So Long || J.B.B.

6: flirting with the enemy

Zemo got in the shower first since I declined his offer of sharing. So I waited in the front room with Sam.

Bucky was back in less than ten minutes. "Well, the Wakandans are here. They want Zemo. I bought us some more time."

"It was sweet for you to defend me at least," Zemo said.

"No one's defending you, Zemo. You killed Nagel," Sam said.

"Do we really have to litigate what may or may not have happened?"

"There's nothing to litigate. You straight shot the man."

I was checking the news on my phone. Turned out Karli bombed an entire GRC supply depot. Eleven injured and three dead. What is wrong with the kid? The list of demands and the promise of more attacks if those aren't met were very close to becoming terrorism.

This couldn't get any more worse than it already is.

"She's getting worse. I have the will to complete this mission. Do the three of you," Zemo asked.

"She's just a kid," Sam interjected.

"You're seeing something in her that isn't there. You're clouded by it. She's a supremacist. The very concept of a Super Soldier will always trouble people," Zemo said looking at Bucky and me. "It's that warped aspiration that led to Nazis, to Ultron, to the Avengers."

"Watch it, Zemo. there's two right in front of you," I said.

"So Karli is radicalized, but there has to be a peaceful way to stop her," Sam tried to rationalize.

"The desire to become superhuman cannot be separated from supremacist ideals. Anyone with that serum is inherently on that path. She will not stop. She will escalate until you kill her. Or she kills you."

Zemo had a point. But Steve also had the serum given to him and he never went down that path because of what Erskine told him all those years ago before.

"Well maybe we should give him to the Wakandans now. I'm sure they'd love that."

"And miss out on a European adventure, Miss Rogers? That's not like you."

We needed to find Karli one way or another. Sam had the thought that the community that gathered around this Donya woman was a motherly figure. Since she recently passed Karli and the others would have the funeral as a full gathering, almost like a party.

She'd be caught off guard that we're there but hopefully one of us will be able to talk her down out of some of her extremist point of views.

~~~

After a much needed shower and twenty minute nap, the four of us headed for the GRC camp that was located here to hopefully get any information about Donya and if there will be a funeral.

As we were walking the streets Zemo retold us stories about how he and his family would gather in the same places for dinners and parties. Him not knowing of the politics at the time but remembering its beauty when he was younger. I could remember like it was yesterday considering I remember quite a bit from back in the day here as well.

The four of us went separate ways to find anyone who would talk to us. Sam gave me the honor of watching over Zemo. Lucky me. "C'mon, Sam. why can't Bucky watch him this one time?"

"Because he's less likely to do some dumb shit when you're around," he said.

"You owe me a vacation day, Wilson."

"If it's any comfort for you Miss Rogers, I'll try to stay out of your way," Zemo said from behind me.

I looked at Bucky for him to tell me at least something. Instead, he just gave me a half smile which told me to just deal with it now. We asked almost all the adults in the vicinity if they knew who Donya was to start a conversation from there but no one wanted to talk.