Blood Debt - The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Bucky x Zemo)

Chapter 5

This was a very bad idea, and Bucky knew it. He rocked back and looked at Zemo, and tried to remind himself of all the horrible things the man had done. This was the man who tore the Avengers apart. This is the man who killed Karli in cold blood. This was the man who blew up the UN and killed King T'Chaka, dealing a terrible blow to the people of Wakanda. People who had saved him, who put him back together. People he'd come to call his friends.

Zemo cocked his head in that infuriating, but also somehow charming way of his. "You are doing the thing you do. When you stare and don't speak. I must admit, I do find it both intimidating and a bit sexy." He reached up and smoothed the front of Bucky's jacket down. And then, he leaned in again.

Bucky pulled back, disengaging from Zemo and rocking a few steps back on the damp Prague cobblestones. He wiped at his mouth and then cocked his head. "Like you said, we've got to get to Gita before she goes to ground." A stab of guilt hit him in the stomach, but he kept the distance between them.

Zemo looked at him for a long, curious moment, and then murmured, "Very well," with a smile that seemed a little tight. "As you wish."

---

The city was quite beautiful in the aftermath of the rain. He noted that Zemo took his time as they walked, seeming quite at home on the cobblestones, amidst the wrought iron balconies and the Gothic spires. The man looked more relaxed than he had ever seen him as they strolled in silence through the ancient city.

In another lifetime, the leisurely stroll might have even been romantic. As it was, it was filled with silent tension and the occasional stolen glance.

About thirty minutes of strolling later, the two of them stopped in front of a baroque townhouse in the heart of the city. They could have taken another cab, but the tightly-packed Old Town of Prague was faster and easier to navigate on foot.

A guard appeared in the doorway, and held it open. Zemo passed through, but the guard stepped in the way to stop Bucky from proceeding.

Bucky glared at the guard, metal fist tightening. He could feel and hear the soft whirr of the Wakandan mechanics as he prepared to start a fight. He was already making a mental note of the man in front of him - where his weak points might be, and how to take him down quickly.

"James," said Zemo, turning back. He didn't look surprised by the guard's interference. "Gita and I have...well, we have some history. It would be better if I spoke to her alone."

"No deal," said Bucky as he started to step forward.

The guard reached for the gun at his hip and moved once again to block Bucky's passage.

Zemo stepped back down the stairs and pulled up his sleeve to show the golden bracelet. "I cannot get very far with this. You will know if I try to flee. Please. We need the information she has."

Bucky clenched his jaw and stared hard at Zemo. He was not particularly good at knowing when to trust the Sokovian. The smart answer was probably never, but the current situation didn't allow him that luxury.

After a moment, he rocked back and pointed at the other man. "You step one foot out of the radius..."

"Yes, yes, I know. Back to the Raft for me." There was a little twinkle in Zemo's eyes.

From up the stairs, a woman's voice called out in Czech, a language that Bucky knew. HYDRA training and conditioning had taken so much from him, but had left him with a working knowledge of at least a dozen languages.

"Helmut, darling," came the woman's voice, presumably Gita. "It's been far too long."

"Miss Gita. You are looking ravishing," said Zemo in return, his Czech fluent but coated with his rather prominent Sokovian accent..

"Mhmmm, you are a sweet one. Oh, and I do like the beard. Very regal. Come on up," said Gita. Then their voices faded as they climbed up the narrow staircase.

The guard kept his eyes on Bucky as he slowly, purposefully, closed the door and engaged the locks.

Bucky found himself alone on the quiet, narrow street. He could see the light in the second storey window and hear laughter, followed by a stereo clicking on. Jazz filtered out any snippets of conversation he might otherwise be able to overhear.

He pulled out his phone and brought up the tracking app. It showed Zemo only a few hundred meters away and a storey up.

Bucky stood there, staring at the dot, and measuring it against the movement in the upper storey as figures passed in front of the window, just beyond a wrought iron fire escape. Then he paced. Then he sat on the curb and stared at the Zemo tracker dot again.

And then, the lights upstairs went off, and Zemo's dot moved a bit and settled into the far corner of the upper storey - still well within the range of the tracker.

The music stopped.

And Bucky felt a stab of jealousy in the pit of his stomach that surprised him enough that he broke a chunk of the curb off under the grip strength of his metal arm. He let go, bits of concrete filtering through his fingers.

It was enough of an alien sensation that Bucky nearly missed the approaching figures from one of the narrow alleyways. It wasn't enough for them to get the drop on him, but it was closer than it should have been.

Four men rushed Bucky - a number that told him that whoever sent them did indeed have some idea of his capabilities. He sidestepped the first and then the second, then swung his arm low to smash into the kneecaps of the third. The man fell forward and cracked his head on the road, then rolled back onto his feet, one hand clutching a bloody head wound.

There were no guns that Bucky could see, and his trained eye knew exactly how to look and how the human body coiled when preparing to draw one. The reason for that was relatively obvious, given that the townhouses stood shoulder to shoulder and they were only blocks from the tourist centre of the city. Gunshots would bring too much attention.

The men had still underestimated Bucky's skill. The men would have had a hard time getting the upper hand on him even if they had been wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles. But these men were only armed with stupidity and bowie knives.

It was one of those knives that Bucky delivered into the shoulders of one of his attackers, after jamming the wrist of the man's hand so he dropped it, catching it with the other, then spinning it around to imbed deep in his collarbone with inhuman force. It missed any major arteries with skills a surgeon would be envious of.

HYDRA had taught him the most expedient ways to kill. He spent most of his time in fights these days using that deadly knowledge to avoid lethal blows instead.

A big man that Bucky recognized as the man from Gita's door swung a meaty fist around in a telegraphed haymaker. The cyborg neatly caught the man's fist, stopping it with enough force that it rippled visibly up the man's arm. He very acutely heard the sound of every one of the tiny bones in the man's hand shattering.

He heard a man behind him and could feel the displacement of air as a baton came sailing towards his head. No doubt the man's aim was to crack open his skull. Instead, he found his forward motion redirected as Bucky dropped and let him roll right over his shoulder and body slam into the pavement.

Without stopping to assess the state of his attackers, Bucky scrambled over to the wall and lept up to grab hold of a fire escape ladder that dangled many feet above. No regular human would be able to reach it, but the serum and cybernetic enhancements allowed him to scale it and even land with some grace on the escape. He wasted no time in busting through the window with his cybernetic arm. It actually took three strikes for him to buckle the bulletproof glass, and a violent kick with his heel that bent the wooden frame.

He climbed through, prepared to meet an onslaught of other guards. Instead, he found Zemo holding a gun on a half-naked Gita. The door to her bedroom was barricaded with a wardrobe. He could hear shouts and thumps of guards trying to breach the other side.

Zemo's pants were barely on and his shirt was open. He held the weapon on Gita with a soldier's precision. "I suspected she did not truly intend to cooperate when she was far happier to see me than she should have been given how we last parted ways."

"Helmut, I..."

Zemo shifted the weapon to point at her head. She closed her mouth.

"Hey. That's my gun," said Bucky as he stepped a little further in.

"James, now is not the time..."

"No, that's my gun. From my lockbox." Bucky pointed at it and gave Zemo a look.

"All right, yes, I stole your gun. But it turned out to be a good thing, yes?"

There was a thump from the other side of the door and a crack of the door frame.

"We'll talk about this later," said Bucky.

"As you wish," said Zemo. "But for now, I suggest we beat a hasty retreat."