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It all happens fast.
In one moment, the four of them are fighting together against the last Flag Smashers, but steadily losing ground - then, in the next, the new Cap- no, John Walker, comes with reinforcements, and they are reversing the tide, winning the battle.
Then it's all finished, and Walker's people are taking the remaining Flag Smashers into custody, extinguishing fires and securing the perimeter of the abandoned warehouse outside the city.
That's when Sam, Bucky and Sharon finally can take a deep breath, instinctually coming closer to each other and going where they last saw their fallen fourth member.
They find him sitting with his back to a pilaster, legs sprawled in front of him and purple mask lying forgotten by his side. Their once enemy-turned-ally-turned-what they could call a reluctant friend, someone they'll have to define yet again, now.
For Zemo had betrayed them, setting things up in the background to achieve his ultimate goal of destroying the Super Soldiers - Bucky maybe included. His plans had been forecasted plenty of times before, but even so, the three of them chose to believe he could have a change of heart. Which he did, in some extent.
He fought by their side - if not from the start - on what they perceived as their final battle with the Flag Smashers. He even took the mask while doing so, using the element of surprise to gather the upper hand against some of their enemies. All that came with a cost, with him being severely wounded, a ghastly slash to the forearm and plenty of bruises followed by a bullet to his side.
The injuries he sustained fighting alongside them helped to blurry the lines of his loyalty even more. Zemo had helped the fanatics, yes, but he had also chosen the right side on the last moment. Which left Sam, Bucky and Sharon with a decision to make in the few moments left before Walker's people zeroed in on them and took whatever decision they made from their hands.
"You saw this one coming." Zemo says with a hint of humor when he feels their presence, his eyes closed and arms held protectively closer to his body for warmth.
"Shut up," the three of them reply in unison with varying degrees of exasperation. They notice, with dismay, how he's not trying to stanch the flow of blood soiling his flamboyant coat or pooling on the cement floor.
Sharon decides she doesn't want to be the one dealing with what that implies and jogs to meet John Walker and Lemar Hoskins to buy some time for the other two. Whatever they decide doing, or nor doing, she's in.
Bucky is the one who kneels close to Zemo, trying to dislodge his arms to check the wounds. Zemo allows it, looking at him intently with eyes already slightly unfocused from blood loss.
"Longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak-"
"Cut the crap, man," not surprisingly, it's Sam who orders from above. "You know it won't work and-" He's taken aback by Bucky's reaction, though; his friend has let go of checking Zemo's wounds and is retrieving his pistol.
"Bucky?! Whatta f-?" Sam crouches down by Bucky's side, appalled by the possibility of his friend reversing to the Winter Soldier training.
"-Furnace, nine- benign..." Zemo's almost whispering voice is still droning in the background, slowed down and raspy with pain.
Bucky sighs and opens the bloody coat, carefully touching the gun to Zemo's heart above the fabric of his shirt.
"BUCKY! Bucky, talk to me!" Sam is now shaking his shoulders with desperation, trying to make his friend come back to reality.
"-Home- homecoming..." A small cough, "One..."
Bucky finally looks from an almost unconscious Zemo to Sam.
To Sam's utter relief, he's himself, a sad little smile on his lips that doesn't reach his eyes.
"It was our agreement, Sam." And, as Bucky sees the confusion plainly written on Sam's face, he continues, "He would try to destroy the Super Soldiers till the last of us, and should he fail, I'd be the one finishing his suffering - a safeguard."
Sam cannot believe it, for it also means Zemo trusted Bucky, but doesn't have time to question it as they hear Walker and his people coming closer, Sharon still arguing with them.
"Are you sure, Zemo?" Bucky asks, not unkindly.
The sound of a footsteps is mixed with one of a small cough, droplets of blood tinting red lips becoming paler by the second.
"Frei-..." An inhale, an exhale. "Freight- car."
Bucky nods. He takes a deep breath.
Zemo's already unconscious when a whoosh followed by the sound of a single bullet is heard in the warehouse before hell once again breaks loose.
...
A month later, in a small cell, the prisoner is finally declared fit by the doctor.
Ayo smiles.