Stitches
The more time you spend talking to Zemo, the more intriguing it becomes to find out more about his person. He’s like a closed book, not giving you any more information than is visible on the cover. Little side notes sometimes helping your brain in forming a genuine personality around him. But it feels like a one-sided game. He asks you questions about your family and friends, your hobbies, your feelings and your morals but in return you get almost nothing.
Mentally you make a note to pay extra attention when talking to him. Taking in all the crumbs he gives you about his private life. It almost feels like a game, and it does keep you entertained.
With time you get bolder in returning his questions. Simple little inquires, which aren’t too intimate but when answered could reveal something.
It’s obvious that they annoy him, most times he won’t answer or even leave the room in a sort of nonchalant way which makes you even more curious. As if he didn’t hear you. But his ignorance doesn’t stop you from prying. He’s fast to tell you his values and morals in a general sense, yet he will not go into specifics about his actions or his past.
On one occasion, it was during your dinner-routine, he seemed to be in a particularly chatty mood and gave you quite a few personal insights, so you figured it might just be okay to ask him about his family. You were both indulging in some whiskey and at the beginning it seemed to have lifted some of his secretive nature. You even catch him smiling at one point. Like a full-on laugh. But that changes immediately once you ask him about his son.
“So, what was Carl like? That’s your son’s name right? I think I read it in a news article somewhere?”
The noise of his cutlery clashing against the porcelain plate startle you. You immediately fix your gaze to your own plate, not wanting to look at his furious face and be reminded of the incident in his study. Your intentions were innocent enough but you knew you had overstepped a boundary.
Instead of rage or screaming, his eerie soft but sharp voice tells you it’d probably be best to retire for the night. You mumble a quiet “sorry” but he’s already out of the dining room.
With that you’re left alone, food half eaten and the light mood of the evening ruined.
It bothers you. The way his mood changes so dramatically.
It was difficult to navigate. On one hand you feel welcomed and heard and safe in his presence and on the other hand you feel like walking on very thin ice around him.
You were also sick of apologizing for asking questions. He seemed to know everything about you, yet you had no idea who the man you were staying with was.
For the next day he was nowhere to be seen. Your trust had been broken.
You decide to distract yourself with books and a cup of tea, spiked with rum to ease your nerves.
That evening you eat dinner on your own. Sulking in your own stupidity in thinking such a manipulative, egoistic man would open up to you.
You still couldn’t even figure out what his intentions with you were. What did he want? Why were you still here? After all, it has been two weeks or so.
Time seemed to fly by when you were in company with either the Baron or Oeznik, but when you were alone it was like living in a never-ending dream. Not necessarily a nightmare, but the sort of dreams that made you feel stuck and anxious.
After dinner you decide to lounge around the living room, nursing a glass of the expensive liquor stashed in a cupboard next to the bookshelves. Alcohol helps pass the time, you figure. You were staring at the words in a random book, absently touching the stitched up wound above your left eye when his voice interrupts your aimless thoughts.
“We should probably take out those stitches. The wound seems healed enough.”
It wasn’t a question or a request. It was a command to get up and follow him into the downstairs bathroom.
He instructs you to sit down on the edge of the bathtub, where he kneels in front of you, unpacking the medical kit which seems to have magically appeared. You feel yourself caught in a sort of haze, intimidated by the situation. You’ve never been this close to the man before.
Perhaps that time in the warehouse where he carried you towards safety but having him in front of you, on his knees, face so close you could feel the ghost of his breath on your cheek not only made you blush, but also tense up.
You try avoiding his keen stare, rather just looking down at your sweaty hands fumbling around nervously.
When you dare to look up for individual short moments you notice light freckles on his skin. Also some stubble on the cheeks. But his face seems soft, even with his focused gaze, eyebrows furrowed to assess the wound on your forehead.
Whenever you feel your staring becomes too intense or obvious and you look down again, his smell overtakes your senses. His cologne smells citrusy, mixed with notes of cedar wood.
You curse yourself for being so desperate. It must be your lack of social interaction with other humans besides him that makes you so overwhelmed with the closeness. Needless to say, it is an invasion of your private space, whether you appreciate it or not, you can’t really tell just yet.
After assessing the healing process of the wound Zemo mumbles a simple “looks good” and proceeds to take out tweezers and medial scissors.
It’s in that moment that he briefly catches your stare. For some unknown reason, instead of avoiding his eye, you decide to look right back at him. It’s probably only a fraction of a second but it feels like minutes of staring into each other’s eyes and by the time he finally concentrates on your forehead again you’re a wreck. Shaking even more than before and trying to breath as quietly as possible. What was wrong with you? Why did he have that effect on you?
He must have noticed your discomfort as he tells you that “it’s alright, just stay calm and relax” while he’s preparing to remove the stitches.
It really just isn’t that easy to relax when your brain decides to completely eliminate the function of self-control and all you can think about is the fact that your kidnapper/host/new-friend-who-also-happens-to-be-a-Baron-AND-a-terrorist is actually quite an attractive man and very caring and gentle when he wants to be. His fingers just ever so slightly ghosting over your skin, giving you goosebumps all over. Underneath all those rigid, strong features definitely lies something soft and vulnerable.
You try to calm yourself down, you really do. Closing your eyes and easing your breathing when Zemo suddenly burst your meditative bubble.
“He loved Turkish delights.”
Your eyes snap open, finding Zemo’s but he’s not looking at your confused expression, but instead focusing on the wound above your left eye. He senses your confusion though.
“Carl. My son.”
Now you were even more stunned. He was actually opening up. In all of the possible situations, he chooses to tell you about his son while being mere inches from your face. But you didn’t want to break the spell. Staying quiet and assuming he talked to distract you, why he chose such a personal topic, you didn’t know but you appreciate his story.
He tells you about how Carl was a tough kid. Nothing ever hurt too much and he wasn’t scared of anything, besides maybe wasps. But he most likely got that from his father.
He would come home from playing outside spotting bruises and cuts from branches or wounds from falling from his bike but he’d be so casual about it. Simply asking for a band aid, just to rip it off again after a few hours because it was “annoying on his skin”.
His mother was worried he’d be too reckless, but she knew he’d learned from his father to always calculate the risks.
It was only once, when he suddenly came running from playing with friends outside. When jumping over a little stream somewhere in the woods surrounding the Zemo’s Estate he must have slipped and cut himself quite deep on his shin on a sharp rock. The ever cool Carl he was, he told his friends it was nothing, just a scratch and he’d just get a band aid real quick.
He really did try to hold back the tears, but when he spotted his father sitting on the balcony and alarmingly getting up when he saw his boy limping towards him, blood running all over his legs, the tears came, even for tough Carl.
The wound was quickly fixed up, the tears dried and the mood lifted with a treat of Turkish Delights.
“With all my efforts, I've always encouraged him to freely express his emotions. And not to shy away from embracing his weaknesses.” He sighs.
“But then again, I suppose I wasn’t much of a role model in that regard.”
You don’t know what to say. You want to say something. Anything. Mostly you want to thank him for opening up. For telling you about something so intimate. Essentially telling you about his own failings. Making himself vulnerable, right in front of you.
“I think he still really looked up to you. And I don’t think you failed.”
It’s all you say.
Zemo has long finished taking out the stitches but he’s still there. Not having moved from his position and it seems you’re back to simply staring at each other.
In that moment he looks like a normal man. A bit of a broken man but a genuine one. An open book, really to be read and ready to be understood.
You catch yourself wanting to touch him then. Just softly run your hand along his cheek, or just give him a hug, a long one. You search his face, wanting to take in as much as possible, before the moment expires or worse: it turns out to have been a dream.
He’s doing the same, his stare dropping to your lips in an almost antagonizing rhythm.
It takes everything in you not to reach out. You’ve never been one to make first moves, and you feel it isn’t your place to take action or advantage of his vulnerability. So you wait, and continue to stare and hope he just leans in and kisses you already. You know it probably isn’t a good idea, but you also feel it to be something you both would need at the moment.
It could be your imagination but you feel as if he was leaning even further into your space, ever so closer, breath hitching and heart beating too fast, too loud in your chest….
“Right… the scar should heal quite nicely.”
It is pure disappointment. The way he pulls back in the last second, right before you could have tasted his lips, mumbling whatever about your scar. You just nervously clear your throat and thank him.
He’s stood up and is out of the bathroom before you can even think about saving the situation.
Needless to say, that night you can’t sleep. And for once, it’s not because of nightmares.
You lie there, wondering if his thoughts are circling around as well.