Next One's Gonna Stain Red
The butler walks out of the cockpit, handing out a glass of champagne to Zemo, “Apologies if that’s a little warm, the fridge is out. But I will see if there is some good food in the galley.”
Zemo replies something in Sokovian, to which the butler replies with a chuckle. And while Bucky does not understand the language, he makes a mental note of not putting anything in his mouth.
“It’s good to have you back, sir.” The butler says before making his exit.
Zemo takes a sip of the champagne, and then says, “You don’t know what it’s like to be locked in a cell,” he pauses, and then, the asshole adds, “Oh. That’s right. You do.”
“Why don’t you tell us about where we’re going?” Sam asks frustrated.
“I’m sorry. I was just fascinated by this,” Zemo ignores Sam completely. “I don’t know what to call it, but this part seems to be important. Who is Nakajima?” He says while pulling out a little red notebook from between the pages of the book in front of him, Bucky’s red notebook.
Bucky’s on him in a second. His left arm grasping at Zemo’s throat, “If you touch that again, I’ll kill you.” He warns, fury evident.
“Y/n! This is the sorta thing you’re here to stop!” Sam screams out to Y/n who is sitting away from the three men, in her own little corner, behind Sam.
Bucky can see her shrug nonchalantly in his periphery. His grip doesn’t loosen.
“Y/n!” Sam calls out more desperate now.
She exhales audibly and then, “James.” That’s all she says and for reasons even he cannot understand quite well, his body very willingly complies with her silent request. He sits back down.
Zemo rubs a hand across his neck and then says, with his voice breaking only a bit, “I’m sorry. I understand that list of names. People you’ve wronged as the Winter Soldier.”
Bucky is about to counter, but suddenly something flies across the fuselage. Landing sharply into the wall next to him, and there is a sound of glass shattering. It’s Zemo’s glass of champagne, broken and scattered in his hand. At first, he thinks it’s a knife, due to the sheer force of the impact, and the way it remains embedded in the wall. But a second later, when the shock wears off, he realizes it’s a ballpoint pen. Y/n’s ballpoint pen. The three men turn their heads over to the lady in the corner.
Y/n is looking out the window, so terrifyingly calm, that Bucky’s kinda scared. Her gaze doesn’t falter as she says, “Next one’s gonna stain red.”
Well, fuck.
“As I said, I do apologize. But it is quite an interesting read. You’d like it too,” Zemo pauses, shoving away all the shards of glass off of him, cleaning his hands with a handkerchief. “You make an appearance as well.”
Yeah, this was a horrible, bad, stupid, dumb idea. Bucky’s gonna kill Zemo himself. Because somehow that—that manages to break Y/n’s calm, who looks back at Bucky, only for a second. And then she turns her gaze to Zemo, “What?” She asks, confounded.
“You’re on the list. Has James not told you?” Zemo asks, smugness clear in his voice.
5 minutes, empty room, Bucky’s metal arm, and Zemo’s very soft yet bashable head, that’s all Bucky can think of as he glares daggers at the Baron in front of him.
“Why?” She asks. Bucky’s eyes flint back to her because, for the life of him, he cannot understand why she sounds so confused.
“Is it not obvious? To make up for his wrong,” Zemo replies.
“What wrongs?” She sounds even more confused.
…Has she? Has she lost her memory? Is she okay? He really should’ve checked in on her sooner.
“Perhaps for being responsible for the assassination of the couple who took you in, gave you a home. Perhaps for brutally beating the man you called your brother into a pulp, with the help of your lover, Captain Rogers…” Zemo pauses and begins to grumble, “well former lover, now I presume.” He lets out a breath and then, “Or perhaps, for all the times he broke you down while you were with Hy—”
Bucky can’t fucking breathe. His heart is in his throat and he thinks he can hear his hands shaking. The metal clinking.
But Zemo is cut off.
“—Prison really screwed up your head, didn’t it?” She asks, a smirk on her face. That vanishes with the next words, “That was Hydra… All that was the Winter Soldier, not James.”
Well, fuck, times two.
Bucky can see a smile creep up on Sam’s face.
“If that is what you believe, then why drop a building on him?” Zemo counters.
Y/n just laughs. And once it fades, she asks, her words mocking, “Are you sure, you’re the man who broke us? The man with nothing more than a ‘can—do’ attitude and thirst for revenge who managed to singlehandedly break The Avengers?” She fixes him with a pointed look and adds, “Cause that man would’ve researched me enough to know who I was, what I did… choices I’d made. He’d know I would never blame James for shit that was never in his control, to begin with.”
Zemo, for once Bucky has to admit, is at a loss for words.
So Sam cuts in, “So did you lose control? With the building I mean? In Siberia?”
“Nope,” She says, popping the ‘p’. Bucky thinks he might really like the way that makes her lips pop out.
Wait, WHAT?
“Then?” Sam asks before something clicks in his head, Bucky can tell because Sam’s wearing that look. The look he wears when he’s figured it out. “Oh hell nah! That was—”
She cuts him off, “—me, very politely telling Steven, to lose my number.”
And all three of them look absolutely confused.
Y/n looks away again, ending the conversation right there.
There is a silence in the air as all three settle back into the seat. Sam breaks it again. “I’ve seen that book. It was Steve’s when he came out of the ice. I told him about Trouble Man. He wrote it in that book. Did you hear it? What’d you think?” He asks Bucky, excitement clear in his voice, cutting all the tension in the fuselage.
“I like ‘40s music, so…” Bucky answers.
“You didn’t like it?” Sam asks, offended.
“I liked it.” Bucky tries to defend.
“It is a masterpiece, James. Complete. Comprehensive,” Zemo cuts in, “It captures the African-American experience.”
“He’s out of line, but he’s right,” Sam says reluctantly. “It’s great. Everybody loves Marvin Gaye.”
“I like Marvin Gaye,” Bucky defends, eyes flickering back to Y/n who sits quietly looking out the window, unbothered.
“Steve adored Marvin Gaye,” Sam states.
Zemo butts in his ugly head, “You must have really looked up to Steve. But I realized something when I met him. The danger with people like him, America’s Super Soldiers, is that we put them on pedestals.”
“Watch your step, Zemo,” Sam warns.
Zemo continues, unfazed, “They become symbols. Icons. And then we start to forget about their flaws. From there, cities fly, innocent people die. Movements are formed, wars are fought.” He pauses to look over at Bucky, “You remember that, right? As a young soldier sent to Germany to stop a mad icon. Do we want to live in a world full of people like the Red Skull?” Bucky wants to throw himself off this plane. But with how bad his luck had been, he might even survive that. “That is why we’re going to Madripoor,” Zemo finishes.
“What’s up with Madripoor?” Sam asks, “You guys talk about it like it’s Skull Island.”
“It’s an island nation in the Indonesian archipelago. It was a pirate sanctuary back in the 1800s.” He informs Sam, but his gaze is fixed on Y/n at the back.
“It’s kept its lawless ways. But we cannot exactly walk in as ourselves. James, you will have to become someone you claim is gone.” Zemo pauses and turns over to look at Y/n whose jaw is slightly clenched, which seems to be the only indication of the fact that she’s even listening. “And Y/F/N will have to become someone entirely different.”
“What? Why?” Sam asks, alarmed.
“She’s quite famous in her motherland, Sam,” Zemo answers, “Not many are capable of crawling their way out of a broken little orphanage in Madripoor to become one of the world’s most revered heroes. For the residents of that nation, she’s quite the alluring fairytale come true.” Zemo smiles.