The Trouble with Gods

The moon hung in the sky like a breath not yet released. A perfect crescent, silver as whispered secrets, soft as longing. And on it, the moon goddess reclined.

Selene, daughter of Hyperion, eternal watcher of the night, lay on her side like she was lost in reverie. Her arm draped over the arc of her moon-chariot, fingers trailing downward, through clouds, mist, and starlight. Brushing the curve of the world below like one might touch the surface of a lake.

She gazed, as she had done for millennia. But tonight something shifted. Her eyes narrowed, moonlight sharpening. There he was.

Cloaked in quiet, moving like a secret folded into velvet. A mortal man, swathed in shadows and refinement. He paced in his balcony garden, hands behind his back, face tipped toward the stars. So composed. So distant. So devastatingly familiar.

Something in her silvery, ancient heart ached. He moved like a dream she almost remembered. He spoke like moonlight falling on marble. He brooded like a man who had known sleep without peace.

“Endymion,” she breathed, and the clouds curled around her like sighs.

She appeared on his balcony, barefoot in mist, hair trailing like comet smoke. She left silver petals on his pillow. She whispered in tongues only the moon remembered, woven into the seams of his dreams.

*

The dream unfurled like fog across a moor. Soundless. Boundless. Breathless.

Zemo stood in the middle of it, unsure when he had stopped walking. The world around him was all mist and moonlight, swaying like chiffon in an unseen wind. His coat was gone. His cuffs unbuttoned. The air smelled faintly of myrrh, old stone, and something colder, older.

A hush fell, velvet-soft and total.

Selene emerged from the mist. Not walking, but gliding, her long gown trailing behind her like a river of light. Hair was unbound, tumbling in luminous waves over her bare shoulders, stirred by an impossible breeze. Her eyes glowed like frost-kissed pearls. They locked onto his with unbearable clarity. And she reached for him.

“Helmut,” she whispered, as though tasting it with distaste. Her fingers hovered an inch from his chest. “Why this name? This mask you wear in waking life?”

Her voice was the sound of silver being poured into a goblet. It was soft. Rich. Weighty. Ancient. “I do not care for it,” she said gently, sorrow blooming at the corners of her mouth “To me, you are Endymion.”

Her hand found his cheek, cool as moonlight on marble, and Zemo didn’t pull away. He found he couldn’t.

Her face moved closer, wind sweeping around them in a slow, spiralling dance. Not a storm. A ritual.

“Remember me,” she whispered, her breath a shimmer of stars against his skin. “Return to me.”

The fog swelled. She leaned in, lips barely brushing his, and for one suspended moment, time folded around him. He almost believed her.

*

He woke with a jolt. His bed was untouched. His tea, cold on the nightstand. The curtains barely swayed in the still air. But silver petals now lay across his pillow.

And from the down the hall, Bucky’s voice floated in, casual and amused. “You moaned in your sleep. You okay, Sleeping Beauty?”

Zemo didn’t answer right away. He stared at the petals. Touched his cheek. “She doesn’t like my name,” he murmured to no one in particular.

Then, rising, he adjusted the sleeves of his dressing gown with deliberate precision and swept down the hallway like a man absolutely not haunted by the moon goddess in the night.

*

“She moaned your name through the mist, you say?” Bucky asked flatly, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching Zemo stir his tea with the air of a man deeply inconvenienced by cosmic affection.

Zemo adjusted the belt of his dressing gown. There was a slight twitch at his temple. “I think she’s confusing me with someone else.”

“You sure?” Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Sounded pretty specific. ‘Helmut’ is not that common. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”

“She’s poetic,” Zemo muttered, sipping his tea with immaculate restraint.

Bucky nodded toward the side table. “Did she leave you that lyre?”

Zemo sighed. “Yes.”

“You gonna learn to play it?” Bucky grinned.

“I already play six instruments.”

“Oh, excuse me, Herr Baron.”

“You’re not helping, James.”

“I’m not trying to.”

Zemo shot him a look over the rim of his teacup. “I liked you better when gods weren’t serenading me.”

Bucky smirked, heading toward the kitchen. “Hey, I didn’t start the celestial fan club.”

Zemo exhaled slowly, setting down his cup. Outside, the moonlight danced just a little closer to the window than usual.

***

It was near midnight, and the apartment was quiet. The kind of quiet that feels like a spell. Not silence, but stillness.

Zemo stood by the window, one hand absently tracing the rim of his teacup, his dressing gown tied in a meticulous knot. He hadn’t lit any lamps. Not yet. The room was bathed in soft silver, shadows stretched long and languid over the parquet floor.

The balcony doors were slightly ajar. And the moon hung low and heavy over the rooftops, a perfect crescent glowing like the blade of something ceremonial.

He didn’t know why he looked up just then. But he did. And she was there.

She stepped between the rays of moonlight like they were curtains, sliding into view in a quiet, liquid motion, as though someone had just cued her entrance. The air shimmered faintly around her, and a gentle breeze carried the scent of night-blooming jasmine.

Selene. Pale and radiant. Cloaked in light, crowned in stars. She stood just on the other side of the glass, watching him. Her gaze was endless. Soft. Intent. Yearning.

She raised a hand, not in greeting, not in command, just reaching. Open-palmed. As though she were brushing her fingertips along the invisible veil that separated their worlds.

Zemo didn’t move. Couldn’t move. His breath caught, silent, sharp.

She tilted her head, eyes searching his like she could find herself in him.

“Wotcha doing in the dark?” Bucky’s voice floated into the room. The lights flicked on. “I brought you the Ethiopian roast.”

Zemo blinked. The moment cracked like a sheet of glass underfoot.

He turned, just slightly, toward him. And when he looked back. She was gone.

No sound. No breeze. Just a soft spiral of silver mist curling in the corner of the balcony, and a single moon-petal caught between the door and the frame.

“Hey,” Bucky said again, padding in wearing a hoodie and sleep pants, holding two steaming mugs. “You good?”

Zemo stared out into the dark. Then turned and smiled, taking the coffee. “I think I am being courted,” he said flatly.

Bucky sipped. “By who?”

Zemo paused before answering. “The moon.”

Bucky nodded, completely unbothered. “Happens.” He shrugged, moving to the armchair. “Shouldn’t have kept the lyre.”

***

The balcony was quiet again. The world softening at the edges. The shadows taking on a silver tone. The hush that settled was not like silence, but like velvet draped across a moment too tender to be touched.

Zemo stood again by the doors, same place, same posture. But this time, his eyes searched. And found her.

She wasn’t hidden tonight. No slow reveal. No teasing veil of mist. She stood at the centre of the balcony like a statue carved from moonlight itself, wind playing in her hair, her gown trailing like smoke, her gaze fixed on him, like he was the only thing that was real.

“Helmut,” she said. Her voice like tides against marble.

He flinched. Only slightly. His name had never sounded like that before.

“You know I do not care for that name,” Selene whispered, stepping closer. “You had another, once. A name that tasted like olive oil and honey. Like blood warmed by sun. A name that woke the owls and stilled the wolves.”

Zemo swallowed. He should have stepped back. Instead, he took a step forward. Just one.

The glass door was still half-open. He passed through it like through a veil. And for a moment, for a breathless, ageless moment, they stood less than an arm’s length apart.

The moon was bright and shining behind her. She was bathed in it.

“You do not have to remember me,” she murmured. “Only feel that you did.”

She raised her hand again. And this time he met it. Just his fingers, brushing hers. Skin against skin. Cool, with the promise of eternity.

His pulse fluttered at the contact. His eyes, so precise, so guarded, went wide with something he would never speak aloud.

She smiled. Just barely. It made her seem younger, somehow. Playful. Hopeful.

And then, like it cost her something, she let go. And stepped back. Moonlight clung to her as she dissolved again into the shadows, her voice trailing behind like the last line of a forgotten poem: “I will come again, my love. I have found you now. I will help you to remember.”

Zemo stood there long after she’d gone. Not cold. Not dazed. Trembling slightly, like a dream not quite finished.

Until a hand settled on his shoulder. Warm. Steady.

“Did she come back?” Bucky asked quietly, not needing to be told.

Zemo nodded once.

“Do you want to come back inside?”

A pause. A longer pause than expected. Then he turned to look at him, his eyes very wide. “Yes, James. Thank you.”

***

The moon was thin tonight. A sliver. A sigh. Barely enough to light the hills. Barely enough to cast a shadow. But still enough.

Zemo slept in silks, tangled just so. The curtains stirred, though the air was still. And from between the folds of shadow, from the hush between the seconds, Selene came to him once more.

She did not walk. She drifted. Silver bare feet above the floor. Her hair loose, heavy, unbound, cascading like starlight poured from an urn. Her gown was darker now, moonstone and smoke, the colour of forgotten temples and promises made in groves. It trailed behind her like regret.

She hovered at the side of the bed.

And Zemo, unconscious still, but somehow aware, turned towards her in his sleep.

She knelt. In a slow, reverent motion, like lowering herself before something sacred. She placed on delicate pale hand on his chest. His heart thudded beneath it. Not fast. But not untouched.

“Endymion,” she whispered. “I dreamed of you long before you dreamed of me.”

She leaned in, her lips barely brushing his brow. His name again, the old one, the secret one, slipped from her lips like a kiss.

“I have courted you with petals and mist, with music and myth. And yet you do not, cannot, remember.”

Her voice was not angry. It was tired. Ancient. Tired of being immortal in a world that changed without her. Tired of searching for that which she had and lost.

“One more cycle. One more turn of my phases. After that, I will know if you are truly Endymion reborn. If you are not him, then may you be happy. I will leave you in peace. But if you are, and oh how I hope that you are…”  She laid her palm over his heart once more. Fingers glowing faintly with the last echo of the moon, “…then you will come to me at the next New Moon. Not because I ask. But because you remember.”

A single silver tear slid down her cheek. It vanished before it reached his chest. She leaned down. Kissed him. Not his lips. His throat. The spot where breath gathers. Where longing hides.

Then she was gone. As though she had never been.

But in the morning, Zemo woke with a silver crescent pressed onto the inside of his wrist. A soft shining thing. He stared at it for a long, long time, turned his wrist to the light. Watched it shimmer and gleam.

He smiled, just barely, and whispered “I wonder…”

***

Part Two. A moon goddess, a velvet baron, and a supersoldier in sleep shorts.

🌑 New Moon Selene

The night is deep and black and starless. The kind of still that makes clocks tick louder and curtains breathe. Zemo sleeps alone tonight.

Not because Bucky isn’t home, he is. He’s somewhere in the apartment, probably wearing socks with little daggers on them and eating peanut butter straight from the jar. But Zemo had a headache, and when Bucky had kissed his forehead and whispered “okay, old man, I’ll let you be cranky in peace,” Zemo had murmured something dismissive, something aristocratic, and padded off to the guest room like a wounded cat.

The curtains are drawn. The air smells faintly of lavender and old paper. And in the dark, Zemo begins to dream.

*

It starts with light. Not moonlight. Moonlight has texture, memory, nuance. This is something else. It’s light like wine poured over stone, light like a forgotten word on the tip of the tongue.

He stands in a garden that might be his, or a memory’s reconstruction of it. The hedges are impossibly tall, the air warm with jasmine. He hears footsteps behind him, and he turns.

She’s not exactly there. But the sense of her is. A figure of shadow and silver suggestion. The scent of ice and smoke. A hum in the space where thought begins. Her voice, never speaking, only singing, fills the garden with something aching and sweet.

“You were always beautiful in sleep,” the song says, “Easier to reach. Easier to love.”

Zemo takes a step back. He’s dressed in something dark and ancient. His fingers are stained with ink. There are crescent-shaped scars on his wrists.

“Who are you?” he asks, voice steady. 

But the dream doesn’t answer. Instead, the garden shifts. The roses unfurl all at once. The stars blink in, slowly, one by one. And her presence grows stronger, like gravity.

“Endymion,” she sighs into the wind, “I have waited through oceans of time for you to return to me.”

“I am not he,” Zemo murmurs. But he isn’t certain.

And just before he wakes, he sees her. Just a glimpse. Silver skin, eyes like endless skies, a crown of light balancing on a cascade of night-dark hair.

And her smile. Oh. That smile. It could be the undoing of him.

*

He wakes with the taste of honey and moonstone on his tongue, dark velvet dreams pressed like flowers between the pages of a forgotten myth.

Across the apartment, Bucky calls out, muffled: “Hey! You up yet, or are you still being aristocratic and dramatic?”

Zemo lies still for a moment, one hand against his throat, heart racing, and doesn’t answer.

Then he reaches for his phone, opens a new tab, and types: “Endymion, myth. Am I?”

The page loads slowly. He closes it just as quickly.

From the other room, Bucky laughs, and the sound is grounding, real. Zemo rises to join him, barefoot, composed.

Bucky kisses his temple in passing, and he says, “You smell like a moonbeam. Weird.”

Zemo does not reply.

***

The moon returns to the sky, just a sliver, barely there. But Zemo notices.

He notices it on the walk back from the opera, when the sky is clear and the cold air cuts like silk. Bucky is beside him, warm and loose-limbed from post-performance drinks, telling some half-true story about a bar fight in Berlin involving two soldiers, a flaming shot glass, and a very unfortunate karaoke rendition of “Livin’ on a Prayer.”

But Zemo keeps looking up.

“She’s watching,” the thought whispers, unwelcome. “She’s smiling down upon you.”

He doesn’t mention it. He walks with Bucky, gloved hands in his coat pockets, and pretends not to feel the weight of something silver brushing at his shoulders.

*

The next evening, it escalates. Zemo is alone for the night. Bucky off running errands. He can’t remember what kind, exactly.

Zemo is in his study, organising books. It’s peaceful. The fireplace murmurs. The rain outside ticks against the windows like polite applause.

And then a pale light floods the room. Silver, dappled, soft as fur.

Zemo turns, heart rising. And she is there. Not in full form. She doesn’t arrive like thunder. She glimmers. She suggests. She is a reflection in the glass. A shadow in the hearth. A gleam on the crystal decanter that wasn’t there before.

She says nothing. But the piano begins to play itself. One note, then another, something slow and aching in a minor key.

Zemo breathes, “This is not real.” And the fire flares, dancing higher.

Her voice comes at last, velvet and cold. “You used to look at me with wonder. Now you avert your eyes. Why, my Endymion? Why?”

“I am not Endymion,” he says quietly. “You know this.”

There is no reply. Only that presence. The warm-cold sense of being admired, studied, missed. “You are something else now,” she says, at last. “But still so very beautiful.”

The flames curl down. The piano stops. Zemo stands still for a long time, the silence blooming around him.

And when Bucky returns, coat soaked, boots muddy, hair wind-wild, he finds Zemo in the dark study, staring into the fireplace, lips pressed in a thin, unreadable line.

“You okay?” Bucky asks, stepping inside, shaking his coat off. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

Zemo blinks, turns. “Only a goddess.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “Back again?”

Zemo takes a breath, gestures vaguely at the hearth. “She played the piano.”

Bucky pads across the room, gives him a hug and a forehead kiss. “You don’t half get the weird ones.”

Zemo lets out a short breath of amusement. “Yes. I do.”

*

***

🌓 First Quarter Selene

Zemo receives a book he didn’t order. A 19th-century edition of “Endymion” by John Keats. Delivered to the townhouse with his name handwritten on the label. There is no return address. The inscription on the inside cover says: “For those who sleep with their eyes open. S.”

He puts it on the shelf. Doesn’t speak of it.

Then, the moon begins following him more closely. Literally. When he closes the curtains at night, there’s always a thin spill of moonlight that finds a way in, bending at impossible angles. When he walks through the park at dusk, the lamplight dims, but the moonlight sharpens, as if the shadows want to show him off.

One night, Zemo and Bucky host a dinner party. It’s intimate, refined, full of sharp conversation and dark wine. Bucky is in his element, storytelling, spinning charm. Zemo is poised, precise, ever the perfect host.

Half way through, Selene arrives. No one remembers inviting her. But no one questions it either. She is dressed in shades of pearl and midnight. Her hair glints like obsidian polished to a high shine. She speaks sparingly, but every word she says feels measured, like it belongs to another century.

Zemo doesn’t flinch when she kisses his hand.

Bucky watches the interaction with a lazy, unreadable smile. Later, when guests have left, he murmurs against Zemo’s neck, “Didn’t know we had royalty coming tonight.”

Zemo scoffs. “She’s not royalty. She’s something older.”

*

The next day, she’s in the courtyard garden.

Zemo sees her from the library window. Not moving. Just standing, statuesque and regal, in the full clarity of moonlight, even though it’s only late afternoon.

He goes down to her. He doesn’t plan to, but he does.

She turns to greet him, serene. “You still walk like a prince.”

“You still speak in riddles.”

Selene smiles. “I speak plainly. You have simply forgotten how to hear me.”

He hesitates. His voice drops low. “Why now?”

Her gaze flickers with something unreadable. “Because the moon has turned,” she says, “And half of me remembers what the world made me forget.”

Zemo breathes slowly. He wants to say he doesn’t believe in any of this. But her presence is undeniable. Like gravity. Or longing.

*

Later that night, Bucky finds him pacing.

“She came back,” Zemo says.

“I saw.”

“She said the moon turned.”

“It does that.”

Zemo gives him a look. Bucky grins, steps close, wraps his arms around Zemo’s waist and presses a kiss just under his jaw. “You gonna run away with her?”

Zemo closes his eyes. “She wants someone she once lost.”

“And do you feel lost?”

Zemo leans into him. “Not when you’re here.”

Bucky kisses his temple. “Then let her keep turning. She’ll find her own way.”

***

🌔 Waxing Gibbous Selene

She is no longer a quiet echo of memory. She is not wondering if Zemo is Endymion reborn. She knows it. And the knowledge makes her magnificent.

*

The townhouse windows frost from the outside, even though it’s summer. The moon glows like a searchlight, high and full of knowing.

Zemo wakes to find the house flooded with pale silver. No matter how many curtains he closes, it won’t be blocked.

And in the centre of it all is Selene. In his library. Sitting like a crowned queen in the armchair no one uses. Wearing a flowing robe the colour of clouds before dawn, with a circlet of pale blue stones glowing faintly above her brow.

Zemo, breathless in sleep pants and a dark robe, barefoot but defiant, steps into the light like he’s stepping into an old memory he never asked for.

She stands. He says nothing. Just waits.

She approaches. No hesitation. “My memory is whole now,” she says softly. “You were not always this cruel.”

Zemo blinks.

“You loved the quiet. You braided wildflowers into my hair. You told me my name as though you’d invented it. And when the sun envied us, you kissed me under its gaze.”  

She touches the side of his face with one cool, moon-silvered hand. Zemo flinches, but doesn’t step away.

Her voice drops like silk. “I knew you would come back to me. The stars promised.”

Zemo finally speaks, quiet but sharp. “I am not him.”

She studies him, radiant and calm. “You are not only him.”

He steps back, turns towards the door, and there’s Bucky. Standing in the doorway. Sleep-flattened hair. A black tank top. One sock on. Holding two mugs.

He takes in the scene. Sees Selene, sees Zemo lit up in moonlight, stiff and unsteady. Raises an eyebrow. Steps forward, very casually, and hands one of the mugs to Zemo.

“Your goddess breakin’ in again?” He takes a sip. “Tell her that unfortunately, we’re already booked for brunch.”

Selene watches him. And then, she laughs. It’s a low, regal, thrilled laugh. Not bitter. Not jealous. She tilts her head in admiration. “Ahh. The wolf-hearted one. I see you, too.”

Bucky lifts his mug in a mock-toast. “Back atcha.”

Selene turns back to Zemo, whose lips are twitching like he’s trying not to smile. “I won’t stop remembering you,” she says. “Not in this life. Not in the next.”

Then she walks past Bucky, trailing silver light and the faint scent of night-blooming jasmine. She disappears through the moonlit window, as if she were never there at all.

Zemo takes a long sip of his tea. Bucky bumps shoulders with him. “You alright?”

Zemo sighs. “I think I was once in love with the moon.”

“And now?”

Zemo smirks. “Now, I prefer wolves.”

***

🌕 Full Moon Selene

Zemo is brushing his hair in the bathroom. An evening ritual, habitual, methodical, half lost in thought, when the mirror fogs slightly. He frowns. He didn’t run any hot water.

The mirror clears, then fogs again. Then clears.

And in the glass, is Selene. Not behind him. Not in the room. Just in the mirror. Radiant. Impossibly real.

Her gaze is calm and inexorable. She wears a crown of luminous bone, subtle as a secret, bold as fate. A flowing robe of midnight-blue embroidered with stars. Her hair drifts like mist in low gravity. “You keep running,” she says. “Even in dreams. Even now.”

Zemo straightens. “I am not Endymion,” he says again, quietly.

Selene smiles. “And yet the moon sings louder every time you speak.”

She steps through the mirror. Like it’s water. Like it’s a mere doorway. And suddenly, she’s in his bathroom. Just a goddess, regal and moon-strong, standing between the toothbrushes and the towels.

Zemo doesn’t move.

Her presence fills the air like static before a thunderstorm, tangible, beautiful.

She closes the distance in one slow step, then lifts a hand and presses it lightly to his chest.

“You were a god to me once,” she murmurs. “I have waited for centuries in silence. Dreaming of your breath. Now you wear mortal pain like a robe of ashes, and I wonder. Is it penance? Or is it power?”

Zemo is breathing carefully now. “Neither,” he says. “I wear it because I earned it.”

Selene’s gaze flares with admiration. “Then let me take it. For a night.” Her voice is low and irresistible. “You don’t have to love me. Just let me keep you. One night. You can sleep without the weight. I’ll bear it. Gladly.”

“Sorry, he’s booked.” Bucky is leaning against the doorframe. Barefoot again. Wearing Zemo’s shirt. He’s got a half-eaten apple in one hand and a very pointed look on his face.

“Also, there’s no moonlight pass to steal my boyfriend through a bathroom mirror, Selene. That’s a bit much.”

Selene tilts her head. “You say that now. But wait until your dreams start calling my name.”

Bucky smirks. “Joke’s on you, babe. My dreams are just dogs, knives, and Zemo with his shirt off.”

Selene’s laugh is lush and full. She brushes her fingers over Zemo’s collarbone, just once, like signing her name on him. “Next full moon,” she says. “You will come to me.”

She vanishes in a shimmer, leaving behind the scent of frost and sandalwood.

Zemo exhales, long and slow.

Bucky finishes the apple, tosses the core in to the bin, steps forward and cups Zemo’s face “You okay?”

Zemo: “I think she meant it.”

He kisses him, soft, slow, entirely mortal. “So do I.”

***

🌖 Waning Gibbous Selene

Zemo is in the study. It’s late. It’s quiet. Rain needles gently at the windowpanes, the fireplace burns low, and he’s lost somewhere between old philosophy and war memoirs, translating marginalia from a 19th-century general who had odd opinions about everything.

He doesn’t notice the air shift at first. It’s not dramatic. It’s just a hush. A breath held. Then the smell of white sandalwood and distant oceans.

He looks up. Selene stands in front of one of the bookcases.

This time she’s wearing a cloak of soft greys, the colour of mist at dawn. Her crown is gone. Her hair is braided simply. Her eyes are soft. Older than stars. Not hungry, not demanding. Just curious.

“I used to envy mortals,” she says. “The urgency. The shortness. The way you make every moment a cathedral.”

Zemo closes the book gently. “And now?”

Selene steps forward, not quite touching anything. “Now I wonder how you live with it. The constant endings. The small griefs. The hours you lose, like coins dropped through a hole in your pocket.”

Zemo watches her carefully. “You’re the moon,” he says. “You disappear every night. And you return.”

Selene smiles, soft and rueful. “But I always come back alone.”

She pauses. “What is it about you, Helmut Zemo?” she asks, tilting her head like a philosopher in velvet. “You walk like you’re never truly here. You speak as if every word has already been weighed. You don’t run from pain, but you don’t embrace it either. You exist in defiance.” She looks almost wistful. “No wonder I thought you were Endymion.”

Zemo: “Do you still?”

Selene: “Not anymore. He wasn’t nearly so haunted.”

She walks slowly past him. No seduction. No command. Just closeness. “I see now,” she says, brushing her fingers along the spines of the books. “You’re not mine to keep.”

Zemo doesn’t answer.

“But I wanted to understand you,” she adds. “And now I think I might.”

She turns back at the doorway, limned in shadow. “Tell your soldier not to worry. I won’t take you.” She smiles, like moonlight slipping through clouds. “But I may still write you into the sky.” And then she’s gone.

Zemo sits still for a long moment.

A quiet voice from the hallway interrupts his thoughts. “Should I be jealous?”

Bucky is shirtless. Sleep-mussed. Holding a mug of tea.

Zemo smiles faintly. “Only of the poetry.”

Bucky: “Pfft. I’ve got my own verses.” He holds out a hand. Zemo takes it.

***

🌗 Last Quarter Selene

It’s mid-morning in the kitchen again. The kind of slow day that feels like a sigh. Bucky is out running. Zemo is cleaning out the spice drawer with quiet, methodical menace.

He finds three jars of paprika. Two expired. One mysteriously unlabelled. He judges them all equally.

There is a familiar ripple of altered gravity. The soft bend of presence. And the faint, faint scent of iced jasmine tea.

“You really should date your spices,” says Selene, perched on the counter as if she’s been there the whole time.

She’s wearing a perfectly tailored suit: moon-gray, with soft pleats and silver cufflinks in the shape of lunar phases. A sleek notebook rests beside her, a fountain pen tucked into the pocket of her blouse. Hair pulled back. Eyes sharp and amused.

Zemo doesn’t even flinch. “You’re early,” he says mildly.

Selene shrugs, sipping something out of an espresso cup that did not belong to her a moment ago. “You assume I am here to seduce you.”  

“Aren’t you?”

“No. I’m merely here to return your umbrella.”

She gestures elegantly, and there it is, propped neatly by the fridge. The rare one. Charcoal silk. Silver skull handle. “You left it in Florence. After the rain.”

Zemo blinks slowly. “That was over a decade ago.”

Selene just smiles, as if that proves her point. “You mortals have such untidy timelines.”

She hops off the counter, smoothing her jacket with the crispness of a headmistress. “We had our moonlit metaphors. Our wistful glances. Our tragic tenses. I even left you a poem in the margins of that cursed copy of “Die Verwandlung”. But I think we’ve done it all now, haven’t we?”

Zemo tilts his head, curious. “No more visits?”

“Oh, I didn’t say that.” She smiles, wry and elegant. “I like your pantry. And your metaphysics.” She starts toward the door, then pauses. “You chose the soldier. You always would have.”

Zemo answers, gently, “He was never a choice. He’s simply mine.”

“I know.” She turns back briefly. “The moon is many things. But petty isn’t one of them.” And then, with a little half-salute, she’s gone.

When Bucky returns, twenty minutes later, he pauses in the doorway, sniffing suspiciously “Why does it smell like paper and god-tier judgment in here?”

Zemo: “She brought back my umbrella.”

Bucky: “You had a goddess return your umbrella? Like she’s a valet?”

Zemo: “Apparently I left it in Florence. In 2014.”

Bucky: “Gods are so weird.”

Zemo: “She’s in her practical phase.”

Bucky: “She better be. She’s not haunting our tupperware drawer.”

Zemo hands him the umbrella. “She’s not. She’s editing my metaphors now.”

Bucky: “I knew I should’ve been the poetic one.”

Zemo: “You’re too good at being the muscley-yet-introspective one. You’d unseat Orpheus.”

***

🌘 Waning Crescent Selene

Selene arrives like a memory already fading. There’s no dramatic shimmer, no altered gravity. Just the sense that something just happened when you weren’t looking.

Zemo feels it before he sees her, like the way a room feels softer when a candle’s gone out.

She’s sitting in the garden. Dawn-lit. Wearing a loose robe in the colour of pearl just before it’s touched by the sun. Barefoot, legs tucked under her like a statue on a forgotten altar. No notebook. No sharp lines. Just a cup of tea cradled in her hands, steam rising into the cool morning.

Zemo doesn’t interrupt. He stands at the threshold for a moment, watching her quietly. She doesn’t turn. Doesn’t speak.

Eventually, he joins her. “This is your last visit, isn’t it?”

Selene nods, once. “Yes. The tide is turning. The night has other names now.”

Zemo folds his hands in his lap. “Will I forget you?”

Selene smiles, soft as moonlight through clouds. “No. But I will blur. Like a dream you almost caught. The kind that leaves a feeling, but not the shape.”

They sit in silence for a while. Just birdsong and the scent of early roses, and the last silver trace of night. Then she turns to him, gently. “You were never Endymion, you know.”

Zemo lifts a brow, intrigued. “No?”

“No. He slept. You don’t.” She smiles. “You watch. You endure. You choose.”

Zemo offers her a nod. Almost a bow. “I chose well.”

Selene reaches out and touches his cheek. A single fingertip. Cool as mist, but sure. “You did.”

She leans in then, presses the softest kiss to his temple. A blessing. A farewell. A thank you.

And when Zemo blinks again, she’s gone.

Just a faint curl of steam rising from the teacup now placed where she sat.

Bucky finds him there when he comes out later, coffee in hand, hoodie wrinkled, hair sleep-tousled. He steps into the garden and notices the quiet in Zemo’s face. A softness.

Zemo looks at him for a long moment. “The moon said goodbye.”

Bucky sips his coffee. Nods slowly. “She was kind.”

Zemo: “She was.”

Bucky: “You wanna make pancakes?”

Zemo stands. “Yes. But only if you wear that ridiculous apron.”

Bucky grins. “I could wear the apron, and nothing else?”

“Mmmmmn. You shall be my moon.”

Bucky grins and waggles his bum.

They go inside. The sun rises. The moon retreats.  

And Zemo, velvet baron, no one’s Endymion, starts the day in peace, kissed once by moonlight, now tangled in mortal domesticity, utterly and happily chosen.

***

Epilogue

It’s been a few years now. Enough for silver to start threading through Zemo’s temples, for Bucky’s laughter lines to deepen. Enough for the world to shift, subtly, sweetly, around them.

They live somewhere quiet now. The kind of place where the night sky is a real thing again. No city haze, no buzzing signs. Just stars. Just silence. Just them.

The garden still grows wild with intention. Zemo calls it “structured chaos.” Bucky calls it “romantic as hell.”

And tonight, there is a full moon. Not that they’re chasing meaning anymore. Not really. But they still look up.

There’s an old stone bench at the edge of the garden. Zemo sits there with a book, though he’s not really reading. Bucky’s barefoot in the grass, sipping from a mug that says ‘I’d rather be a cat’, hair pulled back in a lazy knot, hoodie hanging off one shoulder.

They sit like that for a while. Quiet. At ease. The kind of silence only long love can earn.

Then Bucky says, lightly: “You ever think of her?”

Zemo doesn’t pretend not to know who he means. He turns the page of his book, fingers slow. “Sometimes. Not often. It’s not like she’s gone, exactly.”

Bucky: “No. She’s just somewhere else.”

Zemo hums in agreement.

The moon is huge tonight. Heavy with light. It drips down over their garden like something alive.

And Zemo says: “She said I wasn’t Endymion.”

Bucky grins. “Well, you weren’t.”

“No. But sometimes I wonder…” He trails off.

Bucky sets down his mug and crosses the lawn, crouches beside him, leans in. “What do you wonder?”

Zemo glances at the moon. Then at Bucky. “If she left a little piece of herself behind.”

Bucky brushes a kiss against his cheek. “She didn’t need to. You were already looking at her.”

Zemo’s smile is soft. Rare. Real.

A breeze picks up. Gentle. Silvery. The wind chimes stir, a faint tinkle. And the moonlight seems to bend for just a second, falling in a familiar shape across the lawn. A shimmer.

Just for a moment. Just enough. And then it's gone.

Zemo lifts his face to the moon, eyes half-lidded. Not wistful. Not aching. Just remembering. “Goodnight, moon.”

“You talking to her?”

“No. Just saying goodnight.”

They head back inside. The screen door clicks shut. The lights go out one by one.

And far above the world, in some softer realm of light and myth and memory, Selene watches over them with a fond smile, not unlike the crescent curve of the moon itself.

***