Perpetual

The departure of Pietro and Iolanda from Zemo’s mansion unfolded with far less drama than Elena had feared. After one final threat to Zemo, Pietro had declared he’d see Elena tomorrow with her "boyfriend" at dinner—not an invitation, but a command. Elena forced herself to swallow her nerves. As the two drove off, Zemo’s hand settled possessively on her waist, his wave to the retreating car the picture of a doting partner. Once they vanished, he pressed a kiss to her forehead at the foot of the grand, ornate staircase, under the watchful gaze of Oeznik, whose raised eyebrows betrayed his silent judgment.

“I’ll join you in the study in a minute,” Zemo said, releasing her. Elena understood the unspoken command. She walked toward the study, legs trembling, steeling herself for the reckoning to come. Zemo’s eyes lingered on her until she disappeared down the hall.

Oeznik cleared his throat. “Sir…”

Zemo sighed, shaking his head as if dislodging a thought. “I’m no longer a master, Oeznik. I’m a slave now.”

The older man chuckled. “So I see.”

Zemo shot him a sidelong glance. “Dismiss the staff early tonight. I won’t require their services.”

“You wish to be alone, sir?”

“Yes.”

Oeznik, who had helped raise Zemo and served his father before him, placed a hand on his shoulder. “I hope you’ve chosen someone with a soul this time.”

Zemo shuddered, recalling Svetlana’s reign of terror. As Oeznik left, Zemo turned toward the study, his pulse quickening.

* * *
Iolanda gripped the steering wheel, biting back laughter at Pietro’s dramatic sighs from the passenger seat. Every few seconds, he exhaled like a man burdened by the weight of the universe, shifting restlessly, arms folded, then unfolded, then folded again. Finally, she caved, rolling her eyes. “Go on, then. Complain. I’m dying to hear it.”

Pietro, who had clearly been waiting for this invitation, threw his hands up. “The guy’s twice her age!”

Iolanda arched a brow, barely suppressing a smirk. “I don’t think Elena minds.”

His head snapped toward her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugged, keeping her gaze on the road, but her voice was laced with amusement. “Remember what she said about him at the start of the semester? She showed me his photo and asked, ‘Isn’t he total daddy material?’”

Pietro made a strangled noise, recoiling into his seat like the upholstery had just turned to fire beneath him. “I don’t want to hear about my baby sister’s bedroom preferences! Elena’s a genderless doll in my eyes!”

Iolanda scoffed. “Need I remind you we’re sleeping together? You and me? Right now? I am someone else's baby sister too!"

Pietro clapped his hands over his ears. “Elena doesn’t sleep with people!”

Iolanda snorted, switching lanes smoothly. “They’ve been dating a year, Pietro. A whole year. I guarantee they’re wild in bed.”

“Stop it!” he groaned, looking out the window as if the streetlights could save him from this conversation.

“You stop!” Iolanda shot back. “Have you thought about how isolated she’s become? How she’s pushed us away? I feel terrible.”

That one hit its mark. Pietro winced, his expression twisting with guilt. He rubbed his jaw in contemplation, staring at the dashboard for a long moment. Then, as if grasping for a distraction, he muttered, “Didn’t that guy have a fiancée? Some Russian woman?”

Iolanda shot him a sideways glance. “Did you only listen to the first five minutes? It was a sham engagement for her father’s sake.”

Pietro drummed his fingers on his thigh, still unconvinced. “I don’t know. This feels wrong.”

At the next red light, Iolanda leaned over and kissed him, slow and deliberate, her fingers grazing his jaw. When she pulled back, she smiled knowingly. “You have to accept that Elena’s grown up. And… hate to say it, but they look good together. Zemo stares at her like she’s porcelain. It’s romantic.”

Pietro exhaled sharply through his nose, shaking his head. “If he’d knocked someone up as a teenager, he could have a kid Elena’s age right now.”

“You’re exaggerating!”

“Am I?” he challenged, his eyes narrowing. “There’s a twenty-year gap!”

Iolanda gasped theatrically. “Are you stalking him? Pietro Django Maximoff! Put that phone down!”

Pietro’s eyes widened as he scrolled. “He has a Wikipedia page! Says he’s a baron or something.”

Iolanda smirked, unable to contain her delight. “Oh my God! Elena’s going to be a baroness! Do you think they’ll do the title thing at the wedding?”

Pietro stared in horror as Iolanda burst into laughter, the sound bubbling up uncontrollably as she delighted in his suffering.

* * *

Rain lashed against the study’s leaded windows, distorting the world beyond into a watercolor smear of grays and greens. The room was a tomb of mahogany and velvet, lit by the fitful glow of a dying fire. Zemo stood rigid behind his desk, fingers splayed across its polished surface as if anchoring himself to reality. Elena’s footsteps echoed through the silence—slow, deliberate, each one a blade twisting in his ribs. She stopped inches away, holding up one of the forged letters between them, her laughter sharp enough to flay him open.

“You copied my handwriting,” she said, tilting the paper so the firelight caught the loops of her r’s, the impatient smudge of ink where she’d pressed too hard. “How many nights did you waste practicing? Bent over my essays like a lovesick scribe?”

Zemo forced a shrug, the motion brittle. “Your assignments were in my possession. Consider it… academic diligence.” The lie tasted stale. He’d spent hours hunched in this very room, tracing her words like scripture, memorizing the cadence of her thoughts until they’d etched themselves into his bones.

Elena’s lips curled as she flicked the letter aside. It fluttered to the floor, landing atop a scattered heap of its siblings. “And the ribbon?” She gestured to the silk strip binding the bundle—Sokovyan crimson, the same shade as the scarf she’d “forgotten” in his library months ago. “Another act of diligence?”

He said nothing. The ribbon had been hers. He’d plucked it from that scarf while the scent of her jasmine perfume still clung to the fabric, a talisman to fuel his pathetic fantasies.

She stepped closer, her boots clicking against the parquet. The air thickened with bergamot and vanilla—her signature, his undoing. “You planned every detail, didn’t you?” Her palm flattened against his chest, and he swore his heart stuttered. “The letters. The performance for Pietro. All to make this farce feel real.”

Zemo’s mask slipped—a crack in the ice. “Is it working?”

Elena didn’t answer. Instead, she closed the final inch between them, her hands sliding up to his shoulders. The heat of her touch seared through his shirt, and he fought the urge to shudder. Her proximity was a drug—heady, lethal.

“Tell me, Professor,” she purred, her breath grazing his jaw, “did you rehearse this part too? The brooding confession? The tragic romance?”

He swallowed. Her lips hovered a breath from his, moving with agonizing slowness, teasing the ghost of a kiss he’d ached for since the day she’d sauntered into his lecture hall. She’d worn a dress with a ribbon at the collar that day, and he’d nearly choked on his own notes.

“Does it matter?” His voice roughened. “You’re here.”

“Am I?” Her thumb brushed the pulse hammering in his throat. “Or am I just another pawn in your game?”

Zemo’s composure snapped. He gripped her waist, yanking her flush against him. “You’ve never been a pawn. You’re the entire damn board.”

Elena laughed—a low, dangerous sound—as her hands slid to his chest, fingers splaying over the frantic rhythm beneath. “You’re nervous,” she murmured, tilting her head. “Does this excite you? Knowing I could ruin you with a word?”

“Yes.” The admission tore from him, raw and jagged.

Her smile faltered. For a heartbeat, he saw it—the flicker of fear beneath her bravado, the girl who still hid poetry in her sock drawer. She recovered quickly, nails digging into his shirt. “Pathetic. A man your age, undone by a girl half his—”

“You’re not a girl,” he interrupted his voice a growl. “You’re a force. A reckoning. And I’ve been yours since the moment you walked into that lecture hall and dared me to look away.”

Her breath hitched. She tried to step back, but he held her firm.

“You think I don’t know why you do it?” he pressed. “The teasing, the games—you’re terrified of being seen. Of being known. So you turn yourself into a myth. A siren. Something to be desired, never loved.”

“Shut up,” she hissed, eyes blazing.

He cupped her face, his touch gentler than he felt. “You’re not a myth, Elena. You’re a wildfire. And I’d rather burn than spend another minute pretending I don’t crave the heat.”

Her defiance crumbled. She surged forward, crushing her lips to his in a kiss that tasted of fury and surrender. Zemo groaned, hands tangling in her hair as she bit his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. The metallic tang only fueled him—proof this was real, not another fevered dream.

She shoved him against the desk, scattering papers and inkwells. A crystal decanter shattered on the floor, sherry pooling like liquid amber. “You want to worship me?” she breathed against his mouth. “Then kneel.”

He did. Without hesitation.

Elena stared down at him, chest heaving. For all her bravado, she looked as unraveled as he felt—hair wild, lips swollen, eyes wide with a fear she couldn’t hide.

Zemo reached for her hand, pressing it to his cheek. “I’ve been kneeling since the day we met,” he said quietly. “You just refused to see it.”

Her laugh trembled. “You’re a fool.”

“Yours,” he agreed.

She sank to the floor, her back against the desk, legs brushing his. The fire cast fractured shadows across her face as she studied him. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why me?” Her voice cracked. “I’m not— I’m not some… goddess. I’m just…”

“Real,” he finished. “You’re the first real thing I’ve touched in years.”

She flinched. “I’ll destroy you.”

“You already have.”

Her fingers traced the scar on his knuckles—a relic from a life he’d buried. “What happens now?”

Zemo leaned forward, forehead resting against hers. “Whatever you allow.”

For a moment, she hesitated. Then, softly: “I allow you to stay with me."

The words hung between them, fragile as the embers spitting in the hearth. But then her resolve hardened. She lunged forward, her body uncoiling with a predator’s grace, hands seizing his shoulders as she hauled herself into his lap. The motion was all desperation and defiance, her knees bracketing his hips, her face inches from his. “You planned every detail, didn’t you?” she hissed, nails biting through the fabric of his shirt. Her breath fanned hot and unsteady across his lips. “Every. Single. One.”

Her touch burned through his shirt. Zemo fought to steady his breathing. “Does it matter?”

Does it matter? The question echoed in his mind. He’d been obsessed since the day he first saw her—her laughter, her defiance, the way she’d tilted her head during lectures as if dissecting his soul. But admitting that would unravel him.

Elena’s lips brushed his with agonizing slowness, her breath warm and teasing. “Does it matter to me, Professor? Well, it does. Or should I call you boyfriend now? Sir?”

Zemo clenched his jaw, every muscle taut. To kiss her now would shatter the fragile control he’d fought to maintain. She was a goddess, and he was a devotee kneeling at her altar. If he yielded, he’d lose the game.

“Yes,” he said finally, voice rough. “I planned it all. Every moment since I first saw you has led us here.”

Then, Elena started the kiss.

The kiss exploded—a fusion of need and ferocity, teeth and tongues clashing, their empires colliding in a war of passion. Elena’s fingers gripped Zemo’s shirt, ripping it apart, the buttons scattering like shrapnel. Her nails scored the battlefield of his chest, leaving crescent moons behind. Zemo's hands tightened around her hips, pulling her closer, their bodies pressed against the cold hardwood floor. Her teeth sank into his lip, drawing blood, and the metallic taste sharpened the haze of desire.

He growled, his hands pushing her down onto the rug, his palm cradling her skull like something sacred. "Look at me," he demanded, his voice jagged.

Her eyes burned, stormy and wild. "Make me."

And he did.

His lips trailed down her throat, stopping at the jagged scar beneath her ear—Loki’s mark, a betrayal carved into her skin. Zemo’s kiss was reverent, a vow of vengeance, his words a promise of destruction. “Never again,” he swore. “I’ll burn kingdoms. Salt the earth. Let the world choke on its ashes before they touch you.”

A soft moan escaped her as she arched into him. “Don’t lie to me,” she breathed.

“I don’t lie to gods,” he growled. His teeth grazed the pulse beneath her ear, sealing his vow. “You, Elena Maximoff, are divine.”

Her hands fisted in his hair, yanking him back to her lips. The kiss turned frantic, a battle of need and hunger. Zemo's hand slid beneath her, fingers splaying across the scar on her shoulder blade—another relic of Loki’s cruelty. She flinched, but he pressed harder, anchoring her to the moment.

“You’re here,” he murmured, his voice a prayer. “With me.”

“I’m here,” she gasped, nails scoring his spine like a sculptor claiming marble. “Now ruin me.”

He obeyed.

Clothes fell in tatters, fabric torn apart by their desperate hunger. Zemo’s mouth traced every inch of her—each scar, each mark telling the story of a life built in survival. Her childhood burn, the crescent bite on her thigh, each piece of her body a testament to the battles she’d fought.

“Do you want to know why?” he murmured, lips brushing her hip. “Why you?”

Her body arched, a broken moan escaping her.

“Because you’re the only blade sharp enough to wound me,” he rasped. “Because you’re the mirror that doesn’t lie.”

When he finally sheathed himself inside her, it was with a guttural snarl that echoed through the room. Elena cried out, her legs locking around him, pulling him deeper. Zemo stilled, forehead pressed to hers, their breaths mingling.

“Look at me,” he whispered, voice cracking.

She did.

Her eyes were wide, vulnerable, the mask of defiance crumbling before him. Zemo moved, slow and deep, each thrust an elegy to everything they'd become. “I memorized your essays,” he rasped, voice raw with longing. “The way you cross your t’s—like you're dueling with the page. The stars you draw in the margins when the weight of the world feels too heavy.”

Elena gasped. “Stop—”

“You hum Mozart’s Requiem when you’re scared,” he continued, voice a soft, broken revelation. “You steal sugar packets because your father locked the pantry when you were eight. You’re real, Elena. Flesh and fury and—”

She kissed him, cutting him off, swallowing the rest—the truth too sacred to speak aloud.

Their rhythm quickened, a crescendo of bodies moving in perfect sync. Zemo’s control unraveled, his thrusts turning desperate, erratic. Elena's nails dug into his back, her breath a melody of agony and pleasure.

“You built this,” he gasped, his body stuttering against hers. “This fire. This hunger. You stacked every log, struck every match—”

“And you let it burn,” she hissed, biting into his shoulder.

With a shout, Zemo came, her name tearing from his lips. Elena followed, her body arching in a perfect arc, her cry muffled against his throat. They collapsed together, tangled in the wreckage of their desire, their bodies slick with sweat and the remnants of the storm they’d weathered.

Afterward, he didn’t pull away. He gathered her against his chest, her ear pressed to the erratic drum of his heart. The silence wasn’t empty—it was full. A cathedral built from shared breath.

Elena traced the scar over his ribs, a relic from a war he’d never named. “You’re shaking,” she murmured.

Zemo laughed, the sound wet, fractured. “You terrify me.”

“Why?”

“Because you could walk away. Because you should.” His arms tightened around her. “But God help me, I hope you don’t.”

Outside, the rain slowed to a whisper. Elena pressed closer, her lips brushing his collarbone. “I’m not going anywhere.”

For the first time in years, it wasn’t a lie.