Carried her from the hall. The summit paused for hours.” Peitho’s smile sharpens. “When it resumed, every man in the room was too busy protecting her interests to argue with her policies.”
Zemo raises his glass again. “You’re terrifying.”
She winks. “Flattery, darling.”
All eyes turn next to Hedylogos. He sighs dramatically. “I was once summoned to settle a love triangle. It was all sighs and declarations and performative jealousy. Awful poetry. I fixed it by convincing all three of them they were better as friends.”
Zemo raises an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like your style at all.”
“Oh, but then I seduced all three of them,” he says brightly. “Separately. Then together. It was a very productive winter.”
Peitho laughs, nearly spilling her wine.
Zemo shakes his head fondly. “Of course you did.”
They look at him now, waiting, patient. He takes his time. “There was a man,” Zemo says at last, “who thought himself beneath love. Not unworthy, precisely. Just not built for it. Like someone who’s learned too many languages to believe any of them can mean one thing only.”
The gods go still.
“I never tried to convince him otherwise,” Zemo continues, voice low. “I simply kept showing up. With coffee. With quiet. With patience. I never told him he was lovable. I let him feel it.”
Peitho’s gaze softens.
“And did he?” Hedylogos asks.
Zemo smiles slowly, tenderly. “Every time he touches me like I’m made of something precious, I know that he does.”
They are quiet, then. Not out of respect or awe, but because there is no need to gild this one. It is a story that rests comfortably in the dark, like two hands finding each other beneath the table.
Outside, the breeze stirs again. The wine glows like candlelight in their cups. And tomorrow, there will be more stories. But tonight ends just like this: laughter low and hearts full, as a god, a goddess, and a man who has learned how to love, sit shoulder to shoulder in the long, lovely silence of friendship.
*
The room is a hush of gold and linen. The kind of quiet only found in divine places, where nothing rushes. Zemo wakes slowly, with the kind of ease that speaks to peace earned and savoured. One arm is stretched over a pillow that is still faintly warm. The scent of citrus blossoms and ink lingers in the air. He doesn't open his eyes just yet.
There is the soft clink of a cup being placed near the bed. The rustle of robes. And then the unmistakable weight of a presence settling beside him. "Sleep well, charming one?" Peitho's voice is as drowsy as it is delighted.
Zemo hums, shifting to lie on his back, eyes half-lidded now, studying the intricate patterns of morning light on the ceiling. “Too well. I may have missed my morning brooding.”
A soft laugh from the other side. Hedylogos, fresh-faced and barefoot, sleeves rolled up, like some divine professor of forgotten words. “You’ve earned a morning of indulgence.”
Peitho passes him the cup. “Drink. It’s coffee, but made in the style of a mortal poet’s dream. Dark, rich, with a touch of cardamom and, what was it you called it?”
Zemo sips. Closes his eyes. “Divine intervention.”
Laughter again, and then they fall into a rhythm of quiet that needs no filling. Only warmth, only presence. Hedylogos begins to flip lazily through a collection of old letters, murmuring over a phrase here and there. Peitho braids a section of Zemo’s hair with idle hands, not to tame it, but simply because it’s there. Outside, a fountain sings somewhere.
And Zemo, who has known too many mornings scented in blood or regrets, lets himself be still. No strategies. No responsibilities. Just shared stories waiting in the wings. Just the feel of a god’s hand at his temple. Just the slow rising of the sun.
Peitho finishes with the braid and lets it fall against Zemo’s shoulder with a satisfied little hmm. “There. A ribbon of charm, to match your tongue.”
Zemo raises a brow, not moving from his sprawl in the pillows. “I have many charms.”
“Mm. So we’ve noticed,” Hedylogos murmurs from the low window bench, knees drawn up, a book propped in his lap like a lover. “Your tongue just happens to be the most dangerous one.”
Peitho smirks. “Second most dangerous.”
Zemo tilts his head at them, mock-wounded. “This is what I get for indulging gods before breakfast?”
“No,” Peitho says, taking a fig from an airborne platter. “This is what you get for being honest with us. We find it intoxicating.”
Zemo watches the light shift on their skin, on the glossy black of Hedylogos’ curls, on the curve of Peitho’s shoulder where her robe has slipped. He shifts slightly, still relaxed, but with that unmistakable flicker of interest in his eyes. That low, purring curiosity.
“I could lie, if you’d prefer,” he offers. “I was rather good at it.”
Hedylogos closes the book slowly. “You still are. But here, you don’t need to be.”
Peitho slides beside him again, finger brushing the corner of his mouth. “And we prefer the version of you who greets the day with mischief instead of masks.”
Zemo lifts her hand and kisses her knuckles. “Then I’ll give you that version.”
A lazy stretch of silence again. The kind where nothing has to be said, because everything already has been. Outside, bees drift among the flowers. Somewhere far off, a lyre is played with more affection than precision.
“Tell us a secret,” Peitho says eventually, soft, teasing.
Zemo doesn’t even open his eyes. “I’m not actually this graceful in the mornings.”
Hedylogos smiles. “You are here.”
And it’s true. Here, he is all ease and silk and amused affection. Here, in this long morning of unspoken understanding, Zemo doesn’t perform. He simply is.
*
Breakfast is a slow, sun-drenched affair. Zemo lounges at the small terrace table in a linen shirt carelessly half-buttoned, sleeves pushed to the elbow. He’s barefoot, legs stretched long, one ankle hooked lazily over the other. A breeze teases the edge of the crisp white tablecloth, and birdsong spills over the garden walls.
Peitho pours something light and sparkling into delicate glasses. “Apricots and almonds,” she murmurs, placing a plate between them. “And a honeyed fig tart, because you woke with a smile.”
“I always wake with a smile here,” Zemo replies, lifting the glass, watching the way light fractures through it. “Though I do wonder if you simply dose the air with charm.”
Hedylogos, reclined with effortless grace across a bench draped in gauze and vines, lifts a brow. “We don’t need to. You’re perfectly susceptible without enchantment.”
Zemo hums as he eats his tart. “That’s what all the most dangerous people say.”
Peitho laughs, brushing crumbs from his shirt with the casual intimacy of someone who’s already shared a thousand breakfasts with him. “Come. Walk with us.”
They meander through the gardens, paths bordered in lavender and thyme, citrus trees warmed by sun, fountains that murmur in ancient dialects. Zemo walks between them, sipping the last of his drink. The sun filters through green leaves, dappling his skin. He leans down to inspect a bloom, fingertips brushing petals like secrets.
“Do you miss your world?” Hedylogos asks, hands tucked behind his back, watching Zemo sidelong.
“I do,” Zemo says easily. “But only in the way one misses winter when spring is in full bloom. A fond ache. Not a desire to return too soon.” He pauses beside a carved stone bench, traces the worn edge thoughtfully. “But James will call me back. I miss him very much.”
“And will you answer his call?” Peitho asks, her voice light but curious.
Zemo smiles, slow, indulgent. “Of course. But not before I steal one more day.”
And they linger there in the garden’s hush, golden and perfumed, with nothing more pressing than the question of which path to take next.
Tea is set beneath a pergola draped in blooming wisteria, the blooms lilac and pale violet, swaying gently like they’re listening in. A low table appears as if summoned by thought alone, set with delicate china, sugared petals, and small crystal dishes of preserved lemon and rose-petal jam.
Zemo reclines on a cushioned bench, utterly at ease, his shirt now discarded for a soft robe that trails across his thighs. He pours the tea himself, precise even now, watching the leaves swirl in golden water.
Peitho curls beside him, her shoulder brushing his, fingers dipped into a bowl of candied violets. “Do you have a favourite tea?” she asks, her voice low and lilting, as if she already knows the answer but wants to hear it from his mouth anyway.
Zemo considers. “To be quite honest,” he says, “I find my favourite tea depends entirely on the company and the moment.”
“Please elaborate,” says Peitho, smiling.
“When I am here with you, jasmine, or osmanthus, something floral and suggestive, blooming across the tongue like secrets half-whispered. If I am with James, cherry blossom, delicate and gently bittersweet, steeped in new beginnings. If I am alone, I quite like lapsang souchong. Smoky. A little mysterious. A tea that doesn’t care if you understand it. It smoulders like memory and burns like old paper.”
Hedylogos laughs softly from the other side of the table. “Of course. And I suppose you drink it in silence, in some brooding chair, wearing gloves and regrets?”
Zemo’s smirk is wicked, but lazy. “Only when I want to seduce someone who reads too much poetry.”
Peitho makes a delighted sound. “So, always.”
Laughter ripples between them like steam, slow and luxurious. The air tastes of citrus and honey, and time folds in on itself, irrelevant here. A butterfly flits past, lands on the rim of Zemo’s cup. He watches it with a half-lidded gaze, one hand absently resting on Peitho’s knee.
“Tell us a story,” Hedylogos says, pouring more tea without looking down, eyes fixed on Zemo like he’s the unfolding of a particularly fine stanza. “One you haven’t told anyone else.”
Zemo looks between them, his smile deepening into something quiet and almost shy. He tilts his head, considering, as the wisteria sways and the world holds its breath. “All right,” he says. “But only if you promise not to fall in love with me again.”
Peitho leans in. “No promises.”
Zemo doesn’t begin right away. He turns the cup in his hands. The silence stretches, easy but expectant. Then he says, very softly, almost as if to himself, “There was a time I did not dream.”
Peitho’s fingers still on the rim of her saucer. Hedylogos tilts his head.
“After everything. You know what I mean by that. There were nights without end, days without change. I would lie in bed and wait for sleep, and there would be nothing. Not even nightmares. Just a blank space where once there had been music and hunger and colour.”
A breeze stirs the garden. Warm and fragrant, rustling through the citrus trees.
“Then,” he says, “he started leaving windows open.”
Peitho smiles faintly. She does not interrupt.
“James. He would fall asleep before me. He pretended he didn’t know that I stayed awake. But he would open the window beside the bed, just a little. Even in the winter. He said something foolish about drafts, and ghosts, needing somewhere to slip out.” Zemo’s eyes are distant now. Not with pain, just with depth.
“But the breeze would come in. And with it, sound. Somewhere, a neighbour playing the radio too late. A dog barking. An engine backfiring. Life. Small things.” He glances up at them.
“And one night, I heard music. Just a scrap of a melody. A tune I didn’t recognise. And that night, I dreamed.” He pauses, his voice quieter now.
“It wasn’t dramatic. I dreamed I was sitting on a bench. There was nothing remarkable about it. I was drinking coffee, of all things. James’ brand of coffee. In a paper cup. Someone sat down beside me. I didn’t turn to look, but I knew it was him. He didn’t say anything. He just reached over and stole the croissant from my hand. I let him.”
Hedylogos is smiling with a sort of reverence, eyes soft.
Peitho exhales. “And?”
Zemo shrugs, with a grace that only makes the moment more tender. “And that was it. That was the whole dream. But I woke up hungry for more.”
They let the silence settle again. Finally, Hedylogos murmurs, “And now?”
Zemo lifts his tea. “Now, I dream every night.” He pauses again, then smiles a little half smile. “And not always about croissants.”
Peitho laughs, delighted.
The garden tilts into that golden time just before dusk truly settles. When the sunlight turns to butter, and the air feels thick with enchantment, like something important is about to be whispered. Peitho reclines a little further back on the chaise, her gown spilling like poured wine across the cushions. Hedylogos plucks a tiny blossom from a nearby shrub and rolls it between his fingers, not yet speaking, letting Zemo set the tone.
He doesn’t rush. He rarely does. He leans an elbow on the stone table, fingers curled near his mouth, his gaze turned toward the ivy-draped wall where shadows start to gather. “Do you know,” he says lightly, “I have lied to kings and kissed traitors and danced with war itself, but somehow, the most dangerous thing I have ever done is let someone watch me fall asleep.”
Peitho hums, low and amused. “Intimacy is perilous. You know that.”
“Of course,” Zemo agrees, one brow lifting. “But you gods,” he flicks his fingers toward them lazily, “you don’t fear it. You thrive on it. The touch behind the veil. The secrets told with no audience but breath.”
Hedylogos leans forward, eyes warm. “We listen well. And we never forget.”
Zemo nods. Then, after a moment, “Do you want to hear a true story? Another one?”
Peitho arches a brow. “Do you think we’d ever say no to that?”
He sits straighter, steeples his fingers. The air seems to hush in response, the leaves pausing mid-stir. “It was raining in Vienna,” he says. “Years ago. Long before the mask, before Sokovia burned. I was young. I wore gloves to impress people and said things in Latin to confuse them. There was a woman. She was clever, and cruel in that glittering Viennese way, and she said to me at a party: “The trick, Baron Zemo, is never to want something more than you can hide.’” He exhales a soft laugh, almost fond. “She was right. Then.”
Hedylogos leans his chin into his palm. “And now?”
Zemo smiles, slow and rich. “Now I burn for him in every language I know. And I don’t even try to hide it.”
Peitho claps once, delighted, like a hostess approving of the dessert course. “Oh, darling,” she says warmly, “that is a line worth stealing.”
The tea is cold by now, but none of them care. The stories roll on, soft and honeyed, wrapped in the sounds of doves settling into their perches and distant chimes from some unseen clock tower. The garden becomes a little myth of its own, lush with memory and laughter and the space between words.
*
The garden dims, not into shadow, but into velvet. The edges of things soften, the glint of tea cups, the shimmer of silk, the curl of ivy on the stone walls. Until it all becomes a tapestry of warmth and lushness and gathering stars.
Zemo leans back, his hands folded loosely in his lap, his posture entirely unguarded. It's a rare pose for him. Spine relaxed, eyes half-lidded, voice gone quiet without any need to cut or charm.
Peitho lights a lantern with a flick of her fingers, soft golden light pooling around them. Hedylogos hums a little tune under his breath, something old and lilting, and the stars above seem to sway with it.
“There’s a word,” Zemo says into the hush, “in Japanese. Yūgen. It means a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe, and the sad, sweet awareness of its impermanence.”
He doesn’t look at them when he says it. He’s watching the stars, one knee drawn loosely toward his chest, the picture of someone at peace, but you get the sense that he’s showing them a part of himself very few have seen. No mask, no manipulation. Just truth.
Hedylogos’s voice is low. “And do you feel it now?”
Zemo nods, slowly. “Yes. Completely. But,” He turns his head to look at them, the faintest smile tugging at his mouth. “It doesn’t make me sad. Not anymore.”
Peitho’s expression is gentle, full of knowing. “Because you know the beauty doesn’t have to last forever to be real.”
“Exactly.”
For a while, they sit like that. Just the soft clink of porcelain, the rustle of night-breeze through lemon trees, the murmur of a few crickets waking in the long grass. It feels like a pause in time. Like the kind of moment you’d bottle if you could, to sip again when the world is too sharp.
Eventually, Hedylogos reaches across the table and takes Zemo’s hand. Not in seduction, just to hold it. To honour the stillness and the softness of him. “You are a man of many languages,” he says, thumb brushing Zemo’s knuckles. “But tonight, I think, the stars are speaking yours.”
And Zemo, who has fought gods and worn grief like armour, lets out a breath and simply says, “I hear them.”
And above them, the stars shift, just a little, as if winking in return.
The gods withdraw, not in absence but in grace, their footsteps vanishing like dew before dawn. Zemo is left alone in the garden, but not alone in the way that aches. Alone in the way that invites. That opens.
The lantern flickers low beside him. His teacup has gone cool. Somewhere, a breeze winds softly through the cypress trees, lifting the scent of jasmine and warm stone, wrapping it around him like a second skin.
Above, the stars stretch wide. Ancient. Patient. They do not blink or burn for him. He knows better than to think himself the centre of their dance. But tonight, they notice him. He can feel it. Their regard. Their hush. Their strange and distant fondness. “Yūgen,” he says again, to the dark. Not to anyone. Just to the moment. Just to the silence.
His hand rests lightly on the table. The teacup. The napkin folded just so. The last sliver of moon-drenched apricot he never finished. All of it gleaming faintly in the starshine.
He closes his eyes. In Sokovian, a word comes to him, not even a word, really, but a sound. A lullaby his mother used to hum under her breath, something nameless, too old for letters. It means nothing and everything. It means I see you. You are safe. You are loved.
He breathes it out, lips barely moving. The garden listens.
There’s no need for speech now. No need for posture or wit. Just the stars. Just the jasmine. Just the soft night air curling against his skin, the press of stillness, the warmth left behind by gods who never needed to leave a mark to be remembered. And in the space where words might have been, he smiles.
*
There is a quiet shift of light as dawn filters through the trees, turning the garden gold again, gentle and warm. Somewhere, a bird trills lazily, not quite ready for full song. The air is still scented faintly of jasmine, though now it’s folded in with the green sweetness of dew-wet grass and the promise of something baking nearby, figs, maybe. Or apricots again. Zemo hopes it’s both.
He stirs, slowly. The chaise has curved around him in the night, cushions tucked beneath his shoulder, blanket of unknown provenance curled at his feet. His shirt is half-unbuttoned, but he can’t remember doing that. He doesn’t mind. The gods have always liked him just a little dishevelled in the mornings.
A cup appears at his side. Delicate porcelain, hand-painted with vines and stars. The tea inside is steam-sweet and floral. He doesn’t even need to look up to know who placed it there.
“I was going to let you sleep,” says Peitho, settling beside him on the bench.
Hedylogos leans in from the other side and murmurs, “But we would’ve missed the face you make when you taste something perfect.”
Zemo takes a sip. His eyes flutter shut. They’re right.
For a long moment, nothing else happens. The three of them sit there in the gold-soft hush, drinking tea and sharing silence in the way only the well-loved and the well-known can do.
Eventually, Zemo sighs, content and amused. “I’ll miss this,” he says, not meaning to say it aloud.
“You will,” Peitho agrees, brushing a hand through his hair with idle affection.
“But you’ll carry it with you,” adds Hedylogos.
He nods, leaning slightly into their touch. The tea is gone too soon, but he doesn’t ask for more. There’s no need to stretch things. The gods don’t love clinging, and neither does he. But he allows himself to stay a little longer, watching the sunlight slip across the tiles, turning each one briefly into a precious stone.
He laughs suddenly, soft, surprised. “He’ll pretend not to be jealous,” he says, voice still wrapped in dreams.
“James?” Hedylogos grins. “He’ll pretend for exactly as long as it takes you to kiss him stupid.”
“And then he’ll kiss you right back,” Peitho adds. “And take you home.”
Zemo smiles into the rim of his empty cup. “Yes. He will.”
*
The day stretches itself out slowly, like a cat in sunlight. Long and lazy and golden, with no rush toward its ending. Zemo strolls the garden paths with bare feet and open cuffs, a man at complete ease, a man loved well and thoroughly. The gods, as ever, are draped in soft brilliance beside him. Peitho winds an arm around his as they walk, and Hedylogos offers him a slice of pear, perfectly ripe, from a silver dish that seems to appear from nowhere and everywhere at once.
“You’re quiet today,” Peitho says, voice all silk and curiosity.
Zemo smiles. “Only when I’m being heard.”
Hedylogos laughs. “We did teach you that line.”
“And I’m repaying you by using it with finesse.”
They pass a low wall blooming with wisteria and some flower that refuses to exist in any mortal botanical record, their petals shaped like secrets, coloured like laughter. A breeze stirs. Zemo tilts his face into it, slow, indulgent.
“I think,” he says, “this may be the first time in my life I have not wanted for anything.”
“That,” Peitho says, touching his cheek, “is seduction in its highest form.”
Hedylogos spins lazily ahead of them, plucking figs from a tree that wasn’t there yesterday. “And yet,” they say, turning with a grin, “we are greedy creatures.”
Zemo raises a brow, slow and knowing. “Are you?”
“Always,” Peitho murmurs, stepping closer. “But only with what delights us.”
He’s backed gently against a marble column veined in gold. The figs Hedylogos drops into his hand are warm from the sun, honeyed and soft, and the gods are looking at him again like he’s their most treasured poem.
“Do you know,” Zemo murmurs, as one fig disappears between his lips, “I believe you may have ruined me for ordinary pleasure.”
“Oh, darling,” Hedylogos says, fingers trailing his collarbone, “we’ve merely reminded you how many kinds of pleasure there are.”
He laughs, breathy, indulgent, utterly unguarded, and lets himself be kissed again. It’s slower this time, afternoon-kissed and wine-sweet, and somewhere far off the dinner bell might be ringing, but here, the only sound is the soft hum of his name on divine tongues and the way their bodies speak fluent desire.
He is loved, and lovely, and entirely deserving of it.
And later, much later, when dinner arrives and the candlelight begins to flicker, there might be wine again, and stories.
*
Twilight threads its fingers through the colonnade, all shades of lavender and honey. The marble glows warm underfoot, and the sky beyond the garden hums in hues that don’t have names, but might once have had music.
Zemo is stretched out on a low couch, one hand cradling a wine glass, the other turning a delicate page of ‘On the Sublime’. He’s not reading, not really, just letting the rhythm of the prose settle into his mind like distant thunder.
Peitho approaches, barefoot, holding a fig sliced open on a silver plate. “I can never decide,” she says, “if I prefer it ripe or just before. There’s something about the tension of waiting.”
Zemo glances over the rim of his glass. “Then I suspect you’d enjoy the idea of a syllable held too long on the tongue.”
Hedylogos laughs from where he lounges nearby, shirt unbuttoned, golden from sunlight and idleness. “Is he always like this?” he asks Peitho, though he’s looking at Zemo.
Peitho hums. “Only when it’s worth it.”
Zemo lifts his glass slightly, the closest he ever comes to smugness. “To anticipation,” he offers.
They dine slowly. Grapes chilled with mint. Bread that steams as it’s broken. The kind of olives that taste like dusk. The conversation floats: half language, half flirtation, every word a game played just for the delight of it.
“I don’t trust languages with too many vowels,” Hedylogos muses.
“I don’t trust lovers with too few,” Zemo replies, offhand, like a flick of a knife across satin.
Peitho sighs contentedly. “Let’s play again. One word. One language. One reason why.”
They go around, letting the fireflies rise with their words.
“Saudade,” Hedylogos murmurs. “Portuguese. Because longing tastes like wine left out in the sun.”
“Meraki,” says Peitho. “Greek. Because love is work when it’s real. And beautiful.”
Zemo thinks for a moment. “Fernweh,” he says at last. “German. The ache for a place you've never been.” He swirls the wine in his glass. “Though I think you know that one quite well.”
There’s a pause. A soft one. Nothing awkward in it, just a silence dense with meaning.
Peitho moves closer, curling herself beside him like a thought that wants to linger. Hedylogos slides to the floor, resting a hand on Zemo’s knee, thumb brushing a line just above the seam of his trousers. It’s possessive, and oddly gentle.
“You fascinate us,” Peitho whispers. “Not because you’re mortal. Because you are whole.”
“And because,” Hedylogos adds, “you make us want to speak carefully.”
Zemo smiles faintly, fingers trailing through Peitho’s hair. “You should always speak carefully. Words outlast even gods.”
That earns him a look. Then hands. Then mouths, warm and slow and sweet.
They make love like it’s part of the evening’s ritual: an act of fluent worship, elegant and unhurried. They move together with the same precision as conversation, with the same instinct for timing, for pause, for reply.
Later, limbs tangled in cool linen, the air rich with citrus and heat, Peitho says softly, “You know, we’ve never asked you to stay.”
Zemo, eyes half-closed, smiles without showing his teeth. “How very polite of you.”
“And if we did?” Hedylogos ventures, tracing idle circles on his chest.
“Then I would give you an answer,” Zemo replies. “But not tonight.”
The gods, for once, accept the boundaries without protest. Because they understand. Because they’ve never wanted to ruin the very thing that’s made them fall in love.
Outside, the breeze lifts through the cypress trees, and somewhere in the shadows, a nightingale sings.
*
The morning begins the way all the best ones do: quietly, as though the sun has slipped in on tiptoe, careful not to wake the dreams still trailing across the sheets.
Zemo is already awake, propped against a nest of embroidered pillows, draped in a soft robe the colour of deep cream. He’s sipping something aromatic from a porcelain cup. Coffee, impossibly rich, just slightly spiced. He’s reading again, of course. A slim book with cracked spine and careful marginalia, like it’s been loved by many hands.
Peitho is stretched out beside him, half-asleep, her cheek resting against his thigh. Hedylogos lounges on the sill, wrapped in the curtain like a cat, bare chest aglow in the morning light. The room smells of citrus blossom, old paper, and sleep-warmed skin.
“What’s today’s word?” Peitho murmurs without opening her eyes.
Zemo doesn’t answer at first. He flips a page, finishes a sip. Then, softly: “Shoshin. A Zen term. It means ‘beginner’s mind.’ To approach something, anything, as though it’s the first time. No assumptions. No arrogance.”
Peitho opens one eye. “That’s very you.”
Zemo glances down, amused. “I take that as a compliment.”
Hedylogos chuckles. “It is. You see everything as if it matters.”
Zemo closes the book gently. “Because it does. Especially when it’s about to end.”
They’re quiet then. Not from sorrow, just from the weight of knowing. There’s no anguish in it, no protest. Only a kind of reverent anticipation.
“You miss him,” Peitho says, voice low.
Zemo doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I do.”
There’s a pause. Then, carefully, Hedylogos asks, “Do you think he’ll come?”
Zemo’s smile turns private. “I think he is already on his way.”
Peitho sits up slowly, tucking her legs beneath her. “You’ll walk out of here with your back straight and your coat pressed, and we’ll pretend not to be undone by it.”
Zemo reaches to take her hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “You’ll never have to pretend.”
They rise together, gracefully, like a scene fading into its final frame. Robes are drawn around shoulders. Fingers linger at wrists. No one hurries, but nothing stalls either.
At the door, Zemo turns back once more. “Natsukashii,” he says softly. “A Japanese word. The joy of nostalgia. The sweetness in remembering something that cannot be again.”
Hedylogos closes his eyes.
Peitho whispers, “You will be remembered.”
Zemo offers them both a bow, elegant and real. “And you will be missed.”
Just beyond the courtyard, a shadow is moving. Boots stride with precision. A familiar heartbeat echoes faintly through the stone. Bucky walks, just beyond the veil.
The morning is done. The next page awaits.
*
The courtyard is still. Light drips from every surface like honey, slow and golden. The gods are reclining on cushioned stone benches, draped in gauze and grace, each a portrait of ease and anticipation. Zemo stands between them, freshly shaven, crisp cuffs, shoes shined, a pressed collar turned just so. He is all composure, elegance wrapped in human form.
Then, from the open archway, boots. Dust-scuffed. Mismatched laces. A jacket slung over one shoulder like an afterthought. Hair tousled by wind, unkempt beard shadowing a stubborn jaw. Bucky Barnes walks in like he’s taken a wrong turn into heaven and isn’t particularly impressed by the decor.
Zemo’s breath catches, but he hides it well. Only his mouth twitches, the barest smirk curling at the corner. He bows his head politely toward his hosts. “We mortals are such complicated creatures,” he says. “But it’s been a pleasure.”
Peitho rises, graceful and loose-limbed, and offers her hand. Zemo takes it and presses a kiss to her fingers.
“To look at him now,” Zemo continues, his eyes never leaving Bucky’s shambling form, “you’d think he was less than I.” He looks over at the gods, something soft and unshakable gleaming in his eyes. “He is not.”
Bucky stops just short of the dais, scratching the back of his neck. “I didn’t know what to wear,” he mutters. “You, uh, weren’t exactly kidnapped into sweatpants territory.”
Zemo’s smirk deepens. “You came,” he says, like it’s the only thing that ever mattered.
Peitho laughs quietly, a sound like wind chimes. “It’s not what he wears,” she murmurs to Hedylogos, who nods in return. “No,” he agrees. “It’s who he is.”
The gods rise as one. They step aside, arms open, not in surrender, but in blessing. A breeze curls around Zemo and Bucky, warm and laden with citrus.
And suddenly, they are home.
One heartbeat, and the marble becomes parquet. The silk turns to wool. The heady perfume of ambrosia fades into the faint scent of coffee, ink, and Bucky’s cologne. They are in their study again, windows flung wide to the ordinary beautiful blue sky.
Zemo reaches to smooth a hand through Bucky’s wild hair, fussing without judgment. “You really didn’t comb it?” he asks, dry as ever.
Bucky shrugs, a crooked smile breaking across his face. “You love me scruffy.”
Zemo leans in, brushing a kiss against his jaw. “Hopelessly.”
They stand like that for a moment. Just men again. No gods, no altars, no veils of light. Just warm skin, familiar touch, the quiet, exquisite knowing.
Somewhere far off, in a garden beyond time, the gods sip tea and speak softly of longing.
But here, here, in the heart of a home, they write their own myth, just the two of them.
*
The kettle whistles low and lazy on the stove.
Bucky is stretched out on the couch, one arm behind his head, the other resting along the curve of Zemo’s hip where he sits perched, legs tucked under him, reading aloud from a well-worn book of poems. His shoes are off. His voice is quiet. “‘and when I kissed you, time collapsed’” Zemo pauses, glancing over the page. “A little melodramatic, no?”
“You’re literally back from a divine garden of seduction and rhetoric,” Bucky says. “You don’t get to criticise melodrama.”
Zemo concedes the point with a shrug and a rare, crooked grin.
There’s a soft ding from the sideboard. Bucky raises an eyebrow. “That new?” he asks.
Zemo follows his gaze to a delicately wrapped box. A small, square box with a pale gold ribbon tied with impossible precision. He tilts his head. “It wasn’t there this morning.”
Bucky sits up as Zemo opens the lid. Inside are two exquisite crystal tumblers etched with ancient script, and nestled beside a slim vial of what appears to be ambrosia. A card flutters out. Zemo catches it before it hits the rug. For long nights and sweet words. You were a gift, mortal. P & H.
Bucky whistles low. “They really did like you.”
Zemo murmurs, “I am very likeable.” He closes the box gently, a fond little smile playing on his lips, then adds, “They understood me.”
“Not too well, I hope.”
“Oh, they knew I was spoken for.”
Bucky raises his glass in mock salute. “Good.”
Zemo places the box on the mantle, beside a carved figurine from Madripoor and a photo of them in Vienna, both grinning like fools.
Later that night, Zemo wraps around him in bed, the hum of the city just outside, the world completely ordinary and completely theirs. And Bucky, half-asleep, murmurs into Zemo’s shoulder: “You really do love me scruffy.”
And Zemo, already dozing, just pulls him closer. “Hopelessly.”
***