Chapter 1
They were too busy arguing over Bucky’s hypothetical to hear the distant footsteps approaching the garage.
“Guys?” ___ breathed. They continued bickering. “Guys?” Nothing. She sighed and blinked out of visibility, cautiously floating towards the entry way. The footsteps came closer. What if it was one of the flagsmashers? What if it was John Walker?
Closer.
Closer.
___ swung, hitting the stranger square in the jaw as they made their way through the strip curtains. A pained groan finally caught the two mens attention.
“I didn’t think you were bringing along the dead girl,” came an accented huff. Zemo. He cradled his jaw and regarded ___ warily as she became visible once again next to him.
“I’m not dead,” she muttered. He glanced at her, still flexing his jaw. She had to admit that he was more handsome than she was expecting.
“Woah woah woah what are you doing here,” Sam exclaimed. He turned on Bucky. “What did you do!”
“We need him, Sam.”
“How do we know he’s not gonna turn on us and get us all killed,” ____ countered, stomping towards them.
The man in question gingerly took off his cap. “If I may-“
“NO,” the other three shouted.
Bucky sighed. “When Steve refused to sign the Sokovia Accords, you both backed him. You broke the law, and you stuck your neck out for me. I’m asking you to do it again.”
“I really think I’m invaluable-“
“I can do worse than punch you if you don’t shut the hell up,” ___ threatened. Zemo tilted his head and smirked at her. “I know. I also know your words hold no water. The only time you’ve ever killed was unintentional.”
“How do you-“
“Please. An entire family perishes violently, only for the daughter to rise from the dead with powers? That little accident of yours back in 2015 was on the news for weeks. It would seem Steve Rogers had a penchant for taking in lethal misfits.”
“Leave her alone,” warned Sam. Bucky gently pulled ___ back away from Zemo. “Buck, are you sure about this?” Sam hissed.
The two went back and forth a bit more about what to do, but ___ tuned them out, glancing nervously at the escaped convict. She knew his own background paralleled her own. Many had lost loved ones throughout the years due to the destruction caused by the Avengers. But most didn’t obtain the ability to feel and retain other souls. Or fly. Or turn invisible. Or become terrorists, ___ thought, watching the man looking around the garage, disinterested. She had accidentally killed several people about a year before Zemo began wreaking havoc. Some of the Avengers thought she posed a potential threat, but Sam and Steve took her in, and became her family for the next 8 years. If she hadn’t been just a scared kid all those years ago, she could’ve ended up like the man before her.
“Something on your mind, kleines Gespenst?”
___ flushed. She hasn’t realized she’d been staring. “No. Sorry. I-“
A charmed smile tugged at his lips.
“I’m sorry I punched you. I mean. I’m not. But-“
“Apology accepted.”
The two gazed at each other another moment before Sam and Bucky turned back to them.
“Okay. If we do this, you don’t make a move without our permission,” Sam conceded.
“Fair.”
“Okay, Zemo, where do we start?”
~
“So all this time you’ve been rich?”
By the time the four had made it onto the tarmac, ___ was already tired. It had been a long day, and she could tell it’d be a long night. She silently sauntered behind Bucky whilst the other two strode up to an elderly gentleman waiting at the plane’s entrance.
“I’m a Baron, Sam. My family was royalty until your friends destroyed my country,” Zemo said bitterly. He quickly changed his demeanor as he greeted the man at the steps cheerfully, before extending a gloved hand to ___ to help her board.
“I can manage, but thanks for being so chivalrous,” she teased as she passed him. Bucky and Sam burst out laughing as they followed.
As they settled in, Zemo and the man, Oeznik, bantered back and forth a bit before Zemo quipped, “You don’t know what it’s like to be locked in a cell. Oh. That’s right. You do.”
___ and Sam exchanged uneasy glances. Their time incarcerated at the Raft had been miserable. With no sunlight, and isolated from the others there, ___’s mental stability had taken a turn for the worse. Despite the others trying to reassure her of their presence from their own cells, without being able to feel other lives in her presence, she had felt as if she was experiencing something even worse than death. At least with the dead, she could still connect to remnants of the soul. At the Raft, without so much as a plant to share her cell, she had been reduced to a howling wreck, clawing at the walls and pleading for it to end, before going completely silent and numb.
When Steve had finally broken in to liberate all of them, ___ had been reduced to a shell, catatonically scratching an image into the cold wall with a nail from her cot.
Don’t think about that. It was years ago, she thought, closing her eyes. You’re okay. You’re alive. It’s okay. Think about... an idyllic place.
The three men continued squabbling beside her. Bucky nearly ripped the Baron’s head off at one point. ___ just continued to zone out, sinking into the leather seat. An idyllic place... a simple home full of life. Nasturtiums would flow over the yard, and roses would grow around the front door. Well loved antiques with kind souls attached to them would fill the rooms. Of course, in this world, ___ wouldn’t have the burden of powers. No being trapped between the living and the dead. No missions, no aliens attacking earth. No obligation to the avengers. No. She’d have time to finish college, and bake, and have a family.
Family. She wondered what Zemo’s family must’ve been like. Clearly not like one she dreamed of, now with the revelation of him being disgustingly rich. But still. What were those quiet, domestic moments like, all those years ago. Did he cherish them then? Take them for granted? Was he a good father? A giving husband? Maybe-
“___ are you listening?” Bucky interrupted.
“___ can’t come to the phone right now. She’s living a quiet, simple life, where none of this exists,” she drawled.
“Not this again,” Sam muttered.
“Look. As always, we’re dealing with a lot shit right now,” ___ snapped. “So if I could take this little time we have before having to do god knows what in Madripoor, I’d like to sleep and dream of an existence far far away from this one.” She shivered and sunk deeper in her jacket, fighting the urge to become transparent. There was a beat of silence before the Baron shifted in his seat toward her.
“You seem cold, ___. Are you alright?”
“I’m okay.” She folded her arms in a poor attempt to contain another shiver. Zemo got up and walked to a small cabinet at the back of a plane, retrieving a blanket. He smiled gently as he draped it over her. “Thanks,” she whispered as she buried herself in it. It felt warm. Not only in its physical nature, but in the memories attached. She could feel remnants of a soul woven into it. It felt like... going home. Like laying on a rug in front of the fire place, or a strong hug. “This was your fathers, wasn’t it?” ___ yawned, closing her eyes, not bothering to pay attention to the slight widening of Zemo’s.
“Er- yes. Yes it was. He always liked to have it with him on plane rides.” She could tell from his voice that he was a bit spooked, yet interested. Most people were one or the other when she did this sort of thing. Sam and Bucky had long since gotten used to it, and were tuning out their conversation. ___ opened her eyes and gave Zemo a sleepy smile. “Well. I don’t know the whole story, but the parts attached to this blanket are very lovely... For a royal anyway.” She teased.
The man tilted his head slightly, considering her. She had been the most agreeable person he’d encountered in years, aside from the initial punch in the face. A powered woman associated with the Avengers of all people. Unwillingly, he added, remembering how similar their pasts were. She had been killed, resurrected, orphaned, and practically kidnapped as a young teenager. Maybe that’s why she was letting kindness slip through the cracks despite her colleagues weariness. Kindness. Yes, that was the other thing. Despite her association with death, killing was not part of her nature. ___, who could kill so easily, was afraid of death. Others as well as her own, whereas he raced towards it.
He had dealt with his family’s death by causing more bloodshed and by craving his own demise. From the little he knew of the woman before him, she had always tried to stay out of the affairs of the Avengers, trying to surround herself with life rather than destruction. Like him, the woman now sleeping beneath his father’s blanket, just wanted a family and a home. They simply went down two different paths.
He tentatively reached out a hand to brush away a lock of hair that had fallen in front of her face. His hand lightly brushed against her temple and he retracted it quickly. “She’s ice cold,” he whispered to the other men. He held onto her wrist to check her pulse, starting to panic. “And her heartbeat is barely there.”
“Yeah she just does that when she sleeps,” Sam replied. “Comes with the whole ‘half-dead’ thing.”
“Well she isn’t dead,” Zemo retorted, feeling defensive on her behalf. He gingerly took her hands in his own and began trying to warm them up.
“Zemo,” Bucky huffed.
“Hm.”
“Look at me. I need you to listen closely... If you try to get into her head; if you try to use her like you used me, you’ll wish those code words still worked. Because nothing will stop me from breaking every bone in your body.”
The other man sighed. “Has it occurred to you, James, that I do not see ___ as a pawn, but as simply an attractive woman and kindred spirit?” he whispered.
“Yeah. And I’m worried about that too.”