Archive of Our Own

For there only being so many historic Sokovian manuscripts in the world, this one was being damn difficult to track down, no matter how many of your considerable skills you applied to the paper trail. It was especially frustrating, considering this was the one part of your - his? - your shared mission you could best contribute to.

Zemo had come back to the safe house earlier that afternoon to find you sitting at the impressive desk in his office yet again, wearing your university hoodie and a pair of running shorts you’d found at the bottom of your suitcase (packed back before you’d met the ex-Intelligence Operative who’d hijacked your whole life, when you thought you would just be crashing at hostels around Central Europe while you worked on your dissertation). You had the end of a pen in your mouth and were chewing on it absently, scrolling on your laptop through a potato-quality scan of another official document for any mentions of the actual object of his desire. 

“Have you even showered since I left today?”

You jumped much higher than you would have liked, caught off guard by his unexpectedly feather-light step in his heavy boots. He was leaning in the doorway, watching you with a skeptical look while dangling a black garment bag from an extended index finger. 

“Maybe,” you shot back, trying to both regain your composure and ignore how good he looked in that stupid fucking coat. When he raised an eyebrow, you sighed and frowned at your laptop. “I meant to, I just sat down for a minute, I swear. Then I found something in a memo that led me to an invoice, and now I’m looking at this cargo manifest and I think at some point the manuscript was sent to Sicily in the 1930s, for some fucking reason-“

“Draga,” The way he said it caused you to look up. While his face was still mostly neutral, there was an undertone of something in his voice that sounded almost like... concern? He’d only ever called you diminutives and pet names to remind you who was actually in charge, but this almost felt like something - god forbid - sincere? “Have you eaten, at least?”

“...I had a granola bar and some coffee?” You shrugged. “What? That’s what I normally have!” you protested as he sighed and rolled his eyes theatrically. 

“I meant since breakfast, schatzi. Though I’d hardly call it that, even.”

“It’s only-“ You paused to look at the antique clock on the office wall, probably worth more than your couch back home, then looked again, realizing that it was in fact much later in the day than when you’d started. “...Oh.”

“You Americans, no wonder your bosses walk all over you, you never take care of yourselves.” Zemo grumbled, pushing himself up off the door frame he’d been leaning on. “Go bathe, I’ll make you some food.”

“I’m an adult, Zemo.” you snapped, only to adjust  your tone somewhat under his irritated gaze. “I- you don’t need to do that.”

“You’re worthless to me if you’re not at your best.” he said, lazily shrugging a shoulder. “This is maintaining my asset on my part. I’m going to need you in top form tonight.”

“What’s tonight?” you asked, and then finally glanced at the garment bag he was holding. “And what’s that?”

“They’re related; I’ll tell you when you’re fed.” he turned, heading out the door. “Don’t keep me waiting, schatz, my patience is thin enough with you as it is.”

Still somewhat annoyed that he thought he could boss you around, Baron or no, you rolled your eyes as he walked towards the kitchen. 

“I saw that.” he called over his shoulder.

You were tempted to call his bluff, but instead just sighed and headed begrudgingly for the shower.

You still hated Zemo just a little bit, but you hated him even more when he was right. The shower had helped immensely, even if you’d just put on new sweats for now, and the bowl of paprikash you tried to devour as politely as possible was delicious. You hadn’t realized how hungry you’d been until he set it in front of you, and immediately you wondered how you’d failed to notice the gaping black hole that had apparently replaced your stomach.

He sat across from you at the small but still elegant kitchen table, restraining a smug smirk as he helped himself to some more tea. “Better, I take it?”

You set down your spoon, glaring at him across the table. “Goddamn it, Baron, is there anything you aren’t secretly ridiculously good at?”

“You’re welcome,” he chuckled. The laugh was short lived as he paused, as if suddenly distracted by something at the bottom of his mug. “I can’t take all the credit.” he said, a bit softer. “That particular recipe is an old one from my wife’s side.” 

“...Oh.” you paused, your full stomach suddenly uncomfortable. Zemo didn’t mention his lost family much. You knew they were the pathos behind his work, the hollowing loss that created the brilliant-but-obsessive possible genius you’d come to work for, but outside of his initial pitch that got you to join him, they’d just... never come up. You shifted slightly, uncertain of your presence here, somehow. “It was lovely.” you offered at last, not sure what else to say. “Really.”

“She made it much better than I do, but I do okay.” He smiled just a smidge, glancing up at you. “I wasn’t expecting ‘lovely,’ though. I think I’m going to have to hold that over your head for a while.”

You rolled your eyes, but allowed yourself a smile back, glad your usual antagonism was re-established. “So,” you leaned your chin on your hand. “Tell me what’s in the bag.” 

If you were uncomfortable before, the reappearance of Zemo’s cocky grin definitely made it worse. That was never a good sign for you.

“I saw this and thought of you immediately,” Zemo had you standing in his bedroom, your arms folded as he began unzipping the garment bag hanging in front of a full-length mirror. “You’re going to look exquisite tonight.”

You were doing your best not to stand there with your mouth agape - not only from the sheer... presumption? Of that particular statement, but also not sure how to process any of what he’d just said. Seeing your face in the mirror, he glanced over his shoulder with a smirk. “You’re going to be my distraction for this particular fact-finding mission, draga. I said I needed you in top form, remember?”

“Zemo,” you hesitated, not wanting to start a “disagreement,” as you both politely termed them, so soon after the shared moment at the kitchen table. “...Is this a good idea?”

“Research and access is your end, you leave operations and execution to me. That was the deal, right?” he’d stopped what he was doing, turning to face you with a steely glance. 

“Well, yeah-“

“This is operations, and this is my plan. Therefore, Professor,” he said sarcastically. “I think it’s a good idea, yes.” 

“But I’ve never done-“ you stood there, gesticulating frustratedly for a minute before you finally blurted. “Field work. Not like this, anyway.”

“Schatz, be logical. I’m not going to put you into anything I don’t think you could handle. That would just cause problems for us both, right?”

“You and I might have different definitions of ‘handle,’ Baron.” you said, your arms folded across your chest again. “You have ‘decades of experience,’ remember?” It took everything in your power not to imitate his accent more than necessary as you quoted his own favorite lecture refrain back to him.

“Look,” Zemo sighed, turning to you and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Can you or can you not stand there, drink expensive wine, and talk about things no one actually cares about?”

“...I’m literally a grad student.” you said dryly, unable to resist the clear setup.

“See! You’re perfectly cast, I told you!” He clapped his hands, smiling at you playing along. “Now with this, you’ll be gorgeous, and no matter what comes out of that smart little mouth of yours, everyone will still be entranced and I can look around their facility uninhibited.”

“Yeah, about that-“ you started, your nerves returned in a wave. Zemo cut you off by - of all things - actually shushing you, holding up a hand.

“No no no, enough of that, enough doubt. Just look at it first, and then if I’m wrong, you can tell me.” he said. “But I’m not wrong.”

“Okay, fine, sure. Wow me.” you said, irritation creeping back into your voice.

With a flourish - cocky bastard - he unzipped the last of the garment bag and stood back to get a good look  at your face. “Well?”

If it looked amazing in the bag, it looked even better on you a couple of hours later. You were still admiring the way the silk - dark amethyst, amazing against your skin in ways you hadn’t thought possible - clung to your thighs in his bedroom doorway. You were almost done (he at least let you do your own hair and makeup, he thankfully wasn’t that much of a control freak), but he’d asked you to come back after that for a final debriefing. From the overpowering smell of shower steam and his cologne, you guessed he was busy putting on whatever consisted of his own disguise. While the door was open, you weren’t sure you were quite at the point you could just waltz in to your... employer’s room, especially while he was getting dressed. 

Even if he had picked out your clothes. Which, sure, he’d provided camouflage for casing places and blending in before, but this felt different somehow. “I thought of you,” he’d said. “You’ll look gorgeous,” he’d said.

He’d just meant that in terms of the mission objective, of course. There’s no other context that could have possibly been implied, because the only context you two had a relationship in was a... mutually beneficial semi-hostage situation. Sort of. It was complicated, and it wasn’t like you two had anything more binding to define it than a handshake agreement, really-

“I told you.”  

His voice yet again jolted you out of your thoughts and you looked up, seeing him standing in front of the full-length mirror before you. He was straightening his bow tie, having not yet donned his suit jacket, but his eyes were on your face in the glass. 

“Okay, so I look pretty good.” you said as nonchalantly as you could, not wanting his head to balloon this early in the evening.

He scoffed. “‘Pretty good’, don’t be ridiculous.” he turned, flinging out a hand. “Get over here and take a proper look, you’ll see I’m right.”

Hesitating just slightly, you walked over to his waiting hand, and he gently moved you front and center in front of him to face the mirror. 

Oh fuck, that bastard, he was right.

It wasn’t just the color. The cut was immaculate. You’d been concerned about some of your... problem areas, as you’d been half-jokingly referring to them your entire life. But it was like he’d read your mind somehow: the neck was high with little décolletage, but deliciously displayed your shoulders and swooped low down your back to compensate. Rather than expose your thighs and hips, the dress seemed to embrace them in a way that spoke only of their fullness in a tantalizing whisper as the skirt fell the rest of the way to the floor. It was almost magic that these things that normally gave you such anxiety now appeared-

“Exquisite.” Zemo said, but so softly you weren’t sure who he was talking to. He was standing just to your side, and you couldn’t tell if he was looking at you, the dress, or the two of you framed there together.

You were having the worst time not staring at him in turn - white tie, dark suspenders on his broad shoulders, his hair a little less slicked back than usual, and glasses, which shouldn’t fucking do it for you as much as they were perched on his noble face. For being such a smug, stubborn son of a bitch... he really was quite dashing, even when he was trying to make himself look innocuous. For a moment you pictured him and his wife, the glamorous ghost, in their whirlwind Roman Holiday-style courtship, and the pang in your gut felt a little too much like a hybrid of jealousy and longing to be comfortable.

You cleared your throat just slightly, begging the heat flooding up your torso to leave your cheeks be. “So, who are we?”

Zemo seemed to be snapped out of a reverie of his own at your voice, looking to you again with a slightly puzzled expression as he came back to himself.

“Tonight,” you clarified. “What’s our story?”

“Of course.” Zemo nodded, suddenly all business again as he checked his cuff links. “You, draga, are the esteemed Doctor Isabel Solokov, recent addition to the faculty at Budapest Metropolitan University in their International Relations program.”

You were trying not to chew your lip to prevent smudging your lipstick, but it was a losing battle. “How do we explain my accent?”

Zemo shrugged as if you were asking about the weather. “You grew up abroad, and went where you were hired when it was time. Same as your real life. Here,” he turned, grabbing a silk box off a bureau and turning to you, opening it to reveal a gorgeous pair of diamond chandelier earrings. “Put these on.”

“These look like they cost more than my rent,” you were unable to prevent a nervous giggle from bubbling out of your chest. “They’re beautiful.”

“They do, and they are.” he said, once again irritatingly confident. He shook the box at you just slightly, reminding you to actually pick them up and put them on so he could set it down.

“If I’m a new hire, how the hell do I afford these?” you said, fumbling with them just slightly in the mirror.

“A gift from your loving husband.” Zemo chuckled, then rolled his eyes at your confused expression. “Me, schatzi, I’m the loving husband. Do keep up.”

“Oh.” You were struck somewhat silent again tonight, something in the idea of Zemo as your loving husband making your brain sputter in a way you couldn’t quite name.

“You’re not going to be doing this all night, are you? I picked this role for you because normally all you want to do is talk back, I thought we’d actually make use of it.” he shrugged his suit jacket on and straightened it, shooting you a look. 

“I just- I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” you straightened your shoulders and took a breath, admiring the earrings framing your face in the mirror. “Now, what is it ‘you’ do?”

“Who, me? I’m just a smitten wealthy businessman who put the brilliant love of my life through school. This is a gathering for the city’s Literati anyway, I’m coming as your guest rather than you coming as mine.” He finished adjustments to his own clothes and began looking you over, his hands smoothing and straightening here and there when he was unhappy with something.

“Zemo, what the hell?” you turned to look at him as best you could without interrupting his process. “You always tell me to let you do the talking here.”

“Except for now, draga, when I need you to make small talk and dazzle some stuffy drunk old men while I pretend to get bored and get lost looking for the bathroom. Look,” he took your shoulders in his hands, and you tried to ignore how warm they felt on your bare skin. “I’m not asking you to do a lot here, don’t get cold feet on me.”

“I won’t, I just-“ you stared at him for a second, your words dying on your tongue as you were caught in the full impression of him. After a slightly too long pause, you looked him in the eye. “I don’t want to ruin anything for you, is all. I know how critical every step is to pulling this off.”

Zemo smirked, but the warmth of it took the sting of any snark out. “Don’t worry, printsessa.” He gently spun you around to face the mirror again, laughing softly at the face you made at the especially hated nickname. “I have full faith in your ability to carry off being a chatty little academic. Ah,” he paused, noticing where you hadn’t quite managed the back zipper on your own in your room. “May I?”

“Please,” you said, and it came out much closer to a whisper than you would have liked. He said nothing in return, his hands gently drawing the zipper up your back with what you could swear was an agonizing slowness. For a moment, the only thing you could feel was the tug against the fabric and his warm breath on your shoulder, and it took everything in your power to fight a shiver. Not a bad one, either.

Zemo himself seemed to be lost in the moment, finally straightening up with a soft exhale, as though he’d been trying to hold his breath steady. When you looked at him, unsure, he immediately put on his usual self-assured smirk, and offered you his arm with flawless posture. “So. Shall we go con some ancient smug know-it-alls, schatzi?”

Unable to fight back your laugh, you found yourself taking his arm. 

Honestly, in the grand scheme of things, this had been the easy part. 

Once you’d shown up to the library where this was taking place , he’d flashed a very official-looking invitation from his jacket pocket at the doorman stationed outside, who seemed pretty fine with just letting you two in with a nod. It helped to remember this wasn’t one of his higher stakes parts of what you’d started mentally referring to as his Grand Plan - and besides, he’d only said he was looking for information, not that he needed to steal anything. 

For tonight, anyway.

Once the doors opened, though, it was hard to remember you were there for espionage purposes. The library was beautiful and historic, housed in what had once been a castle with much of the original architecture (or at least very close facsimiles, this really wasn’t your area) still in place. To reach the party itself, you had to walk through the lobby with its baroque ceiling and marble floors to a spiral staircase, which Zemo had to nudge you on at least twice to keep you focused and not distracted by the architecture. At one point, between your beautiful dress, the castle itself, and an admittedly quite handsome man on your arm, you felt - almost, for a moment - like you were in some sort of fairy tale.

The two of you made your way in to a room full of what you could immediately identify as other academics and critics, based on the fact that most of them seemed more than happy to loiter around the provided intricate hors d’ouevres set out on a luxurious table, and many more around what appeared to be a fully stocked bar, with one or two seeming to hold court amongst a wider group who were just listening intently. The difference between this gala and a gathering of your cohort back home was everyone was much, much better dressed, and you didn’t see anyone eyeing a plate of canapés like they were trying to figure out how to smuggle the whole thing home in their backpack for the next day’s lunch. If no one over fifty made a slight pass at you by the end of the night, it would honestly be a more successful event than a lot of grad student mixers, to be honest.

“What do you think, draga?” Zemo leaned close to your ear, surveying the scene with you.“More in your element?” 

You rolled your eyes, turning to make a joke, but froze when you felt his hand rest on your lower back.

“People are looking,” Zemo explained softly, but if anything, they seemed taken with you - between your earrings, your dress, and the last minute addition of some heels that you would have to save for over several months, you definitely made an impression. If people looked at Zemo, they gave him a glance at most, as if trying to figure out what he was doing with you. This felt completely surreal to you, as you often, if anything, felt things the other way around.

“See?” he murmured, his hand moving from your lower back to his whole arm curling around your waist. “I told you, you’re beautiful. Now, go be smart and charming.”

He gracefully moved the two of you to the crowd before you could argue that was not, in fact, something he’d ever told you.

Once you got a little wine in you, though, and started finally chatting to the other guests, it was easier to pretend. Academics were thankfully just as prone to go on at length about their own research here as they were back home, and luckily it overlapped enough with your own work that you could faithfully play the part Zemo had created for you. For the most part, he stood next to you or somewhat behind, holding his own drink and listening intently to your conversations with the other guests. You were trying hard not to get distracted by how well he was playing the “loving husband” part - he always kept a hand on you, whether your waist, your shoulder, and when he was pretending to be a little more tipsy, he let it settle on the back of your neck, his thumb rubbing little circles slowly in your skin. It wasn’t even that he was distracted, either; you could swear he was really looking at you with intrigue, interest in what you had to say, and a couple times, dare you imagine... pride? You sipped your drink and laughed at something one of the art critics said, mentally making a note to praise him for his unexpected acting skills later. He really could do anything frustratingly well.

At last, the time came when the party had settled into a familiar pattern, with no new guests arriving. He squeezed your hand and kissed your cheek. “Forgive me, darling,” he said for the benefit of the others. “I must excuse myself for a moment.”

“Of course, love,” you said, the words sliding off your tongue as easy as breathing. You were in deep enough that the ruse no longer chafed for reasons you refused to examine. You smiled at him with damn-near genuine adoration. “Remember to come back to me?” 

“How could I not?” he joked back, apparently performing just as well still. He slipped off, and one of the older women looked at you approvingly.

“Now how on earth did you find that one?” she asked, and you could see her cheeks were flushed with her own drink. “There’s something about him they don’t make anymore.”

“He was an art student,” the lie came so easily you surprised yourself. “I ran into him when we were both in the library researching the same Sokovian sculptor. The books were so rare, we had to take turns checking them out. Eventually we just started reading them together over coffee, and the rest is history.” This wasn’t too hard to believe - though Zemo had at least a decade on you (okay, maybe a decade and change), you’d had friends in your cohort more than twice your age before. Grad school was a place where all sorts of people could delve deeply into whatever ideas obsessed their brain at all hours, at all sorts of stages in life.

“Oh, how charming! Tell me, what year did he receive his Masters? I might have attended his gallery show!” your companion asked, and with a sickening jolt, you realized this was one of the art critics. Fuck.

“Oh, you know.” you shrugged, trying desperately to redirect to the actual story he gave you. He wouldn’t like hearing you ad libbing this much - you could just hear the lecture later. “He had to drop out, take over the family business when his father passed.” 

“Oh, well. Shame.” The lady tutted with an apologetic look. “But clearly he’s done well for you both.”

“Quite,” you agreed with a smile you hoped was appropriately bright, taking another sip of wine and wishing he would come back already. Definitely just because you wanted to be done and leave and not at all because you missed the feeling of his hand somewhere on you, solid and reassuring and warm enough against your skin to make you feel things-

You cut that avenue of thought off with another long sip of wine, emptying your glass. Do not go there, that way madness lies. “If you’ll excuse me,” you indicated your empty glass to the art critic and slipped off to the refreshments table. 

The crowd of the city’s intellectual elite, as it had gotten more drunk and less self-conscious, had drifted away from the bar and the food and were all happily intermingled far away from you around the rest of the grand room. As you accepted another glass of wine with a grateful smile from a bored looking waiter, you put your back to the corner of the room and surveyed the other guests (clearly, going everywhere with an ex-spy had rubbed off in its own way). You were glad there weren’t any live marks tonight, no one to cozy up to or get chatting on a particular topic. You didn’t think you would be cut out for that kind of thing at all, much less have any idea how Zemo managed it on a regular basis. You were starting to get exhausted just from talking to stuffy rich people about nothing in particular.

“You look enchanting in that dress,” someone said to your right.

You turned, trying not to startle as you saw another party guest standing closer by than you’d realized. He was tall, with neatly cut short hair and a charming smile, wearing the same white tie tux as the rest of the men in the room. 

“Thank you.” you said, managing part of a smile. “My husband bought it for me.” You hoped mentioning Zemo would be the end of it, wanting to be alone with your glass and your thoughts, but the clean cut man just chuckled.

“Yes, and I’m sure that’s why he’s stood so close to you all night. He probably regrets that purchase - I was beginning to wonder if he’d ever give you some space.” Not seeming to realize the irony, he stepped closer to you as he said it. It wasn’t close enough to immediately seem untoward, but it did unsettle you somehow. You could smell his cologne, and though you had no rational way to know, something told you it was definitely not as high quality as your... as Zemo’s. Though you were a bit tipsy, some part of your brain crackled in alarm. Some rich people were just cheap in weird ways, you knew that, but you couldn’t imagine them skimping on cologne at a fancy event - especially one with such an opportunity to dress up and show off. This scent was more like something you’d find just on a shelf somewhere ordinary with a ship on the bottle, more everyday and familiar. But the tux was bespoke, gorgeously tailored. The mismatch made you think of yourself in your own borrowed dress…

Of someone else in a disguise, you realized with a sickening turn in your stomach.

He was introducing himself now, giving a name you immediately ignored as you had no idea if it was fake or not. “And yourself?” he asked, his smile just a smidgen too wide and eyes a little too keen. He was giving you a subtle up-and-down, and in your paranoid state, you had no idea if he was checking you out or trying to see if you were armed somehow. You knew you were staring just a bit too long at him: trying to decide if the haircut was SWORD or Interpol regulation, trying to decide if the watch on his left wrist was one of the bulky ones worn by government officials.

“I-“

You were interrupted in your slight panic as someone took your arm and turned you around - only to find Zemo kissing you, longer and a bit more intimately than was quite appropriate for the setting. Though it took you a fraction of a second to figure out what the actual fuck was happening, you almost immediately kissed him back, at one point even closing your eyes in the process. This was acting. He was acting. You were definitely, totally acting, and not at all enjoying this just a little bit too much.

“There you are, liebling, I was wondering where I left you,” he purred when he at last drew back for breath. His face was barely an inch from yours, and he was slurring just a little bit on his consonants. “I know you’re enjoying yourself, beloved, but do you mind if we go home? I think I’ve had a bit too much.”

“Of course, darling,” you said immediately, trying to keep the relief from creeping into your voice. “I was just feeling a bit like that myself.”

“Lovely.” Zemo looked over your shoulder. “You’ll forgive me if I interrupted your conversation with my wife - I know she’s quite brilliant, but I must steal her back now.”

“Quite,” the stranger agreed with a weak smile, clearly made somewhat uncomfortable by the blatant PDA. “You two travel safe.”

Zemo gave him a slight wave and turned, his arm around your shoulders as you ditched your wine glass on an empty table. You tried to make for the grand staircase you’d ascended before, but he leaned on you as he faked a slight stumble, making you pause in your tracks.

“Elevator in the back left corner,” he murmured, his voice clear of any drunkenness. 

You hesitated - that would send you back through the crowd, and you were too jumpy now to want to try to maneuver through more conversation.

“I’ve got it, schatzi, just get us there.” he whispered, just as he buried his face in your neck for a minute. “Darling,” he was slurring again slightly as he spoke at a normal volume. “Have I told you that you smell divine tonight?”

You laughed, smiling embarrassedly at anyone who looked your way. You nodded to a couple of previous conversation partners as you excused your way through the crowd (including the matronly art critic, who gave you a saucy wink as you passed) as Zemo kept his face close to your neck, muttering what you assumed was lewd nonsense in a couple different languages and occasionally giving you a wet kiss on your shoulder or behind your ear that kept any polite person from wanting to look too closely. 

As you broke away from the group, he stood up just a little straighter to take a sneaky look around. 

“What happened?” you whispered once you were sure you wouldn’t be overheard.

“I was spotted,” he grumbled. “I told them I took a wrong turn, but the security guard must have been bored, because he followed me back here. And then I didn’t like how that guy was looking at you.”

“Why? Is he something to be concerned about?” you instinctively went to turn your head to look as you reached the elevator, but Zemo grabbed your chin in his hand and kissed you roughly, biting your bottom lip and stealing your breath for a moment.

“Not if we play our cards right,” he said, pulling away as he hit the call button. He put his hands on your hips, pulling you flush to his chest and resting his forehead against yours. You were grateful for the closeness, if only because then he wouldn’t see how much you were trying to resist melting into him. 

“We’re going to go down and get a cab, I’ll come back and get the car tomorrow. Just play along until we get back to the apartment, okay?” he said just low enough for you to hear.

“What do you want me to do?” you whispered.

He pulled back to look at you, taking your chin in his hand again. The pretend haze was gone, and his dark eyes were piercing.

“Do you trust me, printsessa?” he said, his voice still low.

You stared at him for a second, taking in the seriousness of his expression - nothing smug, nothing up his sleeve, just looking at you in all honesty - before taking the lapels of his jacket in your hands and pulling him to you, kissing him hard.

Zemo understood, and his hands rested on the bare skin of your back as he returned the kiss with matched zeal. You shivered just slightly at the feeling, and he laughed softly in a way that sounded a little too real, nuzzling your neck again. He shrugged his suit jacket off slowly as the ancient elevator ground its way noisily to you and stopped, setting it around your bare shoulders but keeping his hands on your waist.

As the doors opened and revealed no one inside, you put a hand to his chest and walked him backwards to the back wall, pushing him roughly up against it before tangling your hand in his hair and messily kissing him again. You continued this until the door closed and broke away just slightly, your lips giving a small pop of suction as you did so. “I wanted to make sure we weren’t followed,” you whispered, off his slightly dazed and surprised expression. 

He glanced up towards the ceiling for half a second before turning you abruptly, trapping you against the wall now and gently driving his knee between your thighs underneath your silk dress. “Security camera,” he murmured as you gasped softly, returning to his first position so he could gently nip your neck with his teeth. You felt your head fall back as you bit your lip, then made him hiss quietly as you raked your nails gently down the back of his neck. You undid the top three buttons of his dress shirt and pressed lipstick kisses to the skin underneath and his collar, and you could have sworn you heard him repress a groan.

The door opened with a loud ding, apparently starling you both from the way you both quickly looked around. A sheepish doorman was pretending to stare at his shoes as you both stepped into the lobby, Zemo again playing drunk as he kept himself curled about your frame while you walked out.

The cold night air made you shiver yet again, and you felt him adjust his jacket slightly to fit tighter about you under his arm. He kept his face in the crook of your neck as you hailed a cab, and you could feel him scanning the sidewalk and alleys around you. 

He made a noise in the back of his throat, and you turned for just a moment to follow his gaze, spotting the man who’d tried to chat you up upstairs. He was standing back on the steps up to the library itself, typing something into a smartphone. Spotting you spotting him, he seemed to freeze for a moment, before lifting a hand in an awkward half-wave of acknowledgement. 

You were trying not to panic - he could, for all you know, just be some regular lecturer who just tried to be nice at a fancy event. Though the fact that he seemed so keen to talk to you, and was now standing probably less than fifty feet away from you and your… Zemo, right as you’d tried to make a hasty exit, was adding up to quite a bit more than that in your head. After hiding out with the Baron for as long as you had, you’d come to quickly realize how few coincidences actually existed, considering how many of them he had to engineer himself to actually get anything done.

Zemo quite insistently turned you back towards him yet again, kissing you roughly and even sliding his hands around to give your ass a squeeze through your dress. Mentally, you were reminding yourself that he was putting on a show for this possible agent to try to get him to leave you both alone by making him uncomfortable, but you couldn’t help but wonder if he really did have a problem on some level with another man staring at you for how aggressive his response was. You felt heat rise to your cheeks as he kissed your neck again, and you were reasonably sure he was glaring at the dude over your shoulder as he did so.

The cab pulled up none too soon, and after Zemo opened the door for you (ever the gentleman, even when he was pretending to be totally piss-drunk), you reached out and hooked your fingers on one of his suspenders, dragging him roughly in by that right as you were sure he was sizing up the awkward stranger or thwarted operative left standing outside. Zemo was a little too quick to pull you to him again once inside, giving the driver scant instructions in Hungarian before calling you what sounded like a pet name he’d never dared use before and planting messy kisses along your jawline. The driver, probably fairly used to this, just turned on the radio and turned it up. 

Between the bass-driven song that was a little too loud on the speakers, Zemo’s cologne, and the wine you’d consumed, you forgot yourself for just a moment and made the mistake of sucking lightly on his tongue the next time he went to kiss you. Zemo, rather than seeming thrown, instead pulled you entirely into his lap, squeezing your hip so hard as he grazed his teeth on your collarbone that you were sure you’d find a bruise on both places in the morning. You fought a moan, cupping his face in your hand and trying to pull him back to your mouth. He hesitated, his lips just brushing yours, and for a second you could swear the ruse was broken - he was looking at you a little too intently, as if trying to read your face through half-lidded eyes. You stared back at him as levelly as you could while trying to catch your breath, keeping your hand where it was, before finally leaning forward and kissing him again - slower, gentler than before. Fuck it, part of you thought. If he was going to pretend with you, then you could at least be honest in your enjoyment.

Zemo, to your immense surprise, was just as gentle, setting his hand on the back of your neck again as if to pull you closer, but not squeezing - just rubbing circles in your skin with his thumb, as he had back in the library.

You both paused as the car stopped, the driver looking over his shoulder to say something to Zemo. You glanced out the window - embarrassingly, slightly foggy at this point - to realize you were back at the safe house. Zemo paid the man, and the two had one more brief exchange - the driver laughing at first, but then immediately quailing when Zemo only responded with the iciest glare you’d ever seen on him. 

The two of you walked to the door, Zemo keeping his arm firmly around your waist. You had to fish the keys out of his pocket and unlock the door, him watching the driver over your shoulder as he pretended to lean on you still. When the driver still hadn’t pulled away by the time you got the door open, you made a show of pulling Zemo inside and kissing him as you slammed the door a little too hard behind you.

It was only in the silence of the apartment that you realized he was holding you against the door, one hand resting above your head, the other arm hooked around your waist and keeping you flush to him as he continued to kiss you. When you finally both had to pull away to breathe, your hands were still on his chest, and neither of you moved.

“Is there something you want to tell me, draga?” Zemo said, his voice low and rough.

“I don’t know,” you said slowly, your eyes drifting down to where he was definitely hard, the outline of his cock pressing through the fabric of his trousers and your skirt into your thigh. “How about you, Baron?”

“If you’re going to kiss me like that,” he said softly. “it’s Helmut.”

“Helmut,” you repeated quietly, running your hand down his chest. You didn’t want to look at him, a little afraid of where this conversation was going. You looked him in the eye. “How… how much of that was acting, on your part?”

“I had such an excellent partner,” he smirked. “I really didn’t have to work hard to pretend.” He paused, the smirk flickering for just a second, so quick it was almost imperceptible. “And you? That… seemed like a quite convincing performance.”

You took a small, shaky breath, leaning your head back against the door to look at him. “…I admit,” you said quietly. “It was… maybe a little less about being convincing towards the end there.” You looked away quickly, wanting to just rip the bandaid off. “But I understand… if maybe kissing you again, outside this particular cover, is a bad idea. If that would… complicate things too much.”

Zemo surprised you by laughing, and for a minute you were hurt. He tilted his head to catch your eye, rather than tilt your head to look at him. “What happened to hating me, volchitsa?”

You rolled your eyes, looking him in the eye again while he stood there smirking. “You, Helmut Zemo, can be arrogant, smug, stubborn…” you moved your hand so it was resting over his heart, feeling it flutter softly beneath your palm. “But… I like you far too much to actually hate you.”

The smirk fell right off his face for a moment, and you were briefly scared you’d just ruined everything. But he surprised you by moving his hand from the door and gently brushing the tips of his fingers along your cheek. “And you,” he said, and your name sounded like velvet out of his mouth. “Can be a vicious little smartass, and just as stubborn… but I admit,” he smiled, and it was so genuine that your heart skipped a beat. “You surprise me every day with just how much I like you too.”

He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against yours for a moment before giving you a kiss that was somehow sweet and searing at the same time. You wrapped your arms around his neck, and he pushed you against the front door again.

You pulled away for a second, and he paused, trying to figure out if something had changed. “I might have to go back to hating you, though, if you don’t take me to your room tonight,” you murmured, and he inhaled sharply through his teeth.

“I was dying for you to ask, schatzi.” He purred in your ear, pressing a kiss to your temple before abruptly pulling you by the hand down the dark hallway.

It was only in the low lighting of his bedroom, his hands sliding over your silk-dressed curves, that the reality of yourself and your body crashed onto you for a minute. Here he was, handsome, confident, and so intelligent it was honestly distressingly hot. At the end of the night, though… you were just going to end up being you, again. The same you he found standing in the rain outside a cafe in Riga, a broke, anxious student who was far too old to be where you were in life, your research the only thing you could reasonably offer him in return. You pulled away just slightly at the thought as he reached back to undo the zipper of your dress, and he immediately moved his hand away, tilting his head to look you in the eye again.

“If you’ve changed your mind,” he said gently. “Or if this isn’t something you want, I need you to tell me.”

“No,” you shook your head, swallowing slightly. “No, I want you - god, Helmut, do I really want you -“ you looked at him with naked need on your face, and the tip of his tongue darted out to lick his lower lip. “I just…” You took a breath. “I haven’t done this in a minute, and I’m…” you searched for the words before shrugging half-heartedly. “You might like me better with the expensive dress on, is all I’m saying.”

Zemo took his hands away from your hips, and for a moment you were again scared you had killed the mood, but instead he took your face in both his hands so gently it surprised you. He tilted your chin up, and his expression was far more earnest than you were ever used to seeing on hm.

“We agree that I have excellent taste, do we not?”

You raised an eyebrow, trying to figure out what in your very vulnerable moment made him think this was appropriate response.

“We do,” he filled in for you, smirking just for a moment before his face was earnest again. “I have never lied to you once when I’ve called you beautiful, liebling. I hope you know that. That wasn’t for the mission, or for the cover.” He looked you up and down so slowly, it made heat rush to your face. “I lie for a living, but it would make no sense for me to lie to you. Especially about you being beautiful, and brilliant, and charming-.”

“You haven’t seen me with the dress off yet,” you smiled weakly, trying to make a joke, but he kissed it away. 

“I don’t need to, to know that.” He said. He turned you gently towards the mirror, letting you see yourself - your makeup was attractively smudged from an evening of madly kissing a handsome man, and you hair was a bit less together than when you’d left, but you were indeed still a smoke show., if you did say so yourself “I know you’re particular about how you show yourself, love.” He said, leaning close to your ear. “That’s why I thought of you when I saw this dress - I saw nothing exposed here that I’d never seen on you before. And I was right, wasn’t I?”

You nodded, forced to agree - the man did in fact pay more attention to you than you’d realized.

“Here,” he turned you back to face him, and held you close. “We’ll do this together. If you change your mind, tell me, and we’ll stop.”

You took a minute before finally nodding. “Thank you,” you gave his shoulders a shy squeeze.

“I’ve told you - it’s always in my best interest for you to feel your best.” He said, smirking again, and this time you couldn’t even be annoyed with him.

He went to work on the zipper of your dress, and you slid his suspenders off his shoulders, unbuttoning the rest of his shirt, and - as much as it killed you, just a little - ditched his glasses on a bedside table. Looking at each other briefly, he pulled the torso of the dress down to about your navel.

You stood there for a moment, dying to cross your arms but resisting the urge. You couldn’t look at him as his eyes looked over the small, constellation-like scars that covered the tops of your breasts and down onto your soft stomach.

“Oh, draga,” he murmured, taking them in. “Did someone hurt you?” He looked up at you, and for a moment, you watched as the idea made something in his eyes flash steel.

“No,” you took his hand in yours, kissing his knuckles gently. “I did that.” He tilted his head, uncomprehending. “It’s a thing I used to do during a bad time, I picked at my own skin obsessively whenever I found a new spot there, it’s embarrassing-” you spoke all in a rush, but he hushed you gently, taking his hand from yours and ghosting his fingertips across them. He looked at you again, making sure you were still okay with this, before leaning down and planting light kisses across your breastbone and over your breasts themselves. 

“How strong you must have had to be,” he murmured, planting a kiss to the base of your throat. “To carry all that pain right there on your chest, and show no one. My brilliant volchitsa is also brave.” 

You weren’t sure what sensation was stronger: the heat you felt creep into your cheeks, the small lump you felt growing in your throat, or the fact that you were going to soak through the skirt of this goddamn dress if he didn’t get it off you soon. Gently, you took either side of his shirt in your hands, pulling it back off over his broad shoulders.

Zemo’s torso fascinated you - beneath his broad chest, his belly spoke of his time in confinement, and perhaps before that, of his time living comfortably and happily in love with his family, as a father and husband. Here or there you could see the faintest line of scar tissue - from his time in Echo Scorpion, or from a mission gone wrong. Too many to want to ask him about all of them now, but perhaps, in the future… You ran your hands up his chest with a quiet but eager reverence, and looked up to see Zemo watching your face intently. Your baron, your beloved arrogant bastard, was the last person in the world you would ever expect to see looking unsure, almost shy - but there he was, looking from your face to your hands like he expected you to pull them away any minute. 

“It’s… ‘been a minute’, as you say, for me too.” He said quietly, trying to smirk but not quite reaching his eyes. “I was a different man when I courted my wife - I was still in the military, not to mention, well, younger… and after…“

You leaned up to capture his lips in yours, sliding your hands from his chest down to his stomach and leaving them there. “Hel,” you said, pulling away to look him in the eyes. “I’ve never been more attracted to a man in my entire life. It’s infuriating, really, that it’s you of all people.”

He laughed at your joke despite blushing just slightly, and you were relieved to see the self-assured smile you’d grown so frustratingly fond of return. “Good to know I’m still irresistible, then.” He pressed a kiss to your cheekbone as you rolled your eyes, but then surprised you by pressing his forehead to yours and holding your bare torso against his. The heat of his chest seared against yours, and you almost wondered if you would find the faintest trace of him burned into your skin in the morning. Surprising yourself, you didn’t think you’d mind.

His hands, slightly rough, moved from your back to gently brush your breasts, tweaking a nipple and making you inhale softly through your teeth before they slid to where the skirt of the dress rested around your hips.

“I’m taking this off,” he said softly, his forehead still pressed against yours. “Because now I’m going to die if I don’t see the rest of you.”

You laughed at his melodrama, but it faded slightly as he pulled the dress down to slide over your considerable thighs - and all the lightning bolt stretch marks that decorated the tops of them, your other weak spot on your body.

Zemo, on the other hand, was far more distracted by something else, unable to help a moan when he realized you hadn’t worn any underwear under the dress the entire evening.

“The whole time, draga?” he looked back to your face, pupils wide and dark.

You shrugged, trying to seem casual. “You didn’t give me anything to go with it,” your eyes met his as you tried to keep your voice as nonchalant as possible. “And I was afraid I’d ruin the line of the silhouette.”

Zemo exhaled slowly through his nose, taking in your bare cunt with hungry eyes. “A thoughtful consideration, printsessa.” He said, his voice rougher than it had been a minute ago. “I’ll have to keep that in mind for next time.”

You felt a warmth pool in your stomach at the idea of a ‘next time’, specifically at the idea of Zemo picking out your lingerie. “Next time?”

“Of course,” Zemo pressed a kiss to your bare shoulder. “You were fantastic this evening - my lucky charm, even.” He looked back to you with something dark in his eyes. “Clearly, we’ll have to do this again.”

You swallowed slightly, but before you could respond, he was gently walking you backwards towards his bed.

With a light pressure on your shoulders, he had you sitting on the very edge of it, before kneeling in front of you. You bit your lip, unable to help yourself, as he put himself between your legs and locked eyes with you as he pressed a warm kiss to the inside of your thighs. When he traced the ghost of one of your marks with the tip of his tongue, you had to restrain a moan.

He continued this trail up the inside of your thigh, at one point alternating between them and earning a soft yelp from you when he abruptly bit down on the inside of your left, sucking hard to leave what you were sure would be a bruise. 

“Forgive me if it hurts, liebling,” Zemo looked at you, his eyes still dark and yet bright with something you’d never seen on him before tonight. “I just can’t help myself… I see something beautiful, and I want to make it mine.”

You felt your skin heat under his gaze. “You’re too kind,” you said with a small smile, eventually having to look away. You’d never thought of your thighs, your hips - often bigger and broader than most of your peers’ at similar ages, especially since puberty - as something beautiful. More like something to be contained, hidden, shrunk - at best, dealt with somehow. It had taken you reaching adulthood and specifically throwing yourself into work of the mind to feel some form of comfort with your body, and even then, it was hard for you to think of it as anything else besides what moved you from room to room and kept your brain alive.

“You don’t believe me.” 

You looked back to Zemo, trying to read his tone as he continued to stare at you intently. He moved even closer to you sitting on the bed, his hand stroking the thigh he’d bitten and marked.

“I mean-“ you bit your lip, looking for a clever comeback or a witty remark to save yourself from feeling vulnerable in that moment, but at last having to shrug with one shoulder, not sure what else to say. “Thank you.”

Zemo gave a low chuckle, one that made you clench around air for reasons you couldn’t quite name. “My sharp-tongued Professor has no argument. I must be right.” He turned, planting a wet kiss on the inside of your right thigh and causing you to let out a soft gasp at the intensity. “You don’t know how to see what I see yet, draga,” he murmured. “I knew you were smart - you offered that to me right away, because that’s what you know how to offer, no?” He reached forward with a hand, gently resting it on your sternum between your breasts. “You showed me tonight you were brave, even before you took off your dress. You put your trust in me, you didn’t panic, you were careful and attentive and clever. But this,” he returned his hand to your thigh, now stroking both of them with each of his warm, rough palms. “You’re strong. You have a history of living - of surviving - written right here on your skin. Every time you’ve changed and grown, you have continued to thrive.” You were already trying to keep your legs from shaking just slightly under his attentions, but couldn’t hold back your inhale through your teeth as he set each of your thighs on his corresponding shoulder. “And when you’ve seen as much death as I have,” he continued, a new darkness to his eyes now. “It’s impossible not to think it’s beautiful.”

Before you could properly formulate a response to that, he leaned forward, and the heat of his tongue on your slit made you whine to the rafters of the room.

You felt him laugh again, the reverberations of it striking your clit in just such a way that you writhed against his face, falling back against the mattress. 

“Very good,” he murmured, kissing the inside of your thigh again before swirling his tongue around your clit and focusing his attention there, sucking and kissing with such intensity you found it impossible to hold still, reduced to mewling helplessly as you writhed. 

When his tongue at last delved inside you, you had to clap a hand to your mouth, sure the noise you made was obscene. Just as quickly, he reached up, grabbing your hand and forcing it down to his head, where instinctively you tangled it in his hair.

“You’ll give me what’s mine,” he said, his tone a warning. “And I want to hear you.”

You nodded, biting down hard on your lip and feeling yourself moan openly as he returned his attention to your clit again, replacing his tongue inside you with first one and then two of his thick fingers.

“You’re doing so well,” he said, pulling away for just a moment as you rutted hard against his hand. “Who knew once you stopped trying to argue with me, draga, you’d be so sweet?” He licked a broad swathe up and down your slit, just to listen to you whine again. “I should have tried to fuck you sooner.”

You didn’t have the strength to disagree at this moment, still moving your hips against how he moved his fingers inside you, seeking friction. When his fingers curled against that place inside you, you groaned deeper than you had yet, unable to help yourself.

“There,” Zemo was moving his fingers slightly faster to keep up with the urgent movements of your hips. “That’s what I want. I want you cracked open for me, schatzi. I want you so that when I’m inside you, there’s no defenses left. You’re just mine.”

When he returned his tongue to your cunt, you nearly sobbed. “I swear, if you don’t stop, I’m gonna- please, please don’t stop,” you whined, feeling your release coming at you fast. It felt like you were going to burn from his tongue if he kept it against you much longer.

Zemo moaned his assent against your cunt as you tangled both hands in his hair and pulled, keeping his movements steady as you tensed and then at last came apart against his face and hand, whining as he continued through your orgasm.

It was only when he felt you collapse entirely against his mattress that he stopped, chuckling as you complained wordlessly when he pulled his fingers from inside you.

“Oh, aren’t you lovely like this.” he murmured, pulling himself up over you on the mattress and keeping his hands on either side of your head as he looked you over, watching your breasts move as you panted. “You really do make such a pretty picture when you let your walls down.”

You waited for a moment, catching your breath and letting him have a long exploratory look at you, before reaching up and flipping the two of you before he could realize what was happening. 

He laid under you, looking slightly surprised at your renewed energy - and you saw his pupils dilate anew as you smiled deviously.

“Your turn, Baron.” you murmured, nodding down to where his cock was pressing hard against the tuxedo trousers he’d gotten too distracted to shed.

“Whatever my volchitsa wants,” Zemo said, though he couldn’t hide the need on his face as you reached down. You undid the fly as slowly as possible, just to feel him squirm impatiently beneath you. When at least you freed his cock, viciously hard and already leaking at the tip, he couldn’t help but buck into your hand as you wrapped it around the shaft experimentally.

You used your thumb to smear the precum across the tip, watching his expression as you did so. When you lingered there for just a little too long, he looked at you, desperation showing on his features.

“Liebling?”

“What’s wrong, Hel?” You said with your eyes as wide and innocent as possible, raising an eyebrow. “I’m just taking my time deciding what to do with you. Whatever I want, remember?”

Zemo threw his head back against the mattress, and you could see the frustration flicker in his eyes. “I take it back, you’re not sweet at all. You’re a conniving little witch.”

You laughed, and leaned down to kiss the corner of his mouth. “It’s not every day I have you at my mercy, is all.” You murmured against his skin. “I’m just enjoying myself.”

“I’ll remember this tomorrow, you know,” he threatened, albeit jokingly, his hand reaching to move yours even just a little against his throbbing cock.

“I hope so,” you whispered dangerously, and just when he looked at you to figure out what that meant, you pulled the last of his clothes off him and tossed them carelessly to the floor, leaving him just as exposed as you. You straddled both his thighs, essentially trapping his legs beneath you, and he moaned when he felt your cunt drip onto his skin.

“So,” you said, as casually as if you were discussing the weather. “What is it you want from me, Helmut?”

He gazed at you as if seeing you for the first time - and from the way he grinned, he liked what he saw. “I’ll let you do whatever you want, pretty thing - but I want to come inside you and make you mine.”

You ran your hand lightly over one of the thighs beneath you before digging your nails in without warning, sure to leave marks, and he hissed as his hips bucked again. “Be careful what you wish for.”

Zemo laughed in actual delight, but the laugh turned into a choked moan as you leaned over, giving his cock a lick before taking it as deeply in your mouth and throat as you could. When he tried to tangle his hands on your hair, you gently took his wrists in your hands and held them down against the sheets. If he wanted to break your grip, he could, but the way he kept his arms as still as possible under you let you know he accepted this new bit of play. 

You kept going, and felt him begin to writhe, groaning with frustration as he fought his own urge to put his hands on you. When you removed one hand, he set his on the back of your neck, and you felt it squeeze as you reached down to play with his balls.

He could only take so much of this, openly whining now himself and twitching in your mouth before at last breaking your grip to take your chin in his hand. You let your head be lifted off him, your mouth releasing suction with a soft pop and a string of your saliva still connecting the both of you.

“I’m not going to last that way, draga,” he said, his eyes wide with unabashed lust. “And I want all of you.”

He wiped your mouth with the fingers that held your jaw, licking the tips of them before reaching down to pull you up so you were flush together again. When you kissed him hard, you could still taste yourself on him. 

He sat up, pulling you so you straddled his lap. The two of you lost your breath for a moment as your soaking slit lined up with his cock, and as you felt his hands roughly grab your hips, you leaned forward to hide your face in his neck.

“Oh no no, you,” he reached up to grab the back of your neck, pulling you back so he could see your eyes. “You’re going to look at me while I give you what you deserve.”

For a moment, you weren’t sure you could handle that, the intensity of it all too much - but when he raised his chin just slightly, as if to challenge you, you took his strong jaw in your hand, keeping his face still as you sank onto him. You both moaned at the contact, and his hands bruised your hips again as you moved yours to his shoulders, squeezing as you felt yourself adjust around his girth. 

He tilted his head to meet your eyes, wordlessly checking on you, and it was only when you nodded that he thrust up. You lost your breath for a moment, having to kiss the base of his throat to recover, before you ground down against him.

The two of you found a rhythm together fairly quickly, your hands everywhere - clawing into his back, clinging to his shoulders, even pulling again at his now thoroughly messy hair. In return, he always kept one hand on your left hip, his right locked around the back of your neck and squeezing in a way you found you liked far too much. His mouth was all over you - biting your shoulders, panting as he planted kisses up your neck and jaw, and at last biting at your lower lip, which you couldn’t help but kiss back against. 

When you moved your hand down between the two of you to play with your clit, he lifted his hand from your hip, pinning your offending arm behind your back in a grip you yourself could break if you wanted to.

“This is just mine now, schatzi,” he growled, looking at you with his sharp, dark gaze. “And I don’t like to share.”

You made a noise like a growl yourself, about to argue back, when you were cut short by the heat that spread through your core. Your orgasm swept up on you at last - this feeling of being evenly matched at last was the thing that sent you over, spasming and clutching around him as you ground out his name through your teeth.

The darkness left his gaze as he watched you almost with an expression of awe, murmuring something in a few different languages you didn’t understand as he clung to you while you rode out your high.

Just when you felt you would soon combust, your aftershocks harsh against Zemo’s continued thrusts, you felt his hips start to stutter, his movements becoming more erratic. “Draga, I-“ he panted, and you kissed him again, cutting him off. 

“Come on, then, Baron,” you smirked, and he came hard, filling you as he groaned your name into your ear.

The two of you fell back onto his mattress, each of you unable to help a groan as at last you separated: You both were sweaty and panting, but still... you weren’t quite ready to let him go. You laid there, a hand on his bicep, gazing at him in a daze as he ran a hand through his hair.

He sat up on an elbow, turning to look at you with a dazed look of his own. “Printsessa,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I think you might end up being the death of me.”

You had to collect yourself before you could speak, pretty sure your knees were still shaking. “And I think you might be mine,” you rasped at last. You reached up, moving a damp strand of hair out of his face with a slightly quivering hand. “But I could think of worse ways to go.”

He caught your hand in his, kissing your palm while keeping his eyes on you. If you weren’t already far too warm from your misadventures, your face would have heated anew at the genuine appreciation in his gaze.

“I don’t know if we should do all our field work together from now on, or if that’s a dangerous idea.” he admitted, and you laughed shakily, at last sitting up to kiss his cheek. 

“Probably a bit of both,” you agreed. “I’ll take my chances if you will.”

He didn’t quite answer, but the blistering kiss he gave you was enough of one for now.